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Crap. Sh!t. F*ck.

Someone shoved her on a twirling hell ride and put the control stick into full throttle and, in case that wasn’t misery inducing enough, drilled her with a spotlight that seared through her eyelids like light sabers.

Harry groaned, the vibration scouring her throat like rusted nails dipped in battery acid as she slowly convinced herself to move. An inch. Two. Aches rippled through her body, their severity more intense as she brought a hand to her still-spinning head.

Nope. Her head wasn’t spinning. The room was.

She pried her eyes open a fraction of an inch at a time and realized the room wasn’t one she recognized. A fireplace was angled in the corner, and colorful accent rugs blanketed pristine, but aged, hardwood floors. Exposed wood beams on the ceiling and gray stone walls gave the place rustic, natural vibes consistent with a lot of Colorado mountain homes.

If she’d been kidnapped, she was probably still in the state. So… good news.

She fought her way into a sitting position at the edge of the bed and spotted bottled water and ibuprofen.

“And they’re Florence Nightingale kidnappers.” She chased two pills with nearly half the water and grimaced at the severe cotton mouth and her tongue’s attempt to stick to her teeth.

Brief snippets from the previous night trickled their way into her consciousness, from her nerves prior to the meetup with Elodie and Lenny, to the wide variety of fruit margarita pitchers. Ah, the margaritas. Some people thought hard liquor the most dangerous of alcohol, when in reality it was drinks like mango-peach daiquiris and strawberry-kiwi margs. When people didn’t readily taste the harsh alcohol burn, it was way too easy to overindulge and fall into a steaming wheelbarrow of bad decisions.

She’d definitely done both. Literally. Figuratively. So many bad decisions she didn’t know which one made her head throb more.

So far, the one where she volunteered herself and her friends to possible public humiliation was in the lead, but the one where she embarrassed herself in the privacy of Jax’s truck came in a really close second. Only time and the ibuprofen kicking in to chase away the brain fog would tell if they might swap places.

She’d performed her best drunken come-hither look and sent him an engraved invitation to kiss her, and he’d returned that invite damn quick. No RSVP. Not even an envelope marked Return to sender.

Just not quick enough to avoid the great margarita purge.

Harry rubbed her pounding head as her brain mentally replayed the horrified look on Jax’s face as she vomited all over his well-toned chest. And pants. And shoes. Thank goddess he hadn’t been wearing his favorite leather jacket or she’d have to enter the Witness Relocation Program.

“Guess we’re amnesia-ing,” Harry murmured to herself, already wiping the image from her mind as she puttered barefoot out of the bedroom to inspect the rest of the cabin.

It only took a few seconds of inspection to realize the place belonged to Jax. Everything was clean, clutter free, and a stylish mixture of rustic charm and modern delights. There was an open-plan kitchen with a simple table and two chairs. A worn leather couch sat across from another fireplace, this one taking up nearly the entire wall and sporting a natural wood mantel she had no doubt that Jax crafted himself.

Harry peeked through the front window and saw Nora’s little hatchback sitting out front. At least someone had the foresight to gift her a getaway car, and she couldn’t even be upset about it.

Watch enough rom-coms and you quickly understood that sticking around after a major faux pas was not the way to reestablish your dignity. She quickly found her purse and keys on the kitchen table, and drove as if the memories from twenty hours ago were hellhounds nipping at her heels.

She’d nearly lost them by the time she turned on Fates Boulevard, but the second she pulled up to Pierce House, they clawed their way back.

Three people sat on the bottom porch steps, two who looked nearly as miserable as she felt.

“There goes hoping it was all a figment of my imagination.” Harry climbed from the car and prepped to face the music.

Lenny, face pale and nearly fully obstructed by the large sunglasses perched on her nose, leaned heavily against the porch frame. Elodie, always vibrant and well put together, sported a just-rolled-out-of-bed look—a tattered rock band T-shirt and grungy sweats, her hair in two lose braids on either side of her head.

The only one who looked rested, relaxed, and downright gleeful was the sixteen-year-old currently lounging back on her hands, her legs kicked out in front of her and a beaming smile aimed Harry’s way.

“Well, well, well. Look what the little hatchback drove home.” Grace’s lips twitched with a growing smirk. “And where have you been, young lady? Or should I just say lady ?”

Fuck. Cassie would hear about this before the end of the day, Harry was sure.

“I’m not gracing that with a response.” Harry winced as her words reverberated in her head.

“Which part?”

