“Okay. I need to stop at the locker room on the way.”
“Got it.”
After a few more words with my father, Cassie and I headed through the labyrinth of hallways to the home team’s locker room. Like all locker rooms, it smelled vaguely of sweat and disinfectants. My bodyguard surveyed the room carefully.
“This is my locker,” I said, breaking the silence that had come between us since we left my father’s office.
I keyed in the combination, then dropped my phone and shoes inside, changing into my cleats.
“Do you want to put anything in here?” I asked, nodding towards her computer bag.
Cassie shook her head. “No, I’m good.”
We headed out to the field where the rest of the team was already beginning warm-ups. Coach Cora sent me an annoyed look but didn’t comment on my tardiness. Leaving Cassie on the side of the field, I jogged out to join the team.
As we stretched and did our warm-up drills, I was aware of Cassie the entire time. She was stalking up and down the field, her head on swivel, looking more like a sentry than a writer. When we took a water break, I headed over to her.
“You need to look like you’re writing a story,” I reminded her, my voice quiet. “You look like you’re about to fight off an invasion.”
Her lips pursed, and I couldn’t help staring at those plump lips.
“You’re right,” she finally said.
“Hey Ruby, we missed you this morning at breakfast.”
My friend Eleanor came over, bumping her shoulder against mine. She was probably my best friend on the team. We’d been drafted together, and we were both part of a group of teammates who got together for breakfast once a month to chat and have some bonding time outside of the stadium.
I jumped as I heard a growling noise. It was Cassie. She was staring at Eleanor like she was about to rip off her arm.
To my surprise, Eleanor growled right back before taking an exaggerated step away from me.
“Message received, vamp,” my friend said, her voice lower and more vicious than I’d ever heard it.
“Make sure it is, wolf.”
I looked between them in confusion. “What’s going on?”
“I didn’t know you’d found a… girlfriend,” Eleanor said, looking amused now. “We’ll all have to hang out sometime so we can get to know each other.”
Before I could ask what she was talking about or how Eleanor knew that Cassie and I were going to pretend to be in love, the coach blew the whistle, summoning us back to the field. As we’d been trained to do since peewee soccer, Eleanor and I immediately ran toward the coach.
I’d have to get to the bottom of what was going on with Eleanor later. Now I had to practice.
Cassie
Iwatched my mate and her wolf friend run around the field, my mind racing. Despite my conviction that I’d be able to resist having a mate, I was already completely obsessed with Ruby. When the wolf touched her shoulder it had taken every ounce of self-control not to lunge forward and rip off her arm.
Ruby clearly didn’t know her friend was a wolf. I wondered how much she knew about supes. It wasn’t a secret that the supernatural world operated right alongside the human world, but most humans liked to pretend that vampires, fae, shifters, and other supes were just fiction. Her father had clocked me as a vamp right away, and he seemed okay with it. I couldn’t tell what Ruby thought though.
As the women played against each other on the field, I mentally reviewed everything I knew about the case. Grabbing my phone,I shot off a message to Wanda asking her to send me everything she’d found about the other victims, as well as anyone else who went to Paris for the International Games last summer. I wanted to see if there was a pattern, and also to know if any of the other Starfish players might be in danger.
After two hours of practice Ruby was finally done. I had to admit, she was an excellent athlete. All the women on the field were. There was none of the posturing and restrained violence I’d seen with the men’s teams, just some good natured competition and easy teamwork.
I stood outside in the hallway as the team went into the locker room for ice baths, showers, and debriefing. Fortunately there was only one way in and out, so I didn’t have to make up a reason to go inside. Within half an hour, the team started trickling out.
Ruby walked out with the wolf. Eleanor. She was a pretty woman, tall and thickly muscled, her frame more like a bear than a wolf.
“I told her,” Eleanor said as she walked by, not breaking stride. “Y’all have a good night.”
