Page 25 of Destined Prey (Wild Ones #1)

As it turned out, Aldan lived with his mother, two blocks behind Ben’s shop.

Spying on him wasn’t going to be as easy as it would have been if he’d lived in a more secluded area.

But when Aldan stumbled from the house, his face battered as hell, Casey had growled, and Anne had stepped in front of him.

“Calm down, calm down. Let me handle him. I’ll keep in touch. Check for texts.” She plastered on a vague smile, then followed Aldan.

“And I’ll follow her,” Emil said. “Lacey?”

“You bet I’m going with you.” Lacey trotted after her sister.

Robin took a step. “Should I go with them?”

“No, you come with us. If everyone follows, that’d look suspicious,” Casey pointed out. “As is, there’s a trio going after him. As long as he doesn’t catch on, it should be fine.”

“Okay. I guess I should be used to being left behind,” Robin complained.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Ben snapped. “Cut it out with your pity party! You aren’t left behind. You’re with us!”

Robin stuck his bottom lip out. “Fine. But you cussed.”

Ben pinched the bridge of his nose. Christ. Life and death pressing in, and his kid brother was hung up on language. He wanted to shake Robin and hug him in the same breath.

Casey patted Ben’s back. “Yes, he did, and I can’t blame him one bit. You really need to cut out the emo moody kid act, Rob.”

Robin’s belligerent expression came and went quickly. “It’s not like I want to be a jerk. It just happens.”

“Then stop it,” Ben ordered him. “You can control yourself. It’s called growing up and being an adult. Do it.”

Robin didn’t argue for once. Casey led the way back to the truck.

“I know you wanted to run, Ben, but tonight’s not looking likely for that to happen.

Why don’t you go on over to Jack’s? I promise to keep you updated.

In fact, I think we need to halt all shifting and running until we find out what Aldan’s game is, if he’s even up to anything. ”

Ben didn’t like it, but he had to agree. And he wanted to be with Jack.

“Okay. I’ll keep my phone on.” Ben let them drop him off at the shop, where he’d left his truck.

He sent Jack a text, letting him know he was on the way over.

Then he shared that mentally and was thrilled when that worked and Jack sent back a warm greeting—and a visual image of Ben naked, spread out, with Jack’s fingers working him open.

The rawness of it nearly stole his breath.

For all the chaos circling them, Jack wasn’t shy about what he wanted, and Ben drank that certainty in like water.

It steadied him, even as his body lit up with hunger.

Underneath the lust, though, was a quieter emotion—relief.

Jack wasn’t pulling away, wasn’t scared of him. Not anymore.

“You know how hard it’s gonna be for me to drive with a raging hard-on?” Ben sent to Jack.

“I know how hard my dick is right now, and how much I want to feel your tight ass around it.”

Ben groaned and got in his truck. In five minutes, he was out of the town limits and speeding along the road.

He didn’t hear anything else from Jack. Regardless, he was distracted and nearly missed the wolf shifters peering at him from a dozen or so feet off the side of the road, about ten miles from the ranch.

Ben didn’t slow down. He made note of where he’d seen the shifters so he could send the information to Casey.

And he saw them run, keeping parallel to his truck.

“Shit.” Ben didn’t like this at all. He used his much-ignored cruise control then and fumbled for his phone.

Once he got the screen unlocked, he remembered that he could use voice commands to get the phone to call Casey.

“Should have thought of that before.” He asked it to call Casey.

“Hello?” Casey said.

“Bro, there’s about a half-dozen wolf shifters running alongside my truck.”

The admission tasted like rust in his mouth. Saying it aloud made the threat sharper, more real, as though the pack’s teeth were already nipping at his tires.

The words rasped from his throat like gravel. Admitting it made the danger more real. His heart thundered, not just from fear of the wolves but from the thought of never seeing Jack again. It wasn’t supposed to end like this—not when they’d only just begun.

“Shit!”

“Exactly. They’re off the road, maybe a dozen feet to the right, but yeah.

I don’t think this is going to go well when I get to the ranch.

If I get to the ranch,” he added. “I think they’re planning on stopping me before then.

