“Play along. This is going to be a hoot.”
Ryder’s words reflected the fact that his embrace was entirely impersonal. He wasn’t feeling me up the way it likely appeared from the outside. He wasn’t going to kiss me either, even though his face slid so close to mine that he easily could have bridged the gap.
Ryder was teasing Tank...and that pissed me off.
“Get your hands off me,” I growled, letting my knees buckle so I could slide down through the loop of his arms. My ankle twinged only slightly as I swept a foot in a long arc, intending to pull Ryders’s feet out from under him. But...I didn’t manage to connect.
Because Ryder was already falling. The crack of a fist connecting with a face was followed one instant later by Ryder thudding down beside me on his back.
Not that a direct hit kept Ryder down for long. He spat out blood along with a string of expletives, the latter fading into growls as his body morphed into lupine form.
Tank had already shifted. The pair were perfectly matched, a recipe for a long, bloody battle. They’d wind up broken. Far worst off than me on my gimpy ankle.
And the fae? Our Samhain duties? Apparently the big picture had faded in the face of werewolf instinct.
Whatever they were thinking, the males struck each other like battering rams. Two feet from me, the glint of teeth and flashing eyes promised this fight wouldn’t end until someone was hospitalized.
It was hard to make out what was happening, but Ryder must have won the first round because Tank grunted. His response struck me in the stomach. Still, I took a step backward. Not my monkey, not my circus. Or, rather, not my wolf, not my pack.
Tank and Ryder were animals to turn a stupid joke into a life-or-death altercation. Why, when I told myself that, did I not believe my own words?
No matter how hard I strained, I could barely see through the darkness. But I could smell the fury. Hear the thuds of impact. This time I advanced forward. Toward the roiling mass of fur and fangs. If I shifted, Tank and I could stand together. Surely Ryder would back down then....
But before I could do more than grab the bottom of my shirt in preparation for disrobing, movement caught my eye. A cabin door had been flung open. Harper padded out, pale PJs glowing.
And my hand dropped. My sister understood I was a werewolf, but she couldn’t see this. Couldn’t see blood on my fangs and hear my growls. Tank would have to take care of himself.
Another pang in my stomach, even though I was pretty sure the yelp had come from Ryder this time.
Harper couldn’t see this fight...so I’d have to end it the sure way. The way that turned me into a hypocrite but would save Tank’s hide without traumatizing my little sister.
Because the tried-and-true method of dealing with battling werewolves was to call on their alpha. Or their temporary alpha, as the case may be.
I sucked in a deep breath, then I hollered “Lupe!” at the top of my lungs.
Chapter 20
A second cabin door slammed opened, but it didn’t disgorge the female I’d been hoping for. Instead, Butch emerged, took one look at the scene, then shifted as he fell forward onto four rangy lupine paws.
The singlemindedness of Butch’s advance backed up my gut reaction that this fight wasn’t a fun tussle. It was deadly serious. The eruption of smoldering resentments from alpha males forced to spend too long in close proximity. No way would it end easily or well.
The thought alone pulled fur out of my human skin. I needed to protect Tank....
No, I needed to protect Harper. Swallowing down my wolf with every ounce of willpower I could muster, I peered out into the night with simple human eyes.
Tank and Ryder were too fast and it was too dark to tell who was winning. But I smelled blood. This fight was nearing its climax....
Time, which had slowed to the speed of molasses, sped back up. The final seconds between attack and dismemberment had run out.
Then Lupe was on her porch. I felt her rather than saw her. Like a weighted blanket dropping over my head, bearing me to the ground.
Her words struck a millisecond later. “Stand down.” The command was simple, yet I found myself unable to breathe. The air in my lungs had turned to ice.
“Athena!” Flip-flops slapped against the ground as my sister raced toward me. Of course she’d run to help when she saw me collapsing. She’d never before been privy to the dark side of werewolves. She wouldn’t understand how dangerous it was for a mere human to step into this mess....
