03

The men outside our circle calmed down, and Sideburns turned his severe attention back to me.

"Who are you?"

The three men narrowed their eyes at me as if I were some exotic animal that had just escaped from a zoo.

That was the worst question they could ask me.

Shit, I don’t know, I almost let out in frustration as I looked at them. Turns out, I have a bad attitude too.

An idea spun in my mind. I needed to get this group to leave as quickly as possible and hit the road before the hunters caught up with me.

I looked like a beggar and a wild thing. And the men were tall and powerful, literally. It wouldn’t be hard to persuade them to leave me alone.

A tactic formed. No one would be interested in a girl with mental problems if I played up my disheveled, undesirable appearance and the fact that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I hunched down and grabbed my hair with a hiss. "Boo-booo! Boo!" I reached out to them to push them away, demanding they leave. "Wahdudd!"

Sideburns frowned at me, his brows knitted. "Are you deaf?"

"Duddub! Boo." I yelled, tugging my hair a bit harder to make it more effective.

Sideburns shook his head, disappointed. "The girl doesn’t understand English, and I think her brain is confused."

I put two fingers in my mouth and whistled, then pulled them out to spit a string of saliva at Sideburns. He jumped back, but not fast enough, and my saliva landed on his shiny leather boot.

It was gross, but it had to be done and done right.

"Shit," he cursed, looking at his boot and then at me, a look of disgust in his gray eyes.

"Poopoo!" I yelled louder to get them out of my little world, then kicked my good leg at Canary, since he was closer to me.

He quickly dodged and smiled at me.

"The girl’s crazy, Alpha Heir." The Gray-haired man shot a look at Sideburns. My heart skipped. I was right about him being their leader. "She’s not worth our time, no matter how strange the situation seems. We should go. If we hurry, we can be back in our city by tomorrow night. I want to sleep in my own bed sooner or later."

Sideburns stared at me uncertainly.

"Boo-boo!" I barked to prove that his helper was right about me. I was thinking of spitting on him again to help him decide, even though that would further ruin my image. But my dignity had gone down the drain as soon as they found me.

Sideburns seemed to understand that I would spit on him again and took a half-step back. Irritation spread across his face. He was a powerful man, and powerful men always got what they wanted. But he wouldn’t accept anything from a crazy girl who spit, kicked, and babbled nonsense.

I was satisfied to frustrate him.

"Do you have other words besides boob and poop, Catnip?" Canary asked with interest.

"Fuckooo!" I spat at him, my eyes shining with anger as I extended my good leg in his direction.

All three men jumped back.

Canary laughed.

"What’s so funny?" Gray-haired, the one who seemed to be Sideburns’ uncle, asked harshly. "I say, let’s leave her alone. We’ve already wasted too much time with a crazy girl."

"You’re not the sharpest tool in the shed if you missed all the clues, Jay," Canary said. "If we leave without this girl, our mission will be a total failure. We’ll end up going back home empty-handed."

"How will our mission be fulfilled if we take the fruitcake with us to the city?" Gray-haired mocked. "Anyway, we shouldn’t have trusted the vampire’s oracle. This little cuckoo will just be a burden to us. And you know the rules. No stranger can live inside the City of Shifters." He threw a meaningful glance at my bird’s nest of blue-lavender hair. "I can even see lice here. But if you’re interested in washing her, Prince Shade, go ahead. However, I advise you not to stick your dick in..."

"Enough, cousin Jay," Sideburns said. "My brother isn’t that kind of man anymore."

Grayling threw a series of insults in my direction, but in doing so, he also provided unintentionally a lot of information. So, Canary was Sideburns' brother. He wasn't an heir, but he was still a prince. Grayling was their older cousin. I also pocketed several key words they mentioned in their banter: Vampire Oracle. Shifter City. No strangers. But none of them made sense to me, except that Canary was a notorious womanizer. Well, his handsome cock wouldn’t get anywhere near me if he wanted to keep it intact.

“Let’s go,” Sideburns shouted and walked away from me, following his cousin’s advice. Grayling gave Canary a haughty glance before lowering his high sticks. I threw my foot back, hiding a sly smile. I fooled all three princes. I should give them the middle finger after they all turned their backs on me.

Like lightning, Canary bent down, put his arm around my waist, and pulled me out of the bush. I pushed and kicked, but his iron grip on my ankle didn’t budge. Sideburns and Grayling stopped and turned in our direction, with identical expressions of annoyance passing across their faces.

“What are you doing, Shade?” Sideburns scolded. “We don’t have time for this!”

