Page 16 of Entangled in the Woods
“I’m surprised. I thought you were a big shot around here, kidnapping girls and all.” I smirked at him, ready for his rebuttal.
But I was surprised to see a hurt look flashed across Everett’s face, his eyes looking toward the ground and his eyebrows pinching together. He quickly recovered, but not before I’d noticed.
“You need to keep a low profile when you’re here—humans aren’t allowed at Camp. I don’t want you attracting attention,” he said. “Just keep to yourself, and no one will know the difference.”
“Fine,” I snapped. “I don’t want to be here with you shifters anyway.”
Everett took another step toward the bed, his shins hitting the end of the mattress. He lunged forward to grab my arm, but I pulled my arm away before he could reach me. His fingers made a fist, curling his fingers into his palm, as if he was fighting for control of his body.
“You will not insult us while you’re here,” he growled. “Do you want to eat this weekend? To sleep on a bed? Because I can change your accommodations real quick. Don’t test me, Elise. Like you, I ace every single one.”
With that, he turned around and stormed out of the tent. As I watched, Everett looked over his shoulder at me, those yellow eyes scorching. Then he was gone.
I sat up on the bed and wrapped my arms around my bent knees. I’d heard what he’d said, but the only thing I could focus on was how he’d said my name—that he’d remembered my name.
After some stretching, I got up and peeked my head out of the tent. The sun was close to setting, and the campfires glowed orange and red. I spotted Kleio walking briskly toward me.
“What was Everett doing in our tent?” she asked. “I just saw him come out.”
“Giving me another ‘talk,’” I said, making air quotes.
“Hmm. I thought he agreed that I’d oversee that.”
“I prefer your talks to his.”
With a chuckle, she said, “Of course you do. I’m not a grump. Maybe I should be the one in charge of giving all the new humans ‘the talk.’”
She didn’t ask anything further about Everett—maybe pleased that I obviously preferred her over everyone else at Camp so far—and that was fine by me. She linked her arm through mine. “You need to come with us to the opening ceremony. We’re all required to go, and there won’t be anyone here to watch you.”
Leaving me with no time for questions, Kleio started walking through the large field next to the tents and toward the forest. There was already a crowd of people standing in front of a wooden stage. I weaved through the crowd with Kleio until we found Gavrill. He was standing next to Jack and Kostas, waiting for us. They made space for us and closed us in, surrounding us like a triangle.
“Overprotective brutes,” Kleio said under her breath. A high-pitched yelp came out of her mouth as Jack snickered, having pinched her playfully in the rear. As she turned to swat at him, an enormous white wolf on stage interrupted her by howling.
Everyone turned to face the stage, ending whatever conversations they’d been having. The large wolf sat on his haunches on the stage. Snout pointed toward the sky, he let out a loud howl that vibrated my eardrums. His head came back down, and his purple eyes looked back at the crowd.
The wolf shook his whole body, starting with his head. As his head shook, his jaw opened and continued to fall to the ground, unhinging from his skull. His snout and upper lips began retracting into his head, and his ears sunk into the top of his skull. Behind his head, his spine lifted toward the sky, elongating his body. His front paws retracted to the sides of his chest and lost the black claws and white fur that covered them. The back legs that had once been curved bone turned into straight human legs.
I stepped back in shock as white fur gave to human flesh. There was no fur left on the man’s body. No clothing either.
“Close your eyes if you’re prissy,” Gavrill mocked at me as I stared in shock at the naked man standing in front of the crowd, and I realized I had bumped into him.
The man didn’t seem surprised or embarrassed, and neither did anyone around me. In human form, he was large, like all the men here. Muscled and covered with symbolic tattoos. His hairwas graying, showing signs of age, and his face was tanned and beginning to wrinkle. I didn’t look below his shoulders. Someone from the side of the stage handed him a pair of shorts, which he pulled on before he addressed the crowd.
“Welcome to the Deca Tournament! My favorite event of the decade!” he said. “For the last hundred years, we have come together as one Great Northern Pack to celebrate our strength and allegiance. This year, like every other year before, you will pick two of your strongest pack members to enter the hunt. At midnight tonight, in the forest behind me, we will release the one hundred rogues for the hundred-year celebration.”
He gestured to several large cages tucked to the side of the stage that held wolves of all sizes and colors. Many of them had missing patches of fur, and some even had missing patches of flesh. They were snarling at the crowd and at each other, stalking around the cages.
I grabbed Kleio’s arm, looking for an explanation.
“Those are rogues,” she explained. “Lycans without a pack that have gone senseless. They hardly know what day it is.”
She looked back at the speaker on the stage as he continued. “You’ll abide by the Lycan Code during the hunt. Disobeying the code will not be tolerated.”
Kostas faintly shook his head.
“As per usual, the pack that captures the most rogues at the end of the three-week event will be named Pack Preeminent and will have all the bragging rights for the next ten years,” the man said. “Let’s come together as the Great Northern Pack that we are tonight to feast and enjoy one another before the competition begins. Before I release you to your dinners, let’s introduce the hunters entering this year’s competition.”
Slowly the speaker brought pairs of shifters to the stage, introducing them by pack name. There were teams of male shifters, teams of female shifters, and coed teams. The speakerintroduced an especially rough-looking team of males from the Juniper Pack. The two men snarled at the crowd, showing off their bulging muscles.
