Page 34 of Primal

My mouth’s raw from duct tape. My palms are scraped from clawing bark. My thighs are sore, sticky, and—

Honestly? Best. Night. Ever.

Part of me wants to curl up here and fall asleep to the phantom echo of his heartbeat.

But screw that—I didn’t pay eight hundred bucks to snuggle. No, I came to play with monsters. Get hunted and ravished from dusk to dawn—that’s the damn brochure’s promise.

I brush debris off my arms and legs, fix my clothes. My panties didn’t survive round one—thanks for that, Dollar-Store-Ghostface. Lucky I brought spares. Assuming Kade wasn’t lying about coming back.

Assuming he’s not lying about anything.

My stomach drops. The guy Kade attacked sure as hell didn’t look scripted.

He stabbed someone for touching you. Do you really want to hang around and wait for him?

No worries. The Verge’s designed to feel dangerous—not be dangerous.

Besides, there are cameras everywhere—mounted on trunks, angled from posts. Standard safety protocol. But it also means recording everything, and God, please tell me the tree Kade bent me over wasn’t the main event on one of their live feeds. I file away another complaint for the review page.

My watch’s dying: 12% battery. 10:47 pm.

Almost three hours since the game started. Time to be a little more daring. Kade did say he’d tie me to a tree if he caught me wandering.

I peel myself off the trunk. And trip over a root before I’m even upright.

The trees creak mockingly as I pick myself up. Should’ve waited for IT Guy, dumbass.

I take a step—squelch—ankle-deep mud. “Oh, come on.”

Damn it. Which way did Kade go?

Right’s too obvious, so left it is. My watch glows. 11% battery. Fantastic.

Ahead, there’s a gap formed out of two oaks leaning away from each other, trunks scarred with parallel gouges. Claw marks? Axe wounds? Some rich asshole’s idea of rustic decor?

I duck under a low branch.

There’s a boot. Thigh-high. Upright in the middle of the path. As if someone had stepped out of it mid-stride.

“Payton?”

I whip around. A blinding beam of light.

“Kristy?”

She’s a disaster—neon shorts shredded at the seam and hair all sexed up, twigs included.

She darts over and grabs my arm. “You okay?”

“Look—” I spin and point at the boot.

She swings her phone’s beam over it. “Damn. Someone upgraded to Cinderella After Dark.”

“It’s Amanda’s, right?”

“Oh, yeah, baby giraffe!” Kristy nudges it with her toe. The boot tips over, revealing a streak of mud up the side.

“Why only one?”