Into Their Woods (The Eerie, #1)(99)

Gannon told me to hunker down, to stay here and try to stay out of sight, but my instincts are suddenly telling me to get up, get big, and face whatever is coming.

I listen to them.

As I step away from the tree trunk and out from the cover of its branches, my entire body swells with anticipation. A deep resonant warning oozes out of me. I know you’re there, my growl cautions, and I step confidently from the big tree and a mound of large rocks so I have room to maneuver if I need it.

Nothing answers me, but I don’t need it to. I know someone’s there.

Intuitively, I know it’s a shifter. Perhaps my magic can sense it, but I can feel the presence as surely as I feel the cold of the fog brushing past my dark, walnut-colored fur. There’s something oddly familiar about whoever is out there in the woods, like I’ve felt them before, but I can’t say when or how.

I watch the trees and the ominous shadows beneath their canopy.

“Noah.”

My name, spoken inside my head, sets my fur rising with alarm because the voice speaking doesn’t belong to any members of the Arcan den.

Then the hazy forms of wolves slowly separate from the shadows. They step out from the forest, silhouettes like terrifying specters. I count at least three distinct figures—maybe four, as movement in my periphery on the left makes me think someone’s over there too. I don’t turn to confirm it, not willing to take my eyes off the group directly in front of me.

Tension tightens every one of my muscles, and I stop breathing.

They’re far enough away that the snow and fog taint their details. I think one of them has light-colored fur, but whether it’s white, light gray, or blond, I can’t tell. The other two that I see look to be a mix of grays, but it’s hard to be certain from this distance in this weather. The snow creates a beaded curtain of ice between us.

I do my best to control my runaway heart as adrenaline and fear pump through me. The howling wind only mirrors my increasing sense of dread.

“Come with us, Noah.”

The voice beckons in my mind, and I go stiff from the unwelcome intrusion.

A growl is my only answer.

One of the wolves moves closer, head down, gaze intense. All at once, the wolf stops after only a few steps, looking back at the light-colored wolf as though asking a question, one I can’t hear.

I breathe deeply, trying to catch a scent in the hope it will pull up my wolfy contact list and tell me who these interlopers might be, but cruelly, the wind is snapping in the other direction, leaving me upwind, robbing me of the chance to identify them.

Dammit.

“Come with us. You’re ours,” the voice orders, the tone more domineering and frustrated than before.

“Who are you?” I demand, the question weighed down by more of a snarl than I intended. I want information, not a fight, and yet I feel primed for violence.

“Your mates,” the light-furred wolf bays in my head.

I don’t know how I know he’s the one that’s talking, but I do. And as soon as the word mates leaves his mind, I realize that his voice isn’t as unfamiliar as I thought.

I know it.

I know him.

He was the one watching me from the woods that night with Gannon on the deck.

A shiver threatens to roll down my spine, but I tense my muscles because I refuse to let them see my fear. I hope they can’t scent it.

The wind swoops in then, changing direction, swirling puffs of snow toward me. I try to scent this group again, taking in a deep pull of frigid air that burns my lungs. This time, when I pick up nothing, that lack of scent serves as confirmation of a dreaded truth. There was no scent at my hotel or in the woods behind the deck.

These are the shifters who’ve been following me, and I’d bet my ass that these are the fuckers who threw me in the Hunt.

A spike of ice punctures my gut at the realization.

A furious snarl works its way up my throat, and I start moving for the other wolves before I know what I’m doing.

“You’re not my mates,” I snap at them as I pick up my pace, paws stinging from the arctic slush. “You’re the cowards who jumped me from behind and left me to be hunted. You’re the scared little bitches who’ve been watching from the shadows. What the fuck do you want?”

“What’s rightfully ours,” the wolf bellows. “You’ve had your fun making us jealous, and now it’s time for the game to stop!”

Game? He thinks this is a fucking game?

Rage thick and acidic pumps through me, and I’m suddenly bursting with the need to close the distance and tear into these assholes. I’m sprinting for them before I can stop myself. Focus narrowed, teeth bared, paws digging into the dirt with each powerful stride, I’m going to rip them apart. I half the distance between us in seconds, and that’s when furious growls fill the air around me and I hear more wolves crashing through the brush to my left.

Shit!

Anger and alarm skewer me, my veins cinching and stopping my blood when I realize I’ve just fallen for an obvious trap. The three taunting me from the front were just a distraction, and now I’m going to have to fight off the ones who’ve flanked me.

I spin with a snarl to meet my new attackers head-on. My lips peel back from my fangs, and I stand ready and waiting, a menacing growl pouring out of me, flooding the sky with my outrage.

I have just enough time to realize I should have projected a warning to the guys, but it’s too late now.