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Whoever they’d taken the van from, the guy had carried around some hunting gear, which was common for the area, but he hadn’t been a hunter of the paranormal variety. If he had been, there would have been needles and vials of all kinds of drugs in the van for these two to use on John.

There hadn’t been any, so they were about to attempt the old-fashioned method of making a werewolf transform so they could skin Hunted and on the Run

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it. Torture.

John would’ve been lying if he didn’t admit that part of him wanted to just lie down and die now that his mate was gone, but letting them cut out his eyes, or slowly remove his nose, tongue, ears, fingers, anything like that, was just beyond him. He wanted to die.

Not like that.

He’d ripped through his bindings and attacked the man who had been advancing on him with the pocket knife. It wasn’t a hunting blade, so it hadn’t had its handle modified for a better grip, and when John attacked Robert, the thing all but flew out of the guy’s hand in his surprise.

It had been a bit of a struggle at first. He was a werewolf now, and the hunter now had the strength of one as well, but when John’s hand found the knife, he hadn’t hesitated in stabbing the hunter turned werewolf in the throat with it.

The diver, Tatum, had screamed behind him and had been about to pull over when John attacked him from behind as well.

His next memories were hazy, but from what he could piece together, his hands turned into claws and he sank them into Tatum’s face and neck. He’d just started ripping when the wheel spun at such a sharp angle that the whole van fishtailed and then started to roll.

John couldn’t recall anything much after that, not even pulling himself out of the rubble. When he finally came to, he was just walking down the empty street. Everything on him hurt, and he figured he was probably injured, but he didn’t care in the least.

He’d just saved himself from death, but what was the point?

Storm had been shot right in front of him. His mate was gone, and right when they were finally starting to come to an understanding and getting to know each other.

John collapsed onto his knees, the hard fall onto the asphalt scraping his skin.

Nothing matted anymore. He wanted to die. His body shook with the urge to let everything out, but all he could manage was a small 110

Marcy Jacks

despaired sound.

His vision blurred with tears. He tried closing his eyes, but all he could see was Storm’s face and chest exploding with blood as his body flew backward. The bang of the gunshot was still echoing in his ears.

Gone. Gone. Gone.

A loud and familiar click sounded behind him. John barely took the effort to lift his head and see who was behind him. His nose was so clogged even couldn’t even scent the world around him anymore.

Tears still made a blur of everything, but he recognized Tatum standing there. He was still naked, and if that red all over him was what John thought it was, then he was covered head to toe in blood. It was like that scene out of Carrie. After wiping away his tears, John was even able to see that Tatum was even giving John the evil stare, like he was trying to explode John’s head with his mind.

“I’m going to fucking kill you,” Tatum said. His body was trembling about as much as John’s was.

John looked away from him. Death by gunshot. Not a bad way to go. Might hurt a bit, but it wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad as being skinned alive and having his body parts cut off while he was awake.

“I don’t care.” John’s voice was hoarse. He just waited for the shot to come.

The sound of a cat roaring grabbed his attention, and he turned just in time to see a bloody, one-eyed cougar leap out of the bushes on the side of the road and launch itself at Tatum. Its long claws were extended out, mouth open and teeth ready, and the rage in that one eye was unlike anything John had ever seen.

When the cat made contact with the man, Tatum screamed. He’d tried to turn his stolen gun onto the cat, but it didn’t even go off.

Must’ve run out of bullets, the stupid bastard.

The cougar landed on Tatum and began ripping the man to pieces.

Several alpha wolves that John recognized jumped out from the woods and joined in with all the eagerness the cougar possessed.

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One wolf, the largest of the pack with the scarred face, saw John sitting there and came forward.

“Are you all right?”

John started to cry again at the sound of his alpha’s voice inside of his head. He looked back to the one cat in that group of wolves that were piled on top of the now still hunter. They were definitely making sure Tatum was dead.

John stared particularly hard at the cat. There must be some mistake with his vision. It had been blurry with tears just a second ago. He was only seeing what he wanted to see. Storm was dead.

“Sir, is that…?” He couldn’t even finish. He lifted his hand to point, but the entire limb of his arm shook.

As though sensing John’s stare on him, the cougar lifted his face out of the wreckage and turned to look directly at him.

Now John really started to cry. He broke down like a sobbing omega, and the cat approached him quickly.

Storm shifted into his human form, and John threw his arms around Storm’s shoulders. There was blood all over him, from both his own wounds as well as from Tatum’s body.

John didn’t