Page 8 of Knife Volume 2

So for now, he sat across the table from her and looked forward to doing so for the next ten-plus decades. He hated what she’d done to make it happen, but he couldn’t argue with the results. If he had his choice in the matter, she’d go back to Kenny and beg to be admitted back into the pack, and he’d leave the club — but she hadn’t been joking about being her own person and making her own decisions outside of sex.

He’d fallen in love with a damned hardheaded wolf, and he didn’t want to change her.

Chapter 3

Tuesday was full when they left the restaurant, thanks to the extra omelet and waffle. He’d driven them in his truck, since bringing her suitcases back on the bike would’ve been awkward. Usually, she prefers driving, but she found she didn’t mind riding when Knife was driving.

When they arrived at the clubhouse, it was full of people, and Knife asked, “Pinks versus blues?”

She had no idea what that meant, but someone opened a cabinet along the far wall as soon as he asked — and alarm shot through her system at all the guns inside until she realized what they were. Paintball guns.

She saw women loading pink paintballs into them, men loading blue ones, and Knife walked to her with two guns. “C’mon. I’ll take you outside and give you a few minutes to practice.”

He showed her how the gun worked, demonstrated, and handed it to her.

She shot the tree he pointed to, and frowned when it hit lower than she intended. She recalibrated her aim, tried it again, hit bullseye, then walked forward and backward until she could hit the same spot no matter how far from the tree, and turned to him to see him smiling.

“Not the first time you’ve shot a gun.”

“No,” she agreed. Her dad had taught her with rifles and shotguns first, and had eventually shown her how to handle pistols.

“Rules are simple,” he said. “Stay in human form. No physical contact with the other side on purpose, we shoot each other, we don’t do anything else, but don’t aim for heads, balls, or tits. Stay in the wooded area. Be careful not to hit bystanders.” He sat at a concrete picnic table and began loading his own gun. “Everything else is fair. Climb trees, stay on the ground, whatever it takes. Go to the sidelines when you’re hit. Last team with someone unmarked by paint, wins.”

He settled his gun on the table. “I’ll run downstairs and grab one of my shirts for you. Most of the men do this shirtless. Some of the women wear a sports bra, but you’re in a lacy bra, and that isn’t happening.”

Everyone had come outside by the time he returned with his shirt. It fit her like a dress, and she decided to let it.

Matty stood on the table and said, “Sixty-second count. Go!”

He blew a whistle, and everyone ran into the woods. She went all the way to the concrete wall, thinking she didn’t want someone sneaking up behind her.

And she let her wolf surface enough to help. She heard multiple heartbeats and monitored them as they moved, letting her peripheral vision work for her, looking for movement.

She took out Dawg and nearly got Bubbles. He’s so big, she thought he’d be hard to miss, but the fucker was fast.

Heartbeats pounded loudly overhead, and she looked up to see Bash lifting his gun and aiming. She fired before he could, and then looked to see who he’d been aiming at. Angelica grinned at her, gave her a small salute, and then disappeared into the upper canopy of the next tree.

She smiled and moved her position.

When there were less people and they weren’t coming near her, she moved ten feet in and put her back to a large tree, but that didn’t completely cover her from the back, and several minutes later, she felt something impact the back of her right arm when she was looking left.

It hurt worse than she thought it would, and she turned to see who’d got her. Brain was smiling, and she smiled back and then did as the others had done while leaving the field – walked with her gun high in the air, so no one else would shoot her.

Eventually, it came down to just Brain and Harmony, and no one saw much of either of them, going up and down in the trees, staying high in them most of the time.

Angelica was standing beside her, and she told Tuesday, “It’s nearly always these two at the end, when it’s just the MC without outsiders.”

They both took a few shots and missed, and eventually, Harmony managed to get Brain in the chest while he was lifting his gun to shoot at her.

He dropped to the ground, ran to her and hugged her, smearing paint on both of them, and then bent her backward and kissed her like some kind of demented wedding kiss, and everyone laughed.

“How often does Harmony win?” Tuesday asked.

Angelica considered. “I haven’t kept count, but I’d say it’s close to fifty-fifty with them.”

The men had all played shirtless, and they used baby wipes someone produced before putting their shirts back on. Most of the women disappeared downstairs, even the ones that’d played in a sports bra, but Tuesday only had to take Knife’s shirt off and hand it to him.

The women sat outside at a huge round picnic table with fans blowing on them, and Gen, who hadn’t participated in the battle, had set them up so no one had to go back inside. A huge bowl of ice, lots of Dixie cups, two-liter bottles of various sodas, and at least a dozen bottles of liquor — rum, vodka, tequila, whiskey, and so much more.