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

nodded. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I’m just so scared.”
    “I am too,” I said gently. “But we’ll get out of this. Okay, now we need to be quiet.”
    We reached the front door. I kept an ear open as I looked out behind us. Colton propped the door open a slight bit, stuck his head out, and then signaled for us to follow.
    Outside, the rain was even worse, coming down in buckets. Immediately, I was soaked to the bone, making me wish that I had transformed. Mountain lion fur is amazingly waterproofed compared to cotton and human skin.
    In the distance, I heard thunder rumble. The rain on the already-wet ground and on the leaves covered up a lot of noises, and all I could smell was the dampness in the air.
    The only way they could find us was by sight, and it was hard through the rain and trees. I hoped.
    Please, please, please let us get there in one piece.
    We moved as a pack to a copse of trees about a hundred feet from the cabin. The significance of the word “pack” wasn’t lost on me. Werecats had a social order, but nothing like werewolves. They lived and died by the pack, and to lose a potential member like Sara would have been a huge blow to their morale.
    Ugh, shifter politics.
    I could only hope that Sara wouldn’t have to experience it like I did. Emily too, for that matter. I didn’t know what the wolves would do if they got their claws on her, but I didn’t like the thought of it. Many people join the were community against their will. Including me. And many of them don’t last.
    They weren’t as lucky as me.
    With the rain, thunder, and darkness, we were practically running blind. Even with my cat-like eyes, I had trouble having a good grasp on what was happening around us. A mile seemed like a long way in these conditions, even to myself.
    Thank god we had the good officer with us.
    We followed Colton as he directed us further into the woods.  I may have been a mountain lion shifter, but I was a city girl at heart, so running around in the woods at night was out of my comfort zone. I was grateful for the fact that he was here.
    Not just because he’s good-looking.
    Certainly not that at all.
    If I wasn’t much for the outdoors, Emily was in her exact opposite environment. She slipped and fell in the mud several times trying to keep up with us. I saw her tear-stained face every time lightning struck. Sara wasn’t much better. But she at least had the air of someone who knew where to place her feet; Emily was woefully lost.
    We paused underneath a rock outcropping to catch our collective breath. Or rather, Emily’s and Sara’s breaths.
    “How much further?” Sara asked.
    “Not too much farther,” Colton told her. “Maybe another quarter mile or so.”
    “I want a bubble bath when all this is done,” Emily sighed, putting a hand to her face. “I deserve a bubble bath.”
    And she started to cry. Sara comforted her, but I could tell that Emily was angry with her because she shrugged off the offered hug. Granted, I didn’t blame her for being prickly to Sara.
    “Do you think they’re following us?” I muttered to Colton, so low that they couldn’t hear.
    “I’ve been trying to keep an ear out,” he said softly, “and I haven’t heard anything.”
    “Neither have I,” I whispered back.
    But we both knew that didn’t mean anything.
    “You never did tell me why we could trust you,” I said, a note of playfulness in my voice. Oh my god, am I flirting? The thought struck me like a ton of bricks. No, I was just trying to make this terrible situation better for all of us. I was scared out of my mind, and there were lives on the line. That was what they called comic relief, right?
    Colton smiled—and I began to think of all his smiles as being wolfish.
    “Because I’m the best hope you’ve got,” was his answer. Not the greatest response, but I thought he was flirting back, judging by the way he was smiling.
    “I can handle myself too, you know,” I said.
    “Yeah,” he