Page 12 of Destined Prey (Wild Ones #1)

Chapter Eleven

“Rhett’s going to kill me,” Jack muttered as he approached the corral. And that couldn’t possibly have been a whine he’d just heard.

He was being a fool, and he knew it, yet he couldn’t turn away. His heart pounded and fear made his spine itch, his breath short, but even so, he had to see the wolf or coyote—he wasn’t sure which—that had been sneaking across the corral.

“I’m gonna die. I’m gonna be eaten by the big bad wolf,” Jack continued, his voice shaking slightly.

He glanced at the baseball bat in his left hand and winced.

He really was an idiot, and one that would likely regret his refusal to grab a rifle before stepping outside.

The night seemed to press in around him, all cool breath and dry grass and the faint metallic tang of the trough.

Every small sound—a fence wire pinging, a distant clatter from the barn—made the fine hairs on his forearms lift.

Common sense yelled to turn around. Something softer tugged him forward anyway.

He should have stayed in the house, munching on the chocolate candies he’d picked up when he and Rhett had gone to get more groceries the day after the run-in with Ben.

Ben. Jack couldn’t get the man off his mind.

Thinking his name made heat rise under Jack’s skin, ridiculous in the chill air.

That voice in the alley had wrapped around him and settled low in his belly, and he hated that the memory steadied him now when fear should’ve had him running.

He’d been thinking about Ben while fixing a crockpot roast for dinner later when all the commotion started outside.

Jack paused, some semblance of common sense gripping him. “What the hell am I doing? Chaos. Today is made of chaos and crazy!”

The day had started out normal enough. Then there’d been panicked cattle and shouting about a rabid wolf or coyote or coywolf—Jack hadn’t caught all of that part.

And Rhett had ordered Jack to stay inside, which was annoying as fuck. Like Jack was a delicate flower in need of protecting. Irked as he’d been, he hadn’t argued with his brother.

Rhett had been working harder than ever since he’d fired the two bigoted hands, Aldan and Vince. He’d found one new hire, Javon Eddings, but still needed another hand besides Javon, Ernesto, Phil, and Jerry.

That, or he needed to make at least two of those guys full-time employees. Jack was planning on going over the account books to see if that was possible.

Jack shook his head. “What is wrong with me, seriously?” He eyed the bat again. “Like this is going to help against a rabid animal?”

Despite his attempt at being logical, his feet seemed to move of their own accord, and he was headed to the corral again.

“Please don’t bite me. Please don’t kill me, either.

Just, please don’t hurt me.” He kept repeating that refrain.

He heard another whine, louder, and his heart skipped a few beats. “Good puppy? Uh. Don’t eat me.”

There was a third whine, and Jack felt the need to hurry up and find the critter.

He brought the bat up and held it close to his chest. “I mean it. If you bite me, I’m gonna be so pissed off!

” Is it hurt? Did they shoot it? Shit! What if it is rabid?

But don’t rabid animals act all crazy and frothy?

They don’t hide behind a water trough and whine. I hope. God, I really hope they don’t.

“If this is some kind of trap, if you’re smart enough to lure me to you so you can have a meal, I guess you deserve it, then.” Jack snorted. “And I get a Darwin Award for being a complete fuckwit.”

He was six feet away from the corral and took a deep breath. “I’ve got a bat. Don’t make me use it.”

What sounded like a snort-snuffle from the creature was followed by the tips of two ears appearing over the edge of the trough.

Those ears turned and twitched. Jack eased one step closer, slow enough he could hear his boot sole whisper against packed dirt.

The animal’s focus never wavered. It didn’t read like wild aggression—more like intent.

Curious. Aware. Fixing him in place without baring a single tooth.

“It’s just me,” Jack assured the critter. “Just me, without a gun, all stupid and ready to scream like a sissy if you attack me. I might be able to kill you with the high-pitch screech, so be warned. You don’t want your brains running out of those pretty ears.”

And they were pretty—a dusty red with bits of gray, tan and black in them.

Slowly, the closer Jack came to the corral, the more of the coywolf’s head appeared. He was betting it was a coywolf. It didn’t look like the coyotes or wolves he’d seen while growing up in the area.

“You’re fucking huge,” he marveled when the coywolf sat up fully, fat pink tongue dangling from its mouth.

