It didn’t take more than ten minutes before Peter regretted letting Chad out of his sight. He’d been so caught up in the idea ofcatchingChad that he hadn’t considered just how crazy it would drive him to not know where he was.
By the time an hour and a half had passed, he was so worked up that it felt like he was coming apart. He started running, Chad’s scent guiding him, his feet barely touching the ground as he raced down the road.
If someone took Chad now, when he was alone and vulnerable just because it gave Peter a thrill to make him that way, he would never forgive himself. This was a game they should have waited to play until they were safe—not two days after a nearly successful kidnapping attempt.
But Peter had dragged Chad out into the woods, and as he followed his scent off the road and into the trees, there was no denying that hunting down his mate was making him hard. It satisfied the most primal part of his being—to be able to prove himself in this way—and mixed in with his worry there was the thrill of the hunt.
He felt it on a visceral level.
Breathing deep and even, Peter pushed down his regret and let his instincts take over. He lifted his face up and took a deep breath through his nose, letting the fresh forest air fill his lungs, Chad’s scent impossible to miss.
The scent, combined with Chad’s tracks on the forest floor, made hunting him easy. Peter wouldn’t be surprised at all if he managed to catch Chad well before the two-hour mark had passed. The younger alpha hadn’t made any effort to hide his trail, and Peter was frankly a little disappointed in him. The very least he could have done was roll around in some mud to disguise his natural odor. Peter had a good nose, but he was still human. There were things that Chad could have done to make it more difficult to find him.
Peter would have to work with Chad on his evasion techniques later. They were clearly not up to par.
About half an hour after he turned off the road, Peter came across the stream cutting through the northeast part of the preserve. So far Chad had been running in a straight line, so much so that for a while there Peter worried he had doubled back in a clever way to throw Peter off his scent, but when he sniffed the air again he could clearly make out the odor of Chad’s body coming from down stream. Peter grinned and jumped into the water, uncaring of how much noise his boots made as he kept running.
He was closing in on Chad—he could feel it.
Following his nose, he trudged through the water, moving back onto land when the stream grew deeper than his boots could handle, Chad’s scent in the air leading the way.
It was almost too easy—until it wasn’t.
Peter jerked to a halt, taken off guard when Chad’s scent suddenly disappeared. He lifted his face into the air and sniffed carefully in every direction, but it just told him the same thing. He could smell Chad upstream, but not downstream.
Licking his lips, Peter grinned. It looked like he’d underestimated his young mate. He’d obviously doubled back and exited the water somewhere, though Peter hadn’t detected his scent in the woods bordering the stream at any point that he could remember.
He’d have to double back himself, and this time move slower so that he didn’t miss anything.
Peter turned around, and as he started jogging back up the stream his cock throbbed tight in his pants. There was something so hot about Chad being able to throw him off his scent like this—as long as it didn’t take Peter too long to find his trail again.
But Peter wasn’t worried. Now that he’d slowed down he would pinpoint the exact location where Chad had tried to trick him, and then he’d catch his clever young mate and make him pay in all the best ways.
His balls pulled up tight at the thought.
Peter was almost back to where Chad had entered the water when the scent trail he was following suddenly weakened. This had to be where Chad had exited the stream—though Peter couldn’t detect any hint of him on the banks of the stream on either side of the water.
Chad must have climbed onto the branch overhead and escaped through the trees. It had been just about an hour and forty minutes since Peter started tracking him, and at this rate Chad had a very good chance of evading Peter’s taser.
Not that Peter had any intention of hitting Chad with the full power of his stun gun. It was set to the lowest setting, and the most it would do was make Chad freeze up for a second.
Peter wouldn’t actuallyhurtChad. He didn’t have it in him. The only reason he’d brought the taser was to give Chad some extra motivation.
Looking up, Peter spotted the branch that Chad must have used to hoist himself out of the water. It was pretty high up—taller than Chad could reach without resorting to the use of a rope or belt—and Peter felt a thrill of satisfaction. Now that was more like it.
Peter climbed the tree just to make sure he really could detect Chad’s scent, and once he knew that he was on the right track he scanned the surrounding trees to see what route his little monkey might have taken. There were several options—areas where the branches of Chad’s tree and those neighboring it overlapped close enough to jump from one to the other—but Peter didn’t waste any time trying to anticipate what Chad would have done. He moved a little further up the river, away from Chad’s scent, and started walking an arc around the tree that Chad had climbed. He held his nose high, and after he’d completed about two thirds of the arc he could detect the faintest trace of Chad’s scent coming from the trees above. Now that he had the scent, Peter had no trouble following it from the ground until finally he reached the place where Chad had descended.
Then it was easy. Chad’s tracks were about as subtle as those of a tank, and Peter could finally start running so that he’d be able to catch up. His heart beat fast as his boots crashed down on the forest floor, eating up the distance between him and his prey, and his cock was pressing against the front of his pants like it was trying to lead the way.
When Peter got close enough that he could hear Chad somewhere ahead of him, he slowed down and grinned to himself. He took care to keep his footsteps silent, moving forward while staying as hidden as possible, and when he finally caught sight of Chad he felt both triumphant and relieved.
Got him.
Peter crept forward. He was about to pounce and knock Chad to the ground so that he could wrestle him into submission, but then he noticed that for all his speed Chad was limping pretty heavily.
He wouldn’t have continued the game if he’d been hurt, would he? Peter hung back and studied Chad’s movements, and after a few minutes came to the conclusion that it was probably just a sprain.
Licking his lips, Peter sped up and managed to get within a few feet of Chad before the younger alpha heard him. But it was too late. Chad barely had time to look over his shoulder before Peter was on him, pushing him to the ground and wrestling his arms behind his back as he sat down on top of him.
