“Okay, wait, I know you’re mad,” I said. “But Faythe taught me—”
“Stop and think before you finish that sentence,” he said, his voice so deep and gravely I could feel it in my bones. His eyes flashed like bright blue flames, and my breath caught in my throat. “The most notorious rule-breaker in enforcer history may not be the source you want to quote right now.”
My temper sparked and I found my tongue. “Faythe is who she is today because of who she was back then, and I can’t think of a more respectable path than to follow in her footsteps. Just like you did, back when she was your Alpha.”
Jace’s pulse tripped and his eyes widened almost imperceptibly in surprise. For a moment, he looked unsure what to say. Then he pointed to a spot on the floor next to Robyn. “Sit still and stay out of the way. I’ll deal with you when we’re done with the cabin.” Then he stomped off, mumbling under his breath about how I’d used the science of politics against him.
I wasn’t exactly eager to mop up blood and dispose of corpses anyway, so I kept an eye on Robyn while the guys erased all evidence of both shifters and criminal activity from Steve’s hunting retreat.
Robyn was still unconscious but breathing, and with any luck, she’d sleep through everything she shouldn’t see. When the cabin was clean, I would “find” her and call the police, while Jace and his men watched from the treetops. Robyn would tell the cops what she remembered, but they would find no sign of the murderers or of their morbid hobby.
Jace and his men reclaimed all the cat trophies so our dead brothers could have a proper burial. And even if a forensics team found my blood at the campsite, they’d never piece together what had really happened. They’d think their samples were contaminated.
After about an hour, Jace knelt next to me on his way across the cabin, bulging trash bag in hand. “You okay, kiddo?” he asked, for the fourth time. Now that he’d had time to think, he seemed worried about my potentially fragile mental state.
“Yeah.” Better than I’d expected, considering I’d killed three men and seen three friends murdered.
“Good.” He nodded, but his blue-eyed scowl was dark and angry. “You ever disobey an order again, and I’ll send you straight back to your father. Understood?”
“Yes.” I held his gaze hoping he saw both remorse and fortitude in mine. “But you know I did the right thing. I did the same thing you would have done, in my position.”
His frown deepened. “I’m not in your position. I am an Alpha. You are a—”
“Do not call me a child,” I snapped. “I’m not a kid anymore, Jace.” Even if he couldn’t tell that from looking at me—not that he ever looked for long—I’d just written it all over the cabin in the blood of my enemies.
“I know. But you’re not an enforcer either. Yet.”
“Yet?” I blinked, sure I’d heard him wrong, and my heart thumped against my sternum.
He nodded, and his grin warmed me deep inside. “If human government doesn’t hold the same appeal after this, let me know. Pride politics are another beast entirely, but I’ll have a job waiting for you, if you want it.”
My brows arched. “For real?”
Jace nodded, eyeing me carefully. Almost admirably. “Faythe taught you well.” For a second, something painful passed over his expression. “But I can do better. If that’s something you’d be interested in, when you finish school.”
Would I be interested in training under the world’s hottest Alpha instead of moving back home to hang a worthless poli-sci degree in my childhood bedroom?
I smiled slowly. “I’m all yours.” My cheeks flamed when I realized how that sounded—accurate or not. “To train, I mean.”
He grinned and pulled me up by one hand. “Why do I suddenly feel like I’m in over my head?”
“I don’t know,” I murmured, as he knelt to pick up his trash bag.
Because I felt like I’d just then found my footing.
A Note From Rachel:
Dear Reader,
Thank you so much for reading “Hunt!” I hope you’ve liked what you’ve seen of Abby and Jace, and if so, you’re in luck! What follows is a preview of the first Wildcats book, a spinoff of the original Shifters series, which launched my career.
The Wildcats books are paranormal romance novels set in the Shifters world. Each will be narrated by a new couple, beginning with Abby and Jace’s book, LION’S SHARE, which introduces a new concept—a Pride made up entirely of strays.
Readers ask me all the time for more books set in the Shifters world, and now that I have a great spinoff concept, I’m happy to oblige! I hope you have as much fun reading them as I’m having writing them!
If you liked “Hunt,” I hope you’ll consider reviewing it wherever you review books. And if you’d like to be updated about new releases, contests, and cover art, click here to sign up for my (hopefully monthly) mailing list.
Thanks again for reading!
Rachel Vincent
Rachelvincent.com | Twitter | Facebook
SNEAK PEEK OF
LION’S SHARE
A WILDCATS NOVEL
BOOK ONE OF THE
SHIFTERS SPINOFF SERIES
By
RACHEL VINCENT
ONE
Abby
What they don’t tell you about college, before you get there, is how much time you’ll have to spend dodging your Alpha’s calls in order to get any studying done.
Or was that just me?
My phone rang again as I unlocked my dorm room door, and again I pressed the ignore button, even though I was all done studying for the semester.
Force of habit.
But to be fair, I did feel a little guilty that time.
