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MOLLY

Cam didn’t make a reappearance that night.

Not when I whisper-asked Julian if I could sleep next to him to stay warm.

Not when Kyle, the obnoxious dragon asshole from earlier claimed my other side and scooted too close to me.

Not when I eventually managed to fall asleep despite the discomfort of being pressed against bare-chested strangers. They’d put their wings away, but still.

Cam didn’t even show up again in the morning when I slipped out of bed while the rest of the guys were still sleeping.

Though I wanted to track him down or go back to our part of the beach, I just sat down next to the fire for warmth. The fae guys had definitely kept me from shivering, but that didn’t ease the physical and mental discomfort of spending the night in the arms of men I didn’t know or want.

As I sat there, my mind went back to the night before.

To the way I’d sat on Cameron’s lap.

The way he hugged me.

His plan to win the game.

I bit my lip.

Could he really do it? He seemed to think he could, even if I didn’t help him. And I’d seen the way the other guys talked to him. All of them liked him.

If anyone was creating alliances in the game, they’d want to work with him. I’d made him into everyone’s first choice when I yelled at him the day before. He was the one man on the island that no one thought was a threat to win the game.

No one except Julian.

And whoever else was at the top of Cam’s hit list.

But did that mean I wanted to help him?

I thought back to the way I’d felt in his arms the night before.

Warm.

Safe.

It was much better than the discomfort I’d had when pinned between Kyle and Julian.

Which made the choice pretty simple.

I was going with Cam’s plan.

That didn’t mean I had to mate with him. Working with him could mean having some sway over who left and who stayed, which could be to my advantage.

Maybe there was a guy I’d like more than Cameron. I could use the situation to make it work with him, instead.

The more I thought about it, the more upbeat I felt.

I wasn’t as helpless as I’d thought.

I didn’t get much solitude by the fire before a guy came up and sat down beside me. He was one of the quieter ones, and his name was Reid. His wings looked delicate, which meant he was one of the fae with mental magic.

Assuming Cam had told me the truth about that.

He didn’t speak up when he took a seat, so I didn’t either. He looked almost as tired as I did.

“Can I ask you something?” I murmured to him, after a few minutes of comfortable silence.

“Sure.” Reid’s words were as quiet as mine. Maybe quieter.

“Why do all of you have different wings?” I gestured toward the shelter and all the guys sleeping there. The majority of them had gone back to their human forms the evening before, so there weren’t a lot of wings on display for once.

I wanted him to confirm what Cam had said, but I hadn’t wanted to come right out and ask.

“The appearance of our wings is determined by the type of our magic,” he said. “Mental fae have translucent wings like mine. Elemental fae have opaque, and the different styles correspond to their elements.”

So Cam had told me the truth.

“What about the horns?”

“They grow in like hair. All of us have them in our fae forms, and they don’t signify anything.”

Another guy joined us by the fire.

He sat uncomfortably close to me, so I was pretty sure it was Kyle even before I looked over.

Yep.

Kyle.

“What are we talking about?” His voice was bleary, but loud enough that he’d probably woken up everyone who was still sleeping.

“Magic,” Reid said, still talking quietly.

“You didn’t tell her about the shifting, did you?” Kyle asked, loud once again.

The other guy sighed.

The sigh was answer enough.

He hadn’t wanted me to know about the shifting, whatever that meant.

So, I obviously needed to know what it was.

Two more guys sat down beside us. One was Oren, who still gave me the creeps. The other was Chris, with the white feathery wings.

“What shifting?” I asked.

“We shift between human and fae forms,” Kyle said quickly.

That was true, but he was clearly trying to conceal the full truth from me.

I glared at him and scooted multiple inches away. “Don’t bullshit me.”

Chris chuckled. “Elemental fae have three forms. Human, fae, and beast.”

“Beast?” My voice rose slightly.

I’d seen videos of dragons and a few other kinds of magical creatures, so I’d figured that was coming.

But still, it was a big deal.

“We can shift into animals,” he agreed. “Air fae become griffins. Water become dragons. Earth become perytons. Fire become phoenixes.”

I couldn’t remember what a griffin was, exactly. And I didn’t think I’d ever heard of a peryton before.

“It takes a shit-ton of energy,” Kyle interrupted. “We rarely shift into beast form. Usually wrecks us for a few days afterward.”

His green scaly wings told me he must’ve been a water fae, which was a dragon.

Cameron had to be a phoenix, but I’d never seen him wrecked before. Did that mean he hadn’t shifted into his beast form since he started guarding me? I’d have to ask.

“Does it take a lot of energy to shift between human and fae?” I wondered.

“Nah. Just a little,” Kyle said.

“We need to find something to eat,” Julian said, as he joined us by the fire. Three more were behind him. Cam followed them in, like he hadn’t been sleeping away from everyone. “We’re out of food, unless we count the melted gummy candy.”

“The water fae need to go fishing,” Kaden, the guy with furry wings, announced.

Kyle scoffed at him. “I’m not wasting my energy like that.”

A few heads turned toward the only other guy on the island with scaly wings.

“Come on, Jim,” one of the guys said.

Jim looked at me. “What do I get in exchange?”

