Fuck. She’d better not lose it to one of these idiots. Skoll was okay, but the bear shifter was a dick. Way too serious and lacking appreciation for Mace’s jokes. Reminded him of his half-brother, Talon. Still, Scotty giggled and batted her eyes like a teenage groupie mooning over a rock star.
Scotty never giggled. Or mooned. And when had she learned to do anything with her eyes besides roll them? What the fuck?
“We’re a few miles from the trailhead.” Skoll squinted into the early morning sun rising behind some snowcapped mountains. “We should get to the cabin a little before noon. That’ll give us time to get some sleep and plan our hunt.”
“What time is sunset?” Blade asked, his eyes still closed, his head propped against the window.
“Around nine p.m.” Jon steered to avoid a pothole, but managed to hit a different one. Mace’s ass would be broken by the time they stopped. “Darkness at about ten. Sunrise is at six. So, basically, we’ll have about nine hours to hunt this thing.”
“Hopefully, we won’t need all nine,” Blade said, his voice utterly flat. “Because I’m ready to kill something.”
Me, too, Mace thought, as he stared at the back of Jon’s head.
Me, too.
Chapter 5
It seemed like a million years before Skoll finally pulled over at a trailhead, and they all bailed out of the stuffy truck into the cool morning air. How did humans stand being in vehicles for so long?
Scotty would never take Harrowgates for granted again.
The trail to the cabin was surprisingly well-maintained and wide enough to accommodate a small car. Jon said the cabin’s owner, Nathan, kept it up for his truck, UTV, and snowmobile.
Scotty took in the beauty of the landscape as they walked, so mesmerized by a crystal brook running alongside the trail, its shallows gurgling over smooth river rock, that she nearly tripped over a gnarled root.
“How well do you know Nathan?” she asked the guys, hoping no one had seen her nearly faceplant.
“I came out here once to interview him.” Skoll nimbly avoided the root that had almost done her in. “He picked me up at the trailhead in a five-seater Polaris. Nice rig. Like, he lives in a shack with no running water but has a fifty-thousand-dollar UTV.” He shook his head in disbelief. “He’d have given us a ride if we hadn’t lost contact with him. One of us would have had to ride in the bed, though.”
“I’d have volunteered to run behind you.” Scotty peered down an embankment at the babbling brook. “After that long-ass ride, I could use the exercise.”
Mace snorted. “She never gets tired, either.”
“That’s right,” Jon said, shooting her a lazy grin that must come straight out of the manual on how to seduce females, because Mace had the same smile. She’d seen it a million times…just never directed at her. “Your dad is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Did you inherit his immortality?”
She nodded, still watching the creek, the water sparkling in patches of sunlight that penetrated the thick tree canopy. This place was gorgeous. She’d always loved mountains and wild forests. Beaches were nice, but there was something so tranquil about the woods.
When they weren’t infested by monsters, anyway.
“I mean, I can be killed,” she said, “but not easily.” She shot him a look she hoped he took as playful and not creepy. “And I have crazy good stamina.”
She wasn’t great at flirting, and what little she knew, she’d learned from her cousin, Leilani. That girl made a sport of getting attention.
Jon’s lips twitched in amusement, and his gaze practically smoldered before he turned back to the trail. “I’m sure you do.”
Skoll gave her a quick glance and a wink. “I’m not surprised, either.”
Yes!Confidence boosted. Her cousin Leilani would be proud.
Blade rolled his eyes, and she caught Mace silently mimicking Jon’s words. She gave him a sharp jab in the side and then laughed at his indignant, “Oof!”
“How far are we from the cabin?” Blade sounded irritated.
Jon drew to a halt, stopping them as he studied his wrist comms—a 3D map, most likely, but he didn’t activate share mode, so she could only guess.
“According to this, twenty minutes away.” He gestured ahead, where the trees thinned, and the trail snaked along a rocky hill. “Should be around that bend.”
Mace pushed past Jon, his attention on an ancient fir just off the trail. “Are we on Nathan’s property?”
