by Kat Kinney
“If we’re talking strategy, it’s a fifteen-minute timeout for hard contact, and the vests will register a hit every five seconds.”
My brother’s eyes narrowed. “Your point?”
“So isn’t it better to take someone out, wait out the penalty and reenter the game?”
Lacey pinched my side. “Just shut up so we can play.”
August rolled his eyes. “If you’re talking about the River gambit—”
River raised his rifle overhead. “Respect.”
“—that was outlawed two years ago—”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Guillermo murmured, examining his laser gun like he’d never handled one before. Or maybe anything purchased from Target. “So many rules.”
“You asked once how they all survived to adulthood,” my mom replied mildly.
“Anyway,” West went on, glaring at us all like he wished there were a way to deduct points during gameplay for not listening to the instructions. “Since it’s not safe to shift with so many Feds crawling around town, we thought this would be a fun way to blow off steam.”
“Hell yeah.” Hayden leaned up to bite her husband’s ear. He kissed her neck. I gave them five minutes after the whistle blew. Ten, tops.
“This is Hunger Games style elimination. Once you’re out, come back to base camp. No shifting and no powers.”
“And if the talented pretty boys can’t shoot straight?” August called from the back.
River flipped him off.
“Tall, dark and dangerous works on you.” Grabbing my target vest, Lacey rose up on her toes. Our tongues met, the kiss stretching far longer than was decent. Grinning, she shoved me away. “But you’re still going down.”
“My kind of woman.”
“Okay, tributes,” West called. “You know the drill.”
Hayden whistled the four-note Mockingjay tune, aimed her laser gun at her husband and backed off towards the trees.
Ethan smirked. “Just remember who makes your iced mocha lattes every morning.”
“Harsh.”
Pulling out my phone, I texted Lacey.
Me: Alliance? Peeta and Katniss for the win? We can play baker later and I’ll let you untie my apron.
BabyGotBake: Oh so tempting. Especially the apron.
Me: Expires in five.
The whistle blew. We scattered, the mandatory three-minute nonaggression period ticking down. Immediately, I closed down my connection to the others through the pack bond. Cold nothingness settled over my shoulders like a lead blanket. Turning north, I waded upstream through a shallow creek bed until it converged at the base of a limestone outcropping and small waterfall.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Two-minute warning. Crap. Had to hurry. Further uphill from the tiny pool and waterfall, the trees grew thicker, gnarled, prickly juniper branches clawing at my face and neck as I fought my way through the underbrush. In Texas, every kid memorized the four kinds of poisonous snakes by second grade. Think of it as practical science. And damn straight anyone growing up out in the country knew not to stick their hand anywhere they couldn’t see. Which meant if I stumbled into a nest of rattlesnakes on game night, my brothers would never let me hear the end of it.
With a shudder, I charged out of the cedar thicket, thankfully snake free. A gangly oak stood at its edge, and there, wedged in its limbs—
Double-timing it up to the tree, I yanked down the rifle just as my phone buzzed with the final warning. One minute left, and then all hell would break loose. Everyone was issued your basic kiddie-model laser rifle at the start of the night. These were custom-built rifles, programmed to fire twice as many shots per second, at longer ranges and with more accurate sights.
Powering the rifle on, I checked the screen. And got… nothing. Quickly, I held it up to the moonlight just as my phone buzzed in my pocket.
FriesWithThat: And we’re live. Best of luck, tributes.
Me: Decoy rifles? For real?
FriesWithThat: At last the student has become the master.
Me: I always knew you were a closeted Sith.
It took thirty minutes and two hits to my target vest (fuck you, August) to secure a tricked-up rifle. By then, the virtual cannon app had fired twice, announcing Hayden and Ethan were out (like we couldn’t tell where that was going to end up.) Guillermo had been placed in a fifteen-minute timeout for using his powers. Which, props to my brother. It wasn’t every day you saw one of the most powerful werewolves in North America stripped of two life bars, told to relinquish the assault rifle I was pretty sure he’d stolen off River after some illegal hand to hand, and forced to reenter the arena with only a kiddie gun. With snipers poised to take him out.
