Page 15 of Midnight Hunt (Wolves of Midnight #4)

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GRIFF

Fire. Everything was fire .

I thought for sure I would pass out from the pain, but I felt every agonizing second as Vi pulled me off the jagged tree stump.

A muffled scream escaped my clenched teeth, my body trembling from the effort of holding still. The entire time, Whiskey kept howling inside my head. Not from the fiery pain, but from the fact that I’d kissed Vi. He was ecstatic, and a little pain wasn’t going to rain on his parade.

Truthfully, I was equally elated. Not wanting to spook her, I’d played off the kiss as a simple way to calm her down, but that hadn’t been the real reason why I’d kissed her. I’d expected her to push me away, especially after everything that had happened between us this week—not to mention Reid breaking up with her. Instead, she’d done something I’d been entirely unprepared for.

She’d kissed me back.

Not softly either. Feverishly . Like she’d been missing me as much as I’d been missing her.

By thunder, yer back in the game, laddy! Whiskey crowed like a pirate. Aye, yer little wench is thirsty for ya, that’s for bloody sure. She practically sucked yer bleedin’ face off .

Despite the derogatory comment, I couldn’t help but laugh. The movement sent fresh pain ripping through me, but I only laughed harder.

“Idiot. Would you stop laughing?” Vi growled, and I tried my best to stop. A second later, I burst out laughing again. “Griffin Hayes O’Neal, I swear I’m going to kill you after this!”

Hearing the fear in her voice did the trick, and my laughter quickly faded.

Moments later, she pulled me free of the stump and helped me stand. When I listed sideways, she kept her arms around me and held me upright.

“Easy. You lost a lot of blood,” she said, nearly my height in her half-shifted state. I gratefully leaned against her, not the least bit embarrassed by her help. She was a capable alpha female, and any male intimidated by that was simply weak.

As we stood together by the stream, thoroughly soaked by the falling rain, I folded my arms around her and buried my face in the crook of her neck. We didn’t move for several long moments, allowing our bodies to heal from the devastating plane crash.

Finally, she started to shrink in my arms, reverting back to her human form. When the transformation was complete, she pulled back, and I reluctantly let her go.

Through the rain and gloom, I watched her eyes flit up to my face, then down to my chest. Pursing her lips, she murmured, “Let me see.”

“It’s fine, Vi. Already healing,” I said, but I didn’t stop her from grasping the hem of my ruined shirt and lifting it. She hiked the material all the way up to my collarbone, gasping softly when she caught sight of my bare chest. At her reaction, I couldn’t resist drawling, “I mean, I know my pecs are awesome, but you’ve seen them hundreds of times.”

“Shut up, Griff,” she tightly replied, reaching up to gently prod at my skin. I flinched at the contact, and her eyes immediately flew up to mine. “Did I hurt you?”

I shook my head, silently watching as she resumed her poking and prodding. For a brief second, I glimpsed the gnarly half-healed hole in my chest, then firmly returned my gaze to Vi.

“What’s the prognosis, Doc?” I asked her, grimacing when I felt my sternum snap back into place.

She stopped poking to glance up at me again. “You’ll live. Your breathing and heart rate have returned to normal. You’re still bleeding a bit, though, so you’ll want to take it easy until the wound is fully closed.”

A grin tugged at my mouth.

Seeing it, she rolled her eyes and huffed out, “What now?”

“You’re just cute when you play caretaker.”

“Really, Griff? Do you take anything seriously? You almost died . I nearly lost you, and . . . and how did this even happen? That jet was in mint condition. Randy always took such good care of her, and—” Her hand suddenly flew to her mouth. “Oh, God. Randy . I can’t believe he’s dead. We’d probably be dead too if we were human. I can’t . . . I just can’t . . .”

As she teetered on the edge of another meltdown, I pulled her into my arms again, hugging her fiercely. She trembled against me, her body shaking with silent sobs. I held her close for several moments, offering my comfort as well as seeking my own.

When she no longer trembled, I murmured against her damp hair, “I’m sorry. This is no laughing matter. Jokes just help me cope.”

A shuddering sigh left her. “I know. I was just really scared.”

“Me too,” I whispered, tightening my hold even more.

She let me hold her for another minute, then sniffed back tears and pulled away. “Do you have your phone? I think I lost mine.”

I felt in my back jeans pockets but came up empty. “Guess we should head back to the crash site and have a look around.”

She shivered but nodded in agreement.

