Mating Games

by Nikki Jefford

  “Are you three going to dish up?” Justin asked, raising his voice.

  Noticing their turn had arrived at the cauldron, Jordan stepped forward, nearly tripping when the next comment registered in her head.

  “Maybe we should be taking bets on which one of these two chatterboxes will make a claim on their hot friend here,” Zackary said with a suggestive laugh.

  “Shut your mouth, Zackary.” Hudson bit out the words as he spun around, his face turning red.

  Chase was slower to turn. He put his hands on his hips, his grin showing a stark contrast to his friend’s glower. “You heard my friend. Shut your trap, or I’ll shut it for you.” Chase sounded eager for a fight.

  Zackary’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I’d like to see a pooch like you try and take me on.”

  “Why wait?” Chase goaded, getting up in his face. His arms dropped to his sides, and his fingers curled into fists.

  “Hey! What’s the holdup?” someone yelled from down the line.

  “I think there’s going to be a fight,” another shifter answered from nearby.

  A chorus of “fight” suddenly lifted into the air like smoke filling the glade. As quickly as it rose, it dissipated with the appearance of Garrick, his muscles cording in his arms and one eye twitching. He went shirtless all summer long and was a mass of muscle like his son, but much shorter, which made him look like an angry, squat man.

  “What’s this ruckus about?” he demanded.

  “Nothing,” the guys said in unison.

  Garrick squinted and leaned in. “Save your fighting for the vulhena and your energy for patrol. Now dish up and get this line moving again. I’m going to be watching from over there.” Garrick jabbed his thumb in the direction of a thick log nearby. “The only time I want to see your mouths moving is when you’re eating your food.” When no one moved, Garrick growled. “Would you prefer I send you all to the back of the line?”

  The boys shook their heads sullenly. Jordan’s legs felt like weights secured to the ground, a scowl frozen to her lips. She was surrounded by assholes at every meal, every day of the year—an endless, ongoing, inescapable annoyance as a pack member of Wolf Hollow. Sometimes it felt like the anger inside her heart would suffocate her.

  As far as she could tell, one of the few perks of claiming a mate would be more freedom from the elders.

  Casually, she scanned the glade for Raider, but he was absent. Perhaps Kallie had scared him off. Had the two of them been hump buddies on patrol? And had Raider discarded the she-wolf after her injury? Jordan hoped he wasn’t that callous. Though given who his father was—

  With one final glare at Garrick, she stepped up to the cauldron and slopped porridge into a bowl. Hudson, Chase, and David followed her to their usual log. By the time her butt hit the log, she was already scarfing down her meal.

  “Fucking Garrick,” Chase grumbled as he settled in beside Jordan. “Shouldn’t a shifter on probation be the one keeping his mouth shut?”

  “Fuck Garrick. It’s Zackary who needs his ass kicked,” Hudson snapped from Jordan’s other side. “Needs to keep his nose out of other people’s business and his comments to himself.”

  David settled on the ground in front of them, his face vacillating between Chase and Hudson.

  Chase lifted his chest. “I don’t give a shit what Zackary thinks.”

  “I don’t, either,” Hudson said quickly. “He’s a pathetic ape. Can’t get any tail. What she-wolf would want that mangy mutt on her back?” Hudson’s lips curled back in disgust. “It’s not like anyone will ever forget what he did to Tabor or that his father’s a rabid beast.”

  Chase went rigid, eyes flashing. “Wolf killer,” he said with a snarl. “I’d like to be the one to put Vallen down once and for all.”

  Jordan’s heart skipped a beat. The subject of Zackary’s father was always an edgy one. Of all the wolves who had been bitten, Vallen had been the nastiest, turning more shifters in Wolf Hollow mad than any single wolf before him.

  Jordan scarfed down her meal while the boys traded barbs. Personally, she didn’t like her food going cold, but once Chase and Hudson got started with one another, they couldn’t stop.

  They were still going at it when she finished her last bite and stood up.

  “Are you finished already?” Hudson asked, blinking up at her.

  “I want to get back to Emmy.”

  Chase’s expression softened. “Sorry, we sort of went off on a tangent there. How is your sister?”

