“We do not split up! That’s an order!”
Which explained why Mac deputized Slade—to order him around.
Slade listened. Nothing. He didn’t sense immediate danger. He turned, following Mac into the woods. Mac lifted his nose, not even trying to hide his sniffing. “I got Ed, Debra, and two hunters.”
“More are chasing Noah.”
Mac pulled out his phone and tapped on the keyboard. “Duly noted. Our wolves ahead aren’t hurt, but they’re caught.” He directed Slade on how to stay downwind to minimize being scented. Even Ed or Debra could accidentally give them away.
They crouched, working their way through the underbrush. For such a big man, Mac moved quietly. Slade? Not so much.
Screaming drowned out any noise he made.
“Tell me where your pack is! I know you have a pack,” an unfamiliar man’s voice snarled.
“Wait till the alpha finds out,” a woman snapped. Noah’s aunt. If the aunt and uncle were here, why wasn’t Noah?
In tones cold as ice, a second voice said, “How do you think we found you?”
“Son of a bitch,” Mac growled. He sniffed again. “I smell two. One overconfident, the other doesn’t want to be here.”
Worked for Slade.
Mac cocked his head to the side. “One of the wolves is unconscious.”
“There are two of you against me. Shouldn’t you send for backup?” a voice Slade now recognized as Debra’s asked, far too sweetly to be believed.
If Judith spoke to him in such honeyed tones, he’d run.
Mac motioned Slade ahead. Oh, right. Human. Slade stepped out from between the trees. Ed lay on the ground with Debra crouched over him. No visible blood, though. Two men stood with their backs to Slade. Idiots.
“What the ever-loving hell is going on here!” Slade roared, bearing down on the men whose asses he dearly wanted to kick.
The two men turned. Debra leaped, taking the legs out from under the older man. They thrashed and rolled, Debra tossing the man’s gun, rising up, and delivering a punch hard enough to make Slade’s head rock back too.
Ouch!
The younger man lifted his hands.
Crashing came through the woods behind them. Mac didn’t even turn around. “Buddy, take these two back to the office. Slade and I are going after Noah.” He shifted his gaze to the she-wolf, rubbing her hand and glaring at the man she’d knocked out. “Nice one, Deb. Remind me not to piss you off. What did they do to Ed?”
“Nothing,” she replied with a bit of smugness. “Lover’s quarrel. I won. Nobody messes with my nephew.”
Dayum!
“You go back with Buddy.” Mac nodded toward the none-to-quiet deputy escorting the two handcuffed hunters out of the woods.
Debra pulled a few leaves from her long braid. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to go after my nephew. He’s got three on his tail.”
Another howl emerged from the woods. Debra and Mac could solve things here without help. Slade dashed off in the direction of the howl.
“Hang in there, Noah. I’m coming.”
God help whoever made Noah howl.
Slade didn’t need howls to guide his way. He knew where to go, though how to get there remained a mystery. No paths through here, only thick underbrush. Like hell would they slow him down.
He remembered other times, running with his brothers in the mountains around Judith’s place, running from the cops during a drug bust. How he’d never been arrested, he’d never know. Ducking arrests meant he got to keep his gun.
