Page 49 of Hunted

7

Ellie

WIND WHIPPED THE STARK BRANCHES OVERHEAD as the rain pelted my fur. The wispy ends along my forepaws had formed tight dark curls, making me look more like a poodle than a wolf. Were were-doodles a thing now? Pretty sure I was one. Or needed a different shampoo. Note to self: look into canine beauty products if my wolf survived the night. Surely there was a TikTok tutorial somewhere.

The sky overhead was mercilessly dark. Sheets of torrential rain and the fact that we were miles from anywhere made it impossible to see anything. The earth smelled of mud, mesquite and motor oil from the nearby road. Howls echoed in the dark behind me, the pack of enemy wolves closing in. Because of course, even in my nightmares, I was the one wolf who failed gym class.

River, I shouted through our mated bond as I crashed through tall unmowed weeds. Barbed tongued grasses clawed at my fur. But that familiar pressure in the back of my mind, the constant comforting warmth I associated with him, with my mate, was silent. River couldn’t project to me. He couldn’t reach my dreams. I was alone.

I burst free from the weeds at the edge of a junkyard beside a rural stretch of highway. I saw the wall of chain link, tried to stop, but my paws skidded on the wet pavement, and I crashed into it. I scrambled back, glad there hadn’t been barbed wire. Rusted out cars were piled three and four wrecked junkers high, their broken carcasses forming menacing skeletons as lightning flashed overhead. That explained the motor oil. Guess I wasn’t getting my honorary werewolf scout badge anytime soon.

Move, Hayden’s voice ordered in my head. If you stay in one place, you’re dead.

I bolted right, with no choice but to stay close to the fence line. Something sharp and metallic pinged off the wire just over my head. Heart slamming in my lupine ribcage, I ran faster, the smell of wet pavement filling my nose with each panting breath. With every scrape of my claws on the concrete, I could hear the wolves gaining behind me, snarling and growling, keyed up on the thought of what they’d do when they captured me. Their prey. Panic turned my limbs to jelly. I stumbled, plowing face first into slick, cold mud. Shaking, I staggered up. Somehow, I’d shifted back to my human skin. I kept running. The chain link ended to reveal a wide paved surface. Standing in the center of it was a man, his face obscured by a hood.

Matteo Rossi.

I froze, unable to retreat with the wolves advancing behind me, unwilling to have my blood spilled by Rossi’s hand yet another night in a row. Except, as the man advanced, a cold shiver snaked down my spine. His features were wrong. Rossi was tall, but this man was taller. There was something about the hair that was off as well.

He reached up to remove the hood and I gasped.

“Not pleased to see me?” River said sarcastically.

“It’s you.”

“Of course it’s me. Who’d you expect?”

I frowned, trying to pinpoint what exactly about this version of River felt… off. His hair was longer. And now that I could see him more clearly, I could tell that his silver eyes were flat, devoid of any trace of the River I loved. The River I knew trained every day, refined his skills both physically and mentally. Even when he was at rest, the closest comparison I could make was to a panther, all lithe rippling muscle and deadly threat. This River slouched with a lazy arrogance, his posture careless, even the way he stared at me wrong. It was as if I were a possession he might just as soon crush as discard, rather than the mate he would die to protect. And then it hit me.

“You’re being controlled by Rossi,” I whispered. “He’s made you into one of his drones.”

The thing that wasn’t River began a slow clap. “See. I told him you’d figure it out eventually.”

Something I’d overheard River say to Brody weeks earlier came rushing back.

Phoenix was untrained and he still managed to hurt hundreds of people before he was stopped. I could hurt thousands. Tens of thousands, maybe, before anyone could stop me.

“River, please,” I begged, backing away. “Don’t do this.”

But I didn’t get a chance to finish before the hood came down over my head—

“Ellie, are you okay? You’ve been staring at that sample for five minutes.”

I blinked, forcing my eyes to focus through a sudden shimmer of tears. The lab pipet shook in my fingers, the memory of the nightmare threatening to make me sick.

“Not real,” I whispered, wishing I could get the images out of my head. “None of it is real.”

Wiley frowned at me from over by his station. Even from behind the slightly fogged plastic of the standard issue lab glasses we all wore, I could read the concern in his eyes. I waved brightly and grabbed a set of empty blood vials. Great. Just what I needed. For all of my lab mates to think I was crazy.

I jumped a foot when my phone buzzed. Setting the test tubes down, I checked the screen.

River: You okay? I felt your heartrate spike.

Quickly, I typed back.

Ellie: Another bad dream. Not important. Any change?

River: Headache is better. I don’t have to hide in a closet anymore every time the sun comes out. For a day or two there, Vlad was threatening to make me an honorary vampire.