I’d turn around, but that’d mean slowing down, and I don’t really want to have to do that. ”

“You drive faster. You can outrun them in that truck. Get to the ranch. Me and the others will be there shortly.” Casey hung up.

“Aye aye, captain,” Ben muttered. He asked the phone to call Jack.

“What’s wrong? I feel it. Something’s wrong,” Jack said immediately upon answering.

Ben told him what was happening. “What?” Jack asked. “Why? What are they trying to do?”

“I don’t know, but chances are, it’s not anything good for me,” Ben said. “I’m going to step on the gas pedal and haul ass your way. I’d turn around but—”

“No. Come here.” There was a shuffling sound, then Jack’s muffled, “Rhett, we need the rifles!”

“Jack, no, I don’t want you to kill anyone.”

“I’m not going to, but the bastards chasing you don’t have to know that,” Jack pointed out. “Stay on the line. We don’t have to talk, but—keep in my head, too. Just, stay with me. How far away are you?”

“Ten minutes, or less.” Ben upped the speed. “I’m leaving them in the dust, but not as much dust as I’d like to.”

“Just keep coming to me,” Jack said. He sounded short of breath.

Ben caught flashes of images, of him and a bruised Rhett checking the rifles they had out.

Then a jolt of surprise came from Jack. “Someone’s at the door.”

“Don’t answer it,” Ben warned.

“Fuck that, I’m answering it,” Rhett snapped in the background. “This is our home!”

“I have you on speaker,” Jack explained. “Rhett, wait! Let me come with you. We have the rifles.”

“Please, don’t answer,” Ben begged, driving faster. “Please don’t.”

“He’s going to see who it is no matter what we say. I have to go with him. I’m going to have the phone in my shirt pocket, but I’m turning you off speaker.”

Ben didn’t argue. He could feel Jack’s resolve.

And his own fear was gnawing at the base of his spine. Ben pressed the gas pedal all the way down, and concentrated on getting to the Double T.

“It’s Ernesto,” Jack murmured.

Ben could hear Rhett and another man, the rumble of their voices, but not the actual words.

“What’s happening?”

“I’m not sure,” Jack replied, then the link between them wavered.

Ben shot through the open gate to the Double T. “Almost there. Another minute.”

The coyote shifters joined him halfway to the ranch house, running beside his truck, baring their teeth at him.

“Shit! Jack, there’s coyote shifters!” Ben shouted. He jerked the steering wheel hard to the left, trying to at least scare off some of them, but the beasts just veered left as well, and kept running.

Ben slammed on the brakes. “I’m turning around!”

The wheel shuddered in his grip, his beast snarling for escape. Ben’s instincts screamed to run, to get clear, but Jack’s voice tethered him. That one word—please—rang through their bond, raw and desperate, and it anchored Ben more firmly than any command from Casey ever had.

“Ben, Ben, don’t. The other shifters are that way! Come to the house!” Jack pled. “Ernesto is here, too. Rhett’s getting him a rifle.”

“Why is he there?” Ben asked, suspicion and fear doubling in him. He pressed the brake pedal to the floor again. “Why now? Don’t trust him, Jack. Don’t trust him.”

“A lone wolf,” Jack whispered, barely audible. “He said—”

“He said what?” Ben demanded. “Jack? Jack!” The silence was worse than any growl or scream.

He felt with the link they shared but got nothing other than static.

The silence hit like a blade. Terror hollowed him out, left him breathless.

For one agonizing moment, he believed he’d lost Jack already—snuffed out without warning, without a chance to say goodbye.

His chest ached as if the bond itself had been torn in two.

“Jack!” Ben couldn’t get the truck to go fast enough, especially since he’d come to a stop. By the time it picked up enough speed to outrun the coyotes, he was almost to the house.

The truck skidded sideways when he stomped on the brakes. Coyote shifters swarmed the truck, surrounding him. Ben counted eleven, and he wondered how he was going to get out of the mess he’d landed in, how he could keep Jack and Rhett safe. If he could do any of that.

The truck doors had locked automatically. Ben needed to shift, and he’d have to unlock the truck before. He started taking his clothes off. He’d do what he had to, and if he didn’t survive, he’d take as many coyotes with him as possible.

