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C alliope Masters groaned , rolled over, and then opened her eyes. She gasped, sitting straight up, because this wasn’t her bedroom. This wasn’t her parents’ home where she’d fallen asleep.

She was surrounded by trees and earth, and the scent of mud and grass. At the sound of another moan, she tensed up, and then glanced less than two feet away from her.

This couldn’t be happening.

Her heart started to race as she got to her feet. At first, she didn’t dare move, because she didn’t want to know the answer, but that would be crazy.

Then Jaxson Crease opened his eyes, and he clearly had the same sense of panic she did. He turned his head and stopped.

“No,” he said.

“I hope that is hell, no, this can’t be happening,” she said, trying not to panic. What was the point in panicking? If what she thought was happening, they were in for a whole load of crap she couldn’t deal with.

There was the sorry fact that she was only ... human. That was right. Jaxson was the wolf in this situation. She was just a human that lived among wolves and witches, and a whole lot of other things that went bump in the night.

“This is not ... The Hunt,” he said.

Calliope pressed her lips together and tried not to cry. Throughout high school Jaxson had always accused her of being too emotional, and that humans were in some way less than wolves, which made her hate him just a little bit. Actually, not even a little bit. It made her hate him a whole lot.

He was always saying how humans were weak and pathetic, useless to have around, and so many other insults that they became just words. His insults quite quickly stopped having meaning to her.

“It can’t be, right? I mean, that is impossible. There is no way.” She started to laugh, and then she wanted to cry. “It’s just not possible. They heard what we said when we were eighteen.”

Jaxson rubbed the back of his neck, which was not a good sign.

“What?” she asked.

“They told us that if we didn’t ... figure this out, it was going to lead to The Hunt?”

“No, no, no, absolutely not.”

“Calliope, we knew this was coming.”

“No, this is not that. This is not us having to work together, to come to the realization that you and I are mates, or whatever you call it.” She felt her heart start to race.

The Hunt was cruel, archaic, and so damn wrong on many levels. Calliope didn’t know when this started, but it happened in some kind of mystical realm, that was all forest. If an unmated couple failed to mate by their twenty-first birthday, then by pack law they have to be entered into The Hunt.

This was not a game. This was survival.

Every couple that had gone in hating each other’s guts came out mated, in love, and living happily ever after.

She and Jaxson were mated three years ago.

She pressed her lips together, hating what was happening right now, so much so that she wanted to cry.

It would be up to them to combat every enemy that came their way. They were mystically bound so they couldn’t run from each other. She always imagined it was like having invisible handcuffs wrapped around their wrists.

Right now, she couldn’t feel it, but as she took a step, then another, and another, she felt that pull when she suddenly couldn’t move anymore.

“No, no, no, no, no,” she said, spinning around and looking at him a little wildly. “I thought they had agreed. They were happy we both agreed our suggested mating was wrong.”

Jaxson shrugged. “I guess not.”

“I thought you said there was a way to avoid this?” she asked.

“I thought there was, but it doesn’t matter.”

She held onto her face and tried not to panic. “How are you not freaking out right now? How are you not panicking?” She bent forward and put her hands on her thighs, trying to take deep breaths.

This couldn’t be happening. Could it?

“Regardless of what we think and feel, there is no going back. We’ve got a choice to make. Either we work together, and by the end of it mate and get out of here alive, or we die.”

No one had died during The Hunt.

She lifted her head. “You’re talking about failing.”

“No, I’m talking about winning here. Failing is the other option, but I don’t want to die.”

She watched as he shoved his hands into his jeans pockets.

Calliope hated failing. She studied for every single test she took.

Throughout high school, she worked her ass off.

When it came time to pass her driver’s license test, she nearly failed because she got so nervous around new people.

Even though she lived within a community, she didn’t know everyone well, and she was shy.

On the night of her eighteenth birthday, there had been a party.

There had been several peers who shared the same birthday week as her.

Every Friday, regardless of whether it was a party, an elder came to the pack, sat down, and they would watch as his wolf would take over.

