Page 26 of Destined Prey (Wild Ones #1)

Whatever else Ernesto was, he was terrifying. Jack tried to hold the rifle up but was stunned by the sight of that giant wolf-demon hybrid Ernesto had changed into tearing through the coyotes.

He snapped them in half, and the gore sent Jack to his knees.

Jack gagged, bile scorching the back of his throat.

He’d seen blood before—ranch accidents, bar fights—but never like this.

It wasn’t just bodies being ripped apart; it was the sound of it, the smell.

His heart hammered against his ribs, torn between terror and a bone-deep certainty: Ben had to survive this.

“Holy fuck,” Rhett whispered. “Holy fuck. He’s just— They don’t stand a chance.”

And that scared Jack into action. He put the rifle down and stood. “Ben! Ben, come here! Hurry!” “Before that Ernesto-thing eats you or breaks you. Please, please!”

The connection, which had vanished when Ernesto had come into the house, snapped back into place.

Ben skirted around bodies, living and in pieces, and ran full-out for the porch.

For one horrifying second, Jack thought he’d never make it—that Ben would stumble, that something would drag him down. The relief that surged when their eyes locked across the carnage nearly brought Jack to tears. That connection wasn’t just in his head; it was in his blood, his bones, his soul.

Wolves ran out from behind the barns, and Ernesto stood on his hind legs, holding one coyote above his head as he howled. He threw the coyote shifter at the wolves, then pounced.

“Ben!”

Ben jumped, a graceless leap that brought him colliding into Jack and Rhett both. Rhett went down, the rifle flying from his hands.

Jack landed on his ass and flung himself over Rhett. When the rifle didn’t fire upon landing, Jack was up and pulling at Rhett, who was conscious but not looking very with it.

Ben shifted and together they dragged Rhett inside.

Jack’s arms shook with the effort, not from Rhett’s weight but from raw adrenaline. His brother’s blood smeared his sleeve, and for the first time in years, Jack felt that fragile thread of childhood terror—that he might lose Rhett, the one person who’d always been his anchor.

“I have to go back out,” Ben said. “My pack—I can’t let that thing out there kill them!”

Jack’s throat closed. He wanted to scream at him to stay, to not walk back into the nightmare outside. But the truth was there, burning in Ben’s eyes. Family meant everything, and Jack loved him all the more for it, even as fear clawed at his insides.

“That thing is Ernesto,” Jack replied. “And he said he was going to save us and the people we cared about. That means your family too, but…but I don’t know. He’s fucking terrifying.”

“I can’t take him on and live,” Ben muttered. “I don’t think any of us can. He’s something ancient and not completely natural. There’s old magic holding him together, I think. I can sense it but don’t know what it is.”

“Do we trust him?” Jack asked, clinging to Ben. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

“A few scratches. I’d have been in a lot worse shape if Ernesto hadn’t scared the piss out of everyone.” Ben moved to the door. “I have to go out. I can’t risk my family.”

“Call them,” Jack urged. “Here, use my phone.” It was still in his shirt pocket. He handed it to Ben.

“They’ve probably all shifted. They were in town, though, so they can’t get here in the next few minutes. Probably not even in the next ten minutes.” Ben took the phone and tried to call them. “No answers. I bet they’re all coywolfed out.”

“I’m going outside with you.” Jack slid his hand in Ben’s. “We’re mates. Nothing’s going to change that.”

Ben nodded. “But Rhett—”

“M’fine. Go.” Rhett sat up and rubbed the back of his head. “No thanks to you, asshole.”

“I’ll apologize properly later,” Ben promised, stepping back onto the porch.

Jack went with him and almost retched when he saw the numerous carcasses in the yard and by the barn.

“Fuck.” Ben bent and picked up a rifle. “Here. In case you’re wrong and he isn’t our friend.”

Jack took it, and Ben released his hand before getting the other rifle.

“I don’t know a lot about other shifters, but I hope there’s not packs of Ernesto-kinds running around. He’s too lethal,” Ben observed. “He’s killed at least a dozen shifters—more, I think.”

“He said he’s the last of his kind,” Jack remembered. “Ancient, and he needs this job when he’s done being that horrifying beast.”

“I sure as shit hope Rhett told him he still had a job, because…” Ben shook his head.

“Yeah, no kidding.”

Ernesto howled again, and there were no more enemies for him to kill. They’d either run off or were dead.

Ernesto shook his coat out. The sun was almost set, but Jack knew they’d have a long night ahead of them. “The carcasses—” He had to think of them only as animals, not any part human, otherwise he’d never be able to get through it.

