Wild Card

  Wild Card

  Wildcats Book 3

  Rachel Vincent

  Text copyright © 2017 by Rachel Vincent.

  Cover art copyright © 2017 by Gaslight Graphics

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locals is entirely coincidental.

  Rachelvincent.com

  Created with Vellum

  To fans of the original Shifters series.

  This one’s for you guys!

  Contents

  A Word From Rachel…

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Also by Rachel Vincent

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  A Word From Rachel…

  Dear Reader,

  Finally! Kaci’s story!

  I hope you’re enjoying the Wildcats series, a spinoff of the Shifters series, which launched my career. If you haven’t already read it, don’t forget to check out “Hunt,” the short story that bridges the two series.

  Since I started the Wildcats series, one of the most common requests I’ve gotten is for me to write Kaci’s story, now that she’s all grown up. If you’ve read the original Shifters series, you probably remember her as a traumatized thirteen-year-old “genetic recessive” shifter. As the little girl who bonded instantly with Ethan and fell in love with Jace. But after the events in Alpha, she was raised by Faythe on the Lazy S ranch, in the aftermath of the shifter civil war.

  You know you’re curious about how Faythe’s “daughter” turned out!

  Wild Card is a bit of a departure from the two previous books in the series. It’s a little shorter and lighter in tone, and it functions as a kind of “time out” from the new characters in the free zone. And because Kaci is barely 18 years old, this one is more of a sexual tension book than an adult content book. That said, it’s also a fast, fun read, about half of which takes place on the Lazy S. So get ready to say hi to some old friends! (And a new baby!)

  Please note, though, that I took some liberties with the more realistic aspects of the story, such as the layout of Caesar’s Palace.

  If you like Wild Card, I hope you’ll consider reviewing it wherever you review books, because as an indie series (I’m putting it out myself, rather than selling it to a publisher), the Wildcats books depend entirely on my own publicity efforts and readers’ word of mouth. And if you’d like to be updated about new releases, contests, and cover art, click here to sign up for my (low volume) mailing list.

  Thanks again for reading!

  Rachel Vincent

  Rachelvincent.com | Twitter | Facebook

  One

  Kaci

  “This is where you live?” Dustin glanced around the property as he drove us onto the Lazy S ranch through the arched gate, beneath the emblem—the letter S turned on its side. “I didn’t know you were a farm girl.”

  “I’m not.” Yet there was a lot Dustin didn’t know about me. A lot he would never know.

  Gravel crunched beneath his tires as we rounded a shallow curve in the long driveway, and the big red barn appeared on our right. “Damn.” Dustin whistled. “That’s straight out of, like, some old painting. You got horses in there? Or cows?”

  “Nope. No animals.” No farm animals, anyway. The local wildlife had been known to drive horses into a panic. Then into a heart attack. “This isn’t a functioning ranch.” It was more like a compound. The capital of a political authority Dustin would never even know existed.

  “So, the barn’s basically abandoned?” Dustin turned to the right, and his headlights glinted on flaking red paint and slightly warped barn doors. He gave me a comically suggestive eyebrow waggle. “I bet we could get into a lot of trouble in there.”

  “That’s a virtual certainty.” Chances were good that he mistook the anticipation in my voice for lust. Human guys tend to give themselves credit for more than they deserve. I suspect the same goes for shifter guys, but the truth is that I wouldn’t know.

  “Let’s go in.” He slammed the gear shift into park and turned to me with excitement glowing in his eyes, reflected in starlight shining through the windshield.

  “I don’t think so. The ranch backs up to a national forest. We get a lot of predators skulking in the shadows.”

  “Don’t worry, Kaci.” He got out, then leaned down to peer in at me with a smutty smile. “I’ll protect you.”

  I nearly choked on laughter. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you…”

  Dustin rounded the front of the vehicle and pulled my door open. I let him tug me out of the car because if there was one aspect of human behavior I still understood, after five years of observing it from the other side of the species divide, it was that if you tell a guy he shouldn’t do something, he won’t even be able to think about anything else until he’s done exactly that.

  Was it unfair of me to push that button? Probably. But I learned at a young age that life isn’t fair. Why should Dustin not have the benefit of that same experience?

  He closed my car door and led me toward the barn in the glare of his headlights, where I straightened my skirt while I watched him struggle with the old doors.

  “They’re a little warped,” I said as he pulled, tendons standing out in his neck from the effort.

  “I got it.” He grunted and pulled again, and I looked up to enjoy the warm, clear summer night. There was no moon, but the stars were all out, and they were more than enough light for me to see by. Though Dustin probably wasn’t as fortunate.

  “You want a hand?”