  “Better, I think.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “I hear Raider’s been checking on her regularly,” Hudson said with a sly grin.

  “Don’t gloat just yet,” Chase said. “Last night, Camilla made Raider laugh. Do you know how rare that is?”

  Something tightened inside Jordan’s chest. She hurried away, barely pausing to set her dirty bowl inside a basket. It clacked against the few already stacked inside.

  A hissing sound assaulted her ears as she strode east. Glancing around, Jordan saw Taryn sneering at her from beneath a tree. She was alone. Big mistake.

  Blood rushed through Jordan’s veins and roared inside her ears. “You are one sick, twisted bitch,” Jordan said between clenched teeth.

  Taryn’s body jerked, but it was the look of unease that crossed over the shifter’s face that called out to the wolf within. Before Jordan could stop herself, she rushed over to Taryn and slapped her across the face. The burn against her palm sent a surge of satisfaction through her.

  Taryn’s face screwed up, and her lips drew back over clenched teeth. “You bitch.” She seethed.

  Taryn grabbed a fistful of Jordan’s hair and yanked. Jordan yelped and wrenched her hair out of Taryn’s fingers then bit her on the shoulder. Taryn screamed.

  “Get off her,” Janelle yelled, running over.

  More shifters hurried to them and formed a circle around the females.

  “Jordan! Taryn! What are you doing?” Hudson bellowed, pushing through the crowd. He looked between the two of them, wrinkles lining his forehead.

  Ignoring him, Jordan got ahold of Taryn’s ponytail and yanked. The shifter screamed.

  “How do you like that?” Jordan asked with a smile.

  Janelle began hitting her shoulders, arms, and chest. Jordan shoved her back.

  Aden stormed over, barking orders.

  “Hudson, Chase, grab Jordan. I’ll hold back Taryn and Janelle.”

  “That’s right, bitches,” she taunted, “takes two males to hold me back.”

  chapter nine

  Jordan didn’t stick around to explain her actions to the crowd. She wasn’t about to waste any more time getting back to her sister. Taryn was lucky Emerson felt better.

  But when Jordan arrived at the cabin, she found her sister on her hands and knees outside, hurling her guts over the ground.

  Gina knelt beside her, holding Emmy’s long blond hair out of the way, while Kallie stood nearby, wringing her hands.

  Jordan immediately saw red, and it wasn’t just Gina’s hair staining her vision.

  “What did you do to her?” Jordan bellowed.

  After Emerson heaved the last of her breakfast onto the ground, she placed her head on her outstretched arms, sobbing on hands and knees. Gina rubbed her back, ignoring Jordan.

  Jordan’s hair whipped away from her face as she jerked her attention to Kallie.

  “What happened?” she demanded.

  Kallie grimaced. “She was fine a moment ago. She came running out here right before you arrived.”

  They looked at Emerson, who rocked on the ground. She looked up with tear-streaked cheeks.

  “Get me Tabor,” Emerson croaked.

  Jordan grasped her elbows. “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

  “I’ll go get him.” Gina l
ocked eyes with Jordan.

  She gritted her teeth and nodded. “Hurry.” She’d deal with the redhead and her friends later.

  Gina undressed and shifted in a flash, zipping into the forest like a hummingbird high on nectar.

  Emerson lay miserably on her side in the dirt, Jordan and Kallie numbly at her side. Gina returned shortly and shifted. Still naked, crouched on the ground, she said, “He’s on his way. Is there anything else I can do?”

  Rage and despair ate through Jordan’s heart. She shot Gina a death glare. “Tell your friends they better pray to the moon my sister survives.”

  Wisely, Gina chose not to stick around and argue. She grabbed her dress and hurried into the woods.

  Tabor and Sasha came jogging in on human legs a short time later. Tabor immediately crouched beside Emerson on the ground. As he felt her forehead and checked the pulse at her wrist, his frown deepened.

  Kallie wrapped her arms around her stomach, her face pinched with concern.

  Sasha was the only one with an air of calm. “The spell didn’t work,” she said in a voice shadowed with disappointment.

  Tabor shook his head miserably. “It appears not.”

