“You’re seriously going to shoot at moving targets with this thing?” I asked, bouncing the weapon in my palms before handing it back to him. “Are you even sure it works? It looks like it’s two hundred years old.”
“Hey! She’s only a hundred and fifty,” he protested with a way-too-confident smile on his lips. “What she lacks in high-tech sophistication, she makes up for in experience, charm, precision, and length.”
“I’m starting to think she should be a he,” I replied with a wink. “That description of yours sounds a lot like someone I know.”
“She shoots a little farther and a little straighter than Trick Junior,” he said, looking down at his crotch with a chuckle.
He really did seem confident that he could do something great with his ancient firearm. I knew the bare minimum about guns, so I wasn’t about to waste a lot of time arguing. Besides, we still had the hunt and combat competitions to worry about. All that mattered right now was getting through today in one piece and getting the hell away from the Marquis and his massive Yes-I-do-have-a-micro-penis weapon.
Trick lifted the lid of a box at the base of the shooting platform. “These will be our targets,” he said, holding up a small disk about the size of a coffee coaster. It was painted with a blue ring on the outer edge, a white ring inside of that, and a red dot in the middle. He tapped on the disk with his knuckles to show me that it was made of some kind of metallic material.
“It’s an aluminum alloy,” he said. “It won’t explode like the clay pigeons you see in regular rifle competitions. That is, if we hit it at all. Most people miss completely on at least one or two of the three attempts. And that’s on a good day. If the wind kicks up, or if a competitor is even a little distracted coming in, hitting even one of them can be next to impossible.”
I flipped the small disk around in my hands and looked down the length of the expansive open space in front of us. “Two hundred and fifty yards is really far. How will you even know if you’ve hit this tiny thing?”
Trick gestured into the field where another Valkyrie, not much more than a dot in the distance, stood with her hands on her hips, her gaze fixed in our direction. “That’s the Spotter. She’ll collect the target and judge the accuracy of the hit. She’ll hold it up if there’s a successful strike, call it back, and report the official results. Then Layla will confirm.”
All of a sudden I found myself shaking, my teeth all but chattering. “Trick,” I said, biting my lip and taking his hand when he’d set the target back down in its box, “you’ve got this, right?”
He nodded, but the nod quickly turned into a half-shake of his head. “Look, I can shoot. On my best days, no one can beat me. I should be fine…but there are no guarantees. You understand that, right?”
My hand trembled as I held onto his, which was thankfully steady as a rock. “I understand,” I said, “but I can’t say I like it. I really need a guarantee right about now.”
“Today will be okay,” he said, pulling me in for a gentle kiss. When we’d pulled apart I glanced around at the smiling, chatty faces of the shifters around us, reminding myself that they didn’t look worried at all. It reminded me of being in the Undercroft the other night: a bunch of casual people hanging out, drinking, dancing, not even remotely concerned that one of their own might be killed by a crazy bastard with a high-powered rifle. “Don’t let all the other crap get to you, blondie,” Trick said. “Just sit back and enjoy yourself as much as you can.”
“Enjoy myself,” I repeated through clenched teeth. “Sure. I can do that. With the Marquis out for blood, all these people around, and so much on the line, it’ll be a piece of cake.”
Trick set Bessie down, kissed the top of my head and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me tight to his chest. It felt so good to be engulfed by him, to remind myself that at least for the moment, he was mine. And tonight, when this part of the competition was over, we’d get to be together again. We had all day tomorrow to spend together before Thursday’s hunt. I reminded myself to make the most of it. For at least another thirty-six hours, we had the opportunity to be truly happy.
After that, my likelihood of happiness would be anybody’s guess.
“It’ll be fine,” my lover murmured into my hair, pulling back to look out towards the field. “Have a little faith in me, Sierra.”
“I have all sorts of faith in you,” I said. “Your opponent, on the other hand…”
“Is a walking shit pile,” Trick said, narrowing his eyes towards the Marquis.
“Yes. That’s exactly what he is.”
After a few minutes, Layla held up a hand to announce to the crowd that they needed to be silent. I watched as Trick looked over at Louis, who gave him a quick nod to confirm that he’d be keeping an eye on me for the duration of the competition.
Layla summoned the Marquis and Trick to her side before holding up two pieces of straw, clenched between her thumb and index finger. My lover gestured to the Marquis to go first even as Trick’s eyes went bright, signifying that his protective wolf was pacing inside him. No doubt his animal was currently fantasizing about ripping the Marquis limb from limb, and I could only hope he could calm the beast down before firing his first shot.
The Marquis drew the long straw, which meant he got to pick who was going first. Naturally, he chose himself. A minute later when Layla announced the start of the competition, the man I hated more than any living creature climbed up the wooden ladder to the platform. Trick stood at its base, his eyes locked on his opponent.
As I ground my jaw in anger, Louis sidled up next to me and laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he said as I watched Trick rub a white cloth over the barrel of his rifle. “Our future Alpha’s the best sharp-shooter in all the parishes. No one can beat him, even on one of his very rare bad days.”
