Chapter 6: Notice of Participation

A loud knock woke the four girls the following morning. They had been sleeping peacefully, sprawled across the two beds, hair tangled and mouths open. The festival the night before had been so much fun they collapsed in a heap of exhaustion at the end of the night. The rich food mingled with the exotic scents had been rich and tiring.

They had thought they caught the scent of their mates but they weren't able to find them in the crowds. It was a faint smell, lingering around corners and against tables. That, mixed with the hundreds of other bodies mingling around, made it impossible to track the men in question. It was the game of the Hunt. The days leading up to the Hunt were spent trying to figure out who your mate was, or even if you had a mate there, while the hunt itself was spent evading him for the sake of the chase. Or, in the case of Kate, for the sake of winning. Despite the excitement of the festivities, she was still determined to go home alone with her father th