  “Try again,” Emerson pleaded.

  Tabor chewed on his lip.

  Sasha looked at Kallie. “Thanks for staying with Emerson. You can return to the den. We’ll take it from here.”

  Kallie’s face fell. “But—”

  “We don’t want to overcrowd Emerson,” Sasha said firmly.

  A look of hurt flashed across Kallie’s face. Barely two weeks ago, Sasha and Tabor had been tending to her wounds and looking after her. Now, they were dismissing her for Emmy. Although Jordan sympathized with her, she wanted her gone.

  Head hanging, Kallie retreated into the woods. Sasha looked at Jordan and nodded for her to follow as she walked toward the edge of the cabin. Jordan wasn’t about to leave her sister, but Sasha stopped about twenty feet away, still within easy distance of Emerson. As Sasha spoke, Jordan kept her eyes trained on her sister and Tabor, whose troubled gaze made her heart constrict more than it already had.

  “I don’t think repeating Tabor’s spell will do any good,” Sasha said. “If it was going to work, it would have the first time.”

  “Then he should try a different spell,” Jordan said, wringing her hands. The sight of Emerson bent on the ground haunted her. It felt as though Emmy was on her way to becoming a ghost, a memory, another spirit headed for the Forest of the Ancestors. Jordan sucked in a shuddering breath. “Why isn’t she getting better?” she asked shakily.

  Sasha shook her head. “Her symptoms remind me of another case—”

  The way Sasha cut herself off made Jordan flick her attention from her sister to her pureblooded packmate. Sasha’s lips were now pressed together.

  “What other case?” Jordan prodded, her unease growing like weeds all around her heart, choking the life out of it. Usually, Sasha had no problem voicing her thoughts.

  Now it was Sasha staring at Emerson with her eyes going glassy.

  Finally, she answered. “Madeline.”

  At first, Jordan couldn’t breathe. Even the birds around them had gone silent.

  She’d forgotten about Madeline. Jordan had been a pup of eight when the teen shifter had taken ill. Maddy’s parents had tried everything to nurse their daughter back to health, but the girl couldn’t keep food or water down and had wasted away. Within a week of falling ill, she was dead.

  Jordan gasped for breath. There wasn’t enough oxygen getting to her head, and her heart seemed to have stopped working altogether. She couldn’t lose Emerson.

  “The last thing Madeline ate before getting sick was a pear from a tree out past Skyler Falls,” Sasha said in a faraway voice. “My mother found the tree near the caves. She was sure it must have been bat guano that Madeline ingested from the fruit.”

  Jordan’s stomach lurched. “Are you saying that my sister somehow ate bat shit?”

  Shoulders hunching, Sasha shook her head. “I can’t say for sure, only that the symptoms are similar. Madeline was unable to shift after she took ill.”

  Knots formed inside Jordan’s stomach. Taryn could have gone to the caves and scooped up some crap then rubbed it over a piece of squirrel meat. That nasty bitch tried to feed Jordan shit! Her fingers curled into tight fists. “Now we know where Taryn got her idea from.”

  Sasha’s brows squeezed together, nearly touching. “There are dozens of other, more likely—and more natural—reasons Emerson fell ill.”

  Jordan flexed her fingers then placed her hands on her hips. “Like what?” she challenged.

  Sasha frowned. “Right now I’m more concerned with what will make her feel better, not what made her sick.”

  “Finally, something we agree on,” Jordan said. With those words, Jordan returned to Emerson on swift steps.

  Sasha followed on her heels.

  “You have to shift,” Sasha said, looking down at Emerson.

  Anger ripped through Jordan’s mind, flashing like a thunderbolt across her vision. She stepped in front of Sasha, arms on her hips. “If Emmy could shift, she would.”

  “I understand that,” Sasha said, calm as ever, “but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s her best chance at recovery.” She raised her brows, leaving her final words unspoken. Maybe her only chance.

  Jordan’s arms dropped to her sides as though a falling tree had knocked them down. All of a sudden, her body felt too heavy for her legs. She wanted to shift, to support her weight on four legs, to feel her wolf’s strength and assurance. To do what Emmy could not. If only she could shift for her.

