by Woods, Erica
“Be quiet, pup.”
Jason’s grin broadened. “I think I prefer the other Lucien. Can I put in a formal request to always deal with him? Oh wait!” He snapped his fingers, ignoring the icicles shooting from winter green eyes. “Is this a ‘tits required’ kinda thing?” A sizzling glance down at my chest. “Cause I don’t think anyone can compete with Hope’s.”
A strangled sound fell from my mouth just as Jason crashed into a tree. The impact shook a few leaves loose and broke off a fist-sized piece of shriveled bark.
Jason glared. “Again, Ruarc? Really?”
“Was disrespectful,” the big male grunted.
I shook my head at their antics and peeked back up at Lucien, chest clenching when I saw his shuttered gaze.
Careful, afraid he’d snap at me like a cornered animal, I reached out and placed a hand on his wrist. A faint shudder ran through his lean body, but he turned his face back to me and waited.
“I was worried.” I bit my lip, struggling to hold his cold, turbulent gaze. A virulent storm raged there. A storm fighting to be unleashed.
My mouth went dry.
I was scared. Not of what awaited should I break through, but of my desperate desire to do so—consequences be damned.
“You’ve been so quiet,” I finally said—croaked, really. “I thought maybe something was wrong?”
A muscle along his jaw jumped. “I thank you for your concern, but I am fine.”
“Are you sure? If something is bothering you maybe I can help. We could . . . talk about it?” My voice sounded small. Unsure. I cringed, knowing everyone would be able to guess I was bracing for rejection.
But rejection never came.
“I am certain. But perhaps we could still talk,” he added. “Tonight. After the games?”
Something in my belly gave a nervous yank, then jumped up my throat on fluttery wings. “Y-yes.”
The short nod he gave me almost seemed relieved. “Good. Tonight, then.”
A stocky man called his name, and I was left gaping after his retreating back.
“Come along, banajaanh,” Ash said from my left. He grabbed my other hand and leaned down to press a quick kiss to my heating cheek. Ruarc grumbled something under his breath that had Ash toss his head with a strangely satisfied smile. “It was bound to happen, old friend. But it is good to know you care so much for our female.”
“If that idiot hurts her again . . .” Teeth flashed as Ruarc glared.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Jason said.
Ash nodded. “I think our brother has realized something important.”
If I hadn’t been watching their faces for clues I would have missed the tightening in Ash’s expression as he glanced down at me and used the tip of a finger to stroke a path down my nose. I would have missed the flash in his intense, blue eyes as mine widened, and I would have missed the short, sharp rise of his chest as he turned around and stared after Lucien.
“You think?” Jason asked.
“I do.”
* * *
After meeting up with my team and extracting promises of good behavior, Ash, Jason, and Ruarc went to find Lucien before joining their own teams. Their reluctance to leave me had been apparent in their every move, and when Ruarc had clasped me tight to his body, rested his cheek on my head and whispered, “Miss you already, mo chridhe,” I had nearly melted into a puddle on the ground. Until, with a low, threatening growl, he’d added, “You take a risk like yesterday again and I’ll make good on my promise.”
His eyes had flared at my shiver, and after two more goodbyes and a quiet word to Gideon—who’d watched us with the relentless intensity of a predator trying to figure out its prey—they’d disappeared into the crowd.
I watched them go, longing and something else, something dark and despairing, cramping in my gut. Would that be the last time they kissed me, the last time they looked at me with warmth and affection? After today . . .
There wasn’t time to dwell. Gideon grunted and tipped his head to the right where the rest of our team waited, and off we went.
While my teammates speculated about today’s games, I searched the crowd. Though no glowing silver eyes met mine, no piercing blue, no frosty green, no heated amber, they were here, somewhere. We’d been lucky enough to be put in the same grouping, and whatever my team faced today, theirs would too.
As I scanned nearby faces, careful not to meet anyone’s gaze, the hairs on the back of my neck rose. Gradually, voices lowered, growls died out, and the crowd parted to allow a member of the Council to pass.
