The force trying to slide his bones into a different shape hesitated. He felt an odd sense of alignment, like a dislocated limb clicking back into place. The pain in his scar faded, but suddenly he was running twice as fast—still on his own two feet, covering the ground in huge, effortless strides.
His internal compass abruptly swung skyward. It felt like running face-first into a wall. Buck staggered, spinning round, trying to reorient himself.
“Honey!” he bellowed, heart thundering in his ears. “Honey!”
“Buck?”
Her voice came from high over his head. Looking up, he spotted her clinging to a narrow rope bridge, a good thirty feet above the forest floor. A network of planks and cables stretched out in all directions, slung between tree trunks like the web of some giant, demented spider with an inexplicable penchant for carpentry.
The high ropes course.
He’d known it existed, but he hadn’t had occasion to come here before. Their pack was restricted to the lower, much tamer obstacle course, where it would take serious determination for someone to manage to break their neck (not that Archie hadn’t tried). Only the older, teenage campers were allowed to tacklethiscourse—under Leonie’s eagle-eyed supervision, and while securely clipped to the safety lines.
Honey was not wearing a safety harness.
“Everything’s under control,” Honey said, the slight quaver in her voice implying the exact opposite. She stretched out a foot, trying to reach the next plank. “No need to panic. I’ll be down in no time.”
“You’ll be down in a split second if you slip.” He was already hauling himself up the nearest trunk, defying gravity through sheer desperation. “Don’t move a muscle. I’m coming to get you.”
“Really, I’m—” Honey cut herself off with a high-pitched squeak as the whole bridge swayed. She gripped the rope handrail harder. “Yes, I think that would be a good idea.”
The course had been designed to challenge fit, agile shifters with supernatural strength and the fearlessness of youth. It would normally take a team of four people coordinated effort and a good ten minutes to navigate.
Buck ran it in under ten seconds, barely making contact with the ropes. It still felt like an eternity before he reached Honey.
“I’ve got you.” He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close against his side. “It’s all right. You’re safe now.”
“I—I’m fine.” She leaned against him, head pressing into his shoulder. He could feel the rapid, shallow rise and fall of her chest; the hummingbird wings of her heartbeat. “Just… need a second to catch my breath. Then I can follow you down.”
“Like hell you are.” He ducked to scoop her up, slinging her across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. “Hold on and stay still. What the fuck were you thinking?”
Her hands wound into his shirt. “I, um, may have made a slight error in judgment.”
“Woman, you have a talent for understatement.”
Buck eyed the distance to the next beam. In his headlong rush to get here, he hadn’t even been aware of the drop below his feet. Now, with his precious cargo, the gaps between planks gaped like the mouths of hungry crocodiles.
“This thing is designed for people who can turn into literal leopards.” He started picking his way back across the bridge, one hand on the ropes, the other spread across the small of her back. “You couldn’t get across it with a full climbing rig and hands on help from your own personal guardian angel. Why on earth did you come up here? Scratch that,howdid you get up here?”
“I climbed a ladder.” Honey squeaked, clutching at his back as he risked a leap to the next foothold. “I didn’t realize the girls were going to take it away.”
“The girls?” Something tickled his memory. Two figures, leaping out of his way… “Estelle and Flora?”
Honey sighed. “I should have known. Did they tell you I was here?”
Thankfully, the effort of navigating the obstacle course gave him the excuse to respond with a noncommittal grunt. He paused to catch his breath, feet braced between suspended planks.
“I’m going to make that pair scrub out the toilets with their toothbrushes,” he growled, trying to ignore the way that certain soft, distracting parts of Honey were pressed against the back of his neck. “No more hikes or cookouts. They can spend the rest of the summer making pivot tables with Conleth. Maybe that will teach them the difference between a hilarious practical joke and dangerous dumbassery.”
“It wasn’t exactly a prank. The girls had their reasons.” Honey hesitated. “Buck? What’s a fated mate?”
Her innocent question damn near broke their necks. He stumbled, almost missing the next leap. Only a lightning grab for the nearest rope kept him from plummeting to the unforgiving ground. He scrabbled to find a toehold, hauling them both back to safety.
“Why do you ask?” he said when he’d regained his balance, both literally and metaphorically.
“Um.” He couldn’t see Honey’s face, but it sounded like she was blushing. “The girls mentioned it. They seemed to think it was something I should already know.”
Buck was profoundly grateful that she couldn’t see his face either. He shifted her weight across his shoulders, pretending to be judging the next jump to stall for time.