God, I loved my family.
Moonlight glinted off something down in the weeds, a pale silver thread thin as a spiderweb. Backing away just in time, I followed its trajectory off into the trees. Trip wire. Crosshatch pattern. No doubt tied to concussion grenades. I cursed under my breath. But if it were one of my brothers waiting up in a tree, they probably would have taken me out by now. Using my phone as a flashlight, I illuminated the ground. Sure enough, a wide grid pattern had been woven expertly into the underbrush. And it had Sofia Montemayor-Caldwell written all over it. I dropped a pin in the location on my phone, made a wide circle around it and retreated up the hillside to where the wild prairie grass grew tall enough to hide me.
My phone vibrated. West’s official game app popped up with a notification. I clicked to open it and a map appeared. Eight of us still active. Seven locator beacons. And up at the top, a two-minute clock counting down.
Me: For real? Brody said—
FriesWithThat: I cleared it. August modified the collars so that they’ll emit a signature that obscures our mass and shape. There are feral hogs all over this area.
Me: What are you saying about the svelte shape of my wolf?
FriesWithThat: That you’d better hurry. We all know how that white fur glows like printer paper on Monday morning when you haven’t had coffee.
Me: No more okra for you. And how come we never play on days it snows?
FriesWithThat: Because the half inch of sleet we get twice a year was totally going to conceal you?
Me: I should get a camo flak jacket. Or Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak.
FriesWithThat: Believe me, River and August have been geeking out like crazy for years trying to reverse engineer that particular tech.
Dropping my phone and rifle in the grass, I tore through the trees towards the nearest locator beacon. We weren’t allowed to remove our target vests without forfeiting the game. If I failed to reconstruct it shifting back, I’d be eliminated.
Branches tore at my face and hair as I descended down a steep hillside, sharp-tongued wild grasses clawing at my fatigues. At least a minute had passed. Maybe more. Then I spotted it. Just across a shallow creek was a black mesh collar.
“Score,” I murmured, and let the change tear me from my human form.
Anything could go down in a lightning round. Didn’t make it to a collar before the counter ticked down? Automatic out. Beacons weren’t assigned, so if two people went for the same one, shit got real fast. The collars were August’s custom design, fitted with sensors to register hits for a half-meter radius. He’d come up with a trigger that was bite-activated with a firing laser located at shoulder height. My little brother? Freaking. Genius.
Wriggling my head into the collar, I got my paws back under me just in time to see a dark figure crashing through the trees, still in human form. Topher. And if I could see him—
Snatching up the trigger in my teeth, I fired. The laser sighting seared my visual field, streaking the night sky like this was eighties night in a club from hell.
Snarls sounded as I splashed my way back through the creek daintily on my toes, trying to keep the electronics from getting wet. Ethan learned that lesson the hard way last year and fried his way out of the game. A red laser sight passed just over my ears.
&n
bsp; Fracking. White. Fur.
Growling, I hit the dirt. My collar vibrated with a hit anyway. I growled again. No more barbeque for these people. Three hits and you were out in a lightning round. And as West had smugly reminded me, I was about as conspicuous as a polar bear on newly poured asphalt. Next year, I was rolling in the dirt even if it made me smell like roadkill for a week. It took me ten minutes of backtracking and firing over my shoulder for cover to get clear. Snarls sounded out in the dark. Slinking behind a tree, I scanned the gully below me. My collar buzzed again. One more hit and I was out. I whipped my head to the north, trying to decide which way to bolt—
—when the electronics powering the collar went dead. A high-pitched whistle sounded. Relief flooded me. And then I inwardly swore. Right now, all across the tournament field, River and my mom, and everyone else who could easily shift with weapons in hand would be transforming back. And my phone and rifle were off in the grass where I’d dropped them.
Run.