I struggled against Lupe’s invisible compulsion, the gesture doing absolutely nothing. Then my ears popped and the thousand-pound weight lifted off me.
I gasped an inhale. Waved an arm at Harper as I struggled upright. “I’m fine,” I whispered, knowing she couldn’t hear from forty feet distant.
Lupe was closer. “Take care of your sister.”
Not an order. A reprieve.
And even though my inner wolf growled in fury, I took it. Didn’t glance back to make sure Tank was okay as I speedwalked across the campground to meet Harper. Ignored the empty hole in my stomach that said I needed to tend to his wounds, needed to make sure his temporary alpha understood Ryder had been the instigator.
Because I was a lone wolf with a human family. No matter what my inner beast told me, Tank wasn’t my problem.
Harper was.
MY SISTER’S EYES DARTED wildly. Just like when she’d been little and had woken as I brought her father home from yet another bar, his legs unsteady, mine nearly folding beneath his weight. If we were lucky, Nick would be sedated enough that the two of us could roll him into bed. If we weren’t lucky, he would be verbally abusive, yelling after Harper as I shoved her out of the room.
Now, as then, her voice quavered. “What’s going on?”
Then, as now, I lied to protect her tender heart. “It’s no big deal. The guys were wrestling.”
Because Tank, Ryder, and Butch had been flung back into humanity by Lupe’s order. I’d seen that much during the fleeting glance I’d allowed myself before returning to my true priority.
“They were wolves,” Harper countered. “They were fighting. Are they going to be alright?”
I turned her around and started her back toward the cabin where another human slept. One who’d never even heard of werewolves. One who, I hoped, had never dealt with a drunk father either.
“This was a bad idea.” The words tripped off my tongue before I had time to consider them. Although, bringing Harper and Clara here was a bad idea. The question became—where else could my sister spend her break?
Definitely not with Nick.
“Don’t make us leave.” Harper’s feet were no longer moving. She’d stopped stock still, within easy eyeshot of the wolf-tussle aftermath that I had a sinking suspicion was going to get worse before it got better. “Clara and Kira are having fun.”
“And you? Are you having fun?” I hated the fact that Harper wasn’t able to relax into this camp experience for her own sake. Hated the fact that I’d dragged her into yet another mess when all she’d wanted was a little simple human fun.
“Of course I am.”
The scent of my sister’s lie gutted me. But her continuation held the aroma of truth.
“Well, I was having fun. The marshmallows. The pillow fight.”
Harper peered at me out of the corner of her eye. As if I cared whether her bedding maintained its structural integrity. Her shoulders, I noted, were straighter than usual. When she stood up for herself a second time, her voice was firm.
“Please let us stay.”
I expected her to bargain with me. But she didn’t...and I liked that. I liked the hints of backbone I saw growing in her after less than a day spent in Kira and Tank’s company. I liked thinking of my sister enjoying herself.
So I nodded, deciding on the hard route, the route that would require more doing. “Then you’ll stay here for the rest of break,” I promised.
For my sister, I would make difficult
work.
“A MOMENT, ATHENA.”
Lupe’s voice caught me as I stepped back out into the darkness after tucking Harper in. Well, not literally tucking her in. After all, my sister was sixteen. Way too old for that.
But she’d let me straighten her comforter. Had smiled when I told her I had a sewing kit and would show her how to mend the tear in one side of her pillow tomorrow. She’d almost looked like a normal kid when she asked whether she and her friends could take the canoe out onto the lake the next afternoon.
I’d said yes. I always said yes if Harper’s request wasn’t a safety risk. Whether I had to mortgage more of my soul to gain access to the canoe would be a problem to be dealt with at a later date.
Not tonight. Because, right now, Lupe was too grim to be asked about canoe borrowing. Her anger curled around me before I’d taken two steps off Harper’s porch. Like an unfriendly python, it slithered cold and scaly against my skin.
“I’d planned this for next week,” Lupe continued, speaking at a normal human tone even though I was still forty feet away. “But apparently we’ll be moving up our timeline. Because we can’t be a pack, but we must be a team.”