Samuel.
With quiet, chilling authority, he announced today’s game, its rules, and the punishment for breaking them.
“There will be no touching,” he reiterated. “None.” His gaze cut through the swagger of the young and brash, dragging disquiet in its wake. “We will not tolerate cheating, and we will not tolerate anyone taking advantage of the circumstances to attempt to poach, assault, or otherwise harass our females. In fact . . .” Samuel turned and lifted a hand in a short, lazy wave.
A long, hopeless wail rose from the edge of the forest, cut off with such abruptness that chills climbed all the way from the back of my legs to the top of my head.
Again, the crowd parted, this time to make room for two game-enforcers who dragged an unresisting lycan between them. He wasn’t dead or unconscious, but still he hung limply in their grip, legs dragging over the grass, head dangling, eyes glazed but wild, terrified but defeated.
The wilted male was thrown at Samuel’s feet, and there he huddled, shivering and moaning but otherwise silent.
“Vegard here broke our rules. He laid hands on a female that was not his, and for that, he will be punished.”
One pack bellowed their agreement, the female in their midst watching Vegard with barely restrained fire while on the opposite side, another pack stood somber and silent, watching just as intently.
“Hands,” Samuel said, and while Vegard whimpered and lay both arms flat on the ground, forehead buried in the grass, the lycans came alive. Some yelled. Some growled. Some cheered, and some laughed.
“Gideon!” A roar. A familiar roar that sounded distant and not nearly as loud as I’d expected.
Following Gideon’s gaze, I saw Ruarc waving his arms on the other side of the field, eyes hard and flat and fierce, expression grim.
He called something else, but it was drowned out by the crowd, and he snarled—I couldn’t hear it, but his whole face twisted, scar pulling on the side of his face and making his mouth look uneven and furious—then slapped a hand over his eyes and twirled a finger in the air.
A second later I was spun around, firm hands on my shoulders, facing away from Samuel with Gideon at my back.
“Your male doesn’t want you to see this.”
“S-see w-what?” It couldn’t be—they couldn’t be talking about what I thought they—
A high-pitched scream tore from the center of the circle and hit me like a shockwave. There was a brief pause while my heart thumped like a frightened rabbit, then another, equally loud shriek, a series of wordless cries, then whimpers.
“Be glad it was only your hands,” Samuel said, cool and unaffected. “It could easily have been your life.”
I shivered and Gideon gave my back a single pat. “They’ll grow back.”
“He’s young,” Slade said. “It’ll be a painful month.”
They kept talking but my mind changed their voices into a steady hum that grew in time with my uneven breaths.
Samuel had . . . he’d taken that man—no, that boy’s hands. For what, breaking a rule?
“W-what did he do?” It came out a squeak; high pitched and hysterical.
Gideon frowned down at me. “You didn’t hear?”
I shook my head while a giggle that felt a lot like a scream dragged up and down my throat.
“He broke the rules.”
“W-what rule?”
A dark brow rose. “Does it matter?”
“They t-took his h-hands . . .”
“He’s lucky that’s all they took,” Slade murmured. He gestured at the pack that had yelled so furiously. “Vegard attacked their female. The Council can’t have that or no pack will come to the Assembly.”
“Attacked her?”
“Didn’t get far,” Gideon said. “Her team saw and intervened. They hadn’t, and the cowardly lithbhár wouldn’t have escaped with such a puny punishment.”
Puny?
The ground tilted dangerously, a tug on my insides making my lightheaded.
They’d cut off someone’s hands. Just like that, in front of everyone. Horrible. Barbaric. But . . .
He’ll never attack a female again.
A speck of moisture returned to my parched throat, the pit in my stomach slowly filling.
When I could swallow without choking, I tried to turn, but instead Gideon drew me farther away, closer to the treeline, and waved our teammates over. “We’ve got some time,” he said with a quick look over his shoulder. “And while Samuel waits for the clean up, we might as well eat.”
