Page 62 of Moon Tamed

I eyed the Champagne bottle. “We don’t have nearly enough in that little bottle for that game, Calden.”

“I have a lovely variety of sparkling wines we can explore should we drink our way to catastrophically intoxicated dodging truths or dares.”

I lifted my glass to him in salute. “Are we taking sips like dignified people or are we downing the whole glass when we fail to speak the truth or do the dare?”

“Half the glass must go down the hatch,” he replied.

As the flutes weren’t that large, we might survive the evening. “Game on. Can the dare be claiming weeks of camping time?”

“If you’d like.”

“I like this game already. You can go first.”

“Pick your poison, Miss Patten.”

“Dare.”

“I dare you to invite Sarai to lunch tomorrow. I’ll pay for it, but if I don’t get a break, I will go mad.”

I laughed at his underhanded method of buying himself peace. “Okay. I’ll ask her out to lunch tomorrow. It can’t be that bad, can it?”

“It can be that bad. If she hasn’t gotten the hugging out of her system, she will hug you to a near death state.”

I didn’t mind hugs, but being hugged to death was on the list of ways I didn’t want to die, especially when I didn’t even like the hugger. “If I’m hugged to death, I’m haunting you. Your turn to pick your poison.”

“Truth.”

Interesting. He wanted to play hardball. I eyed him, debating how best to wrangle interesting tidbits out of him or make him lose through being forced to take a drink. “What’s the worst date you’ve ever been on?”

“A woman wanted to go to a bar and a show. The show was burlesque, and the bar was meant for swingers. I don’t swing. I don’t share my partner, so let’s just say I spent a very uncomfortable few hours, as there was a great deal of interest for both of us at the club. I ended up leaving early. I told her it wasn’t my scene, offered to pay the bill, and went home. She was disappointed, but she admitted she should have asked me first. She had made some assumptions about Hunters. Some Hunters do like the nightlife and multiple partners, but I’m not one of them.”

I could work with a dedicated partner; I had plenty of friends who enjoyed swinging, as they viewed variety as the spice of life, but I generally stuck to the straight and narrow. I would change partners often, but there was never any doubt of my status.

I could barely handle one man at a time. Two would break me.

“That is not something I would like,” I admitted. “I’m the jealous kind.”

“You hardly seem jealous to me.”

“I am when I’m dating a man. When I catch a man, that man is mine, and I’m not sharing him!”

Calden snickered and lifted his glass in a toast. “Catching a man must be a lot of work, then.”

“Most run when they find out they have to compete with my reading and hunting habits.”

“That’s absurd. Smart men know reading time is quiet time, which can be spent also reading.”

“See? You understand the need for quiet time. Quiet time is sacred.”

“Which will you choose now? Truth or dare?”

As dare might end up with me serving as a living shield against the various irritated women in Calden’s life, I said, “Truth, please.”

“You are in the forest, and you are alone with a wolf. What do you do?”

I snorted, as I lost my base common sense around fluffy predators. “Obviously get eaten, because I would pet the wolf. I have at least fifty-fifty odds of the wolf being a shapeshifter, so I might survive, which would make the risk worth my while. This is how it ends for me, devoured by a wolf in the forest.” I knocked back the rest of my Champagne and held the glass out for him to refill. “I deserve to drink because that’s how dumb I can get around animals. I can’t even blame your father for trying to take a nap with the lions. I’m worse. That’s going to be my fate, Calden, eaten by a wolf.”

Calden snickered, poured me more Champagne, and replied, “I will make sure you get sufficient time petting a wolf when we go camping, and I’ll even fight with my father over it.”

---