  He tossed an amused look my way. “This thing’s really jammed. It probably hasn’t been opened—”

  “Since last weekend.” I pushed him aside and jerked on the right-hand barn door, one handed. It swung open with a squeal of rusty hinges, and Dustin gaped at me. I shrugged. “There’s a trick to it.” Showing him up was one thing. But if he knew I was actually three times stronger than he was, he would get back in his car and peel out of there before I’d had any fun.

  And I was in desperate need of a little fun.

  Mollified by my explanation, Dustin grabbed my hand and tugged me into the barn, where he stumbled over a large rock right in front of the door, which he obviously couldn’t see. “Shit!

  I laughed as I steadied him, and he took the opportunity to slide his hand over my ass. “Think that’s funny?” He murmured against my neck as his hands moved up my back, beneath my blouse. “Maybe I tripped on purpose, so you’d grab me.”

  He hadn’t.

  “Maybe I meant to hit the ground, with you on top of me.”

  “The ground’s filthy,” I whispered as his lips trailed down my jaw toward my mouth. “But there’s a bale of hay over there…” Right where I’d put it.

  Dustin walked me backward toward the hay bale, steading me with both hands while his mouth fed from mine as if I were t
he only source of sustenance on the planet, and I had to admit, the guy knew how to kiss. Hay scratched the back of my calves and I sat.

  He didn’t even notice the blanket spread over the bale. But then, that was for my comfort, not his.

  I leaned back and Dustin crawled over me, one knee wedged between my thighs, pushing up my skirt. His hand wandered beneath my blouse again while his lips traveled down my neck, and I threw my head back, giving myself over to the moment. To the adrenaline and to the need building low inside me.

  So what if I’d only met him a few hours ago? So what if he thought I was a college junior partying her way through a degree in business management.

  The less he knew about me the better. For his own good.

  A growl rumbled through the dark from the rear of the barn.

  Dustin froze above me, but I pretended not to hear the threat as I slid my hands over his tight stomach beneath his shirt, then over his chest. “Touch me,” I whispered.

  The growl rolled over us again, too loud this time for me to reasonably ignore, but I ignored it anyway.

  “Kaci.” My name was little more than a deep grumble of syllables from the shadows near the last stall.

  Dustin backed off me and stood, squinting into the dark, eyes wide with the quiet kind of fear that makes deer freeze in oncoming headlights. “Kaci?” he whispered. “Something’s in here with us.” Which was when I realized his human hearing couldn’t distinguish my name from the growling.

  I shrugged as I sat up, straightening my blouse. “I told you. Predators.”

  “Seriously. Let’s go.”

  “She’s not going anywhere.” Marc Ramos stepped into the glare from Dustin’s headlights, and even I had to admit that he looked kind of scary. “But you have ninety seconds to vacate the premises before I rip you into several pieces and toss them into the incinerator. The police will never find your body.”

  “What the hell…?” Dustin backed toward the open barn doors. “Is that your dad?”

  I snorted. “He’s old, but he’s not that old.”

  “And she just graduated high school,” Marc growled.

  Dustin turned to me, brows arched in question. “You said you were in college.”

  I gave him another shrug. “I passed five AP tests, so technically I’m halfway through my freshman year. And people tell me I’m an old soul.”

  “Seventy-five seconds,” Marc growled. “Then I start breaking bones.”

  Dustin turned and ran for his car, hay flying beneath his shoes. He started the engine and slammed the gear shift into neutral by mistake, and I could see sweat popping up on his forehead in the three seconds it took him to understand the problem. Then he reversed onto the driveway and took off toward the gate, gravel grinding beneath his tires.

  I collapsed onto the bale of hay, laughing. “Thanks. That was awesome.”

  “This isn’t a game, Kaci.” Marc tugged me up by one hand and snatched my blanket from the bale.

  “Of course it’s a game. But it would have been a hookup, if you’d respect my right to a little privacy.”

  “The only place you’re guaranteed privacy is in your room.”

  “But I’m not allowed to have guys in my room. So, you can kind of see my dilemma.”

  “No, you’re not allowed to have boys in your room. You’re not allowed to have grown ass men anywhere on the face of this planet. So, you can kind of see my dilemma.”

  “I’m eighteen, Marc.” I snatched the blanket from him and shook it out hard enough that the material snapped against itself; Faythe said she’d skin me alive if I clogged up the dryer vent with any more hay. “That means I get to make my own decisions.”

  “You’re also a member of the South-Central Pride. Which means you have to follow the rules. There’s a reason you’re not allowed to bring your dates to the barn, or the woods, or anywhere else on this property except right through the front door of the house.”

  “Yeah, I can’t quite remember why that is again.” I folded the blanket in half, then in half again as I left the barn. “Can you please tell me for the millionth time?”

