| hear him curse under his breath. “What does your wolf remember about being a Guardian?”


    ‘Maia?’


    ‘Just that | am a Guardian and that makes me powerful.”


    “She knows we''re a Guardian and that we are strong.”


    “But she doesn’t know how to ess her strength? She doesn’t remember anything about her past?”


    “No. Nothing.”


    “Okay, Grace, listen. | don’t know that we can get you out of there without a fight. If the timees, you need to be prepared to


    run and possibly fight. Even if you have to leave Eli. We can go back for him but it’s you that they want. And if you are not willing


    to have him mark you, then you will have to run. Head east. Listen to Eli, he’s good at evasion, but if the timees, run. And if


    you have to fight, don’t hesitate. Maia should get her memories if she’s put in the position of having to fight.”


    “Okay.” | answer, knowing | can’t leave Eli. Maia has already told me that we''re his Guardian and we are bound to him, so


    leaving him isn’t an option. | hand the phone back to Eli.N?velDrama.Org copyrighted ? content.


    He’s watching me closely. “Okay, yeah, I''ll let you know when we''re safe. If you don’t hear from me in two days, send out a


    search party.” He tells Alpha Liam before hanging up.


    “You need to do what Liam said. You need to run, even if it means leaving me behind.”


    “| can’t. Maia won’t let me. We''re your Guardian and it means we are bound to you.”


    “| have a n, but | don’t know if it will work. When we get there, we need to be ready to move fast. They will have to park and it


    will give us a few moments to get off the bus


    and run. If we’re lucky, all the scents around the bus station will confuse them. If we aren''t, they''ll follow us and call for


    reinforcements. Let''s


    hope Maia is fast.”


    When we see the bus station, Eli has us move forward to seats closer to the door. As soon as we stop, he has us up and at the


    door. When the doors open, he steps.


    #15 BONOS


    out, pulling me behind him and checking both ways before taking off at a jog. | follow him as we skirt around buses and the bus


    station. When we get to the back of the building, he looks around one more time before we race for the nearest trees. There isn’t


    much area to hide so we run as fast as we can.


    As soon as we hit the trees, we shift and begin running in wolf form. We''ve been running for about an hour when we hear the


    howl go up. They are tracking us. Every time we find a stream orke, we run in or through the water as much as we can to hide


    our scent. We have to be careful of alligators, so we can’t run in the water as much as we’d like.


    We finally stop to take a break, catching our breath and getting a snack. Eli pulls. a map out of his bag and looks at it checking


    our surroundings trying to figure out where we are. “We need to keep heading north, but | think we can start veering east a bit.”


    He looks at me. “How is Maia? Can she keep running?”


    “Yes, we''re good.”


    He nods. “Okay, we’re going to run until dusk and see if we can find a ce to hole up for the night. If not, we''ll have to run


    through the night. There aren’t any caves around here to hide, so we may have to make due with trees.”


    As the day goes on, my muscles ache, but we continue to run. | refuse to slow down. When the sun starts to set, we see a sign


    that lets us know we are near the Arkansas border. There is a small town and outside of the town there is an area with small hills.


    | follow Louis up the hill and wait while he sniffs around and finds a spot where he feels it is safe for us to rest.


    When he gives me the all-clear, | copse on the ground.


    BONDA SL-