I exhaled with relief when the door closed at my back and warmth from my dorm room enveloped me. Three and a half years in Kentucky, and I still couldn’t get used to the cold or the snow. Where I came from, winter was little more than a cool breeze around the first of the year, and even though Kentucky liked to think of itself as a southern state, no one actually hailing from the depth south could claim quite such a familiarity with the changing of the seasons.
In my part of South Carolina, we only had two: hot and slightly less hot.
I dropped my backpack on my unmade bed and took one resentful look at the bulging laundry hamper in the corner of the room, wondering if I actually had to wash my clothes before I packed them. Finals were finally over—I’d aced them, thank you very much—and the winter holiday didn’t officially start until the next day, which meant I had one last night to spend celebrating the end of the semester.
That night was much too precious to be wasted on laundry. Or packing. Or…
“Abby!” My roommate, Robyn Sheffield, pushed the door open with her elbow, carrying a steaming paper cup in each hand. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks were red. She looked happier than I’d seen her in two months.
Healthier, too. Her appetite had come back almost a month before, and her steady hands told me she’d just about put the trauma at the campground behind her.
“Thanks,” I said as she handed me one of the cups. “Hot chocolate?”
Her smile rose higher on one side as she took a sip from her own. “Irish hot chocolate.”
“Because it was made by leprechauns in a pint-sized sweatshop on the outskirts of Belfast?”
“Because it’s liberally spiked with Irish Crème. Gary’s Christmas present to the entire floor.”
Our RA was a pain in the ass nine months out of the year, but he was generous around the holidays. God bless him.
I took a sip and sank onto the edge of my bed with my feet tucked beneath me. “All done with exams?” I said, leaning across my nightstand to press the ratty old scarf farther into the crack in the windowsill. No matter how high we set the thermostat, the draft froze the tip of my nose all night, every night.
“Finally!” She sipped from her cup. “You?”
“As of twenty minutes ago. Seven seme
sters down, one to go.” In six months, I’d have a bachelor’s degree—only the second ever awarded to a female werecat. In the world. Ever. My brothers were proud. My parents were happy for me, but they were also ready for me to be finished with my education, so my “real” life could begin.
The life wherein I would move back home, marry a future Alpha, and have his shifter babies while he trained to take over our Pride from my father. That’s the way it had been for every tabby that had come before me. All but one, anyway.
My cousin Faythe—the world’s only female Alpha—had broken the mold. But that mostly just changed the way people saw her. Faythe was the exception. The tabby who could not be tamed. The rest of us were still expected to follow the rules, because the numbers hadn’t changed. There were still only a handful of female werecats capable of bearing children, and if any of us refused to do that, the strength of our species would be compromised.
We could literally go extinct.
No pressure.
I took a long, deep drink of my spiked hot chocolate, suddenly wishing I had an entire bottle of Irish Crème. Sans the crème.
I had taken Faythe’s advice, and I’d always been grateful to have it. Insisting on going to college had given me the opportunity to be myself—to find myself—before I had to become a wife or mother. But now my sojourn in the human world was almost over.
The clock was counting down toward zero-hour, and with every dreadful tick and inevitably tock, I could feel fate’s vise tighten.
“What’s wrong?” Robyn frowned at me from across the room, where she was scrolling through some game on her phone. “Your hot chocolate doesn’t have enough whiskey?”
“The world doesn’t have enough whiskey,” I muttered, and her frown deepened. “Nothing’s wrong. Just family crap.” After what she’d suffered during our fall break camping trip, I wouldn’t feel right burdening her with my problems.
Robyn only knew a little about my home-life—just the parts it was safe for me to tell her. She knew I had six highly protective older brothers and that my parents had very “traditional” expectations for me. She knew that I could handle myself in a fight, thanks to summers spent with my cousin Faythe. She knew I was still in touch with my high school boyfriend, Brian, but that I only answered about half of his calls, because neither of us knew what to say to each other over the phone.
She also knew that a good friend of my parents lived less than an hour from campus, and that he acted as my emergency contact and de facto guardian while I was at school.
What she didn’t know were words like Alpha and enforcer. And Pride, at least in the shifter sense of the word.
“So, this is our last night on campus!” I drained the last of my spiked hot chocolate and tossed the cup into the trash, then turned to my closet, which was still more than half-full of unpacked clothes. “Last one dressed has to find us a designated driver.”
Three minutes later, I zipped up my shortest skirt and was just stepping into my highest heeled boots when movement out the window drew my eye. A familiar black Pathfinder was pulling into a spot in the parking lot two floors below.
Nooooooo.
I leaned over the nightstand for a better look, and even with my breath fogging up the glass, I recognized the tall, broad figure who stepped out of the car. “Son of a bitch!”
I knew I should have answered my phone!
“Done!” Robyn called, and from the corner of my eye, I saw her stand up in the middle of the room, fully dressed. “Get ready to sweet-talk Julie Cass, because she’s the only teetotaler on this floor who has her own car.”
When I didn’t reply, Robin rounded the end of her bed and leaned over my nightstand to follow my gaze. “What are we looking a…” When her question faded into drooling nonsense, I knew she’d spotted him. “Who is that, and why the hell haven’t you called dibs?”
