Seth Birmingham bounced on his feet, tuning out the roaring of the crowd as the announcer called Jax’s name. Blowing out three short breaths, he cracked his neck, trying to find that elusive inner calm. He could do this. He had what it took to beat Jax.
No, you don’t. You’ll lose like you always do.
Fuck. It was going to be one of those nights. His skin tightened as his leopard launched the first in what would be a long line of taunts. Glancing over, he saw Jax walking toward the ring, the shadows around him making him look even bigger and more intimidating than usual. But he could do this. He’d beaten Jax before. He could do it again.
Nope. You’re a big pussy, in more ways than one.
Slamming his eyes closed, Seth took in a deep breath. He had to ignore his cat. He didn’t know how, but he would. He kept his eyes closed until he felt Jax enter the ring, and with another deep breath, he walked forward and bumped fists with Jax.
Resolve filled him as they circled each other. This was the night he would put his leopard from his mind and just fight. Jax swung, but Seth nimbly leapt to the side, throwing his own hit that connected with Jax’s jaw, sending him stumbling back a few steps.
Lucky shot.
Distracted for a split second, he let down his guard, and the blow Jax landed made him see stars for a second. His cat hissed inside him, scratching at his chest, raging at Seth to let him out and do it now.
That’s what you get, he told his animal as he and Jax circled each other. You distract me and we get the shit kicked out of us. Will you ever learn?
Ignoring the roar of his cat, the scratching, and his tight and itchy skin, Seth shoved it all to the back of his mind and went on the offensive. And from that moment on, he won. He didn’t know if he’d win against Jax, but he won against his leopard for the first time in longer than he cared to admit, and that was a victory he’d gladly take any day.
Amelia Anderson stood in the back of the crowded barn, watching as one of her late uncle’s ranch hands announced the next fight. She didn’t know what she was doing there. She wasn’t needed, and she was never really into fighting. This wasn’t even the more dignified boxing—this was rough, bloody, beat your opponent to death fighting.
Everything about this country was confounding. It was the country of her birth, but she was raised in England, and this was the first time she’d been back since she was a child. She only came back now because her Uncle Jerry had a heart attack. She arrived at the hospital mere moments before he passed away. He was ranting about men who changed into animals, and before he passed, he warned her there were some in Eagle Creek, from Rocky River specifically, who fought for him, and he warned her to stay away from them.
She leant no credence to what he said. Jerry had always come off as a little strange when they spoke on the phone, though she hadn’t realized he was delusional. Then, it was probably more the pain meds talking, than something Jerry truly believed. But even knowing what he said was crazy, here she was, wanting to study the fighters for any hint of anything abnormal.
Part of it was because she was bored. She didn’t have a lab here, and she hadn’t thought to bring her textbooks with her. She’d packed in too much of a rush to think about anything other than essentials. But part of it was the scientist in her, thinking it would be amazing if it were true. Humans sharing their bodies with animals. The questions, the possibilities, would be endless.
Shifting her weight on her feet, she shoved her glasses up her nose and perked up as the next round was called. These two fighters were announced as Seth and Jax, and the crowd around her went wild in anticipation. Surprised, she looked around, catching phrases like “Bout time” and “Here come the good ones”. Maybe these were some of the men her uncle warned her about.
Straightening, she leaned forward so she could study them as they fought. The other fighters before them hadn’t been anything special and, based on how they fought, she knew they were nothing more than humans. She snorted, rolling her eyes at herself. She was thinking like her uncle had spoken the truth, not rambled on in a drug-induced haze. Still, it was something to occupy her while she figured out what she’d do with the ranch before flying back to England.
Eyes widening as she watched with fascination, it was clear from the beginning these fighters were in a league far above the ones before them. No wonder the crowd had been waiting on them. But still, she didn’t see anything that would indicate they were anything more than human.
Frowning, she walked a few steps closer to the ring. The smaller of the two brawny men dodged a blow so quickly, his figure became a haze for a moment. She glanced around her, but the spectators didn’t seem to have found anything out of the ordinary. Turning back to the fight, she watched as the smaller man landed a blow so hard, it made the other man’s cheek ripple from the force. She squinted as a small cut appeared, and then just as quickly vanished. The powerful blow didn’t slow the other man down a bit, and had she not seen the hit happen, she wouldn’t have been able to tell at all.
