Page 41 of Primal

“Exactly.” With a wink, she struts off, her neon shorts a beacon.

I follow the trail of discarded glow sticks. Every rustle makes my pulse spike. Every shadow could be him—or something worse.

Kade.

Has he found my backpack? Is he waiting for me? Or did he move on to fresher prey?

A sound slices through the silence. A moan? Maybe a whimper. Came from the thicket to my left. Human. Female. The kind of sound that shouldn’t make my stomach tighten, but—

Fuck. The Verge’s gotten in my head.

That moan again—high, breathless. My stomach knots. Is that—?

No. Kade wouldn’t.

Would he?

The closer I creep toward a gap in the brush, the louder the noises.

There they are. The brunette in a corset has her back to a tree. Wrists pinned above her head by a hunter.

Ghostface.

Chapter Eight

If Lana or Kristy had told me I’d be lurking in the bushes like your friendly neighborhood woodland perv, I’d have told them to lay off the cheap vodka. But joke’s on me.

Now, I’m actually peeking, bark splinters giving me a shitty manicure, while Corset Barbie over there is kicking up enough dirt to plant a fucking garden. Or bury a body. Hard to tell with all the thrashing.

That pout. That prissy, over-enunciated ‘Please’—like she’s trying to sound dignified.

The one who ghosted Kristy’s cousin after one bad date.

Jessica Langley.

Prey #19. Group 4’s walking rulebook. The one who raised her hand to ask questions earlier like we were back in middle school.

She shouldn’t be here.

She belongs with The Wolf and The Demon, not pinned to an oak by our Ghostface in the wrong fucking sector.

Unless …

I wandered into their zone.

Their group’s third hunter was running late. Maybe they have a Ghostface, too.

The mask gleams in the moonlight, identical to Kade’s.

It’s not him.

It can’t be.

The hunter has her wrists pinned above her head, his body caging hers in that way that would be sexy if it weren’t so ... wrong.

“Please. Oh, God.” Jessica whimpers—and the sound curls low in my stomach.

I should leave.