I'm Not Afraid of Wolves (The Cotton Candy Quintet Book 4) by Erin Hayes Read Free Book Online Page A

clearing before I stopped. I realized that I was too far from the cabin. If these bastards got the idea that they could lead me away from the house and circle back, I just fell into their trap.
    Then again, I could be wrong and letting our only lead get away.
    Indecision tore at me as my painful injuries finally started sinking in. I hadn’t thought I’d gotten that hurt from the fight, but apparently I had.
    Only one way to find out how bad it was, even though I didn’t want to do it. But I couldn’t just show up in the basement as a werecat. Or even transform there. I was pretty sure that Sara and the others were holed up in the basement until I came back, so there was no chance of them seeing me in my birthday suit.
    And I felt oh so sore after everything.
    Decision made, I transformed back into a human. The fur disappeared, my face and muscle structure shifted back to being that of a woman. I rolled my head on my neck, glad that my body felt familiar again. It felt like I was sloughing off the skin of a predator and I was always glad to reconnect with my human side.
    Being a werecat, you could lose that connection. I felt like myself. Exposed, but at least human. As a bonus, my scent would change and they couldn’t smell a mountain lion anymore.
    Unsteadily, I stood on my legs and went to my full height, wincing as my muscles and torn skin fell back into place. As a human, I was more familiar with where it hurt, but it didn’t make it hurt any less.
    My shoulder ached and the angry stings on my back indicated that I had a few good scratches. My right eye was also swelling shut.
    Wonderful. It must look like I had gotten into a car wreck. It certainly wouldn’t look good for my mermaid performances for a few weeks.
    “This is not the vacation I’d been hoping for,” I muttered.
    I stepped forward in a ginger, timid motion. At least I still had my balance and my bearings. I’d take it.
    I jogged my way back to the cabin, careful not to make too much noise but also quickly as I was reasonably sure that the werewolves had had the same idea I did about circling back to the cabin. I had to hurry.
    When I neared the clearing where the cabin lay about forty feet ahead of me, the sound of a twig snapping forced me to skid to a halt, my heart pounding in my ears.
    At first, I didn’t see or hear anything. And then, a familiar voice cried out, “Who’s there?”
    I covered my eyes as a flashlight shone on me, blinding me momentarily. I recovered just enough to peek around and feel the sense of dread and embarrassment hit me all at once.
    Officer Donnelly. Seeing me naked in the forest. He was here , which meant that his huge truck wasn’t too far away, our seemingly only chance of getting back to civilization alive.
    I was almost relieved, when I realized that he didn’t seem too flustered to see me running naked through the woods after midnight. Then I realized how odd of a coincidence it was that he’d be here at the same time of night when we were attacked by werewolves.
    He’s one of them.
    He lowered the flashlight. “Christine, was it?” he asked, confused.
    I didn’t answer. I grabbed the closest rock next to me, and, without thinking about the consequences of hitting an officer of the law, I chucked it at him, aiming for his head. I was a pitcher on the softball team in high school, and while that had been over a decade ago, I still had a mean pitch.
    It connected with his temple and the big man dropped like a ton of bricks.
    I breathed heavily for a moment, panicking that I might have just killed the park ranger, before bending down and throwing his huge, muscular arm about my shoulders. It was the second time tonight that I was dragging someone.
    I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do once I got him back to the cabin. But I did know that when he woke up, he had a bunch of questions to answer.
    One of them being where the heck he’d parked his truck.

Chapter 8
     
    I pounded on the door to the