  That’s when the solution hit Jordan.

  Her heart sped up. Her eyes expanded.

  “You can make her shift,” she said to Tabor. She’d seen his wizard father force a shift on Flynn from the den. Using unintelligible words, Lazarus had made Flynn turn from a wolf back into a human. If he could turn wolf to human, he must be capable of turning human to wolf—the spell could be performed by a wizard.

  Tabor’s face drained of color at her suggestion.

  A fierce frown stretched over Sasha’s lips. “You can’t ask him to do that,” she said. “It’s one thing to heal and protect, another to violate a shifter’s control.”

  Jordan snarled, in no mood for Sasha’s strict code of ethics. “That’s the problem. She has no control,” she snapped, flinging her arm in her sister’s direction. “Her strength’s been taken, and you can help her get it back.”

  Sasha and Tabor mirrored one another with furrowed brows and wrinkled foreheads. They shared a look of unease that didn’t bode well for Emerson.

  “You have to do something. She’s wasting away.” Her gaze pleaded with Sasha. With her blessing, Jordan knew Tabor would perform the spell.

  “Do it, please,” Emerson said from the ground. “Make me shift.”

  “Let’s not waste time debating and waiting like yesterday,” Jordan said. “Help her before it’s too late.”

  Tabor puckered his lips in consideration. After releasing a deep breath, he said, “I’m sorry. I want to help, but I have no spells for forcing a shift.”

  “But I bet your sister does,” Jordan cut in.

  The wrinkles deepened over Tabor’s forehead.

  “I won’t tell anyone Elsie helped,” Jordan added.

  With narrowed eyes, Tabor shook his head. “If I could help Emerson, I would, but you’re asking me to jeopardize Elsie’s place here—to put your sister above mine.”

  “My sister’s dying!” Jordan yelled. “If you won’t let Elsie help, at least ask her to teach you the spell so you can.”

  Tabor clamped his lips together and groaned. “Fine, but you owe me a favor.”

  Jordan clasped her hands together. “Anything. Just help her.”

  Sa
sha’s eyes narrowed. “If Ford, or anyone else, hears of this and tries to use it against my mate or Elsie, I expect support on the council from your sister… and your father.”

  With her eyes locked on Sasha’s, Jordan took a step closer and drew in a breath. “Help my sister, and I’ll fight on Tabor’s behalf as though he were my own mate.”

  A low growl emerged from deep in Sasha’s throat. If her sister wasn’t lying on the ground suffering, Jordan might have taken mild amusement in the pureblood’s jealousy. When it came to her mate, even the queen of calm had a temper that Jordan had no desire to provoke.

  “You will both have my absolute loyalty,” Jordan amended.

  Tabor cleared his throat and raised one eyebrow, his eyes intent on Sasha. She glowered one last time at Jordan before returning her attention to her mate. “Very well. We have Jordan’s word and Emerson’s consent.”

  Tabor stood from where he’d been crouched beside Emerson and clasped his hands together. “I’ll get Elsie. If anyone comes by, get rid of them as quickly as possible.”

  Once Sasha nodded, Tabor hurried off. The moment he did, Emerson began to sob softly. Jordan got on the ground beside her and stroked the back of her head.

  “Hang in there, Emmy. Tabor’s coming right back with Elsie.”

  “Patrol has started, so we don’t have to worry about any of those shifters bothering us,” Sasha said, pacing the tree line in front of the cabin.

  Palmer and Francine worried Jordan more than the younger shifters. What if Palmer saw Kallie return to the den and discovered Emmy had taken a turn for the worse?

  Damn it. Maybe they should have waited before sending her away. Of course, Palmer and Francine would jump on the girl the moment they clapped eyes on her, demanding an update. The pair of them had to stick their noses into everything.

  As though conjured up by her agitated mind, Palmer burst into the clearing, calling out, “Emmy, how are you today?”

  Jordan had to bite her tongue to keep from snapping at Palmer. How does he think she is, sprawled out on the ground, staring down with faded eyes? It took all of Jordan’s willpower to stand aside. If she engaged Palmer in argument, it would only delay his departure.