“Any of it.” She precariously sat on the bottom step next to the pillar and prayed the entire structure didn’t go down with all their combined weight.

“I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s curious about the answer.”

“You’re not,” Lenny supported.

“Definitely not.” Elodie mumbled her agreement, her chin propped on her hand as if her head weighed the equivalent of a freight truck. “But we’ll round back to that later.”

Grace sighed. “Fine.”

Harry shot them all glares. “Is it Harry-versus-everyone-else day? And how the hell have you three become everyone else ? I haven’t introduced you yet.”

Grace still looked smug. “I don’t know what you mean. We go way back… at least an hour or more. They came here looking for you this morning, and much to all of our surprise—except Nora’s—you weren’t here.”

“Rounding back to that, remember?” Sitting up a little straighter, Elodie added, “First, let’s talk about this Big-Bads-versus-the-Trouble-Trio thing.”

Harry let her head fall back against the rail with a groan. “I was really hoping I’d remembered that wrong.”

“Actually, it was the Big Bads versus the Fearsome Four,” Lenny corrected.

They all shot her looks.

“What? Don’t look at me like that! I was the innocent bystander in that epic gauntlet toss. The two of you did all the heavy lifting.”

“What are the chances that we can back out of it with a ‘jinx’ and move about our day?” Harry asked hopefully.

Elodie snorted. “With Silas? Zero percent. The demon thrives on competition like a competition-eating incubus. No, we only have one option.”

“A time-reversal spell?” She looked at her friend pleadingly. “Because I’d really like to do over the last twelve hours entirely. Every. Single. Second.”

“Our only option is to suck it up, ramp it up, and dish it out.”

“Is that warrior angel lingo, because one at a time those words make sense to me, but linked together? Not so much.”

Elodie straightened to her full five-foot-two-inch height, her head lifted and her green eyes blazing as she slid her gaze from Harry to Lenny to Grace. “Fearsome Four… it’s time to squeeze into those sports bras, hit the training field, and show those not so big bads who they’re messing with.”

“Three hungover and full-of-regret supernaturals?” Harry answered.

Lenny lowered her glasses to glare at the angel. “When you say training field…”

“Wait. Four?” Grace fidgeted, looking uneasy as she fully digested Elodie’s speech. “Why are you looking at me ? I’m underage, remember? I was nowhere near that bar when you all threw this gauntlet or whatever. I don’t even know what the hell a gauntlet is!”

Elodie shrugged unapologetically. “Sorry, kid. We need a quad, and since your guardian is the one who issued the challenge, you’re the fourth by default.”

“How the hell does that work?”

Harry’s stomach twisted. “Can we get back to this training-field mention. Would this be a literal field or…”

“Leave the particulars to me. I’ll get everything situated.”

“That’s kinda what I’m afraid to let happen.” Another thought pushed its way through Harry’s fog. “Wait. Do we know what we’re training for? What events did everyone at the bar pick?”

Elodie dug her cell phone out from her pocket and shoved the text message from Kai in front of their faces.

Event 1: Paintball Pandemonium

Event 2: The Night Drop

Event 3: Mud Runner Royale

Loser: Provides backup vocals and dancing to the Gargoyle Girls’ Fates Festival reunion appearance

Winner: Gloating rights

“Crap,” Grace muttered simultaneously with Lenny’s “Shit” and Harry’s “Fuck.”

Harry didn’t need to possess Lenny’s seer abilities to sense that this wouldn’t end well, and the trip there wouldn’t be all that pleasant either.

J AX DUCKED AND wove left, whipping his hands up a split second before a clenched fist slammed against his palm. Another duck, weave, and smack! The punch landed, ricocheting vibrations up his arm straight to his shoulder.

“You pulled that one, Bishop.” Silas, arms propped on the top rope of the boxing ring, studied each move with a critical eye. “Stop half-assing it and go in for the kill.”

“I’d rather he didn’t, considering I’m the one on the receiving end of the killing.” Jax cleared his throat, countering Gavin’s every step as he held the sparring gloves in place.

Gavin landed a right hook that would no doubt leave a vampire fist imprint in Jax’s palm.

“Not the kill but better.” Silas nodded in approval. “Still holding back, though.”

Jax shot the demon a glare. “Seriously? What did I do to piss you off?”

“Nothing. But when you use my gym to hide from whatever put that look on your face when you walked through the door this morning, this is the risk you run. It’s all on the sign, man.” Silas nudged his chin to the hanging sign over Beast Mode’s entrance:

Leave Your Shit at the Door… or Else.

