Cara’s eyes widened.
“You’re taking the mare?” Kade, in full Were form, stood not twenty feet from the corral. Tucker shook and tried to climb over the panel. “Hurry the hell up.”
Zach snarled at him. “Bloody hell, Kade. Just wait by theshatzahay shed.”
Kade glowered. “That’s not how you use—“
Cara pointed across the yard. “Kade, just go.”
Storm had her ears flat to her skull, glaring at the Were as he loped off. Zach strove to calm his mind and project soothing thoughts as he eased the rope over her neck. But his hands shook as he tied one end to the left side of the halter, pulled the loose end to the right side, and attached it there. It should give him some control over her head if he needed it. Zach patted her neck and moved to stand beside her shoulder, facing her rump. He wove his left hand into her thick mane. Despite his efforts and hertalkwith Cara, the mare was tense as hell.
Normally, he’d never consider doing this. He paused, leaning against her shoulder, reaching with his mind. For a moment, his ability failed him. Blackness swirled at the edges of his vision, and he swayed. He fought through it.
Jessie needed him.
He projected an image of her brushing Storm. And infused it with everything that connected him to Jessie. Finished it with an image of Braden, the beast, looming over her.
Storm stiffened and tossed her head. Message received. Gottago.
“Open the gate for me,” he said to Cara. “Think we’ll be leaving in a hurry.”
Cara moved to the gate and flung it open.
Storm’s back end dropped as she crouched. When she leaped forward, Zach used the momentum to help him pivot around the hand buried in her mane. Weak he might be, but his body knew the maneuver. It flew true, his legs encircled the mare’s steel-gray barrel just as she sprinted through the gate.
They flew through the gate, the yard, and the Sabres, who waited in beast form by the hay shed. The big golden furred forms parted for Zach and Storm like the Red Sea. Kade and the others fell in behind as he pointed the mare for the path bisecting the trees.
And let her run.
* * *
Jessie’s wrists hurt like hell.
Her bound arms had been slung over the strong neck of a Dire, and her legs were fastened around his midsection.
Could she strangle him? As they bounced along, all she seemed capable of was sinking her fingers into fur and hanging on. Strangulation was a slow kind of death. Even if she had the strength to do it to a Were, he had lots of snarly cohorts.
She might have still been tempted to try if they had tied her to Braden. But they hadn’t. He ran at the head of the pack, leading the way.
Jessie struggled to orient herself. So far, they’d stayed to one side of the road, following the forest northward. They couldn’t stay on this route forever or they’d hit the highway. A group of fifteen werewolves crossing a busy thoroughfare was bound to get noticed.
While the forest ran thick along this verge, cropland surrounded farms on the other side. When their group slowed, through the bobbing ears of her hairy mount, she saw trees on the other side of the road and a large, relatively new, house built back into the trees.
Not a farm. A residence, and beside it, a thick forest. Which would provide an avenue for a bunch of Cryptid Weres avoiding human detection.
The group skidded to a halt, ducking low when a car passed on the access road. They waited until it dropped over the slight rise, then Braden took them across the road.
Zach. Could he track her out here? What kind of range did he have, without her amplifying ability? And Kade. He’d be furious. Was he following them, even now? A few times over the last half hour, she’d thought she sensed him close. It felt a bit like Zach when he projected. Kitani had said something about telepathy between mates. Was that what she sensed?
Either way, for the moment, she was essentially a sack of goods being transported to who knew where. And if Kade or Zach couldn’t find them, then she was in a crapload of trouble.
There was only one thing she could do. As the Dires gained the safety of the forest across the road, Jessie focused on her surroundings. She fixed the images in her brain.
And hoped to hell someone was there to read them.
* * *
Zach had ridden many horses over the years. But he’d never ridden a horse like Storm.
