Dragon Star (A Shifter Football League Novel) Read Free Page B

turn...”
    “Aww fine,” she heard, then the sweet tone of her baby sister.
    “Hi, Cass. You meet any Outlaws?”
    Always she would ask this. The silly girl.
    “Yes, I did meet some outlaws today. The good kind. I'm helping them win the championship.”
    “Any tigers?”
    “Yes.” She knew how much Kristen liked to hear about the shifters.
    They went down the list of animals, every single one that Kristen knew until her mother had to yank the phone out of her hands.
    “Oh, wait, Dylan wants to talk to you too,” she said with a great sigh.
    Cass listened to what he had to say. He talked about the newest video game he had and about his sports at school. When it came time to ask her how she was, Cass tried to play it off.
    “What's wrong?” he asked.
    Her younger brother had made her crack. Lying to him didn't feel right at all.
    But she couldn't tell him the truth. There was nothing her family could do for her.
    It was best to lie, at least for now, until she could come up with a way to escape, or...maybe...Jae would eventually become kinder.
    “Nothing. I've got to go now. Will you tell Mom that I love her?”
    Mom forced her way back on the phone.
    “You be good now, Cass. Keep in touch. You call me, because I don't want to bother you there. I know you're doing important stuff. Once the season ends, we'll have a lot of catching up to do.”
    “Bye, Mom.”
    Cass hung up the phone.
    What options did she have now? She could sit in her room and cry or she could do something worthwhile with her time. As soon as her eyes caught sight of her bookshelf with all of her medical books, she knew what she wanted to do.
    She picked up the top book, her biggest shifter medical book from college, The Shifter Medical Reference Volume Eleven. She began to flip through it, looking for a possible cause to Nico's injury.
    Exhaustion came over her too quickly. It had been a long day. As the sun set, so did her eyes fall. She went in and out of consciousness while trying to follow the words.
    She woke up in the middle of the night.
    “Hello?” Someone had called her again. It was quite unusual for her to get calls this late. All of her friends were back home in her small town in Idaho.
    “Sorry for the late call. I had a long meeting, and it almost slipped my mind, but Nico seemed pretty adamant—”
    It was Coach Howard. Why on Earth was he calling? And it was about Nico? Cass sprung up and clutched the book to her chest.
    “Is something wrong? Has something happened?”
    “Oh, no. Were you sleeping?”
    She brushed her hair away from her eyes. “Uh...no, I mean...a little nap.”
    “I'm sorry for waking you up. I've got an opportunity for you. It's good or bad, depending how you look at it. Not sure how you'll take it.”
    “Okay.”
    “Nico is leaving, going back home for his rehabilitation. He's got all the equipment there that he needs, and to be honest, I'm thinking the time away could do him well. But I need someone to be there, someone who can get him to a hundred percent before the start of the season. And that person is you.”
    Adrenaline surged in her as she jumped up to her window. Cass paced as she thought it over.
    “Are you there?”
    “You want me to go with him? For how long?”
    “For however long it takes for him to get better.”
    “What about Jae?” The name could crush all her hopes like a vice.
    “He's fine. He doesn't need your help. Nico does. And you're on our payroll. I'll remind him of that.”
    “Okay,” she said. “I'll do it. But you've got to talk to Jae about it.”
    “I will,” he said flatly.
    Cass was so excited that she almost forgot to ask where she would be going.
    “You might want to bring a heavy coat. You're going to Maine.”
    She sighed, said thank you, and then tossed the phone on her bed.
    It would do. She started to pack, then remembered that Jae would need to be notified by Coach Howard first. She didn't want to enrage him if he saw her packing her things, so she