Page 44 of Destined Prey
“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.Ifhe 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 Iwillincapacitate 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.”
“Whatareyou?” 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?”
