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

said honestly. “You can. How did you get caught up in this anyway, if you don’t mind me asking?”
    “Sara’s my sister.” That usually explained a lot of things.
    But Colton shook his head. “No, I mean caught up as a were. When did that happen?”
    I snorted through my nose. “It was bad decision that I made a long time ago for the guy I loved.”
    The sparkle in his blue eyes lost their luster. “So there’s a Mr. Were Mountain Lion?”
    I combed a hand through my sopping wet hair. “There was. Not anymore.”
    And that was all I was going to say on that subject.
    Colton nodded, catching the fact that I clammed up when it came to my past and my relationship with Shane. We didn’t have time to deal with the past anyways, so I pushed it towards the back of my mind.
    We were in a life and death situation. There was no time for any of that.
    “We’d better keep a move on,” I announced, my voice slightly strangled. It was sometime after two or three a.m., and I wanted to get as far away from here as possible by sunrise.
    Everything was less scary in the daytime. But you also can’t hide as easily.

Chapter 11
     
    I didn’t realize how much I’d doubted that Colton’s truck would be in working order until we actually came upon it—and it was fine. None of the tires were slashed, the hood wasn’t dented. It was in the exact same condition it had been in earlier today, albeit much wetter and muddier.
    I sighed a breath of relief as I saw it. Actually, it was more like a sob—relief straddled that line pretty easily.
    Colton hadn’t been lying when he said that the truck was well-hidden. It was off the dirt road a ways and shielded by the trees around it. I wouldn’t have seen it unless I was looking for it.
    Hopefully our attackers weren’t looking for it as well.
    Colton took his keys out, and unlocked the car. I winced as the lights flickered on and off, afraid that it would tell the werewolves that we now had transportation. But I didn’t have time to dwell on that as we piled into the car.
    As I helped Sara into the back seat, Colton leaned into the truck, grabbed the handset for the CB radio, and called for help. “Officer Donnelly, Dispatch.” He took his finger off and looked at me. I held my breath, waiting for an answer.
    Nothing. The silence from the radio was long enough for my brain to freak out.
    “Is the radio broken?” I asked.
    Colton shook his head. “No. There’s nothing wrong with the radio.” I opened my mouth to say otherwise, but he turned away from me. “Officer Donnelly, Dispatch. Respond, dammit.”
    Finally, there came, “Dispatch, Officer Donnelly. Dispatch, Officer Donnelly!” The man on the other end sounded flustered, like we had just caught him on the john.
    Colton gave me an I-told-you-so smirk and responded, breaking all protocol for police radio conversations that I’ve seen on TV. I had the feeling that they didn’t follow the rules to the letter here. Which was fine with me, so long as we got going. He checked his GPS monitors. “Vicks, my location is at 34.823178, -83.563758. Are there any other rangers in the area?”
    “Lemme have a look,” Vicks said on the other end.
    I glanced behind us, out into the darkness. I couldn’t help but feel like we were being watched. We were sitting ducks out here, wasting time talking on the radio. It felt like it took all too long for Vicks to come back onto the line.
    “The closest to your location is Barnett. And he’s thirty minutes away.”
    Donnelly cursed under his breath. He met my eyes, and I nodded. I knew exactly what that meant.
    We were on our own.
    “Copy that,” Donnelly said. “We’re headed your way.”
    “We?”
    “Some ladies who have been assaulted,” Donnelly said. “I’ll get back to you when we’re close.”
    “Copy that.”
    “Over and out.”
    Colton hung up the mouthpiece and combed a hand through his hair, obviously distressed that help was so far away.
    Whose idea was it to