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

go camping in such a remote area? Oh yeah, my sister’s.
    “What’s happening?” Emily asked, her voice bordering on shrieking.
    “Nothing,” I said. “We just need to get going.” And figure this out when we’re in a safer place.
    Just before I hopped into the passenger seat, Colton pressed the keys into my hand.
    “Wait, what are you doing?” I asked.
    “I’m going into the bed of the truck,” he explained. As if I should have guessed that. “That way if they ambush us, I’m ready to fight.”
    I agreed with him to an extent. Transforming in closed quarters like the cab of a truck was never a good idea. “I don’t know where I’m going.”
    He pointed down the road.  “You just take that road and don’t stop ‘til you hit the highway.”
    I was pretty sure that it was more complicated than that, but I nodded. As long as it was away from the cabin, that was all I cared about.
    I gulped. “All right then. I can do that.”
    I pulled myself up into the driver seat and chuckled at myself. If anything, being in the driver’s seat only reinforced how much bigger Colton was than me. I readjusted it, checked the mirror just in time to see Colton easily hop into the bed of the truck.
    I swallowed back the lump in my throat.
    “Everyone situated?” I asked. I didn’t even wait for Emily’s or Sara’s response—I threw the truck into drive and hit the dirt road, mud and water sloshing all over the place.
    I drove the unfamiliar truck, fighting the twisting, turning roads. There’s nothing more terrifying than driving at a high speed through the woods in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm. Emily kept shrieking, making me want to crawl out of my skin. We had to remain calm. We had to get out of here.
    My reflexes saw it before my eyes did; I slammed on the brakes, the truck skidding to a halt. Emily screamed, and I only narrowly avoided flipping the truck over.
    A massive tree, that looked like it had been knocked out by lightning, blocked our way.
    We all knew better.
    And on top of that tree was a werewolf, its red eyes glowing their way towards us. Lightning struck, illuminated the beast, and I recognized it as the big one from my fight in the cabin’s great room.
    “Chad,” Sara whispered, her eyes locked on the windshield.
    So this was the bastard that terrorized my sister. I clenched the steering wheel, feeling my anger rise. There was no way he was going to get away with this. I was going to kill if I must in order to save Sara.
    As if sensing my thoughts, the beast’s orbs narrowed slightly. Another one joined him up on the log, and I recognized her instantly from her smell.
    Andrea.
    “Colton!” I screamed, my voice raising in pitch. I refused to look behind me to see if he was still there. I didn’t want to take my eyes off the monster in front of us.
    I didn’t have a choice in the end. The doors to the cab tore off in a shower of metal and bolts, revealing snarling snouts. The monsters grabbed at me, at Sara, and at Emily, forcibly pulling us from our restraints. Seatbelts broke, glass shattered, chaos broke out.
    “Sara!” I shrieked. “Emily!” I reached for them, but the monsters were too fast. They were out of my grasp before I could do anything to stop it.
    A roar joined my shriek, and it took me a moment to realize that Colton had joined the charge. I closed my eyes, calling forth the beast in my mind.
    Time to become the mountain lion.
    I roared, surprising my assailants, who abruptly let go of me. I fell to my paws on the ground, and lunged at them, catching one of them in the face. They were stunned at my attack; moving slower than expected.
    Apparently, they hadn’t known which one of us could shift into a mountain lion. I used that to my advantage.
    As I moved away from the truck, I found that my friends were being dragged away, their terrified expressions pleading with me to save them in any way I could.
    A large body landed next to me, and I cast one glance