Ryan
“I feel like we’re in college again,” Jacob murmurs as we lean against the side of one of the earthen buildings on the outer ring of the village. He rolls his shoulders before crossing his arms over his chest, purposefully flexing.
Andrew leans forward to peer at him, snorting, “Yeah, and just like in college, the chances of you getting’ any tail tonight is slim to nonexistent.”
“I’ve put on like thirty pounds of muscle since then,” Jacob hisses, flexing his biceps in emphasis.
I’m standing between them with my arms crossed as we watch the group of hunters–two dozen or so, by my estimation–prepare for the hunt. One group is entirely female and has my group's full, unwavering attention.
“Do you remember the night,” Andrew laughs, pointing an accusatory finger at Jacob, “when you brought Gretchen Crosby to the fall formal afterparty?”
“I don’t want to talk about that–”
“And her boyfriendshowed up, and instead of kicking his ass and taking her back to our dorm room, you ended up playing flip the cup with himuntil three in the morning.”
“I didn’t know she had a boyfriend, first of all–”
“Who’d she end up going home with, anyway?” Andrew asks, chuckling.
Jacob furrows his brow and scratches his head, shrugging. “I don’t remember.”
“Well it wasn’t you!”
“Obviously,” Jacob growls, turning his attention back to the group of women tittering like little birds as they steal glances in our direction. He winks at one of them, and she blushes, whispering enthusiastically with her friends.
“Now I remember,” Andrew teases, then nudges me hard. “Good ole’ Ryan took her home, and her best friend, too, if I remember correctly.”
I roll my eyes to the fading light of the sunset and say a soft prayer to the Goddess to strike me where I stand.
“What are you talking about?” Turner asks as he saddles up next to us. Andrew tilts his head toward the women, and Turner goes a little pink in the cheeks. Poor kid.
I tune Jacob and Andrew out as they continue to bicker about a life that feels so far in the past I can barely conjure the memory of it. Young, free, and wild.
I don’t feel so young, or so free, right now. Not as I scan the groups diligently preparing for what I thought was going to be a night spent as wolves, hunting for deer and elk under the light of a nearly full moon. This is going to be a lot more than that based on the way the hunters are sharpening blades and examining spears before fixing them to halters worn across their chests and backs.
“Ryan could fucking pull,” Jacob laughs, directing his words at an increasingly red Turner, who I doubt has ever talked to a girl without wanting to throw up. He’s been twenty-one for a week, if that. Which is why we brought him. He needs the experience as a wolf, but Jacob and Andrew seem to be trying to bait him into going to talk to the Endovian women still batting their eyelashes at us and giggling a few yards away.
“What does pull mean?” Turner asks innocently.
“He could just look at a woman, and she’d end up in his bed. He was a legend at Wellington.”
“That’s not necessarily true,” I argue, which only adds fuel to the fire. Soon, Andrew and Jacob are filling Turner in on what our college days, and the early days of the Silverhide pack, looked like. Nights spent at bars. Mornings spent tangled with women I wouldn’t remember again.
It was easy. I enjoyed partying. I loved the chase, and I knew I had a special knack for laying on the charm, but damn, it’s been… years since then. I can’t say I don’t miss it. I liked who I was back then, before I ever felt the mate bond. Before the mate bond ruined my life, and I ended Hadley’s.
I turn my attention back to the other hunters, taking in their strange clothes and assortment of weapons.
“Holy shit,” Jacob swears.
“What?” I follow his gaze and find… Aviva.
“Who is that?” Turner asks, choking on the words.
“That’s Ryan’s soon-to-be wife.”
“If she doesn’t kill him in his sleep before then. That’s why he has our guys pulling double shifts at night guarding the camp,” Andrew murmurs, but his tone has dropped from its previous taunting tone.
We drop into stunned silence as she moves through the crowd of hunters looking like something out of a dream. Her thick red hair is braided down her back, still decorated with those shells that catch the last colors of the sunset, casting a halo around her face. She’s smiling, which is… fuck… intoxicating in a way I hadn’t expected.
She’s wearing a leather skirt that hits her mid-thigh and a matching top that shows off her midriff. She’s fucking jacked, honestly. She’s a very small woman, maybe Kenna’s height, but leanly muscled like she’s in constant movement throughout the day, which I wholeheartedly believe.
“Her friend,” Andrew says with a nudge to my ribs. “Who the hell is her friend?”
“That’s Freya,” Jacob whispers on my other side. “Don’t get your hopes up, man. She’s an elder’s daughter too.”
“Fuck,” Andrew hisses.
Fuck is right. Now both women are looking in our direction. Aviva looks me up and down and smirks before turning to the other female hunters. She is the only one carrying a bow, however. The rest have a few blades each, all worn on nearly identical leather belts. Their outfits are all similar, too, with those weird loops and strings. I imagine they come apart when shifting, and then my dirty mind wanders to whether she’s wearing anything underneath.
Her head whips around, her eyes meeting mine in a playful glare, but a glare nonetheless.
Jacob sucks in his breath and blows it out. Even Andrew stiffens.
She starts walking over.
“Here we go,” I breathe, straightening up to meet her halfway. Her posse of women follow, hanging back by a few feet. Only the golden-haired Freya, who Andrew is simping over, steps up beside her with her arms crossed and a smirk on her daintily beautiful face.