Maybe there was something to her uncle’s ramblings, after all. She wasn’t sure she was ready to believe they were werewolves, or anything like that, but there was something unusual about them. Watching as the fight played out, she hoped to see other clues, but it was mostly more of the same. Moving a little too fast, healing a little too quickly.
Soon, the fight was over, and Greg, the ranch hand, walked into the ring, announcing the smaller man, Seth, the winner. Hands raised over his head in victory, Seth’s brown hair was dripping with sweat, beads of it running down his muscled chest and abs. She followed the path of the sweat, unable to help herself, and when she glanced back up, he was smirkin
g at her, his brown eyes full of amusement. Gasping as he winked at her, she eased her way back into the shadows where she’d spent most of her time since arriving at the barn.
Seth turned to the other man, a huge grin on his face, and said something to make Jax roll his eyes. Watching as they left the ring and met up with three other men and a woman, she continued to study them. Seth was goofing off, shadow boxing around the group, and the expressions on the others’ faces were mostly exasperated indulgence.
Deciding she’d seen enough, Amelia made her way through the crowded barn, into the night. She inhaled the cool July air deeply, thinking over what she saw. Maybe they weren’t animals, but they were clearly something more than human. It felt obvious to her, and she wondered how no one else seemed to see it. The only other option she could think of was steroids, but while she was the first to admit she knew next to nothing about steroid use, she didn’t think that was it. Surely, if steroids produced that type of reaction, it would be all over the news.
Mind replaying what she’d seen, she started the trek back to the house. She had a feeling she wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight as she her mind raced with impossible possibilities.
Seth searched the crowd of spectators, looking for the woman he saw when he was celebrating his win in the ring. Something about her made him take notice right away. She didn’t look like she belonged in this dirty barn, or even in Eagle Creek. She was wearing slacks and a blouse, some kind of fancy leather shoes on her feet. Her hair hung in big, loose curls to her shoulders, and she had on a pair of sexy librarian glasses. Those, and the distance between them, meant he wasn’t able to see the color of her eyes.
He couldn’t find her anywhere, but it was just as well. Seth had no business checking out a woman like that. She was classy and elegant, nothing like the women he’d been with before. Even if she looked twice at him, he wouldn’t be enough to keep her interest for long. Which was a good thing, he tried to tell himself, as he settled in to watch Ian and Kian fight. The last thing he needed was to pursue a woman like her. He was a rough and tumble fighter, an idiot jokester. He’d find nothing but rejection from her, whether it was immediate, or somewhere down the line.
Follow her.
Seth froze for a moment as his cat spoke inside him. There was none of the usual bitterness, none of the usual hostility his animal normally spoke with. He almost sounded pleading. The last time his leopard sounded like that was while Seth was leaving clan lands—no, he wasn’t going to think about that. Not right now. He won tonight. Finally, for the first time in months, he won a match, and he was going to celebrate the win. He wasn’t going to delve into shit better left in the past. And he had no intention of following the woman, so this would just be one more thing that added to the distance between him and his leopard.
He didn’t think he’d see her again, so he most likely wouldn’t have to fight his leopard over her often. Maybe out of sight, out of mind, for his cat. He could hope, anyway. He’d never seen her at a fight before, and she didn’t look like someone who would enjoy this kind of thing enough to keep coming back. She’d probably never come to another one. And he rarely left Rocky River, where the fighters lived. When he did, it was to come here to the Anderson ranch for the fights. No, he didn’t think he’d ever see her again. Frowning, he shifted his weight around, wondering why the thought left him feeling empty, when he should have been relieved.
Amelia watched from the window of the ranch house as the fighters from Rocky River helped fix the barn. The leader, Ian, offered to repair it after the funeral a couple weeks ago, and she accepted because she thought it would help sell the house and the land, if that’s what she chose to do with it. But now she found herself glad they offered for a different reason. This was their first day here, and she got to observe them, see if they let any other supernatural clues slip.