Jax ducked, feeling the rush of air whip past his left cheek with Gavin’s next jab. “I’m not hiding, and I didn’t bring any shit here.”

“Then why are you here on a weekday morning and not at the ranch Alpha-ing, or at R and R? Or, hell, at Pierce House knocking shit down?”

At the mention of Harry’s family home, Jax dodged when he should’ve ducked.

Gavin’s meaty fist landed with a sharp crack on Jax’s lower jaw, the vampire’s force knocking him clean off his feet and onto his ass.

Temporarily stunned and seeing stars, he rubbed his jaw. His face would’ve broken with that one if he’d been anything but a shifter.

Gavin grunted and extended a hand to help him up. “Guess we got the answer to Si’s question.”

Jax wouldn’t deny it, but he also wouldn’t admit it, heading over to the water station. Gavin followed while Silas hung back to set up another pair of fighters in the sparring ring.

The quiet vampire took a long gulp of his water despite not having broken a sweat and studied Jax like a bug under a microscope. He didn’t question, badger, or goad, unlike the other bastards Jax called friends, but sometimes the silence was worse than the heckling.

“Okay, yes,” Jax growled, giving in to the silent weight of Gavin’s stare. “There’s a mountain of RMP shit I could be excavating right now, and while my foremen have everything covered at the restoration sites, today would’ve been a good day to demo the Pierce gazebo. Hell, it had been on my calendar until…”

Gavin cocked a golden eyebrow. “Until…?”

Until he took Harry back to his sanctum of solace and nearly kissed her fucking senseless. And then to add to the night of bad decisions, he’d taken way too much pleasure in the sight of her sleeping in his bed, wrapped up in his blankets, her silky hair fanned out across his pillow.

Harlow Pierce was pure temptation, the only person on the planet who could make him forget his name, his responsibilities, or any number of shifter survival instincts. When she’d blatantly asked why he hadn’t told her that he and Elodie never Fate matched, he’d nearly told her the damn truth.

And that would’ve been the ultimate bad decision.

Fool him once, shame on him. Fool him twice, call him an ass for letting his guard down. Again. Distance from the woman he left sleeping in his bed was the only way to ensure he didn’t do something stupid, like fall back on old habits.

It was worth the sore jaw.

“You’re a man of quiet contemplation, right?” Jax searched for any topic that would steer him away from thoughts of Harry. “You meditate?”

“I’m a vampire who’s surrounded by walking blood buffets all day and night. What do you think?” Gavin joked dryly. “Yes. I meditate. Why?”

“I’m helping a moody, smart-mouthed teenage shifter of unknown origin who lacks a filter and who tends to light things up when her temper hits its roof. Add in the fact that she’s never shifted before, and I’m a bit out of my element here,” Jax admitted. “I’ve helped shifters shift for the first time. That’s not an issue. It’s… everything else.”

“Are you asking if meditation would help with that everything else?”

“Would it?”

“Definitely. If done right, there really isn’t anything that meditation can’t help with. I’m not saying it’s a cure by any stretch, but it can sure as hell work as a mood stabilizer and help improve focus and concentration.”

“All things needed to survive through a successful first shift.”

“It definitely wouldn’t hurt. Once you’ve laid the foundation for good meditation practices, it’ll—theoretically—make it ten times easier for your young shifter to communicate with her shifter entity.”

“Theoretically.”

Gavin nodded. “It’s nature based. Some animals find it easier to keep an open communication than others. Bear shifters, for example, usually prefer a ‘show’ more than ‘tell’ approach to communication, while avian shifters are typically a bit more emotion driven. Wolves and the feline groups are pretty close to the middle. For them, it often varies by their human side.”

“Therein lies the problem. We don’t know which way the shifter blows.”

“We have a pretty extensive supernatural studies section in the library. Feel free to use it while you’re perfecting that meditation. Hell, I’ll even do you one better and offer my research help.”

Silas snorted, joining them. “I love how he makes that sound like he’d be the one doing you a favor when in reality, doing research is like going to an amusement park for him.”

Gavin shrugged, not denying it.

“Now that the two of you have that settled, we need some serious shoptalk.” Silas slammed his hands down on both their shoulders.

“About?” Jax asked warily.

“Paintball Pandemonium, the Night Drop, and the Mud Runner. Personally, I don’t see how we could lose any of those events, much less two, but I wouldn’t put it past Elodie Quinn to play dirty. We need to talk strategy.”

If only developing a strategy solved all Jax’s problems.

But if it temporarily distracted him from them, he was all in.