by Woods, Erica
So where was Matthew?
I looked down at my feet, nodded until the burn from Gideon’s scrutiny faded.
Had Matthew been picked during the earlier commotion? Had I just missed him, or . . .
There was no or. If everyone was required to attend the games and no one was allowed to leave, he had to be here. No one would dare defy the Council—except maybe others on the Council.
And Matthew definitely wasn’t a Council member.
Too bad, or they’d have destroyed the Hunters without me having to ask.
I sighed and turned to study my teammates.
After me, Gideon had picked a redheaded scrawny-looking kid who couldn’t be more than eighteen; a sleek, prowling male that reminded me more of a panther than a wolf; a barrel-chested guy with a permanent frown etched across his burly features; and a massive, mountain of a man complete with Viking-like braids and the same stubborn expression on his face that Gideon seemed to favor. The last man was the only one who received a nod from Gideon, the others were barely acknowledged.
Once the last lycan had walked over to his team, Samuel announced we had fifteen minutes to get to know each other before the games started. This sparked a flood of movement, and the line dispersed.
With a jerk of his chin, Gideon walked over to a more secluded area, throwing suspicions, narrow-eyed glances at every lycan we passed.
“Strategies,” Gideon barked. “We don’t need to win this thing, but I’ll be damned if we place lower than Jay.”
The big Viking grunted. “Can’t be letting your enforcer beat you, or he might get ideas.”
“Oh, he has ideas all right,” Gideon muttered darkly. “If he wins, he gets to choose—” He snapped his mouth shut and shot us all a glare. “Doesn’t matter. Shade”—he turned to the sleek, dark-haired guy I’d likened to a panther—”your alpha told me you’re the stealthiest bastard he’s ever come across. That true?”
Although he showed no outward signs of paying attention to us, Shade nodded once.
“And you, Barr? Are the rumors true?”
The barrel-chested guy I now knew to be Barr kept on frowning. “Aye, ‘tis true, that. I bested the grizzly, but keep in mind he wasnae the champion at the time, and if ye are thinking tae—”
“I’m super fast,” the kid interjected, short, red curls bouncing with the same, restless energy that had him rocking up to the balls of his feet and jumping from foot to foot, never standing still.
As soon as he spoke, Gideon spun around and pierced him with a ferocious frown. “Don’t interrupt your elders, pup!”
The kid shrunk back and quickly stared down at the grass. “Sorry, alpha.”
Gideon grunted. “The kid is fast. As if I didn’t know.” He shook his head. “That only leaves Calder”—the big blond Viking made a grunt of acknowledgment—“and the human.”
The kid frowned. “The human can’t do nothing. She’s human!”
“Reggie, if you don’t shut your mouth then by god, I’ll shut it for you!”
The kid—Reggie—took a few quick steps back, and it hit me that he was putting himself out of striking range.
The thought didn’t sit well.
While the others argued about some game called the shocker, I moved closer to the kid. “He’s not going to hurt you,” I whispered, praying I was right in my assessment of Gideon. After being on the receiving end of his terrifying glares, frowns, and bellows, I’d come to the conclusion he was more bark than bite.
At least until properly provoked.
Dear god, let me be right.
Reggie shot me a disgruntled look and stepped away. “Stay back, human.” He spat the word like it was dirty.
“I only wanted to help—”
“I don’t need nothing from you,” he sneered, the ugly expression almost concealing the desperation he tried so hard to hide.
Not wanting to upset him further, I moved back to the others and watched as his shoulders slumped.
“What pack is Reggie from?” I asked Gideon during a short lull in their conversation, surprised at the sudden attention my question drew.
“What’s it to ye, lass?” Barr asked.
“I . . . I was just wondering.”
Calder twisted his thick neck and looked down at me. His fearsome scowl would have sent me scurrying just a few weeks ago, but by now I was so used to Ruarc’s fierce grumpiness that Calder’s intimidation tactics only resulted in a nervous twist of my stomach rather than mindless terror.