We walked in silence, each lost in our own thoughts. Whiskey kept heckling me to kiss her again, but now wasn’t the time. She was clearly traumatized by all that had happened, and it would be selfish of me to pursue her right now. Instead, I continued to offer her my comfort and support, sticking close to her side the entire way back.

When we reached the crash site, I released a low whistle. “Well, that explains why I ended up so far away.”

“Yeah,” she said, looking everywhere but at the broken plane. “I didn’t see our stuff inside, so I’m gonna look around out here. Holler if you find anything.”

She took off before I could say anything, her gait stiff and decidedly nervous. Knowing she needed some space to process, I forced myself not to follow her and veered toward the jet. The rain continued to beat on my head, harder than it had a few minutes ago. A flash of lightning lit up the crash site, followed closely by a rumble of thunder.

We were in for a very wet night. The ground had already grown saturated, and it was only then that I finally noticed my feet were bare.

Guess Vi was right about the flip-flops, I thought wryly, carefully avoiding a shard of glass. No need to impale myself a second time.

A few minutes later, I was standing in the cockpit, looking down at Randy’s body. Hesitating, I finally moved to check his pockets for a phone. Relieved when I found one, I pulled it out only to sigh in disappointment when it wouldn’t turn on. Everything was too wet. Even if we did find our own phones, they were probably in the same condition due to the rain. I checked the radio, but it too was fried.

With the realization that help probably wasn’t coming anytime soon, I started to unbuckle the pilot. He deserved a proper burial, not to be picked apart by wild animals.

I was just about to hoist him over my shoulder when a noise above the rain caught my attention. It was faint, but there was no mistaking the sound. Voices. Several of them.

Whiskey immediately rose up, growling quietly. Heeding his warning, I left the pilot in his seat and silently slipped from the cockpit. As fast as I could without making noise, I made my way out of the plane, pausing every few seconds to listen.

There were at least four of them. Maybe five. All male by the sound of it.

A part of me wanted to call out to see if they were friendly, but a bigger part cautioned me not to. We were in the middle of nowhere, miles from any form of civilization. And I’d been replaying Vi’s words from earlier about the jet. It had been in mint condition. The engine shouldn’t have gone out like that.

I suspected foul play, and these males could be involved.

Problem was, I was in no shape to confront them at the moment. My chest wasn’t fully healed yet, and there was no way I would put Vi in danger without knowing what we were up against.

But as I landed on solid ground, a voice from behind me said, “Found my bag. My phone was inside, but it’s not—”

I lunged for Vi, quickly silencing her with a hand over her mouth. She instinctively tried to pull away, but I pressed her tightly to me and softly hissed in her ear, “Listen.”

She stilled.

A few seconds later, pounding footsteps reached our ears.

“Run,” I said. In a flash, I grabbed her hand and took off. Thankfully, she didn’t argue, keeping pace with me as I led us away from the crashing footfalls. Less than a mile later, a sharp crack rended the air and something smacked into the tree beside me.

“Move!” I roared at Vi, not bothering to keep quiet anymore.

“What’s happening?” she cried, now running beside me at full tilt.

Another crack cleaved the air, and I veered sideways just in time to avoid being shot in the back.

Yup. Definitely not friendly.

“We’re being hunted,” I grimly told her.

She threw me a wide-eyed look, letting me know that she was thinking the same thing. Her abductors had come back for her, and they’d brought a few friends this time. Plus weapons no doubt loaded with silver ammunition designed to bring down werewolves.

We definitely weren’t prepared to fight them right now, and I could tell by Vi’s expression that she felt the same.

So, at the same time, we called on our wolves for aid. They immediately rose to the surface but knew we didn’t have time for a full shift. A few bone cracks later, and we were running at twice the speed, our shifted legs swiftly carrying us out of shooting range.

Still, we didn’t slow. Didn’t stop. We ran and ran, plunging deep into the forest without direction, our only thought on escaping our pursuers.

We ran for hours, until our still-healing bodies started to give out. Until we were thoroughly lost. Until we could no longer hear the males hunting us.

Even then, I continued to run, encouraging an exhausted Vi onward. Because I knew, just knew they wouldn’t stop hunting us.

If they were willing to orchestrate a plane crash, they had no intention of going home empty-handed—wherever home was for them. What was worse, I was pretty sure they weren’t after me. I was just inconveniently in the way, and they probably wanted nothing more than to shoot me dead.

They wanted Vi , and that fact gave me the energy to keep going. No way was I letting them take her. No way was I letting them even touch her.

If they tried, they’d find out just how feral a hybrid werewolf male protecting his female could become.