“Aviva,” I say by way of greeting.
“Alpha Ryan.” She looks from me to my men, then rolls her eyes back to mine. “Are you not going on the hunt tonight?”
“I am. Why?”
She makes a show of looking around. “I see no weapons. In fact, I see four men standing around with their dicks in their hands while we do all the work.”
Her group cackles. My men blow out their breaths and choke with surprise.
“If you need my help with something, all you have to do is ask.” I edge a step closer to her. “Nicely.”
“I don’t know what that word means.”
“I believe it.”
She glares, I glare back. Why do I love this so much?
“What do you need weapons for? This is a hunt. We’re wolves. Our teeth and claws are enough,” Andrew chuckles.
The women ignore him completely, but Aviva turns slightly, throwing me a look over her shoulder. “You’re going to want to change,” she says, tilting her head as she inspects me.
“Why?” I ask, arching a brow.
Freya glances at Andrew with a sly smile, and I swear I can sense Andrew’s heart just skipped a beat.
“You’re going to shred your clothes apart, unless you’re planning to harvest the meat and pelts naked after making a kill.” Her smile cuts through me like a heated blade and awakens something primal I don’t think I’ve ever felt before. “It still gets rather cold at night, and it’s a long walk back to the village from the hunting grounds. I’d hate for you to catch a chill only a few days before our wedding.”
The women behind her send soft peals of giggles rippling through the air between us.
I shift my weight, firmly planting my feet further apart as I cross my arms over my chest and hold her gaze. “I’m sure you’d enjoy the show.”
She arches her brows as Jacob and Andrew snicker behind me.
Something is in the air right now. Whether it’s adrenaline from the upcoming hunt, or possibly a touch of embarrassment that I’d caught her in a moment of vulnerability this morning, I’m not sure. But Aviva is out for blood, and she’s targeting me.
I’m all right with it. I can play games too. I fucking love games. What Aviva doesn’t realize is that I always win.
I step up to her, closing the distance between us. She isn’t prepared for it and almost takes a step back on instinct.
“I’m curious about these skills your father said you possessed when he gave you to me,” I say wryly, drawing out the word gavejust to see how the color rushes to her cheeks. “I’ve only caught a glimpse of your talent when you had your arrow pointed at the top of my skull.” I look down at her, giving her the cocky smile that used to get me any girl I wanted. I know for a fact Aviva is more likely to lodge one of her fine blades in my ribs than swoon. “I want to make a wager with you, little wolf.”
Her group whispers excitedly, but Aviva is stone-cold. “What kind of wager?”
I run my tongue across my lower lip and eye the women gathered behind her before meeting her unwavering gaze. We haven’t been this close before. Her eyes aren’t a deep, dark brown. Not totally. Flakes of cherry and copper hug her pupils. Hundreds of freckles stretch across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Her eyelashes are thick and a darker red than her hair, the color of a rich, aged whiskey.
She’s fucking beautiful.
“We’re going to hunt together. If you get a clean kill first, I’ll marry your sister instead.” I lean down, smiling as I continue, “But if I get a kill first, you’re going back to Silverhide with me without a fight and leaving your fucking attitude here in Endova.”
She shoves me, but I catch her wrist. My thumb circles over her pulse, and her heart is beating rapidly, just like I expected.
“Do we have a deal?” I ask.
She rips out of my grasp but doesn’t step away. She holds out her hand in silence. I take it, and she shakes my hand once but digs her sharp nails into my skin. Her eyes bore into mine before she tears away, turning and cutting through the crowd of women.
Freya scowls at me and Andrew before turning on her heel and following Aviva. The rest of the women follow, talking in hushed whispers, but then Aviva stops and turns back to face me.
“What are you doing, Ryan?” Jacob hisses. “You can’t make a wager on this. I thought we agreed that we needed this alliance with her tribe–”
Aviva stalks back toward us, the sunset casting her in a halo of light just as the sun slips below the horizon and sends peels of shadows over her face. A horn blares, low and ominous, a signal that the hunt is about to begin.
“Alpha Ryan!” she shouts over the sudden movement of the hunters who begin to shift and dart out of the village.
“What?”
“You’d better start preparing to take Mercy back with you to Silverhide.” She stops several feet away, ignoring the wolves darting between us.
“Why is that?”
“Because I’m taking you to Fell Valley.”
The women gasp, and Freya grabs Aviva’s arm, hissing something I can’t hear over the horns and thundering wolves.
A chill works its way down my spine because of the feral look in her eyes.
“What’s in Fell Valley?” I ask, and she smiles.
“It's not what’s in it but what’s above it. We’re hunting for mountain goats.” She shifts and darts away at the speed of light.
“Shit,” I hiss, trying to get out of my shirt and pants. I have no idea where Fell Valley is, but I know for a fact that if I don’t hurry up, she’s going to get there first, and I really don’t want to be leaving this Goddess forsaken village with her sister instead of her. I take off after her in a sprint, tearing out of my clothes as I shift.
Andrew and Jacob shout my name, but their voices fade into the distance as I weave through the wolves heading out for the hunt.
She’s hiding her scent again, but it’s hard to miss the red wolf as she breaks from the group before it reaches the forest.
I follow.
I’m not letting her win this.
This is also the most I’ve felt like myself in over two years, and I’m not ready to let that feeling go.