Page 28 of Fastlander Fealty

“The consolation prize?” Owen asked, swimming closer to his blow-up mattress.

“Don’t pop it!” Captain yelled as Owen pulled his pocket knife from his pocket on his swim trunks. “Why do you even have a knife? You’re in the water! Stop! I’ll kill you.”

Owen threatened to stab his mattress but then eased back, biting back a smile. “Silver wouldn’t want you anyway,” Owen assured him. “Your spelling is atrocious. Even if you texted her, she wouldn’t be able to tell what you were trying to say. She’s educated.”

“Um, I barely passed high school,” Silver enlightened him.

“And yet you ended up a Queen,” Owen pointed out.

“Yeah, it’s amazing what genetics and a symmetrical face can do for a rank in a Pride. The King doesn’t even like me like that.”

“Is the mark on your cheek a claiming mark?” Gunner asked.

“Gunner,” Hallie admonished. “You said truce.”

“It’s okay,” Silver said, bracing herself in the raft for the upcoming rapids. “I’m a traitor. My Pride marked me accordingly so that everyone knows what I did.”

“That’s hot,” Captain called.

“I will stab your mattress,” Owen warned, pushing up into his innertube to weather the rapids.

“Look how possessive you are. Pipe down, pig. She already said she’s leaving.”

Owen didn’t like the awful feeling that snaked through his gut, but he didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on such things on account of the rapids. The Fastlanders and Silver went down them as a group, and it took a lot of concentration to keep everyone upright.

Captain’s blow-up mattress hit a big rock and began leaking air somewhere in the middle, and by the time they hit calm waters again, it was only half-inflated.

They couldn’t stop laughing watching him struggle to plug up the hole whizzing air as it collapsed around him and he sank into the water.

“Silver! I need mouth-to-mouth recitation!” he called out as his little pitiful ship sank.

Silver looked tired and shook her head. “I don’t know how you ladies put up with them,” she said to Corey and Hallie.

“Constant annoyance,” Hallie told her. “If you pay the boys ten bucks, they’ll throw each other over a two-story balcony, and they’ll be quiet for three to five hours afterward. I learned that recently at my engagement breakfast. The other restaurant-goers were appalled.”

Silver laughed. “The visual.”

Corey was quiet now, just watching Silver, but she had relaxed some. Owen could tell. Likely for the rest of the trip downstream, she would make sure none of the Fastlanders gave anything important away, but that was okay. Owen actually liked that she was protective of Ace. Sure, Ace was a hybrid lion shifter and vampire, and his power was insane. He didn’t need any help from anyone, but that was how it was supposed to be. Mates should protect each other.

Owen’s parents had their own problems, but they’d always had each other’s backs, no matter what. That was one part of his family dynamic that he had always known was solid.

Owen swam over to the raft just to be closer to the improving vibes between the girls. He fed on good mojo. Always had.

This evening it was supposed to rain, and the storm would cool down the mountains, which meant the fire ban would be lifted temporarily, and he would be back at work at the crack of dawn, and Gunner would be back to bossing him around on the jobsite. Life would normalize. It would be back to Friday night dinners, Crew meetings, fighting the males, and waiting…always waiting for Lucia’s vision to come to fruition.

But for today? Right now? In this moment?

They had no problems.

The rest of the world could wait. This was perhaps the most fun he’d ever had with the Fastlanders, and they had a traitor in their midst.

The dynamic was complicated, for sure, but Silver had taken some of the tension away with her honesty. He respected her for it. That couldn’t have been easy.

“You did good,” he said to her as he leaned up on the edge of the raft, nearly tipping them.

“Owen, be less obnoxious,” Corey groused.

He began pushing on it harder, and the girls yelped and cursed, trying to hang on, holding their drinks in the air to try to steady them enough to save the nearly full cans.

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