Maisie

"The Annual Hunt," I repeated, wiping the sweat off my brow. "What the hell is that?"

I was running the treadmill on my side of the gym and had spent the last hour pretending not to stare at Jericho’s perfect pecs, or Quinlan’s back side as he grappled with Mercer.

They were all half-naked. I thought they were doing it on purpose. I’d been so distracted when I walked in that I walked right into the wall.

So much for the stupid line of demarcation. I should have asked for a wall instead.

"Much like the Red Moon," Mercer explained, running his fingers through his damp red hair. That was also mildly distracting. I thought of my fingers in those soft tresses as he hooked my legs over his shoulders and it was an effort to keep a straight, disinterested face. "It’s another archaic one of our traditions. Similar to your wolf hunts where you run together as a pack to hunt game. Only, we don’t hunt for game."

My brows rose curiously as I reached for the bottle of water. "Oh, let me guess. Unwilling women?"

Amusement lit up Mercer’s eyes. "No, wildcat. We hunt traitors. Rogues. We cut them loose, give them a head start and then we chase."

I paused. "And they don’t get away?"

"The Hunt isn’t designed for anyone to get away." Quinlan paused. "Not for the lack of trying, of course. It’s that there is a reward for winning, which drives all the males into a frenzy. The prey could never survive that."

I brushed my hair off my sweaty collarbone. "Reward?"

Jericho stilled as Mercer said, while pushing the weights. "A night in the Queen’s bed."

My jaw slackened. "You can’t be serious."

Mercer looked just as appalled, but he kept it hidden underneath his usual angry expression. "Her mates compete for the win, too. If they don’t win, it’s an insult to her pride. And they get punished for it by feeling the pain of sharing."

"Has there ever been such an instance?" I didn’t know why I asked. Perhaps, for the first time, I imagined myself as Queen. It was a foolish thought and I discarded it immediately. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

But not before I noticed the strange silence in the gym. Jericho had gone rigid. He’d been rigid since they began talking about the Hunt. And uncharacteristically quiet. He hadn’t even glanced in my direction once.

And the corners of his ears were reddened.

"Once," Quinlan said, and I instantly understood.

Once, Jericho won the Hunt. He’d spent the night with the Queen. Had slept with her.

Something hot rose in my chest. The surge was uncontrollable and I felt like I was exhaling fire. The bottle in my grasp cracked slightly and I blinked rapidly, willing the flush down my cheeks.

My mind flew back to the wedding. And the way her eyes had dragged over Jericho for a second, and I thought I had imagined it.

Had there been more nights? Had they been more than Queen and subject? Had he spelled his name between his legs the same way he did me? Had he kissed her just as softly? Or did he worship her right before he did it? Did he look into her eyes like he did mine when he pushed into her? Did he kiss her into wanting it?

Realizing they could probably feel the rising ocean of emotions through the bond, I slammed up my mental walls and feigned nonchalance.

My fingers were shaking for some odd reason.

"The Hunt coincides with your first mandatory appearance at Court," Quinlan said in a bid to change the topic, but the damage had already been done.

Damage? I asked myself. What did I care if he was with her? We weren’t anything to each other. It’d be extra stupid to feel any form of territoriality over him.

"We’ll leave by flight tomorrow morning," Mercer added. "But before we do, you and I need to make a quick stop at the store today."

I frowned. "I already have enough clothes in my closet."

"You can never have too much of anything," Mercer muttered. "But that isn’t the reason why. The Queen will expect a gift from you. Another tradition. Think of it as a complementary gift to your mother-in-law after the wedding."

I couldn’t help my grimace. The last thing I thought of the Queen as was a mother-in-law. I mean, what mother-in-law in the world would have shared a bed with her daughter-in-law’s husband? I swore the family tree was dark and twisted and I really didn’t want to exist on any of the branches.

"Showing up without it is considered a lack of gratitude and an insult—"

"Why is everything an insult—"

"—and while we’re already on her bad side, I’d rather not make it worse until Soren’s ready to step." He shook his head. "The gift is expected to be rare. Lavish. And considering we’re on such short notice, nothing can be custom made. We’ll figure something out. We’ll head out after school."

My lips pursed. I couldn’t think of anything. Maybe because the only thing I wanted to give to Queen Evil was a bottle of hair oils mixed with hair remover.

I supposed Regina and Jenny would know. "Can I bring my friends?"

Mercer made a face. "So long as they keep the conversation about knottings and pregnancies to a minimum."

****

The cafeteria was rowdy as always. The Lycans were all the way across the room, and I could feel their stares dragging across my ass as I leaned over, dropping my plate on the table.

"Shouldn’t you be sitting over there?" Regina asked with her mouthful as she sucked her pinky free of ketchup. "Would save me the heart attack of your men watching me like I’m stealing their favorite candy."

