Page 85 of Hunted

“Don’t worry,” she said. “They all want tattoos. Wolves always want to belong. Some of them just don’t want to admit it yet.”

He turned his gaze to Switch, who was sitting in a lawn chair in the middle of the compound with a controller in his lap, flying his latest drone.

Besides being an expert pilot and having connections all over the dark web, the guy could build anything.

Mikey followed Gunn’s gaze. “He wants to stay, you know.”

Gunn shook his head. “He had his chance when I first came. He just keeps saying he’s a lone wolf.”

Mikey said, “And yet, he’s still here.”

Good point. “You think he’s going to be the wolf who came to dinner?” And never left.

She kissed his shoulder. “You never know.”

Rex called over from the firepit, where he and a couple of the other guys were getting the coals ready.

“Hey, Gunn! Where are the fucking pigs? The guys went up to the storage shed to get them forever ago!” At that moment, Gunn’s cellphone buzzed. He picked it up. “Yeah?”

It was one of the guys from the shed. “Damn it, Gunn, where did you put the pigs? We can only find one.”

“Fuck,” he said. “I’ll call you back.”

He called down to the command center, where someone was always on duty. “Patch me through to the PA system, would you? And roll back the security footage on the shed this morning. Some fucker stole a pig.”

In a few seconds he heard the crackle of the speakers as the system went live. Gunn spoke into his phone. “Listen up, you dickheads. Whoever has the pig, bring it the fuck back, or you don’t eat.”

His voice boomed out of the speakers. Switch had been fiddling with his controls and watching his controller screen, though the drone was out of sight. Now he called, “Target located. Boomer has the porker.”

Gunn groaned. Of course he did.

“Oh, shit,” Switch said, still watching the screen. “Shit, he’s gonna—” He trailed off in a fit of laughter.

From up in the explosives testing field, there was a huge thud like a giant catapult going off. Which was exactly what it was.

A dark object flew out from behind the trees, soared in a perfect arc, and crashed through the roof of the tumbledown barn on the edge of the valley.

The PA system crackled again, and crazy laughter filled the compound. “Pigs do fly! Bullseye!”

There was stunned silence, and then everyone cracked up.

Gunn facepalmed, but he couldn’t help laughing.

Cisco said plaintively, “We can still cook that, right?”

“Why not?” Gunn said. “Shifters don’t get infections.”

Late that afternoon, when they’d eaten their way through the pigs—flying and otherwise—Gunn suddenly felt a tug on his insides.

He didn’t know how, exactly, but he knew someone had crossed the territory lines. The bond he and Mikey had created with the land was telling him.

And she’d gone off somewhere, which made his wolf uneasy. If there was danger, he needed to know where she was.

He scanned the woods in all directions, but there was nothing. Just that feeling.

A minute later, one of those sparkly magic doors opened up—in the middle of his compound—and four people stepped through. They were all armed, wearing black combat gear with stylized wolf’s head patches on the shoulders, and full-face helmets—except for one enormous guy whose huge mane of black dreadlocks would in no way fit under a helmet.

Within seconds, the Outlaw Ridge wolves were out of their seats, bristling with weapons.