Page 54 of Ignited

Karisma almost choked on her beer.

Matéo turned to Switch. “We could do that, right? We’ll buy you a bottle of whiskey if you’ll help. Because whoever took him needs to get his ass kicked.”

Switch, after a quick glance at Boomer, launched into a long, rambling technical monologue about signal frequencies, until the brothers got bored and Boomer could lure them away for a game of knife darts.

All the guys joined that, so Karisma was left with just the girls, which made her nervous because she’d never spent much time with other women.

And she had to apologize to Madison Fontaine, the bunny shifter. “I’m really sorry,” she said first thing, when they’d all rearranged themselves around the couch. “For what happened the other day? I don’t usually eat people. I mean, not before I’ve even met them. Or know their names. Well, that’s not true exactly,” she amended, thinking of a couple of guys she’d met in bars. “Sometimes I don’t know their names.” All the girls were staring at her. “When I eat them,” she finished lamely. “I mean, some guys aren’t really there for the conversation, you know?”

Shit. She’d completely lost the thread of the apology.

Madison was the first to break. She started giggling uncontrollably, and then the rest of the girls cracked up too.

“Girl, I so hear you on that,” Mikey said. “Or I used to, before Gunn.”

Madison said, “It’s okay. I understand. Boomer explained about your tiger.”

That was pretty generous, coming from someone she’d almost killed. “I don’t think your mate understands. He keeps glaring at me.”

Sanchez was the only guy who wasn’t throwing knives. He was leaning against the wall in the corner, beer in hand, not taking his eyes off Madison. She turned and blew him a kiss, which made his face soften a fraction.

“He’s just very protective,” she said. “Deep down he’s a sweetheart, though.”

Right.

After that the mood lightened, though, and the girls ended up showing Karisma their tattoos. Mikey had done most of them—apparently she was multi-talented.

Karisma liked Madison’s the best—an evil-looking cartoon bunny with the words, Liberated forever. Domesticated never. As she watched, the bunny’s face rose out of the tattoo in a snarl, eyes bugging out, and then returned back to two dimensions.

Karisma jumped. “Okay, what the hell is in this beer? Because I just thought I saw the rabbit move.”

The girls all started laughing. “It’s magic,” Madison said, putting her overshirt back on over her tank top. “Something Mikey didn’t tell me about when she did the tattoo.”

“Guilty,” Mikey said, grinning.

Madison said, “You should have seen Sanchez’s face the first time it did that to him. Freaked. Out.”

Mikey said, “You have no idea how much I wish there’d been video.”

“You can do magical tattoos?” Karisma said. “That is so cool.” And she found herself wishing she were part of this close-knit group, laughing at pranks and giving each other tattoos.

But she wasn’t. Tigers walked alone. Suddenly a wave of fatigue washed over her.

Boomer noticed it immediately. He shooed all the people out, even Breanna when she wanted to help clean up.

“It’s fine. I’ll get Roomb—” he broke off, glancing at Cisco and Matéo. “We’ll take care of it. Yeah. Thanks. Bye.”

Karisma summoned up the energy to go to the door and say goodbye to them all, feeling a little blue. She’d never thought she’d missed much, not having girlfriends, but she liked the women in this pack. Especially Mikey, who managed to be girly and badass at the same time.

Except, they all had mates. She watched them walk away—Gunn and Mikey laughing about something and shoving each other around, Switch and Breanna making out under the shadow of the maple tree, and Sanchez with his arm around Madison, her tucked into his side, going up on tiptoe for a second to whisper something in his ear.

He smiled, for the first time all night.

Boomer came up behind Karisma, sliding his arms around her like he did when she got weak and dizzy. Only this time he didn’t help her to a chair, just stood there holding her against his chest.

She said, “Sanchez really seems like he’s in love with the bunny.”

“I know. Nauseating, isn’t it?”