Page 23 of Monsterland Mayhem

“Me?”

“Yes, you,” I murmur as the hairs along the back of my neck dance in warning.

Fucking hell,I sigh.

“Now really isn’t a good time for me,” I inform the spiker attempting to sneak up on us from behind.

Ailsa frowns.

I don’t give her a chance to question me, just gently lower her feet to the ground and say, “Stay right here, please.”

Then I spin around to handle the spiker.

Nope.

Scratch that.

Spikers—plural.

My cards fall into my hands, my fingers automatically shuffling. “I don’t suppose you three like magic tricks?” I offer. “Because I have some up my sleeves that you might find entertaining.”

Or, well, I’ll find it entertaining, anyway.

They snort, their piglike noses flat and large on their otherwise small heads.

One of them drags a hoofed foot across the ground as another flexes the spikes decorating his arms.

“I guess that’s a no,” I drawl. “All right, then.”

I release one card and watch as it slices right through one of the spiker’s chests.

“See, this is the problem with Alpha, Beta, and Omega distinctions,” I tell Ailsa conversationally. “In our world, it doesn’t matter what monster type you are, you’ll end up falling into one of three categories. And compatibility is about category, not species.”

I throw another card, stopping the second spiker.

“So, as an Omega, human or not, you’re capable of being claimed by any Alpha in Monsterland. Which is why”—I flick a third and final card, this one lodging in the spiker’s thick neck—“you’re being hunted now.”

I turn to face my potential mate and narrow my gaze when I find the space vacant.

Of course she ran.

I scour the desert to see her not even twenty yards away and running straight for the Mushroom Jungle.

“You’re a bad little rabbit,” I singsong after her, my voice easily carrying on the wind. “Better be careful, Ailsa darling, or you might awaken my inner predator.”

An inner predator that likes to chase, I think, taking off after her.

“Run to your heart’s content,” I tell her. “Because when I catch you—and I will catch you, Ailsa—I’m going to teach you a little lesson on proper manners.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

AILSA

Oh,Gods, where am I even going?

I shouldn’t have run away. But seeing how casually Craze killed those… thosepiglike men…

I shudder.