Page 53 of Moon Tamed

“May the most skilled win.”

Maybe I wasn’t a Hunter, but I would enjoy proving I could be his equal. “I hope you’re ready to prepare a lot of dinners, Mr. Stephans. I will not lose.”

“We shall see about that.”

TWELVE

He looks like he ran a race and lost. Badly.

Sarai Fletcher staged an ambush in the Hunter’s lobby, and she pounced Calden the instant he stepped through the doors. I raised a brow at how high she’d managed to jump, wrapping her legs around his chest so she wouldn’t fall to the floor.

For a second, I thought she planned to kiss him, although Calden may have averted such a fate through turning his head and struggling to peel her off. I stared, debating between attempting to rescue the man or leaving him to endure.

Aware things might get rough, I set the cheetahs down so they wouldn’t get caught in the line of fire and settled in to watch.

After at least five minutes, Calden managed to escape, and he put one of the chairs between himself and the woman. He then pointed at me and blurted, “It’s her fault, blame her!”

To my dismay, his ex changed trajectories and pounced in my direction. Aware I would not be able to get her off if I let her get a hold of me, I shrieked, sidestepped, and bolted for the safety of the elevators. I made it halfway to my destination before she slammed into me from behind and drove me to the floor.

I regretted having failed to practice more at killing my brother. I rolled beneath the woman, and during one of her attempts to hug me into submission, I brought both my legs up, worked my knees beneath her, and waited until I could dig my toes into any part of her I could reach. Once I had her positioned, I shoved as hard as I could.

While I’d expected to get her off, I hadn’t expected to take Calden out with her, and the pair fell to the floor with a thump.

Somewhere nearby, Calden’s father cackled.

“Well, I’m not worried about you being eaten alive during the hunt now,” the faction’s leader stated, coming over and offering me a hand. In the time I’d been trying to flee from Calden’s ex, he’d claimed the cheetahs and had them slung over his shoulder. “I hadn’t known it was actually possible to wiggle like that when she’s in the mood to get hugs.”

“That was her trying to hug me? Are you sure?” I more expected something along the lines of being murdered after our first encounter.

Calden’s father pointed at the pair, and sure enough, after having been tossed into his son, she snuggled in for a hug. “Don’t worry about it. When she first got in, there were tears. Now she’s just hyper, and as hyper beats tears, it is what it is.”

“I’m confused right now,” I confessed.

“Don’t worry about it. She just loves bunnies, and she tends to not ask for things at work because she is usually skating on thin ice with somebody.”

“I wonder why.”

Several other members of the faction went to Calden’s aid, and after a few minutes, they managed to peel Sarai off him. It took another few minutes, but Calden somehow managed to get the woman to head to the elevators without him.

I laughed at his beleaguered expression. “I have no idea what happened there or why, but he looks like he ran a race and lost. Badly.”

“Sarai is a strange one, to say the least. Hopefully, that will put an end to some of the tensions around here. Calden’s liked enough, but so is Sarai, and people were getting testy over the dispute.”

“It wasn’t even a real dispute. It was a lack of proper communication. She didn’t communicate what she actually wanted, and he didn’t understand he needed to look deeper into the situation. Once he understood the actual issue, it was easily resolved. I’m not sure why she jumped me, however.”

“Well, I told her about your general involvement in resolving the issue. She even promised she has no interest in Calden anymore. She’s dating someone, but she doesn’t want anyone to know about it.”

“Why not?”

“He is a lounge lizard of a book dragon. His words, not hers. He’s basically the exact opposite of the type of people Hunters usually date, and she doesn’t want to become the laughingstock of the faction. I found that out this morning. And yes, she resented my son hadn’t been able to figure out the difference between a rabbit and a bunny. In her opinion, there’s no way he could possibly be that stupid.”

“Except he was.”

“Except he was,” Calden’s father confirmed.

“This is ridiculous.”

“You have no idea. And everyone expected me to mystically fix their problems.”

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