ROGUE HUNT STOWAWAY

14 FEBRUARY, SUNDAY, CONTINUED

{Rogues approaching}

If Boo was a secretary, she would be still sitting at her desk, filing her nails as she said this. I couldn't decide if her attitude was because we were perfectly safe, or because she was perfectly p***ed that I wouldn't let her surface. Maybe a bit of both. 

And then without warning, two rouge wolves crashed into the clearing. Luckily I was still hidden from plain view behind the thicket. I quickly slipped behind the tree next to me. If Boo was a secretary, she would pause filing her nails to roll her eyes at me. She saw no reason to hide from two exhausted rogues. 

They decided to run north, but another three rogues appeared right out from where they meant to escape to. The motorbikes closed in. Realising they were surrounded, they started growling and backing into a tight circle. 

Which wouldn't help. Not one bit. 

If you were ever in such a situation, your best bet was to hide, not run. I took care to squeeze myself into the crevice of the enclave. I was still undecided about letting Rebel know that I was here.

There was a gun shot. And then another. A howling, and a whining, a third shot... and then silence. I held my breath and waited for it to be over, but then I started breathing again when I realized this might take some time. 

"Shift. Hands on head." The instructions given were emotionless and curt. I tried to place the voice. Theo, I think. By now, I was sure Mate was here too, and I didn't want to be found. 

There was a sound, they were shifting, how to describe a shifting sound? If you were shifting, it would sound like your bones were cracking, but everyone else would hear a few small pops at best. They were returning to their human forms, the wolves who hadn't been shot.

"Don't kill us." One of the rogues said. 

Mate growled and there was silence again.

"You are now under the jurisdiction of the Silver Mountain Pack. You will be trialed and investigated according to the Laws and Statutes of the Gold Packlands." Theo informed the rogues.

"So the Night Leaf warriors are now Silver Mountain's dogs?" One of the rogues sneered.

Gunshot.

"You killed him?" The other rogue went berserk then, "You killed him? This isn't the Green Packlands! You can't just shoot at us randomly like tha-"

Silence. I'm guessing someone pointed a gun at him, and the rogue was smart enough to shut up.

I heard the distinct sound of chain and metal clinking. Cuffs? And then water splashing, followed by low groans and whining. The kind you heard in the movies when the human drank too much and woke up the next morning. What did they call it? Oh right, a hangover.

Being resurrected sounded like a hangover as shown on TV.

I couldn't resist, I took a peek out. I mean, how often did you see a dead wolf being resurrected? I had never. 

{Mine.}

Actually, I think the word for it was 'scary'. I watched, hardly daring to breathe, as the seemingly dead wolves and humans stood up again. They clutched their heads and moaned, and then cussed when they realized their wounds were still open and bleeding. The wolves whined so pitifully, it was as if they wished they had remained dead. Resurrection looked like it hurt more than dying.

Mate stood in the middle of the rising bodies, his face was masked. It was a strange half mask, broken off at the bottom, with ears - like a black wolf with red eyeliner. He also wore a long black hooded cape over the Night Leaf warrior jacket. Overall, he looked like a Night Leaf Warrior in a Halloween costume. I had to do a double take to make sure it was really him.

{Mine}

Yeah. Fine. Claim the evil apparition. Of all the guys in the world, my mate had to be the guy whose high school year book would probably dub him as "Most likely to become an evil overlord."

Opps. Just for a second, I thought he caught sight of me. I quickly ducked back into my enclave, my heart suddenly going off like a jackhammer. 

"Who...who are you?" One of the rogues asked. 

Silence. 

"Follow in single file." Theo commanded.

I released the breath that I had been holding, and waited in my hidden space as the sounds of the metal chains and shuffling of injured wolves left the scene. 

One of the rogues told the other, "It's the death god..."

Gunshot.

Silence.

"Move." Theo said.

The sounds of metal chains and shuffling resumed.

Wth was a "death god"?

My hair flared when the first motorbike roared. I crouched lower and wrapped my arms over my head to hold it down. My hair was too alpha. It didn't know how to stand down.

One by one, the motorbikes roared to life,  till the woods vibrated from the sound of their leaving. I waited till they left and then I waited some more, just to be sure, before I carefully crawled out to find a pair of black boots waiting for me just at the foot of my little hideout.

"Good morning, Princess." 

I looked up at Mate's smirking face. He hadn't removed his mask or hood, but no matter how well they concealed his identity, there was no cloak large enough to cover his arrogance. 

Up close, I noticed his cloak had a narrow red trim just on the inside around the edges.

Rebel tilted my face back up to meet his eyes, but his fingers didn't release my chin.

"Urm... I..." Wait? Why did I have to explain anything? Me being here was not something within my control in the first place. I flared at him and glared back as hard as I could, "I have every right to be here."

Which in hindsight wasn't the brightest thing to say, but it was what I said.

"I told you to stay home and wait for me." His voice low and deep, like the quiet depths of the ocean.

Wait, what? Wth was I thinking.

He released my chin, but only to touch my hair, and then as if he suddenly realized, he asked, "Are you cold?"

I shook my head before realising that I was feeling a little more chilled than comfortable. I mean, I usually skipped my jacket, even in winter, if I were just out for a while, but I had been out for a while now, I guess.

Mate took off his cloak and wrapped it around me, then he frowned, "Where the hell are your shoes, princess?"

Oh yeah, I was barefooted too. Hahaha. I hadn't even noticed, so caught up in finding myself in the centre of a rogue hunt. But now my face reddened even though Mate's attention was on my feet... Feet that were embaressingly grimy from the black dirt on the ground.  I wriggled my toes.