My irritation rose.

Kyle scooted closer to me.

“Back off,” I snapped at him.

He blinked.

I stood.

Though I was frustrated, I wasn’t so frustrated that I couldn’t put Cam’s plan into action a little further.

I strode to Julian’s side and folded my arms. Though I didn’t touch him in any way, the statement seemed pretty clear. I didn’t trust Kyle, but I did trust Julian.

Or at least, I wanted everyone to think I did.

I said, “I’m not giving anyone anything for keeping all of us alive. You bastards knew what you were signing up for when you joined this show. I didn’t. I’m not considering anyone who doesn’t contribute as a potential mate.”

A moment of silence passed.

“I’m going,” Jim finally grumbled.

“I’ll go too. I should be able to help a little,” Chris said.

“Fine,” Kyle grunted.

The other guy with golden wings stepped up to Cam’s side and whispered, “Want to bet we could bring home twice as much fish as them?”

Cameron grinned at him, and the two of them headed off after the other guys without so much as a glance in my direction.

It was hard to believe that was the same guy whose lap I’d sat on the night before.

And I had to try not to think about that , because it gave me feelings I didn’t know what to do with.

I went back to weaving palm fronds while everyone else refocused on the shelter, firewood, and such.

The morning passed slowly.

We had fish for lunch. It wasn’t enjoyable, and we were all still hungry when the poor creatures had been reduced to bones.

But it was better than nothing.

The rest of the day was filled with small talk, and me sticking with Julian whenever possible.

I ate next to him.

I went looking for firewood with him.

I walked to the water well with him.

And the way everyone had their eyes narrowed at him by the end of the day told me that Cameron’s plan was working exactly the way he wanted it to.

Julian and I were at the back of the group when it came time to walk to the voting portion of the island. “You’re sticking to me on purpose,” he said, studying me as we followed the others.

“I trust you more than I trust them,” I lied.

“You have no reason to.”

“You just seem trustworthy.” I wrapped my arms around my middle, itching for a sweatshirt or something. I was so tired of wearing my stupidly small bikini and shorts. It was way too much skin on display for all the shirtless dudes around me. And too much skin that would come in contact with theirs when bedtime came around again.

The only person I hadn’t minded with was Cameron.

But I wasn’t letting myself think about that.

“If that was true, you wouldn’t be so evident about it. You know you’re making me a target,” Julian said.

I feigned surprise and took a line from Cam’s book, answering with a question. “Am I?”

We reached the voting area before he could ask me anything else.

I remembered intricate sets designed for the original Survivor show, but the fae Society hadn’t bothered with that. They just set up a bunch of logs in a circle, and put a stack of papers and markers next to the fire in the center.

Everyone took a seat.

There was no talking or last-minute drama.

Rhett passed out papers and markers to everyone but me. They all wrote a name down, then passed their votes in.

He showed the votes one by one.

Julian

Julian

Kyle

Julian

Julian

Julian

Julian

Julian

Julian

Julian

Julian

There were twelve men, but one guy had lost his vote in the first challenge, so only eleven votes.

Julian dipped his head toward me before strolling away in the direction opposite the one we’d arrived in.

His voice entered my mind for a moment, and I sucked in a sharp breath at the sudden intrusion.

“Well-played, Molly. Good luck.”

Everyone’s eyes were on me when I refocused on where I was, and realized I was still seated while they were all standing.

“Thought I saw a spider,” I said weakly.

Kyle reached for my arm, about to pull me up, but I was on my feet and striding away before he could touch me.

That bastard needed to learn how to keep his hands to himself.

As our group walked back to our shelter, the guys chatted around me like they hadn’t just voted someone off.

I forced myself to focus on Cameron’s plan, and how I’d need to act to make it happen.

I’d thoroughly convinced them that I trusted Julian, or at least trusted him more than I did anyone else. By voting out the person I’d been leaning on, they had basically betrayed me.

They’d taken him out on purpose because of our “connection”, so I needed to be upset by that.

I could do upset.

I stayed silent the whole way back, walking away from anyone who fell into step beside me. The remaining eleven guys sat around the fire when we made it back, Cam stoking it higher with his magic. Kyle threw more logs on it, then strode over to me.

I side-stepped his arm when he tried to drape it over my shoulder.

“Come on, Dolly,” he teased.

The bastard seemed to think he was being playful, but it just made me want to strangle the guy. I didn’t even really like being called Lolli , so Dolly ?

Hard pass.

“Fuck off,” I shot back. “You all voted Julian out just because you knew I was starting to trust him.”

Kyle spread his hands out. “It’s the name of the game, Doll.”

“This isn’t a game to me. It’s my life. My future .”

“You’re making it out of this alive no matter what. The rest of us risk death if we walk away alone, so excuse me for not being empathetic,” Kyle drawled.

“I need some air. Don’t follow me,” I snapped, storming away.

“Moron,” someone muttered behind me. I was pretty sure it was Chris.

He’d better have been talking about Kyle.

Even if he wasn’t, I wasn’t going to mate with him. There had to be a better option.

Cam would make it to the end—he had to, because I wasn’t going to tie myself to any of those other bastards at the rate things were going.