“That’s Jace Hammond.” I stood, trying to slow the automatic jump in my pulse. She wasn’t wrong. He was gorgeous, in a totally untouchable kind of way.
“Wait, that’s your dad’s friend?” Robin said, and I could hear the surprise in her voice, even though she obviously couldn’t tear her gaze from…whichever part of him she was ogling. “Shouldn’t he be…old?”
“He’s old enough. And he’s not supposed to be here until tomorrow.” My “guardian” had come to collect me a full fifteen hours early.
In the parking lot, Jace leaned against the side of his SUV and ran one hand through thick, wavy brown hair as pulled his phone from his pocket. A second later, mine rang, and for the fourth time in the past two hours, his name popped up on the screen. I answered the call and pressed the phone to my ear.
“You’re early,” I snapped, and Jace stood up straight to scan the side of the dorm building, surprised.
“How did you…?”
“Fourth from the left, third floor,” I said, and when he found my window, Jace took off his sunglasses and grinned up at me. Even from two floors down, his eyes shined bright blue and his grin lit little fires deep in the pit of my stomach, as it had been doing since I was eight years old.
I stomped those tiny flames until they were nothing but embers keeping me warm. Jace smiled the same way at every woman who met his gaze. That grin meant nothing, and it would be dangerous for me to forget that.
Robyn had identified the problem without even knowing it. Alphas weren’t supposed to be young and hot. They were supposed to be old and wise, like my father.
“I’ll be up in a second.” Jace’s voice surged through me, stoking the flames I’d just trampled.
“No! I’ll come down. Stay there.” I hung up before he could argue, and Robyn looked at me as if I’d just threatened to cut off my own arm.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Looking for my coat.” I eyed a suspicious lump beneath my comforter, but a quick poke revealed it to be my pillow.
“You know what I mean. If that guy promised my dad he’d look out for me, I’d sure as hell let him. He looks like he could take really good care of you.”
“Stop staring.” A quick search of my closet floor revealed a cardigan, four bras, and the hair clip I’d been looking for all month. It was the only one strong enough to hold all of my curls out of my face at once. “He’s compulsively unavailable.”
Her hopeful expression collapsed. “Wife?”
“Yeah, but not his own. His heart belongs to my cousin. My very married cousin.” And his body belonged to whatever human girl was warming his bed on any given week. I’d met at least a dozen of them, in what little time I’d spent at the lodge during holidays and long weekends.
He’d never failed to introduce me as “Kiddo.”
I saw no sign of my coat, but Robyn’s jacket was hanging over her desk chair. “Hey, can I borrow that?”
“Sure.” But she clearly had no idea what I was borrowing, because she was still staring at Jace. Not that I could blame her. I’d had a lifetime to practice not-drooling over him at every big get-together and I’d spent the past three-and-a-half years with him as my official Alpha, yet I was still tempted to stare.
“Be back in a sec,” I said on my way out the door, but Robyn never even glanced away from the window.
I flew down two flights of stairs and through the common room, and a burst of cold air hit me when I threw the door open. Shivering, I ran across the grass toward the parking lot in my boots, suddenly wishing I’d chosen lower heels. And pants.
Jace turned when he heard me coming, and a little thrill of satisfaction warmed me from the inside when his jaw actually fell open a little. But then he spoke, and that warmth died. “What happened to the rest of your skirt?”
“I left it in the nineteenth century. Right next to your sexist perspective.”
“Ha!” His eyes flashed in amusement, and I caught my breath. “I’m probably the least sexist man you’ve ever met.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re merely one of the least sexy men I’ve ever me
t.”
He frowned down at me, even though I was in my highest heels. “That’s not what I…” Then his grin rebounded when he realized I was kidding. “Funny. Where’s your suitcase?”
“It’s fifteen hours in the future, where it’s supposed to be. Why are you so early?”
Jace’s smile faded and the Alpha peeked from behind bright blue eyes and full lips I’d known my entire life. “Change of plans. The council’s called an emergency meeting at the ranch.” The Lazy S, of course. In Texas, which was still the de facto council headquarters, even after the death of the previous council head, mostly because the Alphas were all accustomed to meeting there. “Our flight leaves in three hours.”
“I’m not on the council,” I pointed out, in as rational a tone as I could summon. “Ergo, I’m not needed at the ranch.”
“Your dad’s already there, and he wants to take you home for the holidays.”
“Well, I’m an adult, and I belong to your Pride, not his, so he doesn’t have the authority to order me home.” Even if he was the head of the council, a position formerly held by his brother-in-law, my late uncle Greg Sanders.
Jace’s frown deepened, and I resisted the urge to give in just so I could see him smile again. “Your father’s not ordering; he’s requesting. Nicely.”
“And I’m declining.” I crossed my arms over my chest to hold Robyn’s jacket closed. Also, to illustrate my determination. “Nicely.”
“Fine. Then I’m ordering you to go back upstairs and throw some necessities into a bag. Now.”
“Why? Are you scared to stand up to my dad?” I knew I’d stepped over the line when a growl rumbled from his throat and my knees tried to buckle beneath me, on instinct. Because my Alpha was angry, and my inner cat knew that was my fault.