Free The Killing Season by Meg Collett

“But I’ve been thinking about getting contacts.”
    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ollie shoot me a sideways glance. “What for?”
    “No particular reason,” I said with a shrug. Although I had a very particular reason: Ollie didn’t wear glasses. I doubted she even had a list of things she hated about herself.
    Well, aside from maybe being part aswang.
    She bumped against my shoulder and said, “Your glasses are awesome. You’re, like, putting the sexy in nerdy.”
    My heart sputtered. Was I sexy? But, no, that couldn’t be right. I cleared my throat. “Sexy isn’t in nerdy.”
    “Exactly. That’s why you’re putting it there.”
    We arrived at the stairs, and Ollie handed me her coffee before she jogged up them, careful of her injuries, then doubled back down to meet me as I walked more sedately up them. Back and forth she went, alternating between a slow jog and walk as she traversed the stairs. By the time we made it to the fourth floor, Ollie was sweating and breathing heavy, and I felt exhausted just from watching her.
    “I have to get back in shape,” she said, bent over at the waist with her hands on her knees to catch her breath.
    “Just be careful. You need to take it slow.”
    Ollie looked up at me, a crooked grin on her mouth that did wonders to ease my heart. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”
    I took the last drink of her coffee. “So Luke has no time to train you while we’re up here?”
    “No,” she growled and straightened up to stretch out her back. Pausing, she leveled a serious stare my way.
    “Oh, no,” I said. “It’s not happening. Don’t even give me that look.”
    “Please, Sunny? If we sparred together, we would both stay in shape. And you could help me take things slow so I don’t re-injure myself.”
    I chewed on my lip and thought it over. I contemplated bruises and broken glasses, because Ollie was good; like, really good. Back at the university, even the more seasoned hunters had watched her train with Luke. She moved fast, her fists faster. But Hatter might see me training with her one day. I could find some tight pants that made my legs look longer and some of those cool fingerless gloves Ollie used sometimes. Maybe I could even get good enough to keep up with her. Maybe Hatter would see us one day and I would have Ollie pinned on the floor and she would tap out and I would win and Hatter would clap for me and then he would walk over and kiss me real long and thorough and then maybe he would offer to train me and then he would pin me to the floor and then we would . . .
    “Sunny?”
    Ollie snapped her fingers in my face, and I jumped back a little in surprise. I blinked at her. “What?”
    “Your eyes kind of glazed over there for a minute.” The corner of her mouth hooked up into a lopsided, cheesy grin. “Were you thinking about Hatter’s ass again?”
    The tips of my ears turned fiery hot. “Wh-what?” I sputtered. “Please. I have better things to think about than his . . . booty .”
    “It is a pretty nice booty .” Ollie cupped her hands and flexed her fingers. “Real round and muscular, you know? Like you could hold on to it while he—”
    “Okay!” I practically shouted, marching away from the fourth floor stairs while Ollie laughed behind me. “Let’s go look at poisonous flowers!”
    “I know you’re trying to change . . .” Ollie’s voice faded to a stop at the same time I stopped walking. Together we both looked at the fourth floor for the first time since we’d arrived.
    “Oh, wow,” I managed.
    No walls or halls divided up the floor. It sprawled out around us, wide open, like a football field. Large steel beams held up the roof, which had drawn most of mine and Ollie’s attention.
    There was no roof.
    Just thousands of curved window panes. Where we stood, the glass ceiling was lower and closer to our heads, but right in the middle of the room, it was nearly two stories tall. When we’d first arrived at the base, the darkness