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“Only because you won’t have it for long,” I laughed, jogging after him.

He went to kick it in the goal but I intercepted. I sprinted towards the other goal.

“Hey!” Caeden called behind me. “That wasn’t fair!”

“That’s how you play,” I called back to him, taking aim, I kicked the ball and it soared into the top right corner.

“So not fair,” Caeden said, wrapping his arms around my middle and swinging me around, before dropping me on the ground and going after the ball.

“And that’s cheating mister,” I yelled, already standing up and running after him. I stole the ball from Caeden again and he cursed behind me. My laugh filled the air. I hadn’t been this carefree and just…
happy
in a long
time.
The stress of the move, of finding my mate, becoming a shifter,
Travis
, it just all melted away.
For a minute, I could just pretend to be normal. I was just a girl, playing soccer, with her amazingly wonderful boyfriend. I liked that picture. I shot the ball into the net once again. I cheered for myself and said to Caeden, “You’re already losing and we’ve been playing for two minutes.”

“Well, we’re not done yet,” he winked, flashing his dimple.

*
* *

By lunchtime we had amassed quite a crowd. Actually,
I
was the one that the crowd was gathered for.

Six or seven guys sat on the bleachers hooting and hollering. I had gotten used to girls jaws dropping around Caeden but it weird to have the attention turned to me.
Weird and a bit unnerving.

“I am going to give each and every one of those guys a piece of my mind,” Caeden huffed under his breath.

“Jealous?” I asked, before flitting away with the ball. We’d been playing for hours and I still wasn’t tired and Caeden still hadn’t scored a single point.

After I scored yet another point I grabbed up the ball and said to Caeden, “How about lunch?”

“Thank you! I’m starving!”

“Sorry, I forgot you have to eat every five minutes,” I joked.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, loud enough for the other guys to hear the warning tone to his voice.

“Hurry,” I said and pecked him on the lips. A little bit of the tension leaked out of his body.

Once Caeden had disappeared the seven guys hopped down from the bleachers, clapping.

“That was fucking incredible,” the guy in the middle said. He had floppy red hair and pale blue eyes.

“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” another guy said, running his hands through spiky blond hair.

“I’m Evan,” said the red head.

“Oh right, we should probably introduce ourselves,” another guy said. He was the tallest of all the guys with sandy hair almost to his shoulders. “The name’s Riley,” he produced his fist and I bumped it with mine.

“This is Tyler,” he pointed to the blond guy and he waved.

“Cam,” a brown hair guy said.

“Brody,” the guy on the end smiled. He had wavy black hair and olive colored skin.

“I’m Kyle,” a shorter guy with white-blond hair said, sticking out his hand to shake.

“And I’m Shane,” the most muscular of the guys said. His brown hair skimmed his jaw.

“You whooped that guy’s ass,” Riley said.

“He’s my boyfriend,” I
looked
over my shoulder for Caeden. “So, he probably just let me win.”

“I don’t think so,” the guy with the light blond hair said. Was his name Shane? No, that was the muscular guy. Kyle, his name was Kyle.

“Are you thinking
of
trying out?” Evan asked.

“I don’t think so,” I shook my head.

All seven of the guys’ jaws dropped. “Are you fucking crazy?” Riley asked. “You have to try out.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Shane nodded. “I think coach would let you on the boys team.”

I laughed. “The boys team?”

“Well, the
way
you took on your boyfriend you’d eat the other girl teams alive.”

“But you think the boys’ teams can handle me?”
I quirked a brow.

“Oh yeah,” Cam said and flexed his arm muscles. “We can definitely handle you.”

Brody snorted. “Maybe if you’re on the team we’ll actually win a game.”

One of the guys pushed Brody.

“Come on,” said Kyle, “at tryout.”

“Maybe I will,” I rolled the ball back and forth.
“But do you really think your coach would let a girl on the team?”

Riley snorted and crossed his arms over his chest. “He’d be a fucking idiot
not
to.”

“When are tryouts?” I asked.

“This coming Friday,” Cam said.

I turned around once more and this time saw Caeden. I breathed out a sigh of relief. I had started to worry that something had happened to him.

“Please, please, please, tryout,” Evan begged.

“Sure, why not?” I shrugged and bounced the ball on the end of my foot before catapulting
it into the air and catching it.

