“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’sCassie 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 thefuckhad 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?”
4