Eat?
Not even two seconds later, Calder dragged a huge backpack out of a hiding spot in the woods, and all five males began stuffing their faces like they hadn’t just witnessed someone’s hands being chopped off.
I declined the offered food, stomach still uneasy, but as time passed and my body got tired of running on adrenaline, my shoulders slumped and I found myself leaning against a tree and closing my eyes.
Last night, while amazing, had left me with little sleep, and I was exhausted. So while I listened to the quiet voices of my teammates, their chewing and grappling—apparently some of the food was better than others—I rested my eyes and let my mind empty.
* * *
Half an hour or so later, the lycans in the gathering circle had doubled, and the game was about to start. Feeling refreshed after my half-awake nap, I turned to my team.
“So . . . Who’re we beating today?”
Turned out, we were not doing anything. According to a certain huge male with a near permanent, dark frown, that morning he’d been informed by my guys to keep me safe and out of trouble. And Gideon was going to do that by keeping me on the sidelines,
“But . . . This has to be the safest game yet!”
“We’ll be separated,” Gideon said.
“After what Samuel just did—” My voice cut off. Just straight up stopped working. I swallowed a couple of times, banishing the memory of Vegard’s agonized screams, and forced myself to continue. “After that, there’s no way anyone will break the ‘no touching’ rule.”
“They told me you would behave, female.” He scratched at the black scruff covering his jaw. “Are all humans this forgetful?”
A heavy sigh shot between my lips. Gideon’s social skills were almost as bad as mine. Half the time he referred to me as human, the other half as female. Only on the very rare occasions did he call me by my name, and every time he did, his head tilted to the side and he looked confused. Actually, when Gideon wasn’t frowning, glaring, scowling or growling, he looked confused. Almost as though he’d never seen a human before, and everything I did—from how I acted to the words that came out of my mouth—was a puzzle he had to solve.
But now . . . Now he just looked angry.
Luckily, I was used Ruarc’s harsh expressions and foul mood—and he was even bigger than Gideon; had a worse temper too. And because I knew how kind he was below the gruff exterior, I was never scared of him. So when Gideon’s voice lowered to a growl and his eyes narrowed and his expression darkened, I pretended it was Ruarc glowering down at me and forced a serene smile.
The simple action worked. Gideon drew back and the dark, angry slashes of his brows drew together in puzzlement, making him look less like an enraged warrior and more like a man who’d just been told his days of terrifying the kids were over.
“I am not forgetful,” I said after politely waiting for him to recover. “They told me to stay out of danger, but I don’t see how a little hide and seek is dangerous. Besides,” I added and glanced over at our other teammates who’d huddled a fair distance away and were doing their best to look like they weren’t listening, “I don’t want our team to do poorly because of me. You could still place well.”
It was true. After Gideon’s victory yesterday at the electric poles—and my second place—our team was in the top two hundred. It didn’t sound like a lot, but considering there were several thousand teams we were doing pretty well.
“Female . . .”
I crossed my arms but said nothing. My attention kept being drawn back to Reggie; the hopeful look on his face, the eager gleam in his eyes. The kid was aching to prove himself, aching to win. Placing high would mean the world to him.
Gideon grunted and followed my gaze. Frowned.
After a tense couple of minutes, the rest of our team finally gave up their charade and jogged over.
“She’s right,” Slade said, not pretending for a second they hadn’t been listening. “It wouldn’t hurt to have one more player in the game. Even if she’s found after just one other, we’ll get a point.”
Lycans, I’d come to understand, were fiercely competitive. They loved beating their own pack members, they crowed and whooped when beating friends, and when they beat members of rival packs, they flaunted and boasted of their victory until a fight inevitably broke loose.
The teams had all bonded in their quest for victory, and more and more I understood why the Council did this, why the games were so important. Especially for young wolves like Reggie. The scrawny kid had grown more confident while under Gideon’s rule, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he petitioned to join Gideon’s pack when this whole thing was over.
