His Tiger Mate novel Chapter 2

Paying our bill, and giving our waitress a nice tip, we get up and move towards the back door.

We move calmy until we are out of view from the outside, and then we head for the back door like we have the devil on our tail. Which is pretty much the truth, to shifters hunters are the devil. We burst through the door and as luck will have it, it leads straight towards the woods, that is the only place we have the upper hand. At least that's what we hope. As soon as we burst through the treeline we shift, ripping our clothes in the process. But that is not a big concern at this time, we just have to get away and clothes are easy to come by. Now that we are in our tiger form our senses sharpen, and we soon realize that the hunter was not alone.

The scent of 20+ humans are close by and judging from the adrenaline mixed with their scent it's not campers, meaning the hunters came in numbers and they were ready for our move. We can even hear barking, which means they brought dogs. Now dogs would normally not be a problem, but faced with so many hunters we can't really take our time to stop and kill dogs. And they can track us, meaning it will be harder to get away. Past experience tells us that the dogs are most likely equipped with GPS trackers, so hunters placed further into the woods can track where we go.

"Shit, it feels like we are surrounded, so which way do we go?" Kyle damn near screams through our mind link as we pause for a matter of seconds to get our bearings.

"Well if we're surrounded, it really doesn't matter where we go. So I say we keep going straight and hope the Goddess is on our side today". And that's what we do, we run.

As soon as we start running I can hear the sound of guns going off and feel bullets whizzing by our bodies, but luckily we are moving so fast that we make hard targets to hit. One hunter is stupid enough to stand right in the way of my escape, he must be new to the game cause he panics and shoots with his eyes closed when he sees me. I leap on him and sink my teeth into his neck, I taste the coppery taste of blood in my mouth and the man gargles as I bite down and easily tear his throat out. I feel no remorse at that, if the choice is me or someone else then someone else will die. By some kind of amazing luck we get past the first line of hunters with barely a scratch, I can feel that at least one bullet nicked my back, but that's not enough to slow me down. Bullets will kill us, we are shifters and heal fast, but we are not immortal. It takes a few good hits to take us down though, so as long as we keep moving fast it should be ok.

We run as fast as we can for several hours, I don't know how long, it's hard to keep track. But judging from the sun it must be at least five hours later when we smell water and finally slow down, to rehydrate and try to figure out our next move. I start scenting the air and listening for threatening sounds, but smell and hear nothing so I give the go ahead to drink.

"The fucking assholes are probably waiting for us to succumb to the bloodloss, then they will send in the dogs to track us and finish us off" Kyle says, pain present in his tone.

"I know, but we can still catch a break, I smell water, if that's a river we can jump in, let the current drag us for a while and get out on the other side. That will at least make it harder for the dogs to track us and slow them down." The constant moving is keeping our wounds open and the blood pouring. I'm starting to get really weak by this point, and the only thing keeping me going is adrenaline and the thought of what would happen to Kyle if I give up.

As soon as we reach the source of the water scent I feel like crying, it's a river and we still have a chance. I sent a silent prayer and thanks to the Goddess and we both jump in. The cool water feels like heaven on my wounds and my sore, tired body. We let the river carry us downstream for quite some time, we only get out when the cold water goes from being our friend to becoming our enemy. We don't want to add hypothermia to our list of problems. Using our last scrap of energy we drag our selves up from the water and crawl more than walked over to some trees hoping it will shield us a little. We both fall asleep from the sheer exhaustion, as the darkness creep up on me I think to my self that sleeping is a bad idea, but I have no control over my body anymore.