Ernesto picked up one with his mouth, then bounded over to drop it in the bed of Ben’s truck.

“Aw, hell,” Ben whined. “Why’re you doing that?”

Ernesto snorted at him, then tossed a second carcass in and a third.

“Should we help?” Jack whispered.

His voice cracked. The thought of stepping into that bloodbath made his stomach churn, but standing idle while Ernesto tossed carcasses like firewood made him feel useless, cowardly.

He clenched the rifle tighter, trying to convince himself that courage wasn’t the absence of fear—it was acting in spite of it.

“He, uh, he looks like he’s having fun,” Ben said. “I feel kinda queasy.”

“Me, too.”

“I’m with you both on that,” said Rhett, opening the screen door. “God almighty, I’ve never seen such a mess. Does this kind of thing happen to you shifters often?”

“No, definitely not. I’ve never seen anything like this, either.” Ben cleared his throat. “But Ernesto seems right at home with it.”

“He killed a bunch of…of shifters,” Jack said.

Ernesto kept tossing them in the bed of Ben’s truck, too.

By the time the first howl came, off in the distance, most of the dead had been cleared from the ground.

Ernesto paused mid-pickup, cocking his head.

“Mine,” Ben bellowed. “That’s my family! Don’t you mess with them!”

Ernesto shifted and smiled as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

“Chill, Ben. I’m not interested in taking the lives of innocents.

These ones, none of them were innocent. They’d lost their souls, if you want to think of it like that, and their humanity.

You know what happens to a shifter when the human part is gone? ”

“What?” Ben asked.

“They become monsters, intent on killing shifters that aren’t soulless.

Their beast envies the light and life in clean shifters, and they seek to destroy it.

You, and your brothers and sisters, y’all are a new kind of shifter, and your souls shine brighter than most others.

I don’t think y’all will have an easy walk through this life for a while.

” Ernesto bent and picked up a dead coyote by one leg.

“Best that I stay around to see to it no harm comes y’all’s way. ”

Jack wasn’t the only one standing open-mouthed after that speech.

Ernesto just kept cleaning up the yard like he was raking leaves or bagging trash.

“No souls,” Ernesto repeated. “The worst thing that can happen to a shifter.”

Five coywolves came running down the lane leading to the house. Jack could make out their shapes. The moon kept the night from being too dark. It seemed as if some of the moon’s rays caressed the coats of the wolves as they ran. One called out, and Ben tipped his head back and howled.

Ernesto did it, too, and the wolves stopped as if they’d run into an invisible wall.

Jack didn’t blame them. Ernesto’s howl was frightening.

Casey shifted first. He held an arm out to his side, a silent bid for his pack to stay behind him, Jack assumed.

“What—” Casey’s voice cracked. He cleared his throat. “What are you?”

Ernesto sighed like he was sick of that question, and maybe he was.

He picked up another carcass. “The thing about you all being a new breed of shifter is you’ve had no one to teach you about your history.

Well, not yours, since y’all are the first generation of coywolf shifters.

But shifters, period. I guess neither of your folks did it because they knew you’d not belong to either of their species.

Doesn’t mean the past doesn’t apply. And to answer your question—” Ernesto walked up to Casey.

“I’m a Barghest, a hellhound, a Terrible Thing, and there are no others.

I was created from a nightmare, and my place in this world is all that keeps me here.

Someone has to keep psychotic shifters in line.

” He laughed and walked away from Casey, eyes gleaming in the moonlight, his smile big, his teeth white.

“I am the monster under the bed that keeps all the little shifters from going down the wrong path.”

No one said a word as Ernesto resumed his task. “Now everyone’s going to be scared of me. I hate that. It was nice when I was just a guy working for you, Rhett. I liked that a lot. I’m not always a monster.”

“It’s a hard thing to forget, what I just saw, Ernesto,” Rhett said. “I’ll try to keep it separate from your job, though. Just, it might take a few days.”

“I’d appreciate it.” Ernesto nodded at Rhett.

Ben’s other siblings shifted on some silent command from Casey, or just because they wanted to.

One of them edged around Casey and the others. “I’m not scared. I’ll even help you.”

“Robin, get back here,” Casey ordered.

Robin hesitated, then walked toward Ernesto. “No, I’m not going to do that. Someone should help him. It looks like he did a lot to keep Ben, Jack and Rhett safe.”

“And you, and your pack,” Ernesto added. “These things wouldn’t have stopped until they’d killed you all. They’d have made your kind extinct. I couldn’t allow that.”

“Thank you.” Robin cast a glance back over his shoulder. “For all of us.”