“I’ll make you a deal,” he said.
Holly put her hands on her hips. “I’m listening.”
“I’ll give you the staff,” he began. “If you can land just one blow, you can be done for the day.”
Holly’s grin could only be described as feral. “You’re on. Give me the stick.”
“At least try to hide the fact that you want to hit me.” He chuckled as he tossed the stick to her.
By some miracle, Holly caught it without fumbling. She took that as a good sign.
“Attack when you’re ready,” he said.
Holly swung the staff a few times, adjusting to the weight of it. She waited until Loch looked like he’d relaxed before charging at him. She swung…and missed.
Somehow, Loch ended up behind her.
She whirled around, ready to swing again. By the time the staff hit its mark, Loch was long done.
“Hold still!” Holly cried.
“That defeats the point of our deal.” Loch chuckled as he dodged her whirlwind of sloppy blows.
Holly spun hard, throwing herself off balance by the force of her own thrust. She would’ve fallen again if she didn’t catch herself on the back of a deck chair.
Loch made no effort to hide his delight in watching her struggle. He doubled over laughing, clutching his sculpted chest.
“I’m glad I’m providing you with entertainment,” she muttered.
“Please, keep going.” He made a show of wiping an imaginary tear from his eye. “I haven’t laughed this hard in an age.”
Holly swung at him again. Her muscles ached and felt like they were made of lead. If her legs could talk, they would ask why the fuck she was doing this to them. She didn’t care. She pushed through the pain. The desire to wipe that stupid, sexy smirk off Loch’s face was all-consuming.
No. Not sexy. Insufferable, she corrected herself.
She missed her mark again, slamming into the railing instead.
A strong arm slid around her waist. Suddenly, her back was pressed against Loch’s bare chest.
“You couldn’t hit me even now,” he taunted.
She swung the staff over her shoulder. Somehow, she still missed him.
“How the hell are you doing that?” she groaned.
“A decade of practice. Give or take.” He shrugged.
“A decade?” Holly gave an exasperated sigh. “You must’ve been only a kid when you started.”
“Yeah.” His voice went soft. The usual mocking lilt vanished.
“The last dark shifter uprising?” Holly whispered.
If she turned her head just slightly, she’d be able to see his face. She couldn’t bring herself to do so.
“That was certainly a motivator,” he muttered.
Holly squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” She stepped away from Loch and leaned against the deck railing. She expected Loch to walk away; instead, he came up to stand beside her.
“You can ask me about it, if you want.” Loch kept his eyes trained on the forest as he spoke.
“How old were you?” Holly asked.
“Eleven. I don’t remember much of it. No one thought it was going to end the way it did.”
That made him twenty-six.
“What happened?” Holly spoke so softly she wasn’t sure if she spoke aloud at all.
“Even now, I don’t know.” He shook his head. “When whisperings of shifters who wanted to return to the dark ways began to circulate, people didn’t take it seriously. There has always been the odd shifter who believes going dark is the correct way to live, but they either grew out of it or moved to a more remote area.”
“But it was different that time,” Holly murmured.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “The Golden Oak Bear Clans banded together in a way they never had before. They became one cohesive clan. They had Silver Spruce in their sight, and we were none the wiser.”
“Do you know what they wanted?”
“Some people think they wanted our land, but I think they just wanted to do harm,” he said. “By the time people here realized how serious a threat the shifters from Golden Oak had become, it was too late.”
Loch fell silent. Holly thought he’d said all he planned on saying, but he wasn’t finished yet.
“I slept through the whole thing.” His voice sounded thick and heavy. “My parents went out to fight when the Golden Oak shifters descended upon our town. It was after midnight when they attacked. They locked me up inside the house. There’s not a lock strong enough to stop a raging shifter, but it was all they could do.”
“I’m so sorry,” Holly whispered.
“I woke up to my alarm that morning,” he continued. “I got ready for school. It was a Thursday. When I went into the kitchen for breakfast, no one was there. I thought it was weird, but I figured my parents had to run into town for something. It wasn’t until my neighbor knocked on my door that I realized something was wrong.”
“I can’t imagine…” Holly didn’t know what to say. There wasn’t anything she could say.
“Things only got worse for me after that,” he said. “We didn’t own the house we lived in. The landlord didn’t like the idea of kicking me out, but he couldn’t afford to leave the house empty. A Golden Oak shifter had nearly torn off his arm. Medical bills were piling up fast.”
Holly placed her hand over Loch’s on the railing.
“What did you do?”
“I came here for a while.” He smiled faintly. “Pearl brought a ton of kids here to stay until relatives could take them in.”
“Did you have aunts or uncles? Grandparents?”
“No.” Loch frowned. “It was just my parents and me. Pearl didn’t want me to go into the state’s foster system. She didn’t trust it,