I only hoped he was accepted. From the little he’d said, it didn’t seem like his own pack treated their weakest members very well.
Calder grunted in agreement and gave a sharp nod that made his Viking braids swing with the motion. “One of us could keep an eye on her.”
“How? We can’t hide near each other and she can’t tag along with the seeker.”
“Maybe she could seek? That way she will be watched at all times?” Reggie said.
Lip curling, Gideon shook his head. “She’s human. She can’t be our seeker or we’ll get no points.”
Reggie’s face flamed. “Ah, sorry.” He gave me an apologetic glance. “Forgot humans can’t smell.”
“We can smell,” I said and tried to keep the exasperation out of my tone. I was no longer afraid of these men, my teammates, and that made other feelings, feelings I’d suppressed for years, like annoyance and frustration, seep to the surface. “We just can’t track based on scent. Or recognize people by smell alone.” But as I said it, I realized it was a lie for I easily recognized my guys based on their unique scents. They always smelled so mouthwatering good. All masculine. All clean and delicious. Ash like his horses, hay and wild plains. Ruarc like the pinecones, forests and raw, unadulterated power. Jason like—
“Sounds like you can’t smell to me.” Barr grinned and wiggled his bushy brows.
His smile was infectious, and as I watched them continue to discuss me like I wasn’t there, my lips twitched.
A month ago, I wouldn’t have dared to challenge Gideon. I’d have meekly stood on the sidelines, feeling bad for Reggie but too scared to defy the scowling alpha who led our team. But now . . .
The twitch became a smile.
Knowing I was shedding parts of who I used to be—a victim, a coward, a person scared of her own shadow—was as exhilarating as it was terrifying.
Not that my goal was to take needless risks.
If not for Samuel’s ‘no touching’ rule and the example he’d made out of Vegard, I wouldn’t have pushed to participate. But this was sure to be the safest game of the whole competition.
The lycan version of hide and seek was similar to the childhood game I used to play with my—
A memory of a bl
inding smile on a young, cherub face flashed through my mind like a warning sign screaming of danger.
I clutched at my rolling stomach, breathing raggedly, and pushed the memory away.
Hide and seek sounded fun.
I wrapped my arms around my middle.
Especially for a lycan.
I rubbed at my aching eyes.
He’d have loved—
I stumbled back a step, waving my hand in the air as though batting that treacherous thought away.
Gideon threw me a quick look, but apparently thought this was normal—if not strange—human behavior, and went back to discussing the game, the rules, and if I should be allowed to play.
Rubbing a hand over my racing heart, I closed my eyes and just listened.
Each team would appoint a seeker while the rest of their team hid. The hiders were allowed to move around as long they stayed within the borders of the forest that had been chosen for the competition.
While the hiders depended on stealth and an ability to cover their tracks, a good sense of smell was imperative for the seeker. Trusting their noses, the seekers would hunt down scents like bloodhounds and tag them with a laser pointer. Each laser was coded to its team, and it recorded when and who got tagged. To make it slightly more difficult, each hider had to wear a vest that was receptive to the laser, but only in a bullseye circle at the front and back. The lasers had only enough charges to hit each target once. If a seeker kept shooting and missing, he’d run out of charges before getting any of the precious points he needed to win.
Hiders scored points for their teams, too. One point for each person who got caught before they did.
After a lot of grumbling from Gideon and a lot of wheedling from Reggie, my team finally decided that hide and seek was harmless enough for me to participate.
“Come.” Gideon dragged me over to a huge table set up in the middle of the circle to get fitted with a vest that would be registered with my name and team number.
The vest was stiff and bulky, and the sound the velcro fittings made when parting had me shudder. The lycan helping me—a soft looking woman with a pleasant voice and eyes so green I was momentarily blinded—either didn’t notice or chose not to comment.