I nodded, my teeth locked together. I wanted to believe him, but I couldn’t seem to push away the nagging feeling that something was going to go wrong.
I found myself shaking once again as Layla shouted up to the Marquis to prepare to shoot. Seeing a high-powered firearm in the bastard’s hands terrified me more than I wanted to admit, even to myself.
Standing at the base of the makeshift tower, the Valkyrie pressed a button on a small black keyboard. Up on the platform, a red light turned green, and in the distance, a tiny disk, barely visible to my eyes, zipped across the sky faster than any bird I’d ever seen.
The Marquis squinted through the scope of his gargantuan rifle, rotated his body to follow the target, and pulled the trigger. The sound of the blast startled me into a jump. Louis grabbed my arm, steadying me as I trembled against him.
The bullet zinged through the air and struck the target way out over the field.
Layla looked down the range through her military-style binoculars, but she didn’t say anything for a few seconds. I could just barely see the Spotter holding up the target, but there was no way I could even come close to determining the result of the Marquis’ shot from this distance.
The Valkyrie lowered her binoculars when she’d established the accuracy of the shot. “Inner ring!” she called out.
“Is that good?” I asked Trick, who’d edged his way over to stand next to me for a moment.
He frowned. “Let’s just say it’s better than the best human sharp-shooter in the world could manage.”
“Can you match it?” I asked nervously.
“We’re about to find out.” Trick gave me a teasing smile. By some miracle my lover really was having fun, despite everything that hung in the balance.
I was beginning to wonder if shifters were extremely confident or just nuts.
Trick waited until the Marquis came down the ladder before preparing to take his turn on the platform.
“You may as well give up now, Patrick,” the prick sneered in that serpentine voice of his.
“You may as well lick my ass,” Trick growled in return as he made his way up the ladder. Without further ceremony, h
e lifted his rifle up, its stock pressed against his chest, his hand cupped against the worn strip of wood under the long black barrel.
When the red light turned green, Trick squeezed the trigger, his forearm muscles swelling up as he tracked the target left to right and then fired. Out over the field, I watched the small disk spin and drop from the sky.
The Spotter called in the result.
“Outer ring!” Layla announced.
“Shit,” I whispered.
“Well, fuck,” Trick grumbled as he walked up to me a few seconds later. “The wind’s picked up. This is going to be a challenge. Not to mention that the fucking Marquis’ obviously been practicing. A lot.”
I chewed my lip, hesitant to say anything. I didn’t want him thinking I didn’t have faith in his abilities, or that I was afraid for our future…and for the future of a pack who needed him badly. The truth was, I couldn’t help but feel guilty. Maybe if I hadn’t been such a distraction over the last few days, he could have spent more time focusing and preparing himself for the competition. If he lost, it would probably be all my fault.
Smile, I told myself. Just smile. Your negative energy’s not going to help anyone.
The Marquis climbed back up the ladder, and for the second time, he managed to hit the target’s inner ring. When he came down, he tried once again to get a rise out of Trick. “I pictured your pretty-boy face when I fired,” he said in that awful, raspy voice of his. “Those handsome cheekbones of yours could use some facial reconstruction.”
I wanted to punch the bastard in his twisted, ugly mouth, but Louis held me back while Trick strode back towards the ladder. “How about if I reconstruct your fucking skull with my foot right here and now?” he snarled at the Marquis.
“Trick!” I called out, but Louis shushed me.
“Just let him do his thing,” he whispered. “Anger’s a good motivating factor for a man like him.”
With my mouth sealed, I watched my lover climb the ladder again to position himself on the platform. He took aim out over the field, and when the light turned green, he took his shot. This time he also hit the inner ring, matching the Marquis.
But the Marquis’ third and final shot resulted in another hit to the inner ring.
“The guy’s consistent, anyway,” Louis said as Trick came up to stand next to us, preparing for his final round.
“A consistent dickhead,” he growled in response. I could tell he was frustrated, and his opponent’s self-satisfied smirk wasn’t exactly helping.
“Can we still win?” I asked Louis quietly as Trick headed back towards the ladder.
He shook his head. “Only if he hits the bull’s eye. His shot would have to be absolutely perfect, which is all but impossible. Don’t worry, though. There are still two more competitions to go.”
“Screw that,” I said. I tore myself away from Louis and raced forward to grab Trick’s arm just as he placed his foot on the ladder’s bottom rung, spinning him around to give him a hard, passionate kiss. Behind us, the crowd of shifters cheered.
At least, most of them did.
“For luck?” he asked.
“For you,” I answered with a nod. “For us. For perfection.”
Smiling, Trick climbed the ladder to take his final shot. When the green light went on, he pulled the trigger once, and then a second time, in rapid-fire succession. The two explosions produced two puffs of white smoke from his rifle.
“What was that second shot?” I asked Louis, my heart racing. “Did he miss? Did his gun malfunction?”
“I don’t think so,” Louis replied, but he didn’t sound entirely convinced.
