"I'm going to sift through the leaves and dirt, cover the blood and make sure there's no fur or fabric for anyone to find."
She nodded for lack of anything else to do. "What about my clothes? I'm covered in blood. I assume you left yours somewhere before you shifted."
Kellen pulled her even closer, rubbing his chin on her forehead. What an oddly intimate gesture, she managed to think even as her thoughts turned sluggish, the adrenaline dribbling away.
"We heard the gunshot, and we knew you were in trouble. Around here, hunters aren't unusual, and they use shotguns and rifles. No one is going to hunt with a handgun."
"You could hear the difference?"
Kellen nodded, but didn't elaborate. "We ran out of the back door at the end of the hallway and shifted the second we crossed the tree line. Didn’t even stop to take off our clothes. There was no time." He paused for a long time. Then, he said, "You scared us, Samara. Me and my wolf. We don't want to lose you. My wolf has chosen your wolf and I have strong feelings for you as well. If your wolf is alive and is an omega, we would appreciate the opportunity to show you how much we could care about you."
"But only if my wolf is alive and an omega." She looked up to his face, but in the dying light she could only see the shadow of his face.
"Let's wait and see what happens when we get to Riverstone. There has to be something there that will explain why you're so different from the rest of us. If it turns out that your wolf shadow is dead and all I can smell is the remnants, then we can try anyway."
Could she live her life based on a maybe? She'd figure out what she wanted later, no matter if her wolf shadow was alive or dead, alpha or omega.
"In the meantime, I'm going to clean up the scene. No one hunts this close to the restaurant as a safety precaution, but I want to get rid of the blood regardless."
She waited quietly, looking up to watch the last light in the sky disappear. If there was any moonlight, she couldn't see it. After what felt like forever, Kellen returned to get her.
"Let's go." He held her hand out to pull her to standing, then slipped her knife into her hand, mostly cleaned of Seth's blood. "We're all going to sneak in through the back door to the restaurant. Once we're upstairs, you can wash up and change in your own room. The three of us will do the same in mine."
Samara followed Kellen as he led her out of the woods, with Leo and Stephen behind her. Of course, they could see easily enough because of their stronger eyesight. She could barely make out the shape of Kellen's backside. Even if she could, though, she was still in shock and the idea of getting her hands on said backside was the last thing she wanted at the moment.
Once through the back door and up the stairs, Kellen opened the door to her room.
"Keep the door locked for now. Leo will find out where those two were staying in town. Once we know who they were, we can figure out how they knew who you were. We can also see if they have a criminal background. We can't tell the sheriff that they're dead, but we can at least make sure there aren't any others that will try and make a grab for you."
"Do you think they were wolf shifters? Rogues?" she asked.
Kellen shook his head. "We would have been able to tell by their scent. They were just humans. Josiah wouldn't care if human bounty hunters die taking on a wolf shifter. What he's looking for is a trail to follow."
"Okay." Not really, but more than anything she wanted to be alone.
"I'd hoped to wait a day or two before leaving, but now we can't." He turned her and gently pushed her into the room. "We need to leave tomorrow before the restaurant opens. Remember to lock your door. I'll have a backpack with supplies ready for you in the morning."
The last thing Samara saw before she closed the door and turned the dead bolt as instructed was Kellen's face. He wasn't going to leave the hallway until he was sure she was safe.
After the deadbolt clicked, she leaned her forehead against the door. Damn the Riverside Pack and damn Josiah. Alpha wolf shifter or not, she'd kill him if it was the last thing she did.
Chapter
Eleven
Samara tried to help Leo and Stephen load the van with enough supplies to last them a couple of months. They had a mountain of non-perishable foods, tents, fatigues, rifles, handguns, and boxes of bullets. Lots of boxes with lots of bullets.
As she balanced a box on top of another she remarked, "You have to know this, but bullets aren't going to do much good against Josiah's omegas. They might slow them down, but they heal right back up again. Josiah won't even notice if he gets hit."
Leo took the box she'd been handling. "They're silver bullets."
"But even if they weren't," Stephen said, pausing to adjust the sweatband around his forehead, "they'll still help. If a bullet travels far enough into the body of a wolf shifter, our flesh will heal around it instead of spitting it out."
"And that causes its own problems." Leo slammed the van's door before pulling off his aviator sunglasses to clean with a handkerchief he pulled from the back pocket of his jeans.
She'd never thought of that. Not that it mattered what she knew or didn't know about wolf shifter life. Not anymore.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kellen talking to Carlie and George. She'd avoided him ever since last night. This morning, she found the backpack he'd promised sitting outside her door along with another tray filled with food. It was almost as if Kellen was deliberately fattening her up. Which might be true given she'd lost a lot of weight while she was a prisoner and then freight hopping. She couldn't help but wonder if Josiah deliberately starved her because he wanted her skinny and weak. Kellen clearly didn't, and that meant a lot.
