Driven by Dean Murray Read Free Book Online

store, one
to pay and another to pick up any change. The clerk made a
noncommittal kind of grunt, but a few seconds later the pump lit up
and asked me to select a fuel grade.
    While
I was waiting for the tank to fill up I looked at Ben through the
window. He looked cold, and I made a mental note to try and remember
to turn the thermostat up. Ever since I'd gained my hybrid form I'd
been running hotter than normal, but Ben didn't have the same kind of
metaphysical space heater.
    The
pump shut off promptly at forty dollars' worth of gas. I racked the
nozzle and then started towards the store at a quick jog, locking the
doors to the Mercedes with my key fob.
    The
clerk had a TV on. It looked like one of those extreme reality shows,
but it must have been pretty enthralling because he barely looked up
as I handed him two twenties. As I turned and walked out of the store
I realized that three guys had appeared at the edge of the area lit
by the large overhead lights that surrounded the pumps.
    Most
girls would have been nervous at the sight of three rough-looking
guys this late at night, but I wasn't most girls. Even in this form I
was more than able to defend myself from guys much stronger and
dangerous than these guys looked to be. My biggest worry was that
they'd slow me down and put me even further behind Rachel's schedule.
At least that was all I was worried about until I saw the way that
the lights were flickering.
    Flickering
lights weren't a sign of trouble in and of themselves, but the lights
inside of the store hadn't flickered at the same time as the outside
lights. There was only one thing that could cause those kinds of
selective power problems. Werewolves.
    If
there'd been any doubt left in my mind of what I was up against, it
would have vanished when I saw the expression on the closest guy's
face. There was a kind of savage craziness to it that I'd heard
described more than once by others who'd run into werewolves before
the animals had shifted out of their human forms.
    My
options were so few as to practically be non-existent. They were
between me and the car, which meant that I couldn't get to Ben
without going through them. I couldn't fight them. One werewolf would
outclass me all by itself, three would mow me down so quickly I
wouldn't even know what hit me.
    I
could run—in wolf form I should be faster than them—but
if I did that there was still a risk that one of them would stay and
hurt Ben. If I was going to run then I needed to make sure that they
would all follow me.
    I
slipped my key fob and money clip into one of the two tiny pockets in
my ha'bit and then confirmed that my phone was safely tucked away in
the other pocket before taking a couple of steps towards them,
angling away from the shop so that I'd be out of the clerk's field of
vision if he happened to look up from his show.
    Werewolves
would kill a human if there wasn't a better target around, but they
would almost always bypass humans if there was a vampire or a shape
shifter in the area. Nobody was quite sure how werewolves were able
to pick shape shifters out of a crowd of humans, but their ability to
do so was uncanny.
    Their
ability to find vampires was less mysterious. They probably did it
the same way we did—scent tracking the characteristic old-blood
smell that vampires all seemed to have coming out of their pores. The
smell was strong enough that we shape shifters never had any problem
identifying a vampire, and it only made sense that werewolves had
similarly sensitive noses.
    Whatever
mechanism they used kicked into high gear as I took yet another step
towards them. All three werewolves looked at me simultaneously with
an expression that told me they knew exactly what I was.
    They
all sprang towards me at the same time, but I'd been waiting for that
to happen and I shifted and tore off across the fields in a blaze of
speed that only my wolf form could muster. I couldn't risk looking
back at them, not when I was in full flight, but