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Finn stepped into range of Brand’s fists. Shit. I had to stop this before it started. “Why did you think she was your mate, anyway? What was it that tipped you off?”
He tilted his head, thinking. “When I smelled her, it was like… by the moon, this is disgusting. But that shit didn’t smell as bad as it should, like I wanted to claw my way to the bottom of that stench and scent her. Touch her.”
“And what else?” I asked. “I mean, I’ve been attracted to some not-so-nice smelling females.”
“Her punches and strikes. They hurt.” He stood there, looking at us.
Brand was the first to react. “That’s it? You think she’s your mate because you like the smell of shit, and you’re weak?” He let out a huge bellow of laughter. “I could have told you that already, brother!”
“Fuck off.” Finn ran his hands through his short hair, his eyes flashing. “Why do you have to be such an asshole?”
“Listen, Finn. Whether or not she’s your mate, she’s in danger. Maybe she doesn’t know Del’s dead; maybe she does. That part’s not important. She said she’s planning to sneak back in for the Games. To try for a place in another pack, probably.”
“But she knows Callaway wouldn’t let her fight.” Brand ran a hand over his beard, thinking. “Not as a girl.”
“Yeah.” I admired her commitment to the camouflage, actually. “It’s not a bad tactic. Dress like a boy, cut off your hair, cover your scent with shit—literally. It worked, and she’s hoping it keeps working right up until she’s in the ring, I bet.”
Brand let out a shaky breath. “She’s going to be killed. They’ll be looking for her—all the packs will. Finn, you have to go tell her.”
But Finn blurted out, “I can’t deal with this, with her,” and jetted away, leaves crunching underfoot as he fled. I stared at his back in shock as he ran.
“That asshole,” Brand growled. “Fucking city wolf. Willing to throw away what could be his true mate. She’ll be killed because he’s a coward.”
“Maybe not,” I muttered, already planning how to sneak her out to my pack. “I’ll go back and talk to her, make certain she didn’t kill Del. Then I’ll make sure she knows what she’s walking into.” I nodded at the path where Finn had vanished. “You follow Finnick and see if you can talk sense into him. Or keep him from doing something stupid anyway.”
“Too late, brother,” he grumbled, but took off after Finn.
I turned back toward Wills—whatever her real name was—and wondered why my heart pounded faster with every step I took. Probably because I was getting out of shape. I’d add a few more miles to my runs this week.
As I got closer to the campsite, I realized she’d left. I tracked her easily, following the scent of latrine for about a half mile, noticing a little too late that she had gone to the creek that ran along the far edge of the Southern packlands.
Before I knew it, I was standing in the shade of the forest, watching like a fucking creeper as the shifter I’d thought at first was a young male lay in the sunlight.
Her wet hair gleamed, her clothing drying on nearby rocks. She looked like some sort of forest nymph, small breasts with tight pink nipples bare to the sky, and a narrow strip of dark red hair between her legs.
She was a vision. A goddess. And I couldn’t look away.
7
Dishonored
FLOR
“Tell me I smell like shit?” I muttered out loud as I stalked to the creek. “Tell me I can’t fight? I’ll fight them all.”
Flor, forget those guys, I told myself. Their opinions don’t matter.
But inner, bloodthirsty Flor was not so forgiving. She kept imagining a battle royale where she handed all three of them their asses. Their very nice, very firm asses.
Asses I might fondle for a while before I kicked them from here to the Mississippi border.
Ugh. Maybe the sewage had gotten in my ear and infected my brain. I’d lost all my sense.
I grabbed the bar of hotel soap Del had stuck in the bottom of my bag, reminding myself again to thank him for thinking of everything. Well, not everything. I could have used some real shampoo instead of the hotel-sized bar of soap. But I’d made do with less.
I stripped down, unrolling the muslin strips that bound my breasts. The cloth wasn’t that uncomfortable, but it left marks. I rubbed at my skin to erase them, running my hands over my breasts. They weren’t big, but they definitely didn’t look like a boy’s. I let my fingers slide over the abused skin and circled my nipples with my fingertips, wondering why the faces of the men I’d just met swam through my mind as I did so.
“Turning into a pervert,” I muttered, soap in hand as I stepped carefully into the water, aware of the slick moss on the stones near the edge of the creek.