Jack couldn’t be sure, but he thought the coywolf was actually grinning at him.

There was a definite uptilt to its mouth back by the jaws—and the animal had scarily big teeth.

“Um. I won’t taste good, in case you’re wondering. ”

Oddly enough, the itchy, restless feeling he’d had for the past several days ebbed to an almost unnoticeable level. So did the sense of loss he’d been trying to puzzle out the cause of.

Jack put both things down to him being in a life-or-death situation. Then the coywolf yipped and wagged its tail while raising one paw up to rest on the trough.

“What the fuck, buddy?” Jack asked, taken aback by the show of playfulness. “Buddy. Well, okay.” Jack closed his eyes for a second and chastised himself for giving the animal a name. “Now I’ve done it.”

He opened his eyes when he heard a scuffling sound, sure he was about to be attacked. Instead, Buddy had scooted back away from the trough and was on his belly, that tongue lolling as he wagged his tail faster.

“Maybe you’re a dog?” Jack hazarded a guess. “A dog with yellow eyes and really sharp teeth.”

Buddy groaned and shook his head. Jack’s laugh came out thin. “Right. And next you’ll tell me you prefer medium-rare.” His palm was damp around the bat, and the urge to reach out—to test that uncanny intelligence with a touch—pulsed through his fingers.

Jack was so shocked that he almost dropped the bat. “No. You did not just understand what I said.”

Buddy rose up on his front paws just a few inches and yipped, head bobbing. “I did.”

Jack felt the blood drain from his head as ice-cold fear coalesced in his gut. “No. I didn’t hear you say that.” And he didn’t. It’d been very clear and loud in his mind, though, and the voice…it’d sounded just like a certain sexy man he’d spoken with a few nights ago in the alley.

“Jack? Jack!” that familiar voice shouted, bouncing around Jack’s skull and terrifying him to no end.

“No. What’s happening?” His heart was beating too fast, and his mind was spinning, and darkness etched around the edges of his vision.

This is it. I’m losing my mind, having a breakdown, panic attack…

hell. The world tunneled; sound warped like it was underwater.

He caught one last flicker of gold—eyes, not teeth—and the ground tilted up to meet him.

Jack tried to breathe, then the world went black.

Despite his best attempt, Ben wasn’t fast enough to catch Jack and save him from crashing to the ground.

Ben leapt over the trough and fence, landing beside Jack a second later.

He reached for him and groaned. Paws weren’t what he needed.

Frustration knifed through him. Claws and strength were useless now; he needed hands.

Words. He forced the change, bones grinding, skin burning, the beast bucking once before settling beneath his will.

Despite his worry for Jack, Ben had enough sense to make sure no one else was around before he shifted into his human form. It only took a moment, then he felt for Jack’s pulse, found it strong and steady.

“Good. God, don’t scare me like that ever again.” He spotted the baseball bat and almost laughed at the idea of that as a defense against a shifter.

He was giddy with relief, certain that Jack was okay.

There was no scent of sickness about him.

Ben’s shifter was very close to the surface for several minutes after he transformed, and he retained more of his heightened senses until he’d been human for a while.

Even then, he had better vision, hearing and scent than the average person did.

He sniffed Jack again, and the aroma went straight to Ben’s dick.

It hit him like a warm current, steadying and dizzying at once—clean soap, skin, the faintest thread of coffee and something uniquely Jack that loosened the knot between Ben’s shoulders.

His pulse slowed to match the rhythm under Jack’s throat.

“Aw, come on, you gotta be kidding me,” he groused. “Now? Really?” Ignoring his erection, he scooped Jack up in his arms. The bat caught his eye again, and Ben grunted as he bent to grab it as well.

If someone came into the yard by the corral and saw the bat, they might assume something bad had happened to Jack.

Even if something kind of bad had actually happened.

Something weird had definitely gone down between them. Ben didn’t understand it, but he’d have sworn Jack had heard his thoughts right before Jack passed out.

And there’d been a blast of chaotic gibberish that had slammed into Ben’s mind right at that instant. He wasn’t going to dwell on it, because if he did, he’d freak himself out.

Ben loped across the yard, nude and very aware of that fact, praying that no one would see him as he toted Jack to the house.