Half an hour later, I’d decided my brothers were either full on evil geniuses or just plain evil. West’s official game app had popped up, notifying us that Topher had been eliminated. Brody had used a burner phone to lure River out, then sniped him from the high ground, taking him down to four life bars. Our kid brother was way too reliant on his powers, accustomed to being able to passively overhear the thoughts of anyone within a certain radius of his position unless he actively suppressed his abilities. All neural manipulators could extract thoughts to one degree or another. It was how they rewrote memory. But most had to work at it. The raw power that my brother had manifested with at puberty had pretty much freaked all of us out.
Down on my stomach, I scanned the steep limestone ravine below me for movement. Light flickered somewhere far off in the trees. A branch snapped and my hackles rose. The lights from the house shone several miles off in the distance. My phone buzzed in my pocket. Carefully testing the air (after Brody’s killer move, everyone was on edge), I used one hand to slide it out.
BabyGotBake: Where are you?
Me: This another ambush? Because remember who took your turn on cat poop duty this morning…
BabyGotBake: OMG. Must we talk about the litter box from hell? Permanently scarred here.
An image came through. Lacey stood reflected in the mirror of the upstairs bathroom in nothing but a bra and black lacy panties, possibly the smallest pair of black lacy panties ever made.
A growl vibrated deep in my chest, the moon’s call singing in my blood like a drug. The bond flared, the connection between us sharpening like a rope pulling taut.
Me: If this is an ambush…
BabyGotBake: We both know I don’t do coy.
Lacey’s heartbeat fluttered like a caged moth, wild and heady. She wanted me to chase?
Hell yeah.
Charging through the trees, I sent Lacey the mental image of what I planned to do to her once I caught up. My lips slowly tasting every inch of her body. One inch in particular—
She stumbled. I growled, feeling myself thicken. You want to play, baby? Moonlight streamed down through the high craggy branches overhead, casting the wild Texas grassland beyond in a patchwork of starlight and shadow. I emerged out into an open field, pulse roaring higher every second. Something darted off to my right. I turned. A shot nailed me dead on in the center of the chest.
The hair rose at the back of my neck, adrenaline coursing through me like wildfire.
She. Did. Not.
Growling, I shifted direction. I was running on raw animal power, the wolf in the driver’s seat. Feral desire roared in my blood, the beast’s base instinct to hunt fraying what little remained of my control. I leaped a fallen log. Lacey whipped around, peeling off a string of shots that nearly laid me out flat on my back. Heat flared through the bond. I sent an image of her down on her knees, lowering my fly as I fisted her hair—
Lacey gasped, pulse racing. I stroked the claiming mark she’d left on my biceps, feeling the instant her breathing synched with mine. Chasing her out into the meadow, I took one shot to the vest before yanking the rifle from her hands. I threw it to the ground, growling. Her pupils dilated.
“So you lured me out here.” He bit my bottom lip. “Shot me down to four life bars.” There went my target vest. “And now you think you’re going to have your way with me?”
“Consider it payback for the four cases of pineapple that showed up at Blair’s just before I left to come here.”
“Um, yeah. Not me.”
“Stupid North Austin pack—"
I captured her face in my hands, cutting her off with a kiss.
I read once that the average person falls in love five times before they meet their soulmate. Human or shifter, we’re fractured beings with fragile hearts, each of us wandering through life in search of that singular connection, that one person who can make our heart race from the moment they enter a room. The person for whom you’d go out at 2 a.m. in the rain just to find Ben and Jerry’s and a bottle of painkillers on nights when being a girl sucked. The person who would spend four hours hunting down the biggest spider ever in your kitchen. And never tell your brothers when it turned out to be dryer lint.
The first time I knew I loved Lacey Blair, it was on a warm April night sitting out on the back tailgate of my truck. Her hair was pulled up into one of the high ponytails I loved twirling my fingers through, and we were eating chocolate dipped cones from the Dairy Queen in the next town over because I couldn’t afford for us to be seen together. Thousands of stars blanketed the sky overhead. The air smelled of dewy spring wildflowers. Like hope. And if ever I’d believed wishes might be granted, even impossible ones, my sixteen-year-old self believed it there under that canopy of stars.