I scowled at her. "I sit where I want."

"Bonjour!" Came a chirpy greeting from Juliette and she planted herself firmly between Regina and Jenny. She’d only met them twice but I could tell she was at ease with them, too, when she began talking about how good it felt to eat hunks for once in her life, as opposed to Quinlan’s strict supervision that ran as deeply as controlling her meals.

Jenny bit into her hot dog. "I didn’t know Quinlan was so domineering. He looks like a cute little puppy." We all glanced over at the Lycans as if in search of this puppy she was speaking of.

"Puppy?" Juliette laughed. "You should see his little dungeon back at home."

Jenny, Regina and I exchanged blank stares. "Dungeon?"

Juliette barely noticed as she squirted more ketchup onto her fries. "Yes yes. He has one in every club. He’s never let me in there. And he tries to shield me all the time, but the maids talk. There are floggers and canes in there. And collars and chains—"

Her eyes went wide as she caught herself, meeting out wide-eyed stares. "Quinn is going to kill me," she whispered.

Just then, three of their gazes lifted over my shoulder and Juliette went impossibly paler, losing all the tan she’d gotten since she came to Ashbourne.

A disquiet rippled through the cafeteria.

"Uh... Maisie..." Regina said with a mouthful. "The... er... Lycans are coming over here."

I didn’t look back, but I sighed. "Some lecture about appearances and forceful removal, I’m sure."

But Jenny was clutching her fork too tight. And that’s when I felt the wall—walls—of heat brush up my spine. It was unfamiliar.

Those were not my Lycans.

I stiffened, just as someone swung onto the bench on my left. Cool, minty air kissed my temple. "Hello, sister."

I recoiled, only to bump into another male on my right. There was Kisten Hunt, grinning down at me. It didn’t matter how many clothes he had on, or how not a single lock of his hair was out of place. Or how nice he looked all dressed up in leather and shoes.

He was an animal. There was nothing civilized in those eyes.

In my peripheral, I noticed Bastian leaning against the table, but he wasn’t exactly looking at me. His eyes were on Regina’s red hair for some reason. Bored. Disinterested. They raked down her curls for a long second before flicking back to me.

"I don’t believe we’ve met properly," Kisten’s look-alike said. "I’m Ryder. You should remember it for when we take you back and show you what a proper bond looks like."

I stared at him blankly. "And what might that entail? Raping women?"

He laughed. He was handsome. They were all handsome. Startlingly so. Magnetic in the way bad boys always were. But they didn’t make my blood heat up like my mates did.

"Our Queen, mother, quite likes to rule, but she lets us males run the Ridge. We don’t believe in the nonsensical values the false queen upholds. Women are trophies to be conquered. They love being owned. Why treat them any differently?"

I didn’t trust myself to sit still and have this conversation without jamming him in the eye with my fork. But the auras they were throwing off were affecting Jenny and Regina. My friends were shivering.

"Get to the point if you do not want your head torn off. What do you want?" I asked, noting my wonderful husbands approaching.

This was not going to be pretty.

"Many things," Kisten said behind me. "But we’ll get to them eventually. For now, we’ll settle for the minimum." He licked his lips, eyes glued to the swell of my breasts in my soft blue blouse. "The Head Mistress recommended you as an excellent option of a tutor."

I paused. "Excuse me?"

Bastian shrugged. "We don’t bother ourselves with these useless things, like education, at the Ridge. We live as our ancestors did. Wild. Untamed. Uncaged by societal demands."

I stared at him. "So... you can’t read."

"Of course we can." Kisten paused, considering. "The basics."

"How on earth did you get into Greymoor?" Regina said, her eyes wide.

Bastian merely shrugged again. "The Head Mistress is an unmated, lonely woman."

Oh my god. Was he saying what I thought he was trying to say? Goddess, but I needed to bleach out my eyes and ears and mind to get rid of the images of Atlas in... positions.

"She’s busy," Mercer butted in, yanking out of my chair like I was made of plastic and holding me firmly to his chest like glue. "I’m sure someone else could do the honors."

Ryder rose from his seat, holding his hands high in mock surrender. "It was only a request, little bastard. After all, we do need some time to bond as a family. Catch up. Unless you’re scared that once given a chance to get to know us, she’ll jump on our dicks and ride it harder than she rode yours?"

Jenny started coughing.

Really. I couldn’t believe I was in the centre of a Lycan brawl. I thought there was some oblivious girl somewhere right now, wishing she was me.

Goddess, if only she knew.

"Piss off," Quinlan said.

"You too, cupcake," Bastian said, and I gave Kisten points for audacity when he grabbed a lock of my hair between his fingers and said, "You’ll come running to me one day, princess. One day you’ll realize you’re not so different from us and family’s all you’ve really got. Until then, we’ll continue to play these games of push and pull."