Moon - New Moon Part 66

His brother turned and snarled at him, his teeth bared. All Logan could do was try to hold him in place. But Lance pawed at the ground, pulling them both toward the deadly device hidden in the leaves.

Then Ross was beside them.

Logan jerked his head toward the trap and snarled, then jerked back hoping he was conveying the message that they had to stay away from the thing.

Ross shivered, but he kept his distance from the pile of leaves where the trap lurked.

Instead, he came up beside Logan, and together they pushed and shoved Lance back.

As soon as they had moved a few yards away, Logan could feel a difference. The mental pull was still there, but as long as he stayed this far away, he thought he could avoid getting ensnared.

Lance lay on the ground panting, and Ross rubbed his nuzzle against him.

Lance lifted his head and looked around, a dazed expression on his face. They had kept him from rushing toward the snare, but he wasn't out of danger yet.

Farther back. Logan thought. We have to get farther back before it pulls us in.

He pushed at Lance again, trying to maneuver him out of harm's way, just as he heard a cry of, "Get them."

Raising his head, he saw two fierce-looking men erupt from the woods and charge at them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

WITH HIS CHOICES suddenly limited, Logan let go of his brother and turned toward the attackers. Probably they'd been sent here to wait for a shape-shifter. But maybe they hadn't actually fought any before. And they certainly hadn't been expecting more than one wolf.

Praying that Lance wouldn't head for the trap, Logan backed up, hoping that one of the men would follow him.

He did, moving in a crouch, his knife at the ready.

Silently, Logan continued his retreat, drawing the soldier away from Lance. From the corner of his eye, he could see that Ross was doing the same with the other man.

When they were ten feet from Lance, Ross howled-the signal for an attack. He and Logan both leaped at the soldiers who had come after them, ducking under their weapons and going for the legs, then the hands, snapping and snarling to make the attack seem more vicious.

The men tried to fight. But they were no match for two angry wolves. Or maybe they had nothing invested in the conflict. They were just hired help, and the wolves were defending one of their own.

They gave up after a few minutes, limping back into the trees, but Logan didn't take anything for granted. They could be going for reinforcements.

He looked around, then growled. While he and Ross had been busy, Lance had started crawling toward the trap again.

He was stretching out a paw toward the snare when Logan reached him.

Logan was so close to the d.a.m.n thing that his vision turned instantly blurry, and a thousand hornets set up a buzzing in his brain. In some part of his mind he was reliving the horrible feeling of the iron-jawed trap closing around his leg and digging into his flesh.

Fear made him want to jump back. But he pushed the terror to the side and kept his focus on one objective-rescuing Lance from the same fate. Rinna had saved him by joining her mind with his and getting him to change. But he couldn't do the same thing for Lance because he didn't possess that ability.

There was no way he could have gotten Lance out of danger by himself.

He spared a glance at Ross. His cousin didn't look too good either. But he didn't head for the lure, and Logan figured he must be exercising his famous iron control.

Instinctively, they knew they had to cooperate to free Lance. Working as a team, they pushed him away, but they couldn't move him far-not as wolves because they simply didn't have a good way of holding him.

Which left them no alternative. Making a decision he didn't much like, Logan mentally began chanting the ancient words that would transform him from wolf to man.

As he made the transformation, he felt a searing pain in his shoulder. Once he had morphed, he turned his head and saw a b.l.o.o.d.y slash that he hadn't noticed through his fur. The soldier had cut him with the knife, but the wound wasn't deep. Just long and painful.

He saw Ross also making the transformation. They were both naked and vulnerable. And if the soldiers caught them like this, they were dog meat.

"Let's get the h.e.l.l out of here," Ross muttered.

They turned toward Lance and grabbed his legs. He snapped at them, but he was weak, and Ross was able to wrap one hand around his muzzle as they dragged him away from the snare that had captured his mind. It was probably a rough ride through the woods, but there was nothing they could do about that.

When they were a hundred yards from the trap, Ross bent to Lance. "If I let go of your muzzle, will you promise not to bite me?"

To Logan's relief, his brother's eyes seemed to have cleared. He nodded.

Ross undamped his fingers and stepped back. "Can you change?"

They waited for a long moment before they saw any results. Then Lance's body shape began to flow. But as Logan focused on his brother, he heard shouts in the woods.

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h," Ross growled. "They're coming back-with reinforcements."

Lance had barely transformed from wolf to man when they grabbed his shoulders and pulled him to his feet.

As best they could, they hustled him through the woods. Now they were three naked men on the run. They pounded across the stretch of trees and into the park.

With every yard they ran, the soldiers gained on them. And Logan only gave them fifty-fifty odds of making it to the car.

When they reached the parking lot, they dashed past a man and a woman just spreading out a meal at a picnic table.

The woman screamed.

"d.a.m.n queers," the man muttered, standing up and rounding the table, just as the soldiers burst from the woods in hot pursuit.

Logan had left the keys under a rock near the curb. For a terrible moment, he didn't see them. Then he realized he was a few feet from the right spot.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed up the keys and pressed the remote as the soldiers pounded out of the woods. The three Marshalls leaped toward the car and jumped in as the soldiers dashed past the startled couple.

Logan gunned the engine and roared away, and the pursuers were left standing at the edge of the parking lot staring after the car.

"Thank G.o.d," he breathed.

"You need to get that cut disinfected."

"Yeah." He glanced over his shoulder and saw his brother sprawled across the back seat.

"How do you feel?" he asked.