Aunt Lynelle leaned herself against the wall and pulled the dagger out of her leg. The weapon clattered to the ground and she shook her head as she looked at me. I looked back at the man holding Abby and then the other man with the dagger. There were others who looked like they were with him coming up behind him. I couldn’t let anything worse happen to Aunt Lynelle, Uncle Anthony would be devastated. I looked back to Abby then to him, “I’ll go with you but you have to let both of them go.” I would be compliant…for now.

He smiled, “Smart little human.” He closed the distance between us. He leaned forward and low before he pushed his shoulder into my gut and hooked his arm under my butt, pulling me up to carry me over his shoulder, “Hey! I said I would go with you!” I struggled against him, “I know, and I am making sure you follow through with that.” He waved his hand still holding his dagger, “Reese, let her go. We have what we were looking for.” Because of how this guy was carrying me I could see Reese let go of Abby and shove her towards Aunt Lynelle. 

After stumbling she rushed to Aunt Lynelle’s side looking her over before they both looked in my direction. I mouthed ‘I’ll be okay’ to them. I knew Abby could get Aunt Lynelle back in time to be treated and naturally they will tell Tobias and Cain what happened. If their intentions had been to kill me they would have just done that. So there was at least some time for now. This would be a great time to be able to mind link like the Lycans and Werewolves do. Hopefully Lynelle or Abby will realize this and handle things as I hoped.

The guy carrying me had his collection of men make a formation around us until he tossed me into the back of a Jeep where Reese joined me. My captor climbed into the front seat and started the engine and we were off to wherever they were taking me. He pulled out a phone and after a moment whoever he was calling answered, “Hey Alpha, our information gathering turned out far more lucrative than we planned.” Another pause. He really shouldn’t be on the phone while driving. Then again, they were far more durable than humans so maybe that kind of stuff didn’t concern them, “We have her!” He was almost giddy giving this news to his alpha, “Oh yeah! She is unharmed and she made it easy.” I rolled my eyes and looked out the window, “She literally walked out of a shop right in front of us and we used the two women who were with her to get her to come with us.” This window was oddly wiggly. My eyes trailed up to the ceiling of the Jeep as he continued to brag to his alpha about how easy I was to capture. 

My eyes lingered on the ceiling. This was a soft top Jeep. I glanced over at Reese sitting next to me. His attention was on the driver and his conversation with their Alpha. His dagger that he’d held to Abby’s throat was clipped to his belt. I eyed it for a moment. If I grabbed it hard enough the clip should pop. I’m sure I’d have to be quick though. These weren’t Lycans but werewolves were nothing to take lightly. They were powerful creatures in their own right too.

Reese continued to keep his attention on the phone conversation. I looked ahead and watched the road for a bit. I waited till I could see a curve in the road coming up. This was my chance. I reached for the hilt of the dagger and yanked as hard as I could, “HEY!” The weapon popped free and was mine. The force of its release caused me to topple back but I didn’t let that slow me down. I quickly turned and stabbed the dagger into the plastic back window. At this point Reese was grabbing at me and the Jeep had swerved, likely in surprise at Reese’s shout. I turned and stabbed the dagger into Reese’s arm, he let go of me and I turned and pushed my way through the opening I had cut for myself. 

I fell from the back of the Jeep and the asphalt bit into me as I rolled. As soon as I came to a stop and got to my feet. I was wobbly, dizzy, and a little nauseous from the impact and roll. It took me a moment to get my bearings. There wasn’t much around. It was the road and the forest. My options were limited and the Jeep had stopped a little bit down the road. I could hear shouting coming from the Jeep. I needed to get going. I picked a direction and started running into the forest. 

I already know I won’t get far. They were far faster than me and now I was injured, so my scent would be even easier to track. That didn’t matter though. This would buy Abby and Lynelle time to get to Tobias and Cain. The longer it took for these assholes to get me to their alpha the better.

I ran as hard as I could weaving through the trees and underbrush. I could hear shouting somewhere behind me. I pushed as hard as I could. Soon I could hear movement through the forest and it didn’t take long for that movement to catch up to me. A wolf running along about fifteen feet on either side of me. The one to my right started to run ahead of me while the one on my left started to fall back while moving closer to me. I took this shift as an opening and went slightly left but this didn’t work as I’d hoped as the wolf that had gone ahead of me hooked around and was able to compensate for my direction shift. But I didn’t stop running. Instead I crashed into him.

Lycan’s wolves were a little bit bigger than a large horse, Tobias and Cain’s wolves were apparently the exception as they were both much bigger than Lynelle’s wolf. These werewolves wolves, were still big, about two to three times the size of a regular wolf.  So, while I was still small, my momentum when I crashed into the wolf was still enough to cause both of us to tumble. Me further than him of course. I scrambled to my feet quickly but was stopped when the wolf I’d crashed into grabbed my leg with its large mouth. I screamed as I fell to the ground. God did that hurt! Between the pressure he had applied and my movement to run, skin had definitely been broken. The other wolf paced in front of me in case I got up to run again but I didn't. It was clear, for now I had burned through what time I could. So I stayed put panting from the run.

The snapping of bones behind me told me whoever had caught me had returned to his human form. I didn’t dare look in his direction. I knew they were naked and I didn’t want to see that. A sharp pain and my head snapped back so I could see the forest canopy above and then my eyes met with my captor once more. Of course he would be the one who caught me. Clearly he was the strongest and the leader of this little group. He growled at me, his features marred with his anger, “You stupid little bitch! What did you think that was going to accomplish?” He shoved my face towards the dirt before releasing his hold on my hair, “You should know you can’t out run us!” He took a more solid handful of my hair again and my hands shot up and grasped his hand to reduce the pull on my hair as he started to drag me back towards where we came from. I was regretting my choice of a messy bun this morning. It seemed to make for the perfect handle for him to drag me along by,, “Damn weak ass human!” He grumbled. Was he really going to drag me back by my hair the whole way? I needed to do something about it.

I clawed at his wrist but that seemed to do nothing. I kept my hold on his wrist with my right hand and felt around as he dragged me along. I found a decent sized rock a couple of times and lobbed them at him, one missed and the second only earned me a growl. He still didn’t stop dragging me along. My right hand wasn’t enough support to counter his dragging grip on my hair so I had to bring my left hand back up to hold onto his wrist. Then I had an idea. I let go with both of my hands and rolled myself as he dragged me and grabbed onto his ankle and tripped him. He stumbled some but remained upright. He did stop though, his hold on my hair still solid. I shifted my hold on his ankle pulling myself closer and bit hard into his calf, “Ahhh!” The warm coppery taste of blood filled my mouth and I grimaced. So gross! He let go of my hair. I got what I wanted! I released his leg and scrambled to crawl away from him. He moved quickly and grabbed my arm, yanking me to my feet.