Page 22 of Fastlander Fealty

Silver was having to try very hard to keep her balance with all the splashing. “Um, hi,” she said meekly as Gunner approached. “I think Owen and Captain are trying to kill each other.”

“Good,” the bi-color-eyed giant of a man said as he pulled up beside her in a two-person raft he shared with his mate, Hallie.

Ace and Corey pulled up onto her other side, and oooh she was surrounded by monsters now.

Owen broke the surface with Captain in a choke hold. “Silver, whack him with a paddle.”

“What?” she demanded snatching his dislodged baseball cap out of the water before it could sink. “I’m not doing that!” She was not about to bonk a bear shifter on the head with anything.

“Why not?” Owen demanded, struggling with the flailing Captain.

“Because I enjoying living!”

Hallie snorted, and then cleared her throat to cover it.

“Enough,” Gunner murmured, and the reaction of both Owen and Captain was immediate. They pushed off each other, and Owen threw up a middle finger. Captain flipped him off back.

Owen flipped him off with his other hand too. Captain did the same. Owen lifted a foot out of the water and looked as if he was trying to poke up his middle toe, and Silver was trying so hard not to laugh.

“Um, hi,” Silver called to the Fastlanders. “I’m Silver.” She watched Ace’s face carefully, but he was busy digging in the floating cooler and complaining about the plethora of flavored margaritas. If he recognized her or her name, he didn’t act like it.

The smile dipped from Hallie’s face. Gunner’s mate canted her head and studied Silver, and in this moment, Silver realized something truly disturbing—Gunner’s mate wasn’t human any longer. Her eyes blazed a bright green. Now, usually when a shifter was Turned, they took on the eye color of their maker. Not always, but almost always. No one had her eye color in this Crew except for Ace’s mate, Corey, who was also supposed to be human.

Shhhit.

Well, Rook was mistaken in thinking he could get to the girls easily to destroy the males.

Hallie and Corey were watching her like she was prey, and they felt just as heavy as the males in this Crew. Sure, the males were bantering and fun, but she was suddenly acutely aware that they were dangerous, and she was sitting in the very center of the Crew of beasts.

Silver cleared her throat and composed the shock on her face, and said softly. “It’s nice to make your acquaintance.”

“Likewise,” Hallie said, but there was steel in her voice.

Okay, clearly she wasn’t doing a great job of hiding her lioness, and their shifter animals sensed hers, and she understood why they were posting up. She’d let her guard down. She feigned business with readjusting herself into her innertube, careful not to meet any of their eyes anymore, and also careful to keep her neck exposed.

Rook was going to be very unhappy with the news that the females had been Turned into…something. They felt big and smelled of fur and dominance.

Gunner knew what he was doing as an Alpha. He’d taken the most vulnerable members of the Crew, and made them into weapons.

She could feel one of the females’ attention on her, and when she looked up, it was Corey, Ace’s mate who was glaring at her. “What?” she asked low. Her hackles were up under the attention of a Fastlander.

“Let her be,” Owen said, appearing out of the water beside her innertube. “She’s fine.”

Corey’s lips quirked into an empty smile, and she didn’t say anything else, just exchanged a glance with her cousin, Hallie, and began to paddle to the front of the group with her mate.

She knew.

Silver watched Corey offer her back, and then turn her face just enough that Silver could see how unbothered she was. Oh, that was shots fired. Shifters didn’t give their backs to others if there was tension in general, unless they wanted to make a statement. Corey’s statement? Silver wasn’t shit, and that right there made Silver want to Turn and give her a few new scars to teach her a lesson.

“Control it,” Owen said low.

Silver frowned down at him. “What?”

“Listen to that engine going. That’s quite the purr you’ve got there, lioness.”

Silver’s blood chilled at the confidence with which he said that. “It’s not a purr,” she gritted out, allowing shards of glass into her tone.

“I’m aware. You sound like you’re ready to fight. You want to bleed out in this river?” he asked, his earnest eyes on her. “Pick a fight with Corey or Hallie. If they don’t get you, their mates will.”

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