26

When Scarlett arrived at the Springwood leisure centre she looked around, trying her best to act casually. A couple of guys dribbled footballs around cones while another practised taking shots at the goal. She didn't see Riley anywhere.

'This is insane,' she realised. 'I'm literally stalking him.'

She was about to turn back and go home when she overheard Riley shouting in the distance. Hiding behind the foliage, she poked her head up to see him leaving the building with a group of lads. She wasn’t close enough to smell them but they looked weaker and smaller than Riley by quite a large margin.

'So he does have other friends nearer to home,' Scarlett thought, wondering if they were members of his pack--or rather, of Adrian's pack.

Then he lifted his leg and kicked the lad beside him so hard that he went skidding face-first across the pavement.

As Riley passed the lad he leaned down, made a fist, and laughed when the other boy flinched away. She was staring at him when he looked up and spotted her in the bushes. With his enhanced sense of smell and vision, hiding from him wasn’t exactly an option.

"What the hell are you doing there?" he asked, looking both surprised and happy to see her.

"Am I being crazy?" Scarlett asked him, deciding honesty was the best policy. "I just really wanted to see you."

"Aww," he cooed. His dimples showed as he smiled, leaning forward to ruffle her hair. "You crazy little bitch."

He took her hand in his, larger, warmer, and surprisingly soft hand and told her his older brother was expecting him home, but she was welcome to tag along. Their arms swinging in time, the couple skipped across the pavement toward Riley's house.

He lived on the outskirts of the village of Springwood—the wolf-only community that Ron and Adrian had hailed from. Sometimes Scarlett would wonder about the place, like how they kept humans from buying homes there and what they did a human decided to wander in. Killing them wasn’t allowed, but surely they had to have methods of keeping them out.

When they arrived, Scarlett tried not to let her first impression of his house show on her face. The place was a total dump. Literally. There were old paint cans, bits of broken furniture and bags of rubbish piled up on the patchy lawn in front of the gate which hung limply from its hinges.

A white van sat in the driveway, and that with the paint cans suggested the older brother was a painter decorator. As she followed Riley into the house, she saw the brother had not bothered to paint the walls of his own house. Some were half completed, while some walls had multiple holes.

A packet of polyfiller sat on the table beside tools, plates and a magazine that looked like a porno.

"Riley, help me sort this shit hole," a male voice shouted. An older guy, presumably the brother, looked up and gave Scarlett the once over.

"This is Scarlett," Riley introduced her. "My brother Dan."

"Hi," Scarlett said, smiling at him.

He didn't smile back.

"It's poker night, man," he said. "Can she play poker or is she here to hand out the chips like some kinda Molly Bloom?"

"I can play," Scarlett assured him with feigned confidence. She had played online, and was pretty decent, but had never been in a live game with real people.

"Okay," Dan said, nodding his head and looking her up and down. His eyes lingered on her breasts and legs for just a second before he turned away and began clearing the table.

Dan didn't look much like Riley. He wasn't tall or well-built but had this strange air of violence with neck tattoos and a line of gold or missing teeth. She couldn't tell which caste he belonged to, finding it hard to tell because of the overwhelming scent of weed. Not that it mattered. Scarlett hated judging people on their status--a trait she's learned from her mother early on. It was pure chance that she had ended up with the father of the next generation's Alpha.

"Did you get into a fight after the game?" Dan asked Riley, smirking.

"Na, we got into a fight during the game," Riley said and laughed. "Didn't even get to the second half."

"Typical," Dan scoffed. He didn't seem concerned or shocked to hear this in the slightest. If anything, he seemed amused.

"So you're some hotshot poker player, yeah?" Riley asked her. "Gonna beat me?"

"I reckon so," Scarlett said, employing her poker face.

"Yeah? Wanna make it interesting?" he asked.

Scarlett coughed, feeling her face flush as her mind dove into the gutter at the suggestion. He could always mean money.

"If I win you have to do anything I say," Riley said.

"Fucking pervert," Dan input, overhearing from the kitchen. "Don't do it, Chick."

"And if I beat you... same rules apply?" Scarlett asked.

"Sure," Riley said as his brother shook his head and tutted.

As a team, they cleaned up the living room, set up the table and got beers and snacks from the kitchen. When the players arrived, Scarlett started to feel out of place.

Aside from being the only female, she was pretty she was only non-shifter at the table. These guys were all different castes, from beta to omega, and the structure became obvious as certain members were expected to complete the menial tasks such as getting up for beers and others were served first. Luckily, they did not include her in the ranking and treated her the same as her Beta companion.

She sipped her beer as Riley shuffled the cards and dealt the first hand. She watched carefully, noticing that he dumped one card to the side before dealing the flop.

"Why'd you do that?" she whispered.

"What? Burn a card?" He frowned. "I thought you said you'd played poker before."

"I have. Online," Scarlett said.

He chuckled.

"Oh you are so going to lose to me," Riley said. "I wonder what I'm going to make you do."