  “I’m serious, Kaci. A formal introduction is necessary to keep from triggering territorial instincts. There are six enforcers on this ranch, at least two of them patrolling the property at all times, and if they scent a strange man out here with you, they will overreact.”

  “As opposed to this classic under-reaction I’m getting from you?” I gave him an impatient wave, trying to hurry him out of the barn, and when he finally stepped outside, I shoved the doors closed, rusty hinges squealing, and reiterated a truth that only he and Faythe seemed unwilling to believe. “The guys don’t care who I bring home.”

  “Bullshit. If Faythe had snuck someone into the barn while I was an enforcer, I would have lost my shit. Every time I saw her with some other guy, I had to fight the urge to rip his head from his shoulders.”

  “I’m not sure whether that’s psychotic or sweet. Either way, there is no parallel to be drawn between you and Faythe, and me and our current enforcers.” I clamped the folded blanket beneath my arm and headed down the starlit driveway toward the house, where Faythe’s office window was still lit up, though it was nearly ten p.m.

  Up all night with the baby. Up all day with work. She hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in years.

  Marc jogged to catch up with me. “Look, I understand that you’re not interested in any of our guys, and that’s fine.”

  I stopped walking to stare at him. Did he truly believe the problem was that I wasn’t interested in any of them?

  “But it isn’t fair to parade a series of human dates right under their noses and rub it in,” Marc continued.

  I studied his gold-flecked gaze, trying to see the truth. “Is that really what you think I’m doing?”

  He crossed bulging arms over a solid chest. “Why bring your dates back here, if you’re not trying to rile up our enforcers?”

  “Okay, first of all, most of your enforcers are old enough to be my dad—”

  “That’s not true.”

  “My point is that you think Dustin is too old for me, when he’s all of twenty-one, yet you find it perfectly reasonable for enforcers in their late twenties to be jealous at the thought of me making out with a strange human.” I ticked my points off on my fingers. “A: That’s a double standard. B: It’s factually inaccurate. The guys wouldn’t care if I worked my way through an entire frat house, so there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to bring my dates back to the damn barn, like any normal farm girl.”

  Marc scowled, his mouth already open to yell at me for cussing.

  “Hell, losing one’s virginity on a bale of hay is practically a rite of passage around here.”

  His mouth snapped shut.

  Mission accomplished. Marc still hadn’t figured out how to deal with his little “kitten” talking about sex. Which was why I was the only person on the ranch who could get away with cussing at an Alpha.

  Not that I would ever try that with Faythe.

  “Okay, but back to the factual inaccuracy,” he said, once he’d mentally pushed past my utterance of the word ‘virginity.’ “If any of the guys had caught a whiff of your boyfriend—”

  “Dustin’s not my boyfriend. I just met him.”

  “I don’t know whether to be relieved by that or horrified. But my point is that if any of the guys had—”

  “Marc.” I stopped walking again and looked him right in the eyes. “Their ears are as good as yours. They all heard Dustin’s car turn into the driveway. They probably even heard me open the barn door. If any of them gave a damn who I was hanging out with, you wouldn’t have been the only one who showed up to scare Dustin off. But you’re always the only one who shows up. Because they…don’t…care.”

  The South-Central Pride’s enforcers were just as eager as any other tomcat to snag a tabby—according to shifter law, that was the only way any of them could have kids or become an Alpha—but they were not
eager for that tabby to be me.

  Somehow, in a population where the men greatly outnumbered the women, I was the only eligible female werecat in the country to have no suitors.

  Ever.

  Faythe saw that fact for what it was, and she understood the reasons. But Marc… Well, Marc was like the father of an ugly baby who believes his unfortunate progeny is the cutest bundle of joy on earth.

  Not that I was hideous or anything. I had no problem getting dates in the human world. Unfortunately, I was no longer a member of that world, which meant that any relationship I struck up with a human was pretty much doomed from the start. So, what’s a girl to do when the tomcats aren’t interested and human relationships can’t get serious?

  Play the field, of course. On my home turf, so all those stuck-up tomcat bastards had no choice but to see that someone—lots of someones—wanted me. Not that I was interested in any of the South-Central men.

  Not the enforcers, anyway…

  “I’m sure you’re reading them wrong,” Marc said as we clomped up the front steps of the ranch-style house that was both capital of and home base for the South-Central Pride. “I’m sure the guys care.”

  They didn’t. But Marc would never see that, because he was blinded by his own paternal perspective.

  He opened the front door and held it for me as I stepped into the foyer. “They’re probably just trying to figure out how to approach you, now that you’re…more mature.”

  They weren’t.

  I shrugged. “Maybe you’re right.”

  He wasn’t.

  “I’m going throw this in the wash and sulk over the premature end of my date.” I gestured toward the laundry room with my folded blanket.