Prologue: Trevor

PROLOGUE – TREVOR

New Year’s Eve

Sighing, I snag a champagne flute from a passing server’s tray and take a sip as the countdown starts. This will be the first time since I was fifteen that I ring in the new year without a kiss. I guess every streak has to end sometime. I’m twenty-five now, so that’s ten years. That’s a good run. Earlier in the evening, I danced with my best friend. The loneliness disappeared then. It always does when we dance and steal the spotlight, all eyes on us. I thought maybe I’d kiss her at midnight. Nothing romantic, we don’t think of each other like that. Just a peck on the lips, one friend to another. But she’s wrapped up in another man’s arms now.

Whatever. It’s just a kiss. As much as I enjoy kissing beautiful women, the streak I really care about maintaining is my point streak on the ice. Only hockey matters, not my hormones. New Year’s Day is a fresh start, and I’m beginning the year as a professional hockey player. That’s a dream I’ve had since I was a boy. I never thought it would be possible since shifters aren’t accepted in the professional leagues, but now that the Paranormal Hockey League exists, we finally have the opportunity.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a delicate hand reaching out to grab a flute of champagne. I glance down into the face of a knockout blonde smiling up at me. She’s tiny, even in heels. She’s close to a foot shorter than my six feet, four inches.

“Seven, six, five…”The crowd around us counts, keeping pace with the numbers flashing on a giant screen behind the stage where the band sits. She takes a sip of her champagne and raises a light brown brow at me. I’m not sure if it’s a challenge or an invitation shining in her stunning blue eyes.

I decide it’s an invitation.

“…two, one. Happy New Year!”

As the band plays “Auld Lang Syne,” I lower my head and kiss the beautiful woman standing next to me. She stretches to meet my lips and rests her free hand on my chest. I was right—it was an invitation I saw in her crystal blue eyes. I’ve just slipped my tongue into her mouth, tasting the lingering champagne and the ambrosia that’s all her, when she pulls back and joins the revelers gathered in the ballroom of the Devil’s Den Casino. She’s petite, and her sexy bronze dress looks like it’s been poured onto her. After a few steps, she’s engulfed by the crowd. Oh well, at least my New Year’s kiss streak is intact. I wish I’d gotten her name.

The Devil Birds team owners take the stage—gorgeous witch and casino owner Teagan Penhall, seagull shifter Jake Whitman, and cougar shifter Coach Liam Morgan.

Teagan takes the microphone and waits for the crowd to quiet down. She has a way of commanding attention. I don’t know if it’s her witchy powers or her stunning beauty as she stands regally in her sexy glittery black dress, but soon the crowd is quiet, waiting to hear what she has to say.

“Thank you all for welcoming in the new year with us! I hope you’ve had a wonderful time tonight. Please join me in wishing the Devil Birds a successful second half of the season and a deep playoff run.” She raises her champagne flute, and the room follows suit. “Go Devil Birds!”

Cheers rise throughout the room. “Go Birds!” And mostly imitation seagull cries fill the air. I know there’s at least one seagull shifter here.

Next, Coach takes the microphone. “Happy New Year, everyone. Before you go back to celebrating, we have one more thing to do. Where’s Carter?” He searches the crowd until he finds me. “There you are.” He gestures with his head. “Come on up here.”

What’s going on? I make my way through the crowd and join Coach on the stage. He’s smiling and waving to the crowd, but I’m standing there, confused.

“You’re our first-line center and my future brother-in-law,” he says. There are some hoots and hollers from the crowd, which he silences with a wave of his hand. “You showed us your moves on the dance floor tonight.” Now there are cheers, and he yells through them. “So I dare you to dance! You’ve been chosen to compete in the upcoming season of Celebrity Dance Dare- Shifter Edition !”

Confusion turns to shock, and as I scan the crowd, my eyes widen, probably to the size of the hockey pucks I shoot in the net every chance I get. I’m not sure who or what I’m looking for. A camera crew joins us on stage. Oh god, they’re filming this?

Coach slaps me on the back to shake me out of my daze. “Meet your partner, Sophie Mackenzie!”

My beautiful blonde midnight kiss walks across the stage, smiling and waving. I’m still in shock, gaping like an idiot. What the hell is going on here?

“Trevor,” she says warmly, an Irish lilt giving her voice a musical tone like tinkling bells. She takes my hands in hers, acting like our tongues weren’t doing the tango ten minutes ago. “It’s so nice to meet you! I hope you have your dancing shoes laced up because together we’re going to win the Platinum Paw! Are you with me?”

“You’re my partner?” I ask. “How are we going to train with me playing?” I’m a professional hockey player. That’s my focus, not two-stepping on TV, trying to win a stupid trophy. Platinum Paw. Spare me. Sounds like a prosthetic for a poodle.

Sophie nods, smiling like she’s in a toothpaste commercial. It’s a beautiful smile, but the daggers she’s shooting at me with her eyes contradict it.

“We’ll go over the details later,” Coach says before smiling at the crowd again. “The Devil Birds are such a big, happy family that even your dance partner is part of it. Sophie is your linemate Declan Mackenzie’s sister! Mac, come on up!”

Teagan murmurs something the mic doesn’t pick up. But based on the fact that Mac’s nowhere to be seen, it must have to do with him.

Coach nods and faces the crowd again, glossing over my missing linemate. “You’ll train together and compete on national television to bring home that Platinum Paw trophy. We gotta start filling our trophy case at The Nest! Show ’em how it’s done!”

Sophie steps forward like she’s going to kiss my cheek, so I bend down to make it easier for her.

“Stop standing there like a flipping idiot and smile! You look like someone put Vaseline in your dance belt,” she hisses in my ear as she pretends to kiss my cheek. “You’re my ticket to getting a permanent pro spot on the show. You will not screw this up for me. Now smile, damn it!”

I shudder. No one wants petroleum jelly sliming up their twig and berries. This little hellion would probably do that to me. I knew Mac had a younger sister, but he never mentioned she was a dancer. Or that she’s gorgeous. All he’s shared is that she’s a wolf shifter like him, from their father’s side of the family. She’s a witch, too, thanks to their mother. He’s one of my roommates, renting a room above the converted barn I have on my family’s property. He’s a quiet man, even-tempered. His sister, not so much.

“Okay,” I say. “Fine, Soph.”

“My name is Sophie, Travis .”

“How about I just call you princess?”

“Okay, arsehole.”

Stifling a bark of laughter, I straighten to my full height. I break out my cheer smile, that fake curve of the lips I used for years as a cheerleader. I was expected to smile and make everything look effortless while holding a grown woman over my head with one arm. She’d be fifteen feet in the air, giving the same fake smile and praying I didn’t drop her. And I’d be praying the same thing, hoping she wouldn’t break an arm or crack her head open.

Sophie’s got the same fake smile now, probably hoping I don’t break whatever this is happening around us, and just like I did during cheer, after delivering my partner safely back to the ground after a stunt, I hold my hand up and wave at the cheering crowd.