Running with Rogues

CHAPTER 22 - THE NOT-SO-GREAT ESCAPE

Here we go, as promised. Above is a character glossary which'll be included at the top of most chapters from now on :) PS don't worry about the Vaughans because we haven't met them yet. There are also some new family trees in the Author's Note at the start of the book if you're interested in how the families originated.

We'd gotten careless, and now Mam was going to kill us slowly and painfully. Our only hope, really, was to catch the bastards before they got close enough to mind-link New Dawn, because then the flockies would come and kill us before Mam got the chance.

"They could have a ten-minute head-start, for all we know," Nia said. "Lily and Sam, take the cars onto the B road. They'll be heading to New Dawn, so they'll have to cross it. Make them stop - honestly, I don't care how. El, go check on Bryn and take the kids with you. Don't leave that cave until we get back, okay?"

I was stripping down even as she spoke, preparing for the shift as much as I could without flashing my entire family. Liam and Rhodri were doing the same beside me. My cousin's eyes were darker than usual, and he was too quiet, too still. He had a thing about people beating on his little brother.

"Okay," Ellis said, shuffling in place. Sam handed Poppy to him, and he took Jess's hand to stop her trying to follow us. Bryn was her brother, too, and she'd been happy enough to throw stones at the flockies at every opportunity even before they'd knocked him out. Her wrath would probably be worse than Rhodri's.

"You three are with me," Nia told us. She sounded calm enough, but we all knew it would be her neck on the line if they got away. She was supposed to be in charge, and we'd all been too busy screwing around to watch the flockies properly.

"I can lead?" I asked.

"Yes, you can lead," she sighed. "Let's see if you're as quick as you think you are. But ... just ... don't try fighting them, kiddo. You hear me? Rip and run."

She was scared they'd hurt me, and she was probably right to be. I didn't stand much chance of thrashing a Beta-in-waiting, let alone an Alpha, and let alone both of them at once.

"Sure, Nia. I ain't suicidal."

I turned around and shifted. There was a knack to it - you waited until the last possible second before stripping off, and if you were too late, you ended up wearing clothes in wolf form and looking like a total dumbass. I could feel my bones melting and reshaping themselves, feel the fur pushing its way through my skin ... then I landed on my forepaws.

There was no time to warm up. I just broke into a dead sprint and hit the accelerator until my muscles were burning. There was only way out of the gorge, so I didn't need to pick up the scent trail. Before long, I could see fresh pawprints in the mud anyway.

The others would be following me. Liam was the next fastest because he'd had so much practice chasing me, then Rhodri, and then Nia. By the time I cleared the gorge, they were so far behind that I just had to trust they were there.

I was going so fast that I didn't think I could have stopped if I'd wanted to. The power came from the hind legs, and it was all my forepaws could do to keep up with them most of the time. The ground was flat and firm enough to let me reach full speed. I knew I could manage somewhere in the region of forty-five miles an hour because I'd once raced a car.

The undergrowth was so dense that there was little option but to stick to the track. All the same, I lowered my muzzle to take a good whiff every now and then to make sure they hadn't pulled a fast one. I'd never been very good at tracking, in all honesty. I didn't have the patience for it.

Ten minutes had been a worst-case scenario. I reckoned they had closer to five. Before we'd gone more than a few miles, I could hear the thunder of footsteps on the path ahead of me. I should have slowed down, then. Tailed them from a safe distance and given my back-up some time to catch up.