"I don't sleep with my shoes on." I informed Mate with all the dignity I could muster.

He made a chuffing sound and then he picked me up and put me on the back of his bike, like he literally just perched me there. I leaned sideways when he swung a leg over expecting to be kicked off, but he got on.

The bike was the same as the ones we learned to ride yesterday. Okay! I knew how to do this.

I wriggled and twisted, just a little to get into the right position. It was weird to feel the metal under my bare toes.

Mate steadied the bike at my movement behind him and mindlinked, "You've done this before?"

Of course, I've done this before! I wasn't born yesterday. (Although I did ride a bike for the first time yesterday... )

Mate growled, just a bit, and then he grabbed my hands and wrapped it around his waist, "Then hold on tight, and don't let your cute toes get too near the pipes."

What pipes?

"Exhaust. And all the other hot bits."

The only thing hot right now was my face...

The bike roared and we were off.

Riding on a bike with Mate was very different from riding on a bike with Ki. Maybe it's because of where Mate had placed my hands, because even though it was the exact same bike model, the gap between us was much smaller.

I turned my face slightly and used his broad shoulder to shield me from the onslaught of wind. My hair and the black cloak I was now wearing flew up wildly, blazing behind us.

But wheeee.... I was riding, and brrrr.... I was freezing. Going as fast as a wolf, but without my wolf coat. I hugged Mate tighter, partly to keep warm, partly to stay on.

Eventually, we stopped. Mate put down his feet, "Keep your feet up."

Urm, what else could I be doing? If he thought I was doing to put them down to help him support the bike, he had to be kidding. I already knew from my vast experience (yes, all of yesterday night) that I could not quite reach the ground even if I tried.

We waited. It's was very boring. And tiring. I can't imagine why Mate didn't just kick down the stand. And then I realized why when I heard a chorus of motor bikes, reving to go. Mate reved up too. The hunt was on!

Now the same thing happened as it did before - only that before, I was trapped in the centre of the hunt. Now I was heading the hunt.

Okay, Mate was heading the hunt. I was just free-riding, literally.

And then I realized why these motorbikes were this specific model when I saw the other warrior bikers. Except for Mate's bike, there was always two full grown warriors on each bike. One to drive, and the other to shoot.

The foot rest turned out to be the perfect perch for the pillion to stand up on and shoot.

It was wild and crazy, the reving engines were used, just like our howling in wolf form to let the prey know we were here, driving them into a frenzied panic.

The moment they ran out of their hiding place, our bikes would round them up. There was no where to run the moment you were caught up in the hunt, and Mate and his underground warriors were systematic and meticulous, scouring the entire territory, in one concentric wave after another.

Except for reving his engine, and I suspect commanding the hunt though mindlink, Mate didnt get into the frontline position of any of the attacks. Even so, he rode like the devil whenever it was our turn to move. I couldn't help but notice he was making unnecessarily sharp turns, and accelerating with all the suddenness of a bull trying to throw off its rider.

I had to hold onto him with everything that I had got, and I meant everything. Did you know that you could hold on to something with your thighs? Yeah. You can.

After a while, I caught on to Mate - he was was riding like that on purpose! Well, if he were going to be such a bull about it, I wasn't going to do down without a fight. Without moving my hands from his midsection, I pressed myself right against his back, and used my thighs to squeeze around his hips. Let's see you try to throw me off now!

Stoopid Mate. Wait till I learned to ride! Then I'll pillion you and see how you like it!

Finally, the last of the rogues were cornered. This time only 2 rogues made it to the center of the hunt. Large brutes with matted fur and bloodshot eyes. I think these two had been on the run for a long while.

Mate had stopped his bike behind some trees during the final commotion of motorbikes and rogue wolves. This time round, the rogues were far fiercer fighters. I heard a bike fall over and a few of our warriors shifting. A wolf fight ensued. And then I heard Theo's emotionless voice, "Shift. Hands on head."

It was only then that Mate suddenly leaned back, kick one leg in front of him and swung it over to get off the bike... he could've just asked me to get off first.

"Stay." It was a mindlinked alpha command. How dare he! I flared, but he only turned around and pointed a finger at me.

Stay?

I waited.

Stoopid dumbbell.

The moment he was a safe distance away, I hopped off the bike and slipped behind the nearest tree. Carefully edging forwards, I tried to get closer to see what was happening. It was dead quiet, and my nose wasn't working.

By the time I got near enough, the entire thing was over. The wolves, now in their human form were chained and sent off with Theo "under the jurisdiction of the Silver Mountain Pack blah blah blah..."

Theo had pretty much recited the entire thing he said earlier, as if it were a script. This suddenly made think of Ben at the Youth Club this morning. Theo would not have made a good front desk either.

Well that was fun. But I wanted to wake up and get an exciting mission of my own now. I was done with riding on my Mate's coat tails.

I returned to the motorbike and slipped out of the black cloak. Leaving it dropped over the seat, I took a step back to go.

"Leaving already?" Mate smirked.

I nearly jumped out of my skin. WTH! Why didn't you warn me, Boo?

"I'm waking up!" I announced, more loudly than necessary.

{No}

Stoopid Boo.

And then I forced myself awake.

The last thing I saw was Mate's stoopid smirk, and the golden eyes that swirled, "Later..."

What about later?

{Stoopid you.}

Grrr....

I sat up, my hair flaring. I was in my room again, my golden clam shell bed, my matching lemony scented sheets.

And oh s***, I've soiled my sheets. As in with the dirt on my feet. Hahahaha.