And if he really wants to hurt me, my guys will protect me.
The thought came completely unbidden, a shockingly instinctual response. I . . . I trusted them. More than I had ever trusted anyone else.
A threatening growl dragged me back to the present, and I stumbled back from the big male.
The sound had been a warning, one I wanted to heed, but Calder followed, piercing me with a dark, almost black gaze that I couldn’t look away from.
No matter how hard I tried.
“Your rank here does not allow you to interrupt.” His gaze felt like a burn that penetrated where it wasn’t allowed. A place that belonged to no man, no woman, no creature but me. “You will speak when spoken to. Otherwise, keep your mouth shut.” Without breaking our eye contact, he addressed Reggie, “That goes for you as well.”
As he threatened, glare hard and unyielding, my skin prickled, my insides rolled, and the cage that confined my monster rattled.
He moved even closer, looming above me, a position that was inherently meant to threaten, meant to make someone weaker feel small and helpless.
We are not helpless . . .
The bars of my monster’s prison disintegrated. The presence that had been slumbering, shrouded in a dark veil, awoke and filled me with the heat of its rage. It burned so brightly, so blisteringly hot, that for a moment, it felt like my body would dissolve and leave only a blazing spirit behind.
“And what about your rank, beta?” The angry words came quickly and unbidden, without being filtered by conscious thought.
Not mine.
Far, far away, panic slammed into my chest and set my heart racing.
I could barely feel it.
A slight widening of dark eyes, then Calder raised his top lip, revealing fangs that grew until they overlapped his bottom teeth and sliced the top layer of his gums.
The scent blood, sweet and fragrant, swept over me.
I swayed, almost closed my eyes, but they were still locked in silent combat with the male that had threatened us, and the longer the silent battle raged, the more my surroundings shrank.
Blurred.
“Careful, human, or I might decide to teach you a lesson.”
“Try,” I taunted, and somewhere there was another faint lash of panic. Of horror.
My body was no longer my own, and had I been fully aware, fully in control, that realization would have left me shaking in a ball on the floor.
Calder paused. A hint of uncertainty entered his eyes. “You wish to test me, human?”
The monster seemed to expand inside me, filling every nook and crevice, ballooning its darkness until I was fully enveloped.
“Only if you want to lose.” My voice was low and filled with threat, my eyes boring into Calder’s, my will pushing against his.
A rush in my veins, a lunge of invisible teeth, and then Calder shook his head and broke our eye contact.
Satisfaction coursed through the dark presence in my mind, an awful, wrong exhaustion nipping at its heels. The monster receded, retreated behind its shadowy veil and continued its slumber.
Leaving me to deal with the consequences of its actions.
My insides turned to water, my knees threatened to buckle, my fingers trembled.
I’d . . . I’d lost control.
But how?
It had been so many years since the last time. So many tears shed, so many hours spent building its prison, so much torture withstood.
I knew it had been gr
owing stronger, but this . . .
Fear of the danger I represented to those I loved, fear of what I could do, what I’d done in the past, threw me into a pitch black tunnel moments away from collapse.
I swayed.
I hadn’t even begun to process what retaliation I might suffer. Calder could very well decide to teach me a lesson and in the state I was in, consumed by thoughts of my monster, I would be powerless to stop him.
Heart racing, lungs empty, I tried to understand what had just happened. How it had happened. But I couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t hear anything but the roar of my pulse.
Could the monster do that again? Could it wrest control away from me any time it wanted?
The world pitched forward and I closed my eyes, knowing I was moments away from hitting the ground. Moments away from my heart exploding.
Calm, banajaanh. The memory of Ash’s voice floated through my head, steady and reassuring. You are safe.
The uneven breaths I’d been gulping down came slower. Easier.
