It ran on all fours. Its paws pounded the pavement as it gained on us.  With a sleek head and a vicious snarl, it looked just like the werewolves in my dreams.  Seeing it all affirmed, I started shaking.

“Hold on,” Luke warned me.

Relief flooded me.  Not one of his.

“Faster!” I shouted and hit Luke on the back.

He had already twisted the throttle when another shape flew into our path.  Luke leaned far to the left and made a swift deep swerve around the second one.  I clung to his back panting in fear.  We were both going to die.  He barely recovered from the swerve when something snagged the bag on my back—the same bag strapping me to Luke—and pulled. My breath left me in a whoosh.

With my arms wrapped around his waist, my shoulders screamed in pain as I struggled to hold on.  Then suddenly, the pressure eased.  The bike flew forward, riderless, as we stayed in place, hanging in the air.  The strap still connected us.  Luke whipped an arm back to keep me pressed against him while he severed the strap.  We landed with a thud just seconds after being unseated.  The bike glided for a distance and then fell onto its side on the gravel shoulder.

Despite my bruised and aching butt, I scrambled to my feet.  Luke already stood in a semi-crouch near me, facing off with the two dogs that circled us.

“Go,” he said nudging me.

“No, thanks,” I whispered.  Running through the woods away from the only person who might be willing to protect me didn’t seem like a good idea.  Besides, I’d been chased through the woods before, and it hadn’t ended well.

Luke’s skin rippled as he partially changed.  My heart thumped painfully seeing the truth of what he was.  His nails elongated, and his back hunched a bit.  He leapt at the wolf to the right with his upper body, and then he swung his legs to kick the one on the left.  He scored a solid hit on both seconds before he fully burst into his fur.  I backed up two steps staring at the copper-coated wolf.

The wolf on the right shook his head as if to clear it and spun to attack Luke.  The other wolf scrambled to its feet snarling.

Spinning to meet their attack, Luke savagely ripped into the lead attacker’s face with his teeth.  Blood colored Luke’s muzzle as the wolf tried to shake him off.  The second wolf circled the pair watching for an opening.  Luke’s eyes trailed that wolf’s progress as he maintained his gruesome hold.  If the second one attacked, he would have to let go to protect himself and would lose the upper hand.

I picked up a heavy rock from the shoulder of the road and chucked it at the stalking wolf.  Had it been paying attention to me in the slightest, it would have seen it coming.  As it was, the rock hit it square on the right side of its head with a sickening sound, eliciting a yelp of pain.

Luke twisted his hold on the first wolf’s muzzle as he dropped his hind legs and rolled.  He heaved the wolf into the stunned second wolf then went for the throat.  The first wolf couldn’t even manage a yelp.  There was just a gurgling wheeze.  The second wolf, pinned under the first, struggled for a moment before Luke finished it, too.  He turned to me, blinking.  I couldn’t say anything as I continued to stare wide-eyed at the aftermath of the fighting.

Within seconds, both forms shifted back into their skin.  Two dead men on the side of the road with ripped out throats.  I didn’t flinch at the sight.  It was depressingly familiar.

Luke took a few steps toward me, claiming my full attention.  The same hazel eyes, but a little bigger, stared back at me.  Though he didn’t bare his teeth at me, he looked far from friendly with the blood around his mouth.  My chest tightened to the point that it hurt to breathe.  Still, I managed.

He shook out his fur and trotted over to my bag.  With his back to me, he shifted to his skin.  Honey-kissed skin exposed to the world did what the fighting hadn’t.  I felt a little faint.  Blood and gore?  Not a problem.  Luke naked, showing me a perfect backside?  I lost my composure, what little I had, and a tiny sound escaped me.

“Turn around,” he said not looking at me.

“Ha!  No way.” A slightly hysterical sigh escaped me.

He scowled over his shoulder at me and reached into my bag for his hoodie and a pair of my pajama pants.  It gave me a lovely profile view, just barely hiding the naughty bits.  A giggle escaped me as he stepped into what he’d grabbed.  His scowl twitched, and I knew he wanted to smile, too.

Covered, he picked up the bag, marched over to me wearing tight, high-water Tinker Bell pajama pants, and handed me the bag.

“We’ll need to stop for new clothes,” he commented with a wry grin.

I stood frozen, fully seeing his face after his change back, and couldn’t make myself answer with either a smile or a nod.  Instead, I reached into the bag, grabbed a shirt at random, and used it to wipe the blood from around his mouth.  My hand shook.  Okay, so maybe the blood did affect me.

He saw the blood and gently took the shirt from my hand.  He tucked it back into the bag then went to pick up the bike.

He waved me over as soon as he had it started again.

I numbly walked past the bodies and put my hand on his shoulder to take my place behind him.

“No falling asleep,” he warned, setting the bag in front of him.  He used his legs and the broken straps to keep it in place.

I wrapped my hands around him and held on as he took off.  Though I felt the dreams calling and the occasional tug of sleep, I didn’t close my eyes.  I was still wound too tightly from what just happened.

Apparently, my previous thoughts about using an adrenaline rush were right.  It would have been a better method than cutting.

Chapter Seven

After several turns, we made our way into a town where we both used a public restroom to wash.  We then picked up some desperately needed clean clothes.

“Who did you call about a car?” I asked after walking out of the bathroom a second time—for changing.

“An Elder.  I’ve told him about the attack.  He’s changed plans with his contacts and suggested we come to a more populated area.”

I struggled to remember what an Elder meant, but couldn’t.  I realized I knew how their kind typically behaved, some of their reasons behind their actions, but nothing about their culture.

“What’s an Elder?”

With my Tinker Bell pajamas safely tucked into a new duffle bag, we walked side by side as we slowly made our way to the bike.  I noted several long scratches on the once shiny tank and wondered if he cared.  He had called the thing a death trap on two wheels after all...

“They are the keepers of our kind.  Everything they do, they do in our best interest, unlike pack leaders.”

“What do you mean?”

“Pack leaders want to control their members.  Elders want to guide them.”

“Why have pack leaders, then?”

“Exactly. That’s why I don’t follow one.  The Elders aren’t so bad though.”  He smiled as he mounted the bike.

I climbed on the back and passed him the strap.  Once again wearing his jacket, I ducked behind him as he pulled away, but I tried not to lay my head against him.  Every time I did, I felt the pull to sleep even more.  However, each time I slept against him, the dreams weren’t of death.

“Why don’t you want to be Claimed?” I asked knowing he’d hear me over the wind.

He turned his head and half-shouted his answer knowing I couldn’t hear as well.  “I do want to be Claimed. Just not now.”

That hurt.  “I don’t get it.  Why not?  And don’t bother denying the pull you feel for me.  I know you do.”

He shook his head and didn’t answer, frustrating me further.