Jack held up his hands as Rhett cussed Ernesto up one side and down the other.

Ernesto clicked his tongue. He held the rifle steady as he aimed it at Rhett. “If you’d just let me explain before condemning me to hell, I’d appreciate it.”

“Why?” Rhett snarled. “You’re going to kill us!”

“No, I’m not,” Ernesto replied calmly. “I’m trying to keep you both alive, because those shifters out there?

They’re rogue packs, and they’re out for blood.

Ben’s, his family’s and now both of yours.

They don’t care who you are or what you want out of life.

They’ve decided you’re both going to die, tonight, or they wouldn’t have exposed themselves like they have. ”

“You’re pointing the rifle at me,” Rhett ground out. “Doesn’t make me believe you.”

“I wanted to make sure you listened. Are you listening to me?” Ernesto asked. “Because the lives of everyone you care about are on the line here.”

Jack’s throat bobbed. He hated admitting it, but Ernesto’s calm was scarier than his anger.

Men who shouted could be reasoned with; men who smiled while holding a gun usually couldn’t.

His pulse rattled in his ears, and beneath the fear was a sharper ache—Ben was out there, and he might already be surrounded.

Rhett growled, sounding much like a wild animal himself.

Ernesto’s mouth kicked up on one side. “You’d make a helluva shifter. Too bad we can’t turn humans.”

“I don’t want to be one of you,” Rhett spat. “What the fuck are you anyway?”

Jack started to inch his way to his rifle, which Ernesto had taken from him in a move so fast Jack hadn’t even seen it.

He’d just had his rifle, then he hadn’t, and Ernesto had set it behind him.

“Stay still, Jack. I can tell what you’re gonna do before you do it.

You telegraph everything with that expressive face.

” Ernesto cocked his head. “Decide, Rhett. I won’t kill either one of you, but I will incapacitate you both so you don’t get in my way.

I’m powerful, but not powerful enough to take on every rogue shifter that’s coming this way.

Probably. Not when I’m having to fight off two humans I won’t kill, either. ”

“What are you?” This time it was Jack who asked because Ernesto was freaking him out, especially since Jack believed him about being powerful.

“Don’t worry about what I am,” Ernesto said. “I’m ancient, and my kind are extinct. I’m the last of them, so it doesn’t matter.” He studied Rhett for a moment, then nodded. “All right. I can trust you both. Also, I need this job, at least for a little while longer, so…”

“You held one of my own guns on me!” Rhett shouted. “And you want to keep your damned job?”

“I need to, and I’m fixing to save your lives,” Ernesto replied. Then he handed Rhett the rifle. “Be careful, hm? Ben’s family will be coming, too.”

Then Ernesto stepped back and grinned a grin that wasn’t even remotely non-frightening. “Ben’s surrounded outside. All the coyotes are fair game. They’re murderous beasts, not humans, not innocents.”

Jack ran for his rifle, and as he did, Ernesto shifted, his clothes ripping from one second to the next, boots shredded, everything he’d worn destroyed as a huge, nightmarish wolf- like creature appeared in his stead.

“Jesus Christ,” Rhett mumbled. “What is he?”

Jack had no answer. The thing—Ernesto—headed for the door. Jack raced to beat him there, sure that Ernesto would just tear through the whole doorway if he didn’t get there first to let him out.

The boards rattled beneath his boots. It felt like running inside the wrong kind of dream—the kind where monsters wore familiar faces right up until they shed their skins.

Jack’s stomach twisted, torn between dread of Ernesto’s monstrous reveal and the more urgent terror of losing Ben in the yard outside.

As Jack passed Ernesto, he noted that Ernesto was taller than him. Jack’s head didn’t quite reach the top of Ernesto’s front shoulder. Or whatever that part of a wolf from the depths of Hell was called.

He opened the door and let Ernesto out just as the truck door flew open. Ben leapt out and coyotes surged around him.

Ernesto threw his head back and howled. The sound, unnatural, carried on the wind, through it, like some horrible magical spell being spun out right then and there.

And every coyote in the yard froze, as did Ben.

Then Ernesto leapt off the porch and the bloodbath began.