“What happened to, ‘Caeden, I don’t want to play soccer anymore,’” Caeden mimicked from behind me.

I laughed and turned around, meeting his gaze. “I guess you showed me how much I missed it.”

“And do I get a thank you?”
he grinned.

“Thank you,” I said and went to kiss his chin but he turned his head at the last second so I caught his lips instead.

“Why are the hot ones always taken,” one of the guys muttered.

“Uh- because they’re hot,” another piped in.

I laughed and turned to them. “So I guess I’ll see you guys at tryouts on Friday?”

“You bet,” Riley said.

I watched them head over to the adjoining soccer field. They pushed and mocked one another. They reminded me of our pack with their easy banter.

Caeden spread a checked blanket out on the field and sat down.

“This is just like a movie,” I whispered under my breath as I sat down beside him.

Caeden pulled some sandwiches out of the basket and held them up. “Except in a movie the guy usually makes some extravagant meal. I brought peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches
.”

I laughed. “PB and J is good with me,” I took one from him.

“Phew,” he wiped his brow. “I was worried for nothing.”

I giggled again and bumped his shoulder. I took a bite of the sandwich. “Best PB and J I’ve ever had,” I assured him.

“Good,” he said and bit into his own sandwich.

Archie sat in front of me, licking his lips, and looking at my sandwich like he was two seconds away from snatching it from my hands.

“Here buddy,” I said and picked off a piece of bread with just peanut butter. He took it greedily.

“Hold up,” Caeden said and began to dig through the basket. He unwrapped a half a sandwich and a quarter of one. He tossed the half to Murphy and the quarter to Archie.  Both dogs were obviously in doggy heaven.

“Thanks for today,” I said and wiped a dot of jelly off of Caeden’s arm. “It meant a lot to me.”

“Even though I drug you out of bed early on a Sunday morning?”

“Yep,” I said.

I finished my sandwich and tossed the trash in the basket. I wiggled around, trying to get comfortable, before lying on my back and watching the clouds. I instantly felt my heart rate drop. Something about watching clouds calmed me down. Caeden did the same, lacing his hand in mine.

“Do you think Logan’s okay?” I finally asked after staring at the sky for a good five minutes.

I heard Caeden’s sigh. “I don’t know.”

“Are you worried?” I asked.

He said nothing for quite a while so I figured he either chose not to answer or fell asleep. But finally he said, “Yes.”

My heart stopped for a second and my hand clenched his. “I don’t want anything to happen to him.”

“I can’t hear him,” Caeden whispered.

“What do you mean?” I rolled over.

“In my wolf form. I can’t hear him.
It’s
just… silence. Wherever he is, he’s in his human form or…”

“Or?” I prompted.

Caeden’s swallow was audible. “Or dead.”

I gasped and sat up. “Caeden! Why are we sitting here? We should be looking for him!”

“I did… all night.”

I began to study Caeden
and
realized I’d missed how tired he was. Gray circles framed his eyes and his movements had been sluggish.

“Caeden-”

“I think he’s dead,” Caeden said.

“No,” I shook my head.

Caeden continued like I hadn’t said anything. “And when I get my hands on Travis I’m going to make him suffer through every unimaginable thing before I kill him. And when I kill him I’m going to make sure he begs for mercy. He hurt you and if he’s hurt or killed another member of my pack, none of you will be able to stop me.”

“Caeden,” I said, tears in my eyes. I placed my hands on his cheeks, the stubble scratching my palms. “This isn’t you.”

He sat up. “Sophie, you don’t understand. If he’s not killed he’ll just keep killing. He has to be stopped and I’m the only one that can do it.
I’m the Alpha,” he sighed and buried his head
in his hands. He gripped the dark brown strands so tightly I was afraid he’d pull them out. “This is my responsibility.”

“It’s mine too,” I said, trying to calm him. “We’re a team Caeden! No, we’re a pack! Why do you act like you have to do everything by yourself?”

“Because,” he said, “I don’t want anything to happen to any of you.”

“And what about you? Is your life unimportant? Do you know what would happen to me if you got hurt or killed? I don’t want to even think about it,” the tears finally broke from my eyes and flowed down my face.

“Soph,” Caeden said, snapping back to reality. He wrapped his arms around me and held me to his chest. “Please don’t cry. I hate being the cause of your tears,” he wiped them with his thumb. “Sophie, please, you’re far to beautiful to cry
.”