Chapter 3
JAGGER
I knew something was up when Titus came into the holding room early. This was our first Hunt in charge — the first Hunt since the Butchers had bowed out because of the girl they’d claimed in the last two — but Titus had been the bouncer as long as I could remember.
He didn’t enter the holding room before the Hunt unless there was a problem.
He crossed the room to where I stood with Hawk and Vigo, then leaned in so the other teams of men — some already masked, others holding masks in their hands — wouldn’t hear. “Problem.”
I pricked my finger with the hunting knife in my hand and watched as a bead of blood rose to the surface of my skin. “Every problem is an opportunity.”
“Not this one,” Titus said. “Cassie’s out there. She wants in.”
Hawk lifted his eyebrows. “Cassie…?”
He was as bored as I was. As bored as Vigo was. We weren’t built to stand around. We weren’t built to wait.
For anything.
“Cassie Montgomery,” Titus said. “Bram’s little sister.”
A flicker of recognition flashed in Hawk’s eyes. “Does Bram know?”
“I’m going to take a stab in the dark and say no because if he did he’d be hauling her ass out of here.”
Hawk blinked, then looked at the four girls huddled together on the other side of the room. “If she wants to play, let her play.”
I sighed. “I’d ask if you’re fucking insane, but I already know the answer to that question.”
“Rich coming from you,” Hawk said blandly.
Fair. We were all a little insane.
“I’m just saying, Bram is going to lose his shit if we let his little sister join the Hunt.”
“What’s he going to do?” Vigo asked. “Kill us?”
“Possibly.” I didn’t know what I’d expected. I’d known Hawk and Vigo long enough to know that when given the option between a reasonable and unreasonable thing, they would always choose the latter, out of curiosity as much as anything else.
And yeah, I knew I could be a little unhinged myself, but we were talking about Bram.
“The Butchers gave us control of the Hunt,” Hawk said, turning his eyes on me. “It’s not their show anymore.”
That part was true. Maeve Haver had them totally pussy-whipped. The Butchers were done hunting.
Women anyway.
We’d been psyched to be handed the baton, and we’d spent the last thirty days making changes to the tunnels, adding obstacles that would make the Hunt more challenging for the women who were our prey.
And more exciting for us.
“Can you call Bram?” I asked Titus. Because yeah, I was a risk-taker but that didn’t mean I had a fucking death wish.
Titus shook his head. “Out of town.”
I frowned. “Out of town?”
Other than when all that shit went down with Maeve, I couldn’t remember a time when the Butchers hadn’t been right here in Blackwell Falls.
Titus nodded. “Took Maeve to Bali.”
Vigo’s grin looked devilish under the purple lights we’d installed in the tunnels to replace the red ones used by the Butchers. “Then I say we let her play.”
“I agree.” Hawk had turned his attention to the newest Hunt team, their copper bull masks glinting under the purple lights.
They’d taken the place of the Ghosts, who’d been eliminated by the Butchers — in more ways than one — when they’d allowed strangers to infiltrate the last Hunt.
The new team had been vetted, but we didn’t know them well, and after what had happened with the Ghosts, we were all less trusting.
“It’s not our job to babysit Bram’s little sister.
Besides, I’m not above fucking with Bram just for the fuck of it. ”
I cursed. “This is a mistake.”
Hawk clearly didn’t share my lack of a death wish.
“You’re outvoted,” Vigo pointed out, rubbing his hands together. “Baby sister gets to play.”
“Let her in,” Hawk said.
“Bram will have my balls,” Titus said.
Vigo flashed him a smile in mock sympathy. “Sounds like he already does, big guy.”
“Fuck you,” Titus said.
Vigo laughed.
“We’ll take the heat,” Hawk said.
Now it was “we.” Fucking of course it was. I didn’t complain though, because that was how it worked with Hawk, Vigo, and me.
Titus stomped toward the door leading to the Orpheum.
“Who do you like?” Hawk’s gaze slid over the four girls on the other side of the holding room.
I took them in as dispassionately as I’d watched the blood rise on my finger.
It didn’t really matter which one we chose.
Whoever we chose was just a toy. We’d play with her in the tunnels, bring her home to play with her some more, cut her loose after the ninety days she was obligated to live with us.
Unless we lost the Hunt, in which case we’d have a different kind of fun.
“Maybe the blonde,” I said, eying a curvy girl with big tits and wide hips. “She could be fun.”
“I could go blonde this time,” Vigo said, like he was deciding what to order off the menu at Syd’s.
There were fewer girls than usual by design. Under the Butchers the field had been evenly stacked: twenty-one men, seven women.
Enough women to make sure each team of three could claim one.
But Hawk, Vigo, and I were nothing if not competitive, and what was the fun in knowing there was enough to go around? We craved adrenaline, chaos.
Madness.
So we’d stocked the Hunt with fewer women, and the tension was already palpable.
Other than the Bulls, who were new, the men were used to having enough to go around.
They could be almost lazy in the Hunt if that was what they wanted.
After all, they had twenty-four hours to catch one of the girls, and even if every masked team claimed one, there would be enough little mice for everyone.
Not this time.
This time the men would have to move fast, claim one of the women before the other teams, before there was no one left to claim.
I was still considering the blonde when the door opened.
Titus stepped into the room, followed by a little redhead, her tits spilling out of a light purple T-shirt under a white hoodie.
I felt her presence like a sudden shock, a zing of electricity that went straight to my dick.
“Holy shit…”
Vigo’s gaze locked onto her as she joined the girls on the side of the room. “That’s Cassie Montgomery?”
I was as surprised as Vigo. The last time I’d seen Cassie she’d been an awkward tween with braces, a shy little rabbit ushered everywhere by Bram, who’d acted like her personal security detail even when she’d been a kid.
But now? Well, now I could see why Bram had been hiding her.
And where the fuck had he been hiding her?
Because Cassie Montgomery had grown up to be a fucking smoke show, a redhead with glossy long hair, wide green eyes, and a banging body.
And now she was here, in the Hunt, waiting to be claimed.
I looked at Hawk, whose gaze was fastened onto Cassie like one of the birds he trained homing in on a mouse in the fields.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”