Her words slapped me as I stepped into the circle of shifters, sliding between Lupe and Tank. His nose, I noted, was bleeding. Ryder, across from us, looked similarly battered. No wonder Lupe was pissed.
Only, her anger didn’t strike the males who’d engaged in fisticuffs. It lashed out like a striking snake and bit me.
“Athena is a professional thief. She’s stolen millions of dollars worth of art to line her own pockets.”
Lupe’s blunt assertion of my darkest secret rocked me back on my heels. My fists, I found, were clenched. Fur tickled the back of my throat.
“A mercenary.” Butch’s reaction was exactly what I’d expected, but it hit me harder after the day we’d spent together. He was the only one present who appeared civilized, which gave his words additional weight. “Can we trust a team mate who’s in it for the money?”
Beside me, Tank growled so softly I hoped I was the only one to hear him. For my own part, I was glad the night was dark enough to hide the heat in my cheeks.
And, I mean, how could I argue? I was here for the money. The money...and the safe passage through Rowan’s territory while I figured something else out.
Swallowing down anger, I kept my tone level as I responded to Lupe rather than Butch. “Do you intend to air everyone’s dirty laundry?”
Our boss’s arms crossed as she waited out our various reactions. The night had settled back into silence by the time she replied. “Yes, that’s exactly what I intend to do. Secrets are a faster pathway to bonding than falling backwards into your team mates’ arms and hoping they won’t drop you.”
Okay, I could see her point. Tank, apparently could as well.
“I’ll tell my own secret then.” His voice seemed to stroke across my skin, never mind that he hadn’t looked at me since I entered the circle. I somehow knew that he’d volunteered in order to move the spotlight off of me.
“Is this about your face?” Ryder’s voice was grittier than it had been. As if he’d lost his sense of humor during the preceding battle. “Because that’s not a secret. It looks like the inside of a horse’s asshole.”
Tank didn’t take advantage of the obvious opening. Didn’t ask when Ryder had last spent time inside a horse’s asshole. Instead, he shrugged. “Yes. My secret is that I did the damage myself.”
I wasn’t the only one who gasped. I had so many questions...and I certainly wasn’t going to ask them in front of the others. Especially not in front of Ryder.
So I was grateful when Lupe interjected a secret of her own. “I was raised in a puppy mill. Sometimes, dealing with the stupidity of werewolves, I wish I was back there.”
A puppy mill? As in, she’d actually been a wolf pup locked in a cage for her entire childhood?
Ryder gave us no time to digest Lupe’s secret. He shrugged in a gesture that looked uncannily like Tank’s, voice gruffer than usual as he admitted: “I stabbed my alpha in the back. Literally.”
The night pressed in around us. So much darkness, and I didn’t mean the lack of moonlight either.
All eyes turned to Butch, waiting for his secret. And...he shook his head.
“You don’t want them to know?” Lupe asked. She, it appeared, was familiar with all of our dark spots.
“They haven’t earned that knowledge,” Butch answered. His tailored bathrobe spun out around him as he turned on his heel and stalked back toward his cabin, secret carried with him.
Which left me wondering, later when I was tucked in my own bed peering up through a grimy skylight, what could possibly be worse than stabbing your alpha in the back?
Chapter 21
By the time the alarm on my cell phone went off, I was the furthest thing from well rested. I’d tossed and turned for half the night, replaying my mistakes and my team mates’ secrets. Revisiting Tank’s use of the M word and his reaction to Ryder’s presence. It all added up to more trouble than I could handle. My feet itched with the impulse to cut my losses and run.
But Harper wanted to stay. I needed Lupe to stand up for me so I wouldn’t lose safe passage to my sister’s boarding school before I found a long-term solution. And some small part of me wanted to learn more about this thing buzzing between me and Tank. To continue working toward the greater good.
Plus, my wolf was adamant. Good pack, she murmured. Which made no sense given the fact that the Samhain Shifters very much weren’t a pack.
