My eyes widen and my chin drops at the audacity, because I know as sure as the sky is blue that I’m showing Calli exactly how to shoot a gun.

“Excuse me, but I think you’ll find…” My voice trails off when I find a weird expression on Daemon’s face. The fuck is laughing at me. “You asshole,” I hiss, figuring that he’s just baiting me.

“Let’s see what she’s got, then,” he says, taking a step back—and this time, I do the same, allowing Calli to take her shot alone.

She misses by a mile and her shoulders sag in defeat.

“I missed,” she sighs.

“Not by as much as your brother the first time he tried it,” Daemon says, stepping up to her.

“Fuck you, as if you remember that,” Nico barks.

“Like it was yesterday, man,” Daemon jokes back. “Try it like this.”

I stand back and watch as Daemon shows Calli a different trick for hitting her target, and the next time she tries, she just about clips the board.

“I nearly did it,” she squeals excitedly.

“Stella, take this,” Daemon says, pulling a gun from his waistband and checking the clip.

“You sure?”

“Of course. You seem to know what you’re doing. I trust you.”

“Huh. Did you hear that, Nico?”

Nico flips me off, clearly hearing every word of it.

“So nice to be trusted without having to threaten any testicles first,” I mutter, coming to a stop a few feet from Calli so I can shoot.

Daemon snorts a laugh but backs away to allow us to fire.

I quickly use the bullets that were loaded in Daemon’s gun before I stand there watching Calli, impressed by her improvement in such a short space of time.

I drown out the boys’ chatter behind us and focus on Calli.

Although I’m not distracted enough to miss the others approaching.

Long before I hear their rumbling voices, I feel him.

My skin tingles with awareness and butterflies erupt in my belly.

I have no idea how he’s going to react after what happened earlier. But I guess I’m about to find out.