But I didn’t tell her. Not that night, and not any of the nights that followed. Love meant a thousand promises I couldn’t keep, and I didn’t want to say the words until there were no more lies between us.
Only by then, it was too late.
“Should we be doing this?” Lacey breathed, fingers tangled in my hair. Moonlight hummed wild and electric across our exposed skin. Our clothes were gone, her nipples wet and swollen from my lips and tongue. “If someone catches us—"
“You worried about the naughty list?”
“As if. I happen to know you and your brothers once went streaking across the football field in broad daylight on a dare—
”
“Okay, one, that was just me and West. Two, neither of us wanted to, and it’s a good thing they’re cracking down on hazing now, but I see where you’re going with this—”
“—and your family wants me gone.”
“Forget about them.”
I tugged the luscious pink tip with my teeth. She gasped, arching beneath me on the grass, and I bent to press my lips to the hot skin of her pulse point. Her fingertips skimmed the thin scar she’d left at my bicep, opening the bond between us. A wave of sensitive, tingling heat washed over my skin, roaring all the way to the tip of my swollen cock. With a groan, I buried myself in her sex, knowing I wasn’t going to last long, not this time.
“Dallas,” she whispered, my name soft, almost breakable, the way that drew a shiver up the back of my neck every time.
There was something about stripping yourself bare for a person that brought out every last insecurity you’d tried to hide under layers of bravado and snark. My lips mapped the curve of her collarbone, nibbled the ticklish spot behind her ear that made her toes curl against the back of my calf, savoring every inch of her skin. She tasted of coconut shampoo and sage, woodsmoke and sex, a wild, heady scent I couldn’t get enough of.
I bent to take one dark rosy nipple in my mouth, tugging at the other. Lacey’s breath caught, our link through the bond causing mine to still. I growled, feeling the needy ache between her thighs sharpen with every pull of my lips, felt my thrusts between her legs driving her to a precipice there was no going back from. Sensation exploded across my skin, a carnal shiver crashing be
tween us like a wave breaking against the shore. I couldn’t stop, needed the raw intimacy of this moment, the addictive pain and pleasure of her teeth at my throat while I fucked her with raw abandon. Lacey’s eyes fluttered closed. I groaned, driving deeper, losing myself in her.
“Fuck, I can’t stop. I’m going to come inside you—"
“Yes,” she breathed, gripping my shoulders so hard it hurt, forcing me deeper. Delicious, primal pain twisted up my cock, driving my hips faster. “Dallas, I’m close.”
Moonlight blazed over my skin, fueling the wild, animalistic heat raging between us. A low purr vibrated in my chest. I sucked rough marks up the column of her throat, the wolf inside of me needing to mark, to claim, to mate. I threw my head back, drugged by her scent, by the feeling of her around me, and the wild, heady heat of our coupling. She bit my shoulder and I growled, palming her breast.
Mine.
The second time I knew I loved Lacey Blair, I was on a plane flying over Denver, the vast blue sky outside the window causing my heart to race as I thought of the miles increasing exponentially between us. The bruises my father had left were gone from my skin, erased by my shifter blood, but I could still feel every one etched indelibly on my soul. Lacey was my mate, and according to both my parents, I was toxic for her. The best thing I could do now was to disappear.
Her release came hard and fast, a roar through the bond that left me gritting my teeth, unable to contain what was coming. I wasn’t gentle. She didn’t stop me. We twisted and grappled down in the grass, biting and claiming, bodies wholly human even as I felt myself giving over control to the wolf. And when I finally let go, her nails digging into my back like she wanted to keep me there, linked with her forever, I felt something inside me shatter just as it was made whole.
After that we went slow. There under a canopy of stars, with moonlight warming our naked skin, I fell in love for the third time. This time it was with my best friend, who just that morning had traded out all the aprons in my restaurant for hot pink ones from Blair’s, weighed our cat obsessively on a food scale, and always seemed to have my favorite cherry pie and a carton of ice cream on hand when I snuck over across the street to her kitchen in the middle of the night.