Still, I accepted her decision. Showered and dressed and headed out in search of breakfast. Or, that’s what I intended to do. Instead, I literally stumbled across a pair of ankle-high boots on my doorstep.
Boots and braces. The same ones I’d left behind in Butch’s convertible. Something to keep my ankle from twinging, even though the injured joint felt a thousand times better than it had last night.
I crouched down, smelling the faintest residual aroma of wolf. Slid off my shoes and replaced them with Tank’s offerings. The fabric cupped my injured ankle like a healing touch.
That, unfortunately, was the brightest spot of the morning. It went seriously downhill from there.
In fact, by the time we assembled at 7 am, the air stunk of sullen werewolves. Ryder looked hungover. Tank sported a black eye. And Butch was so intent upon meditating that he didn’t greet any of us.
For her part, Lupe showed up late and rumpled, as if she hadn’t slept any better than I had. She scowled then barked out an order. “Warmup for today is a run around the lake. Whoever finishes first can choose our exercise option tomorrow.”
My ankle twinged. The lake’s size ballooned the more I peered at it.
But this was what I’d signed up for. I just needed to find the path.
I’d taken a step toward what I suspected was the lakeside trail when Tank stopped all of us. “No.” His denial was electric, raising hairs up and down my arms.
Ryder snorted, muttering something I couldn’t quite make out but which I could guess wasn’t complimentary. Lupe stilled him with a glance. Hands on her hips, she raised one eyebrow. “No?”
“Athena’s ankle isn’t cleared for running,” Tank rumbled, not meeting my gaze.
“I can run,” I countered. Weakness, I’d gathered from last night’s tussle, wasn’t the way to survive the next five days of temporary packishness.
To my surprise, Lupe was the one who shook her head. “Tank’s right. Paying attention to others’ needs”—she speared us all with a piercing gaze that made my inner wolf’s ears pin—“is the best way to support the team.”
“Unbelievable,” Ryder muttered. Although there may have been an expletive or two thrown in between the “un” and the “believable” parts.
“Did you have something you wanted to share?” Lupe demanded.
A moment of silence. Then a grunted “No, ma’am.”
“Then strip. To your underwear on
ly, Ryder. There are kids around.” Lupe’s flash of smile was all sharp teeth and a complete lack of humor. “Same plan, different method of locomotion. First one to swim around the lake will be in charge of tomorrow’s exercise choice.”
BUTCH DOVE OFF THE dock and sliced through the water like a dolphin released from captivity. “Holy shit,” Ryder muttered, thigh deep in the same water. “This is as cold as a witch’s tits.”
“Can you swim?” I asked, taking in the way he patted at the surface as if it was a dog about to bite his crotch.
“Of course I can swim,” Ryder grumbled. But his face was gradually fading to white.
Tank hesitated on the dock, peering back and forth between me and Ryder. His anger at Ryder, I could tell, was diffused by the latter’s insecurity. Plus, I got the impression he didn’t want to leave the two of us alone.
But I could take care of myself...and could handle one tattooed non-swimmer. “Go,” I told Tank. “If you don’t catch up to Butch, we’ll probably have to spend tomorrow morning learning to meditate.”
Tank’s lips twitched up ever so slightly. The air, cold one moment ago, warmed slightly. Despite his black eye and swollen nose, I had a hard time taking my gaze off his face.
Then he was gone, hitting the lake like a killer whale on a mission. “So you’re a butt girl,” Ryder observed, following my sight line. “I’ve got a butt.”
He started to swivel around and show me. “Get all the way in the water,” I demanded.
To my surprise, Ryder took a step forward. “Yes, ma’am,” he grumbled. Still, it took us ten minutes to fully submerge.
At which point I learned that, although I wasn’t a pro at swimming, Ryder was awful. He appeared to know only one stroke—the doggy paddle.
“That’s how wolves swim,” he grumbled. “Doggy paddle. Get it?”
“As long as you’re moving,” I agreed easily. He was doing pretty well for someone who appeared inclined to sink rather than float.
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