Her Three Cursed Soulmates

chapter 11

Cassian POV

Damn, all right, so Lyra can actually hunt.

I don’t mind admitting that I thought I was going to have to carry her once we got out into the wild. I figured she would be dead weight, the way most of the women back in my pack are, and she’d need me to do all the work. I didn’t expect her to be able to keep up.

Which, if you ask me, is just further evidence of what a s**t alpha Butch is. Maybe any woman could be a good hunter if she had training.

Or, you know, maybe Lyra’s just special.

She definitely picked up the scent of the deer we’re tracking now before I did. I was indulging her a little by following her because there was certainly no harm in coming this way, but I see now that she knew exactly what she was doing.

We range a little way out away from each other, bracketing the deer between us so that if it runs in either direction, we’ll be able to catch it. Lyra’s standing downwind, so I know immediately that the plan here is for me to expose myself and startle the animal into running in her direction. Then she’ll catch it and take it down.

It’s not the way I would have set up the hunt, if she’d asked me. She’s making a mistake. I should be the one to take down our quarry.

But what can I do about it now? She’s already moving into position.

I close my eyes. We’re going to have to talk about that later. Even if she is a good hunter, she’s not in charge when we’re out on a hunt. We’ll have to get that straight.

For now, though, it’s too late to make any changes. We’ll just have to see what she can do.

We’re almost definitely going to lose this deer. I grit my teeth and move out into plain sight.

The animal’s head darts up, and it whips around and starts running. I run after it, driving it straight toward Lyra. It’s incredibly fast, of course—much faster than I am—and I’m already starting to lose the race when I hear a scuffle coming from up ahead.

An inhuman screech of fear—pain—

No way. No f*****g way.

I slow my gait to a trot and come up beside Lyra. Her muzzle is covered in blood, and she’s licking it from her fur like she doesn’t give a damn.

I’ve never seen a woman do that before.

The deer is sprawled on the ground. A pretty clean kill. I’m impressed. She didn’t maul up the body or anything. That means there will be plenty of decent meat for us. More than we’ll be able to finish.

I shift back to my human form.

“Damn,” I say. “That’s not bad.”

She looks away from me pointedly.

Right. I thinking I was naked. I’ve never hunted with a woman before.

“Well, give me my clothes, then,” I say, reaching toward her backpack.

She allows me to unzip it and pull out my things, and I have a moment of admiration for the fact that she managed that kill while carrying all our stuff on her back. I doubt she’d be able to do that in a real fight—a fight against another wolf, for example, or a Moon Caster or a pack of ravagers—but even to do it against a dumb animal is pretty impressive.

I tug on my clothes. Lyra trots away behind some shrubbery. I think I know what that’s about, and sure enough, she emerges human and fully dressed, wiping her bloody lips on a couple of leaves she obviously plucked from a tree.

“Nice kill,” I tell her, gesturing to it.

She nods. The compliment doesn’t seem to mean anything much to her, and it occurs to me that she didn’t really need to hear it. She knew her kill was a good one. She doesn’t need me to validate it for her.

“What should we do with it now?” she asks. “Do you want to try to haul it back to town?”

“No,” I say. “Not unless you do.”

Maybe she’s afraid of sleeping out in the woods. I’ve known plenty of people who are only comfortable when they have a roof over their heads.

But Lyra just shrugs.

“Sure,” she says. “We can stay out here tonight. That probably makes the most sense. We’ll cook up the deer for dinner, and we’ll have it for breakfast as well. And then we’ll get back on the road and find that coven.”

Right—the coven I told her I could find.

“Yeah, absolutely,” I say, wondering what my long game is here.

At some point, it’s going to become obvious that I don’t know where any Moon Caster covens are.

Whatever. When that day comes, Lyra and I will go our separate ways. I’ve already gotten what I wanted from her. She’s let me out of that cage. I’ll stick with her as long as I can because she actually is a decent hunter, and it’s always smarter to be with someone than to be alone. But when she realizes I can’t help her, that’ll be the end of our little temporary alignment. And that will be fine.

Except that, as she kneels beside the deer, I kind of can’t help noticing how hot she is.

It’s weird because we’ve been running around naked on and off all day, and yet now—watching her over her kill like this—is the first time I’ve really noticed how attracted to her I am. Plus, I think she’s attracted to me. Her cheeks are flushed, and whenever I get too close to her, I can actually feel the heat coming from her body. Something’s going to happen between us. I’m almost sure of it.

So maybe I don’t have to leave right away. Maybe there will be time to fool around a bit first. Who knows when the next time I’ll be alone in the woods with a hottie like this?

Either way, I’m starting to feel convinced that there’s no reason at all to go back to my pack.