"You whore!" Gena's enraged scream echoed in the darkness as weapon fire broke, then began the rat-a-tat-tat once again.
It was like hearing hell. Like being in the middle of a war that she had no idea how to fight.
Her fingers curled around the butt of the weapon she had managed hold on to.
Forcing herself back to her feet, she kept running. She had been running for ten years, it was the only thing she knew. Maybe, if she kept running, she would forget. She would forget that for a while she had been warm and safe. That for a while she had known something she had never known before.
She didn't have much of a head start. Hell, she probably didn't have a head start at all considering how fast a Breed Coyote could run. If Marx was behind her, then she would be lucky if whoever had delayed them gave her a few minutes at best.
But if she were lucky, very very lucky, she might be able to flag down a car on the busy road and get a ride to the nearest town. It would be easier to lose Marx and Gena in town. It was harder for a Breed to track individual scent when faced with so many scents, she knew that. It was one of the reasons Council members, former trainers under warrant by the Breeds, and soldiers that had been a part of brutalizing Breeds had moved to such locations as New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas.
All she had to do was reach the main road.
Luck. If luck were on her side, then the Breeds and the Coyote Gena had brought with her would still be fighting it out at the cabin, neither side any wiser to the fact that she was once again on the run.
Styx wasn't with the Breeds. He couldn't be. She knew he wasn't. He wouldn't have left her like that, alone and frightened.
If she could get a ride into town and find a hole to hide in for just a few hours, then maybe she could figure out where to go next, what to do next and how to get the ring to Jonas Wyatt safely.
One thing was for certain, the information her father had left in her care was going to get her killed if she didn't do something. Just as it may have gotten Styx killed.
She had to give it to Jonas, she couldn't allow the Council to take it from her. That left her stuck between a rock and a hard place, with no room to turn in, and she was so tired of running.
As she raced up the steep incline before her, the soil beneath her feet gave, throwing her off balance for precious seconds. Grabbing a slender branch on a nearby bush, she couldn't stop the cry that passed her lips when thorns dug into her flesh.
Instinct and pain had her jerking back, completing a disastrous arc that sent her spinning on the wet dirt and tumbling down the slope.
Her body hit hard, her face slamming into the ground as she hit the bottom and dug her nails into the dirt, fighting to push herself to her feet.
One more try.
Breathing hard, weakness slamming through her, Storme stumbled again as she struggled to drag herself up the hill to the road above. She could see the lights of the passing vehicles, smell the asphalt and the heat of the tires racing over the road.
It wasn't that far, she told herself desperately.
She could make it.
Just a few more feet. She was just a few more feet to safety.
Digging her fingers into the wet earth, she clawed her way up the slope, stumbled onto the shoulder and swayed as lights pierced her vision, blinding her for precious seconds as the sound of squealing tires streaked through her senses.
A vehicle, dark and large, slammed to a stop in front of her. A van of some kind.
Storme swayed dizzily as the side door slid back with a thud and she found herself hauled into the darkened interior.
Dizzy, exhausted, there was no way she could fight the too strong grip, or the male bodies that shifted around her, blocking the exit before the door slid closed with a bang and the vehicle accelerated quickly from its position.
All she knew was the fact that she was f**ked. So well and truly dead that she might as well go ahead and say her final words to her maker, because sure as hell, she was getting ready to meet him real damned soon.
Only Council soldiers or Breeds could have staged this. And she knew the Breeds were busy protecting their own now.
She wasn't one of their own, therefore she wasn't protected.
Styx hadn't come for her.
The flight, the dizziness, the terror and the sheer heart-break that suddenly suffused her raced over her senses then. She felt the darkness, felt the blessed oblivion, and sank willingly, gratefully within it.
Mating heat.