He was known as the Mate Maker. All she knew from rumor was that his wolf had a way of seeing the connections of soulmates.

It was all freaky and scary, and she hated it, but she had watched people come together.

She saw their love and happiness at knowing they were destined to be mates.

Then, of course, there were people that were heartbroken.

In her case, she and Jaxson had burst out laughing, and then denied it.

For three years they continued to deny it, with the threat of The Hunt looming over them.

“Okay, okay, so, we’re not failing. We’re going to survive,” Calliope said. She didn’t want to be mated to Jaxson, but at twenty-one years old, she didn’t look forward to death either.

Jaxson moved toward her. “You know what this means?”

“This means that you and I share a common goal. We’ve got to make it out of here alive.”

“No one makes it out of here alive unless they are mated, Calliope. Mated, marked, and fucked. We both know what that means. So, until that happens, I guess we have no choice but to work together and survive.” He took a deep breath.

“And seeing as you don’t have strength or speed, you better watch my back. ”

“I can totally take care of myself.”

She gasped as he suddenly cupped her face. It was the first time he’d touched her. At first, she didn’t know what to do. It was easier when there was no touching involved.

They shouldn’t be doing this.

She hated him. Didn’t she?

Did The Hunt mess up feelings as well?

None of this made any sense.

“You and I both know, without me, you cannot take care of yourself. There are going to be things that attack us, Calliope. Scary, monstrous things. There is a lot you can do, but taking care of yourself is not one of them.”

With that, he started to move, and she had no choice but to follow.

****

J axson had a little secret. He never went to his parents, nor did he go to the elder to ask him to withdraw the mating between him and Calliope. He had every intention of doing so. Each time he did, some other excuse came up that stopped him. He couldn’t explain it.

His father advised it was because he knew Calliope was his mate. That made no sense.

Sure, they had kind of grown up together. When they were kids, they had been best friends. Calliope had been a little bit of a tomboy, climbing trees with him, and they would run around wild in the forest. There was a time she’d been his best friend.

Then, something happened. She suddenly turned into a girl—a girl he noticed with beautiful thick, rich brown hair. Gorgeous brown eyes, that always had that sparkle in them, as if she was trying not to laugh about something. He adored her.

Then, she stopped wearing dungarees, jeans and shorts, and instead wore skirts and dresses. She started to wear makeup and pin her hair back. She looked beautiful, and he started to become attracted to her, and that was a bad thing. A very bad thing.

So, he’d been a little surprised when the elder stated they were mates. Sure, his feelings for her had never quite gone away. Somewhere along the way, their friendship had changed, and they’d become enemies. That was what they were now—enemies.

Although, she did look really pretty.

Thankfully, she wasn’t wearing a skirt or a dress right now, but jeans. Jeans, and an oversized sweater, which was a good thing. She was always cold, he remembered.

Making their way through the forest, he inhaled deeply, and he’d been warned there would be no way of knowing what enemies they faced.

“This is insane,” Calliope said, whispering.

That he agreed with.

The Hunt was fucking dangerous. People had struggled through, but no one had failed. No one had opted to die. They all came out loving one another, being together, having kids, mating, and living their perfect lives.

Right now, he didn’t know if they were going to be able to ... succeed. He was more than capable of taking care of them. He had the strength, and had been honing his abilities with his wolf for the past three years. He was the one in control.

But he had never had to focus on keeping anyone else alive, least of all Calliope. The girl he’d teased. The girl he’d insulted. The girl he missed and knew he was one hundred percent in love with—which was why he made her life miserable.

Calliope looked fine. She looked happy. Like she didn’t have any feelings for him whatsoever, and why did she get to have all of that freedom and fun, while he couldn’t?

He was trapped by his feelings for her. Feelings that were technically, completely justified, because their elder stated as such.

“So, we agree on that,” Jaxson said.

“Okay, at least we can agree with ... things. What’s the plan?”

He stopped and turned to her.

“Plan?”