It had been four days since the fight, but she was still no closer to deciding what she thought about it all. She tried to tell herself she imagined it, but that wasn’t who she was. Amelia was a scientist. She dealt in cold, hard facts. Imagining things wasn’t something she ever did. In fact, she’d been told more than once in her life she needed to lighten up, feed her imagination.
She was always more interested in science than she was in anything else, as far back as she could remember. But surely, at some point as a child, she had an imagination, or would spend time daydreaming. She didn’t remember it, but didn’t all children do that? Regardless, whether she had or not, it wasn’t something she knew how to do now.
Facts were, she saw things that made no logical sense Saturday night. Inexplicable as they might seem, they’d happened, and the steroid explanation didn’t ring true. Which was why she was plastered to the window, hoping to see more. It would be amazing if people could really turn into animals. The physics of such a thing fascinated her. And while the things she witnessed didn’t necessarily mean they could change forms to animals, it did mean they were something more than human.
Cocking her head, she studied them. They didn’t act differently than other humans. Everything pointed to them being a close-knit group of friends, laughing and joking. Seth, the one she observed the most the other night, laughed constantly, and Jax, the one he fought, barely cracked a smile and didn’t say much at all. And the others looked boringly normal, for humans who were supposed to be more than human.
Amelia’s breath caught as Seth jumped down from the roof of the barn and landed effortlessly. Hand over her pounding heart, she eased backward as Ian shoved him, gesturing to the house. Probably chastising Seth for showing too much strength within her view. Wiping her suddenly sweaty palms on her skirt, she made her way to the dining room table, where she sank down onto a chair. What she saw Saturday hadn’t been an aberration, then. It was normal for the group working on her barn.
Her heart raced faster as she thought of all the possibilities. It might not have been the pain meds talking the night Jerry told her the fighters from Rocky River could turn into animals. It was very possible he was telling the truth. But she needed more than ‘very possible’. She need facts, needed to know it was true. But it wasn’t like she could just go up and ask them. She had to find out some other way. She just wasn’t sure how.
Maybe… maybe she could seduce the information out of one of them. She nearly snorted, because she knew next to nothing about seduction. She spent most of her time in a lab, or with her nose buried in a textbook, or writing a paper, rarely socializing with people. Women were hard enough to talk to in a social setting, and she guessed men would be even worse. She never tackled a project without knowing exactly what she was doing, but she wasn’t sure she had any other option for finding out what she wanted to know.
Now she just needed to decide on which one to seduce. But in the end, the decision was simple. She thought she had the best chance of success with Seth. Based on her observations of him, their personalities didn’t really match up, but he might not care, since neither of them would be going into this for something serious. She could make it clear from the beginning she was just looking for a fling until she went back to England. A guy like him would probably jump at the chance for a tryst.
There was also the fact that he was clearly less concerned with keeping their secret than the others. After all, he jumped from the roof with no care for who might be watching. It probably wouldn’t take much seducing to get the truth out of him, which was a plus for her, since she didn’t know what she was doing in that department anyway.
She crossed her legs, making the fabric of her skirt pull tight across her knees, and she frowned as she looked down. Clothing like this wouldn’t do at all. Skirts, slacks, and blouses weren’t what she saw the women in Eagle Creek wearing, so there was a good chance they wouldn’t go over well with someone like Seth. She’d need to go shopping. She had a little time, since the fighters were going to be coming over for a week or so to make repairs, but she might as well go this afternoon. She was anxious to get started, and
the sooner she had a new wardrobe, the sooner she could begin.
Amelia drove into Eagle Creek, looking around for a clothing store. Her eyes fell on a bookstore, and on impulse, she pulled into a parking spot in front. Research was a big part of what she did, and she felt certain there would be a book in there somewhere on the subject of seduction.
Opening the door, she gazed around her in appreciation. It was a beautiful store, newly-renovated, but decorated to keep with the Victorian feel of the building. Glancing around, she looked for the self-help section.
“Can I help you find something?”