The Hunter

Little Boys

If they started bickering again, Mira was going to scream or howl. Possibly even both. It really depended on whether or not they pushed her into shifting. Right now, Joshua sulked along behind her, scuffing his feet. In other words, alerting every nearby thing with ears to their presence, but at this point she’d take that over them fighting again.

On the other hand, she could sense Collin’s glares at Joshua. The one good thing was that he wasn’t making snide comments to Joshua anymore. Granted, Joshua had been chatting far too much for sneaking around in the woods when Collin finally snapped. In Collin’s opinion, he either wanted them to get caught or he was the worst Hunter ever. The likelier possibility was the pain had made him delirious. Of course, Collin didn’t see that as an excuse.

“Stop dragging your feet.” Collin huffed at the same time as Joshua’s footsteps stopped. Fantastic. “You’re going to tell everything in a hundred mile radius where we are.”

Collin hadn’t stopped walking forward despite Mira pausing to glare between the two of them. The tightness of his jaw was the only tell of how angry he was, and Mira couldn’t completely blame him. He’d gone into overprotective mode and she had yet to figure out how to turn off that feature. Her shoulder wasn’t really helping his attitude, either.

“Well maybe if my entire arm didn’t feel like it was on fire, I wouldn’t be quite so tired and ‘dragging’ my feet.” Joshua did air quotes behind Collin’s back.

As soon as Collin spun and opened his mouth, Mira lifted her hand. “Enough, both of you. We’ll take a short break.” Collin snorted at that. “We’ve got to cover more ground today, but Collin is right about us needing to be careful. I’m not exactly up for a fight right now.”

“We don’t really have time to stop.” Collin slipped his arm around her waist, but the coldness hadn’t left his voice. “I don’t like us being this close to where we left the phone. My brother could still track us here.”

“Which is why we are going in the river in a little bit.” Mira smiled at him and stroked his arm. “Cut him some slack. He isn’t used to this.”

“That’s not a good excuse.” His eyes dropped from glaring at Joshua to her and a smile crept onto his face. “I just hate being exposed like this. Not to mention he has no good excuse for how he’s acting.”

“You know I can hear you, right?” Joshua sighed and looked between the two of them. “I’m not incompetent, and despite what you think, I’m not trying to help your brother find us. You’re a paranoid fool, you know that?”

Once again, Collin snorted, but Mira cut him off with a look before he could answer. She took a deep breath and stepped away from Collin. “You two have to cut this out. You’re not helping anything. I’m tired and in pain.” When Collin reached for her, she lifted a hand to stop him. “It’s bearable, but I am losing all patience with you two and your petty fighting. The next negative word from either of you about the other is going to end up with me dropping both—yes, both—off at a Hunter base.” Collin’s eyes widened and he swallowed. “Am I understood?”

She growled and twisted away from Collin and Joshua before storming off into the woods. If they wanted to act like little boys, she could damn well treat them that way.

Soon both of their more quiet footsteps followed her. A smile crept onto her lips. Sometimes being the daughter of an alpha wolf had its advantages. It didn’t hurt that Collin loved her, either. Any man with half a brain knew better than to anger the woman he loved, at least that’s what her mother had always told her.

In no time, Mira could hear the rushing of the river water ahead, but it was still a couple of hours away at their current rate. Unsure of how hard she could push Joshua, she increased her pace to a slow jog with both boys keeping pace. They needed to get past the river tonight and the sun had started its slow descent past the horizon. No one, not even wolves, went into rapids at night if they could help it. The current would take them away with one misplaced foot.