Feral Northern Shifters 2

Ethan was pleased to see that he wasn’t quite so bony looking. Also the distraction of teaching Ethan had gotten rid of the worst of Bram’s edginess. Or maybe that was all the sex.
Hmmm. There might be inventive ways to avoid these dreaded worksheets, at least for one more night.
    Bram let Ethan use sex to distract him the first night. It was simply too much fun. But the second night they started this new kind of tug-of-war where Bram refused to play if Ethan didn’t work. Bram managed to get through one worksheet before he gave up and let Ethan seduce him.
    But even that one worksheet was enough to ease up Ethan’s resistance to the whole endeavor. Not that Ethan enjoyed working on his word recognition the third night, but the stress reaction was gone and mostly he found it tiresome and carried an air about him that suggested he was doing Bram a huge favor.
    By the fourth night, Bram had the sense there was some interest on Ethan’s part, though he seemed loath to admit it. He also noted that Ethan’s problem might be partly dyslexia-based, but decided this topic could wait a while, given how touchy Ethan was about his reading ability.
    Their pattern continued, even through Ethan’s different work hours. The following week Bram ran under the full moon at nights, sometimes with Ethan, sometimes without depending on his work schedule. Always Bram tried not to think about Doug. Trey claimed all was under his control, Ethan believed him and who was Bram to know differently? But sometimes he woke up shivering with foreboding, and even if Ethan could soothe away the immediacy of the fear, the threat of Doug’s retribution remained.

Chapter Twenty-Three
    Ethan cranked up the radio. He didn’t particularly like the song. It made him feel old, like he’d missed the past decade of his life, which he had. But he wanted to drive to a beat, and by the third time the chorus came around, he joined in, singing “going for you” three times in a row off-key.
    As the song wound down, a car pulled over to pass him and Ethan eased up on the gas to allow it. But instead of speeding on, the gray car with tinted windows slowed down, forcing Ethan to follow suit.
A second car pulled up behind him.
Ethan’s heart picked up like a jackhammer, the danger so sudden and unexpected it took a moment to process what was happening to him. He was sandwiched between two cars. He’d only ever been trapped by people who wanted to do him harm and he refused to be trapped again. Once this year had been hell enough.
Yeah, the tinted-window cars didn’t much resemble werewolves, but someone was sure as hell targeting him.
He decelerated, as if he were cooperating with these assholes. At the curve he slammed down on the gas and jumped around the car ahead. He listened to his own vehicle trying to pick up speed. Trey had lent him a nice-enough Ford, but it wasn’t exactly going to outrace anything.
The gray car rolled up behind him again, this time bumping his back end slightly before it pulled alongside, and all Ethan could think was there was going to be a fucking accident on this two-lane highway and he had to get off the road, out of this car and out of this human skin. He unhitched his seat belt and hit the button on the side of his door so his window descended.
The car pulled in front to slow him down a second time and, just before the guardrail started, Ethan swerved right. As the car began to hurtle, he threw himself out the open window.
His Ford whipped past him, too close for comfort. Ethan rolled, hitting his shoulder harder than he liked, somersaulting three times through the brush, but eventually, and a little shakily, landing on his feet.
He ran.
    Bram printed out another bunch of worksheets, not that Ethan would be thrilled—though he could actually read to some extent. It was a frustrating, slow experience, however, and his reading vocabulary had stalled with that of a nine-year-old. Bram’s heart constricted a little, thinking of Ethan losing his mother and having to fend for himself. It kind of amazed Bram that Ethan was so strong.
    His mother had loved him those nine years, that much was obvious. Ethan didn’t speak much about her, except that he couldn’t remember what she looked like and that bothered him. Bram wondered if Trey, with his many resources, would be able to track down a picture of Ethan’s mother. She had stressed to Ethan that his shapeshifting ability was a gift not a curse. That ended up counting