“Yeah, we’ve got to have a plan. I mean, I don’t know how long these things are supposed to last. We’ve got to find food and shelter, and figure this out. They have left us with nothing.” She held her hands open. “Nothing.”

“That’s because we have to work together to survive.”

“And that’s why I am saying there is a plan, isn’t there? Do we know when nightfall will hit?”

“Calliope, we’re in a mystical land, and I didn’t stick around long to listen to how other people survived this.” He’d seen how happy they were, and in all honesty, he didn’t think he’d ever have to worry about being thrust into The Hunt.

He remembered bits and pieces of conversations, but he wasn’t about to scare Calliope. The truth was, it could turn to night with the click of fingers. It could be burning hot or freezing cold. They could be attacked without any warning whatsoever. Food could be found when they least expected it.

The fact was, the only guarantee with each other, was ... each other. They were their only hope.

“You’re right,” Calliope said. “I didn’t either. I was happy they lived, but I didn’t stick around for the details. I only know this place is scary.” She glanced around.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said.

“I hope so.” She turned to look at him. “Because I really don’t want to die.”

He couldn’t have agreed more. “At least we’re in agreement with that. Neither of us wants to die.” He saw the smile on her face, and it had been so long since she last smiled at him.

“What do we have to do?”

There was no way Calliope was just going to sit back and allow him to do all the work. She always had a hands-on approach to everything.

“We’ve got to keep moving and I guess we’ve got to start looking like we’re open to the idea of being mated.”

He heard her sharp intake of breath.

“That shouldn’t be hard, right? I mean, that should be quite easy.” She nibbled her lip and he loved when she did this.

Her lips were already plump, but in some odd way, they looked plumper when she nibbled her lip. He couldn’t describe what it did to him, but it did drive him crazy watching her.

“Yeah, it should be easy.” They started to walk, and he looked left and right. There was no discernable landscape. Everything either kept changing, or they were going around in circles, or ... it was a maze.

He just didn’t know. The scent hadn’t changed either. Jaxson tried to stay on alert, just in case they were attacked.

Calliope didn’t say a word. They kept walking in a straight line, a circle, or zigzagging, for all he knew. Randomly, he kept looking in her direction. Neither of them said a word. He had a feeling this was dangerous.

“What were you doing?” he asked. “I mean, before you woke up here?”

“I was sleeping. I had a long day, and I went to bed early.”

“Me too,” Jaxson said. He’d been training with all the other wolves, honing in on his connection with his wolf, so when it came to changing, it didn’t hurt.

Sometimes, even after three years, and changing once a month, it still hurt like a son of a bitch.

Not that he’d complain to anyone, and certainly not his dad, who also happened to be the alpha of the pack.

“It’s exhausting, right? Trying to figure out your place?” Calliope asked.

He agreed.

“I know a lot of the pack didn’t want me around because of ... well, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” Some of the pack thought he was nuts in not trying to pursue Calliope. Trying to make a mating work was more important than ending up on The Hunt.

It was like the bogeyman for wolves. The Hunt.

He didn’t realize how real it could be until this moment, and at that precise second, he heard the snap of a twig and instantly reached out for Calliope. She had already tensed up.

“Did you hear that?” she asked, whispering.

He nodded his head and tried not to make a sound as he kept her close and moved in a circle, trying to figure out what it could have been.

A twig snap suggested something large, something ... hunter-y. He didn’t want them to be the prey. They were the predators.

“So, uh, I kind of heard that anything can attack? I mean, I think I might have heard, but I didn’t exactly hear it from anyone who has actually been here,” Calliope said.

“It’s a fight for survival. It’s why it’s named The Hunt.”

No one appeared. No threat.

Letting go of her arm, he watched, and then suddenly, a small bunny appeared.

“Aw, he’s so cute,” Calliope said.

The bunny didn’t stay long and started hopping away.

“Come on,” Jaxson said. “I think we need to keep moving.” And with that, she didn’t argue as he took her hand and they started walking again.

He didn’t have a clue which direction to head, but it was good to just keep walking, and if he was honest, it was also good to be holding her hand.