I pushed all thoughts of my monster away, and when I came back to myself, when I dared open my eyes, all my teammates were staring at me, even the kid. While the latter’s mouth hung open, Slade’s expression was blank, and Barr looked startled. Calder’s gaze rested just above my head, a deep frown carving lines into his face.
No one looked particularly happy, but they didn’t seem about to attack, either. Gideon actually looked satisfied.
“It’s good to know some humans possess a strong spirit,” he said in his bass voice. “It will make our hunt all the more satisfying.”
“Unusual.” Slade’s voice was as smooth as his movements. “I have met no other humans with the fortitude to keep a lycan’s gaze. Not when challenged.”
He spoke as though I’d persevered, but in truth, I’d been unable to look away. I’d thought it was a lycan trick—like how Ash had said alphas could catch you with their gaze—and that looking away was an option I didn’t have.
Had the . . . had my monster been the reason I couldn’t break his gaze? I’d broken Ash’s gaze before. Was it the same, or something completely different? And what did it say about me?
Am I . . . is my monster—
A violent shake of my head and all dangerous thoughts slipped away.
“Now we know one thing the human is good at,” Gideon said in a pleased tone. “Maybe she can be useful after all.”
40
Hope
It turned out Gideon had been wrong. I was as far from useful as rain during a volcanic eruption. With my promise to Jason and Lucien ringing in my ears, I’d conceded my part in three games already.
It chafed.
I wanted to make my guys proud, make them cheer and hoot like some of the lycans did when females from their pack competed—even when they competed against their males’ teams. But my guys didn’t cheer. They didn’t hoot. They watched me with hard eyes and flat lips, paleing each time my name was called, shuddering each time I conceded.
After a particularly vicious game where two teams of three raced up and down the only field that had ditches carved into the ground while opposing members—in wolf form—did their best to herd, chase, or drag their competitors into the much-too-deep holes, I stood on the sidelines and watched as a member of our team fought a member of the competing team.
Lucien’s team.
The point of the game was simple; fight until someone lost consciousness or yielded. Both Gideon and Slade had won their matches while Barr had lost after a vicious kick to the head. I, of course, hadn’t fought. Before I could step into the small ring and surrender, Gideon had frowned at the other team and told them I would not be fighting. The look of disappointment flashing over my would-be opponent’s face had chilled my blood. He’d looked way too eager to fight, an evil smile on his narrow face as his gaze glided over my body like I was a particularly plump rabbit and he hadn’t eaten in centuries.
Relieved I wouldn’t be facing him and grateful to Gideon for sparing me yet another bumbling attempt at forfeiting, I turned to the next to last match.
Lucien against Calder.
After watching the brutal fights; the horrid injuries, dread had twisted my stomach into tight, uneven knots that had me swallow convulsively while fighting to keep myself from vomiting.
I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood.
Lucien was far from small, but his lean muscles and perfectly sculpted body lacked the sheer mass Calder brought to the fight. My heart pounded in my chest when the two men met in the middle and exchanged a few, muted words. Whatever Calder said made Lucien jerk his head up and catch my gaze. Fury lit the green orbs from within, and with a tight dip of his chin, Lucien turned back and prepared to fight.
It was the shortest fight so far. Moving with a speed that left me breathless, Lucien had Calder pinned on his stomach, a knee in his back, a tight grip on both Calder’s massive arms.
They looked ready to pop out of their sockets.
A muttered curse followed by a grumbled, “I yield,” and Lucien shoved the other man away with a disgusted sound, and walked back to his team. Amidst the congratulations and slaps on his back, his glowing green eyes never left mine and my body heated despite the distance between us.
I lifted my arm and gave him a hesitant, jerky wave.
For a horrible, frozen moment, he didn’t react. He stilled, gaze boring into mine with a dangerous, predatory intensity, and I thought he’d leave me like that, my hand in the air like . . . like some kind of smitten stalker. But then he inclined his head, looking cold and regal and so beautiful it hurt, and something tight in my chest loosened.
