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I froze, holding my breath. After a second—too long, I was being careless—I dropped my gaze from his.
“Go on, Van. Give the good news,” the Alpha said with a curt nod. He crooked his finger at one of the preening shifters, and she stepped up next to him, the two of them vanishing back into the Pack House.
Shit. Callaway had turned the meeting over to Blackside? I started to move away, so slowly I thought no one would notice. But Del had one hand on my shoulder, the other pressing something into my hand. I didn’t look down; Blackside had started speaking about traditions and their importance in our pack.
But Del had handed me what felt like a length of rope. He breathed the words so quietly, I could have imagined them. “Take to the trees. Stay high, out of sight. Remember everything I taught you.”
Blackside’s voice broke through my focus on Del. “Enforcer Billings caught his prey—sorry, his mate—in four days. I challenge all of you young males to beat that record in the new Hunt. Which starts tonight!”
My ears were buzzing, ringing, and I kept creeping back, crouching low.
“Rules of the Hunt are as always. The shifter who succeeds wins not only his mate, but a place on my Enforcer team, as well as the housing and increased food allowance. Remember, no hunting in the Pack House, no weapons but teeth and claws. Anyone found breaking the rules is automatically disqualified, and earns a lashing with silver.” He chuckled, as if that consequence was amusing. “Now, normally we wait for our target to reach eighteen, but as we have fewer young females to choose from this year, the Alpha and I decided to change that to a female who is showing signs of sexual maturity.”
The crowd started buzzing, with excitement and concern.
I was almost behind the pine when I heard the words I’d feared. “The new prey in our traditional Hunt will be Flor Wills!”
The crowd broke into shouts and mocking laughter. Derision and disgust filled every voice.
“The pack reject? Who’d want to mate that?”
“She’s filthy!”
“I’d fuck her in the dark. She’ll be grateful.”
I was frozen in place, until I heard Luke call out, “She’s a child! Still in school. She’s years away from?—”
“Alpha decreed it,” Blackside interrupted. “You know pack law.”
Luke’s voice shook me free of the fear that had hobbled me. I spun on one heel, my eyes meeting Del’s for a moment. He had tears on his face and a hand filled with what I knew was pepper, already sprinkling it over the ground where I’d stood.
He was trying to obscure my trail. Fighting to protect me. But no female had ever been able to fend off the Hunt for more than a few weeks.
Without the meat I brought in from my own hunts, Mama would starve.
Without my help in the kitchens, Del would suffer.
And I sure as fuck wasn’t going to mate one of these asshole mouthbreathers.
Howls of the chase followed me as I ran faster than I ever had before. I’d always been fast. Light on my feet, and running had been an escape.
But I knew this time, when I stopped, I was as good as dead.
“Stop running, little queen,” someone whispered in my ear. “Your mate is here. I will keep you safe.”
I whirled around and saw a midnight black wolf, with sparks of red and blue in his eyes, staring at me, his teeth bright in the nighttime.
“Stop running,” he said, though he didn’t move.
“Never,” I replied, and suddenly, my shiv was in my hand, thrusting up and into the wolf’s belly. “Never,” I cried as the beautiful creature died at my feet. Then I looked down, and it wasn’t one dead wolf there, but five.
And the knife was in my chest, plunged between my breasts, right through my silvered scar.
19
Too Little, Too Late
FLOR
