Page 83 of A Cock and Bull Story

“If he’s not with a pack, he’s not as deadly, but think about dogs—would you want one attacking you?”

“Are we talking a Rottweiler or a Chihuahua? I mean, Chihuahuas can be nasty little shits, but I wouldn’t go against a Weiler.”

“Well, jackals are bigger than Chihuahuas, but meaner than Rottweilers,” Arthur supplies.

I blanch and look hastily around for an escape.

“Too bad we aren’t monkeys,” I wish.

“You want to throw shit at the jackal?” Jack muses.

I laugh, in spite of myself.

“No! So we could climb up the buildings!”

“That makes more sense,” Elise smirks. “But I bet the Secondary would run if we threw excrement at it.”

The jackal snarls—apparently, it’s close enough to hear us and doesn’t like our not-a-real plan.

When the four-legged menace is about twenty feet away, a strange chittering sound fills the air. A small insect starts buzzing around the jackal, who yelps and dashes back into the shadows.

The bug flies over to us and swiftly turns into a naked Jude.

Yum, Nude Jude—sounds like a deliciously naughty British dessert that I want to gobble up.

“Here’s your stuff,” Jack says, giving Jude his clothes.

He quickly dresses, but the jackal from the shadows doesn’t.

From the obscurity, steps a man whose skin matches the darkness. He’s gorgeous, hung, and when he smiles—red stains his teeth.

Definitely not ketchup.

“I told you that I was going to squash you, bug,” the jackal shifter taunts Jude. “And I’m going to mount your girl.”

An irrational flair of jealousy explodes inside of me.

Jude has a girlfriend?

“I promise you I’m nothing more than abug,” he spits, “but you’ll never lay a finger on Belle!”

“I’m your girlfriend?” I blurt out in wonder.

Sian and Elise laugh, and Jude looks sheepish.

“Er, no, I just know he meant you,” he explains.

I smile—it’s amazing how I can even feel such joyous emotions when I’m likely to die any second.

“What did you do to him when he was a jackal that made him back up?” I ask Jude.

“I sprayed him—cockchafers have a foul-smelling scent that they use to escape predators.”

Too bad this asshole didn’t catch me on a Taco Bell day—I could have wiped him out in one fart.

“But it’s not enough to deter him forever,” Jude continues.

“We just need to get on the ship,” Theo urges.