It was ridiculous—a silly girlish notion—but a part of me was sure that simple gesture had meant something. I didn’t know what, or why, but it gave me a secret thrill.
A thrill that died a mournful death a second later when a tall, slender woman strolled up to Lucien, gave him a coy smile, and murmured a greeting I couldn’t hear.
The hand I’d forgotten in the air suddenly burned. I jerked it down, the burn spreading to my cheeks.
The eyes still locked on mine narrowed, and I looked away.
It didn’t matter that Lucien barely acknowledged the woman at his side or that she left within a minute or so. All that mattered was the intent on her symmetrical face, the heat in her pale blue eyes as she tossed her head and winked at Lucien, the way she moved; bold and confident, hips swaying with every step.
When she entered the circle where she would fight next, my stomach was a hollow pit.
This woman, this female was lycan, and I . . . I was not.
An ugly, black emotion attacked my chest with a vice that refused to stop squeezing. And when Reggie swaggered out to meet her, expecting an easy victory only to be beaten in less than five minutes, the vice tightened until breathing became excruciating.
It wasn’t that she’d won so much as it was the grins of the males on her team. It wasn’t her strength or speed or skill, but the proud roars of the packmates that were close enough to witness her victory.
The aching, gnawing hollowness and the relentless, brutal vice stemmed from the knowledge that I could never give my guys what a female of their species could. I couldn’t win any of the Assembly games and make them proud. I couldn’t give them little lycan children to carry on their heritage—only halflings who’d be at the mercy of the human hating lycans until the day they died. I couldn’t even give them the joy of sharing a hunt or a long, exhilarating run in their wolf forms.
They were lycan and I was human, and all I could give them was a lifetime of responsibility, of having to look after a weak, defenseless woman with trust issues, a debilitating past, and secrets that would shatter our bonds, obliterate all trust, and exterminate any love.
Even if they could find a way to forgive me, a life together meant me growing old and fragile while they stayed young and virile forever. They’d be shackled to me by their own promises, by their own honor.
Would they look forward to the day I died and they were free?
The depressing thoughts plagued me as I dutifully followed my team to the next event. Afraid Lucien would see the agony in my eyes, I hadn’t even offered him a goodbye when we left; simply kept my head down while trying to avoid being bowled over by ugly feelings of inadequacy.
But the farther we walked, the darker my thoughts grew, until I would have fallen down and wept at the unfairness of it all had I not chosen that moment to look up.
Jason. Golden, smiling, wonderful Jason.
My Jason.
Surrounded by his team, he stood with his back to me, chatting with one of the males he’d been with during the lycan version of a barbecue. His hands were flying—talking, as he did, with his whole body—and the other male grinned. And so did the woman next to him. She was beautiful—did lycan females not come in plain, like I did?—about my height, with wildly curling dark hair and slanted, exotic eyes.
Every time Jason moved, she moved with him. When he spoke, she laughed. When he listened to the other male speak, she seemed to listen to his silence. And when he dragged a hand through his hair and shook his head, she smiled a hungry, hungry smile.
Acid sizzled, singed, seared through my gut.
I wanted to stomp over there and kick the woman in the face.
I wanted to rush into Jason’s arms and listen to more of the beautiful, reassuring words he’d given me yesterday.
I wanted to run back to our cabin and hide. Hide from my feelings. Hide from the future. Hide from Matthew and my secrets and the Council.
I did none of those things. I just stood there with my eyes squeezed closed, battling indecision, when the lycan responsible for running this particular game announced the rules.
My eyes flew open.
The lycan stopped speaking, and for the first time since realizing how badly I wanted to make my guys proud, I smiled.
* * *
“You should probably sit this one out, human,” Slade said when I turned toward the area the game would be held.
But instead of demurring like I’d done all day, I shook my head. This human had found the one game where not being lycan had its advantages. “No. I can do this.”