I swallowed hard, interlocking my fingers tensely behind my head. If Trick had failed, the Marquis would have a field day with the victory. Trick would face enormous pressure to win both the second and third Trials. I couldn’t stand thinking about what that kind of anxiety would do to his mind over the next few days.
But Trick, who was still standing on the platform above, slipped the rifle strap onto his shoulder and crossed his arms over his powerful chest. He looked as calm as I’d ever seen him, a slow smile spreading over his lips like he knew something the rest of us could only guess at.
Down below, Layla stared through her binoculars until she got the signal from the Spotter. After a few seconds, she nodded and turned to announce the results to the crowd, who’d gone so silent that I was sure they could hear my heart hammering in my chest.
“Well, this is a first!” she cried out. “We have a winner. Trick hit the target’s center mass…twice!”
With his rifle slung across his back, Trick climbed down the ladder one last time, through the cheering crowd that had rushed forward to congratulate him, and into my waiting arms.
“What did you just do?” I asked, a smile stretching my mouth so wide I was sure my face would be sore tomorrow. “Were you really allowed to take two shots like that?”
“Only the first shot counted, but that didn’t matter,” he replied. “Somehow, in that moment I knew I could nail the bull’s eye twice. The first shot was for the Marquis. The second one was for you, blondie.”
Chapter 6
Trick
“What are we doing now, oh great sniper?” Sierra asked me as I led her towards the truck and away from the Marquis’ sore-loser grimace. I hadn’t wanted to say it out loud, but I was actually a little surprised that the fucker hadn’t raised his rifle on me the moment my win was announced. I’d never seen him show much restraint. Maybe he was becoming a little more human.
Nah. No way in hell.
“We’re going out to celebrate,” I announced. When we’d climbed into the truck I gave Bessie a final pat of thanks for saving my ass before stashing her behind the driver’s seat.
“Oh yeah? What did you have in mind?” Sierra asked with a smile. It was good to see her looking relaxed, the fear stripped away at least for a little while.
“You still into going to hear some music?” I asked as I started up the engine and pulled the truck around to barrel up the road.
“God, yes. But the last time I went out to hear some…” she began. I looked over to see that her smile had vanished.
“Right,” I said. “That was the night the Marquis tried to…” This time I was the one who had to cut myself off. I couldn’t finish the sentence, because if I did, I’d have to turn my truck around and go back and beat his head in with my bare fists.
“Yeah,” she said softly, her face turned away from me.
I reached out to stroke the backs of my fingers over her left cheek. “Hey,” I said, pulling her eyes to mine. Their pinkness told me she was fighting back a sudden onslaught of tears. So her fear had returned. “We just beat him,” I told her. “Remember that.”
“We beat him for another day,” she said. “But there are still two competitions to come, and they sound even more dangerous…What if…”
“Do something for me,” I interrupted.
She nodded. “Anything.”
“Try not to think about him for a little while. We have tonight and tomorrow together, Sierra, all to ourselves. Until Thursday, it’s just the two of us—so let’s make the most of it, okay?”
She nodded again. “I’ll do my best.” She turned away again to look out the window as we pulled onto the main road. “I just don’t want to lose you, Trick,” she said so softly that I was pretty sure she didn’t mean for me to hear it.
“I don’t want to lose you either,” I told her, “and I don’t intend to.”
She reached silently for my hand and squeezed, her other hand covering her mouth to stifle a quiet sob.
Fuck this. Fuck going out in public. Fuck people. I was going to show her a good time, away from scary motherfuckers like the Marquis. Away from danger. We’d listen to music in a private place where the only thing we’d have to worry about would be the leaves falling gently off a cypress tree.
I drove for a time before pulling off onto a narrow side road. “Where are we go
ing?” Sierra asked. “This isn’t the way into town.” Her voice had calmed down, but I could tell that she was still struggling to protect herself from dark thoughts.
“No, it’s not the way to town,” I told her, “it’s the way to someplace better. Come on, I want to show you something.”
After a few more minutes, I pulled to a stop by the side of the road and opened my door.
“What are we doing?” Sierra asked, but instead of answering her, I slipped out, walked around to her side of the truck, and opened her door. Grabbing a blanket from the back seat, I escorted her into the woods to a small clearing surrounded by ancient trees, ferns, and moss-covered rocks.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “But I still don’t know why you brought me here.”
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket, hit a few buttons, and set it on a nearby tree stump. After a few seconds, music began to waft through the air.
“Louis Armstrong?” Sierra said with a smile as the strains of “What a Wonderful World” lilted around us in soft waves.
I nodded, taking her right hand in my left and sweeping my arm around her back, spinning her around in an elegant series of movements. “The very same,” I said as I watched her let out a girlish giggle.
I slipped an arm around her back again, and we moved together, her face pressed to my chest, until eventually our arms were fully wrapped around one another.
“I can’t believe I actually tried to fight off my desire to be with you the night we met,” I said. “I was so stupid.”
Southern Alpha Book Four Page 4