“Oh, let’s make time for this, my dear brother,” Canary hummed. “My gut tells me this girl is very important. Think of the chances of a pretty young woman getting lost in the middle of nowhere, like an injured bird. Obviously, she was hunted, or she wouldn’t have hidden in the bush during the night, which was clever on her part. She also didn’t leave any traces of blood. If we weren’t shifters, we wouldn’t have smelled her. Call it fate or something else, but it was our mission to find her. No offense, guys, but you all missed the details that were right in front of your faces. If you had noticed that mischievous gleam in the girl’s golden eyes when you were about to leave her alone, you’d never have discarded her as the Mad Hatter. She’s more cunning than all of us. And finally, I felt a beast in her. She’s like us.”

I took a deep breath. A lot of his points were valid, except that I didn’t know how I was. But being called beautiful didn’t hurt my case. However, his last opinion made me want to punch his throat. I wasn’t a beast. But then, I stopped to think about my claws coming out and cutting the dog.

Was I like them? Could I really be a shifter? It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going with this group either. I escaped from hunters who could throw fireballs. I could escape from shifters too. While the idiot Canary held me in his iron grip, I took the opportunity to count his company and plot an escape route.

There were dozens of men scattered. I could tear the space between the bushes. Unlike the hunters, who would be happy to put me in a corpse bag if they couldn’t have me, but this bunch would want to catch me alive because of their prince’s stupid interest in me and because they wanted answers. All I needed was to escape from them, run to the river, jump, and let the current carry me even deeper. The basic rule of 'Escape 101' was to escape at the first chance, or you would never get a second one.

I opened my mouth and bit Canary’s forearm. He screamed and looked at my teeth in his skin. The soldiers around were about to advance to stop me, but Canary raised his hand to stop them. The skin between my teeth suddenly hardened, and golden hairs sprouted, tickling my throat, almost choking me. What the hell is this?

Canary let out a low laugh, thoroughly entertained. “I can partially change. I can also shift into my warrior form whenever I want. Would you like to see, Catnip? My enemies find it terrifying, but the women who like to walk on the wild side find it irresistible and attractive.”

I heard the soldiers’ laughter. That damn Canary thought he was funny, and his team thought it was hilarious. My teeth left his arm, and I spit some golden hairs I had ripped from his fur.

“Do you think you’re cute, Canary?” I fumed. “You’re far from it.” I spat one last remaining hair from my mouth. “That’s disgusting!”

“Canary?” He grimaced before laughing again, looking at my beetroot-red and irritated face. “Sorry, Catnip, I forgot to warn you, but it’s worth hearing you talk like that. You have a lovely voice, and it would be a shame if you kept shouting something like ‘fuckooo’.”

Sideburns and Grayling turned to stare at me. Yes, I could talk. I wasn’t the Mad Hatter. At this point, it was pointless to keep pretending, since Canary, the good prostitute man, had irrevocably caught me.

“Don’t feel bad,” Canary continued, in a good mood. “Your earlier performance was impressive. You almost fooled me too. Now stop getting mad. I think we can be friends, if you don’t hold a grudge. But I have a feeling you’re the type of girl who never offers the other cheek when someone slaps you.”

“What idiot would let both cheeks take a slap?” I hissed at him.

Canary smiled. “Fierce and foul-mouthed, exactly my type.”

Before I could demand he let me down, a strong wind blew, lifting my clothes and letting my ass feel its cold kiss.

“Stop flirting...” Sideburns’ mouth closed and he inhaled. He was facing the wind. Something changed in his eyes. Shock and confusion fought for control of his expression. He sniffed again, his beautiful face almost transforming into a wolf’s. A blink of an eye later, he seemed to regain control, but his eyes started to shine silver.

He came toward me, suddenly in a hurry, like his ass was on fire. Canary looked at him, looking stunned. Sideburns was clearly not acting normal. The Alpha Heir looked at me with a strange intensity, which made my heart race. What was he going to do to me? I took a step back. Not out of fear, though. He didn’t seem like he wanted to hurt me. He seemed more like he wanted me and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Shit! Somehow, I knew men didn’t handle rejection well, and he wasn’t an ordinary man. He was a privileged and powerful man. Even so, if he thought he could force me, he’d have something else coming. My heart was beating like nervous wings, and I struggled in Canary’s arms, ready to defend myself. While he held me, I stole a small dagger from the sheath strapped to his left thigh.

The youngest prince wasn’t as smart as he thought.

“Put it down...”