Page 8 of Destined Prey
Jack put down his own restlessness to being unable to help Rhett like he wanted to. It felt wrong to sit on his ass all day while Rhett worked. The part-time ranch hands were all strangers to Jack, and he caught more than one of them giving him dirty looks. Those looks slid over his skin like burrs. He told himself it was nothing, just ranch-hand attitude, but the back of his neck prickled the same way it had out in the dark last night. Like eyes he couldn’t see were tracking him. Like something wanted him. Not to hurt him—or maybe exactly that—he couldn’t tell, and that uncertainty had him half sick to hisstomach at the same time. He suspected there was some bigotry about to come to the surface, though he was debating whether or not to say anything to Rhett.
He’d have to, becauseifthose guys were homophobes, and they had the balls to look at their boss’ brother like that, what would they do if they found out Rhett was gay? Jack turned the question over and over in his head while he stood leaning against the porch rail, not really seeing anything as he tried to work out what all was going on, not just with Rhett, but with him.
He kept getting the sensation of being watched. Twice he’d caught two of Rhett’s employees staring at him. The other times, he’d not seen hide nor hair of anyone else around. Yet those times, in particular, he’d felt like he was being hunted, almost. It had to be a residual effect from the activities of the night before. Neither he or Rhett had been able to piece together quite what had happened.
Jack hadn’t brought up imagining he’d been touched by a stranger. The phantom memory flashed again: big hands, rough palms, the scent of musk and pine and male. It made his pulse jump and his cock twitch traitorously, a reaction that embarrassed him as much as it confused him. It was easier to pretend it hadn’t happened than to explain why it made his body light up. And it sounded out and out crazy, considering there’d been wolves all over.
Or coywolves. Or both. Rhett hadn’t been sure what kind of critters had been out there, but he’d said there’d been an increase in the coyote-wolf hybrid, and that as such, coywolves were particularly deadly and wily.
Which explained nothing about the flashes of what couldn’t possibly be memories Jack kept having all day. He’d see amber-brown eyes, not an animal’s, but a man, a tall, thickly muscled, handsome man with hair that seemed to be all over the place.Then he’d smell the man—musk, sweat, and something else, something he couldn’t place, butdamn, it made his dick hard. Jack had already beat off twice, and it wasn’t yet evening. If he kept it up, he was going to be sore in a very unpleasant way.
Unease prickled through Jack and he blinked, coming back to reality and turning his head to find Aldan, a burly, miserable-looking man, standing not a dozen feet away. Aldan was whispering to another ranch hand, Ernesto, but giving Jack some serious side-eye.
Jack looked at Aldan and Ernesto straight on. He didn’t doubt they’d figured out he was gay—back when he’d lived on the ranch, he’d been as butch as he could be. He’d been scared of anyone finding out. But years of living on his own and in a more tolerant place had stripped him of that act, and at times, he probably was flamboyant, though God knew he hated stereotyping anyone, especially himself.
Alex always did say he had too muchswish.
Stop thinking about that fucker.
As far as Jack was concerned, there was no such thing astoo much swish. Whatever people were, was what they were, period. He didn’t even know if, or how, Aldan or anyone had come to concludehe was gay. For all he knew, he was totally wrong, and they just thought he was a lazy fuck for not helping Rhett out.
Whatever the issue, Jack wasn’t going to ask. Not yet at least. If the dirty looks kept up, he’d have to say something, at least to Rhett, because it could mean Rhett wasn’t safe with his employees.
Ernesto snapped out something Jack couldn’t quite hear, though he caught the sharp edges of Ernesto’s angry tone. Ernesto shoved Aldan back a few steps, then shook his finger at the older man before looking at Jack and tipping his straw hat.
Jack nodded back, and Ernesto’s mouth turned up on one side in a crooked grin. Then Ernesto walked away from Aldan, who stalked toward the barn.
“Wow. Drama at the Double T. Who’da thunk it?” He went back in the house, and goose bumps broke out all over his body just as he opened the screen door.
Jack paused, standing with one hand on the doorframe, the other on the door handle. He peered back over his shoulder as much as he could without making his side scream with pain.
There was nothing and no one watching him, at least not from the direction he felt he was being watched from. Jack told himself to stop being a paranoid idiot. It wasn’t like there were wolves or coywolves waiting, watching, planning to make a meal of him.
Chapter Six
“You really need to think about this,” Emil said for what had to be the tenth time. “Seriously. It’s bad enough Ben was sneaking off all day to spy on that man.”
Ben bristled, heat rising in his neck. He hadn’t meant to spy, not really. He just…couldn’t stay away. Every time he told himself to turn back, his feet carried him closer. Watching Jack wasn’t about weakness—it was survival, like his body had already decided that man meant something, even if his brain hadn’t caught up.
“I didn’tsneak,” Ben protested. Hehadspied, however, and didn’t deny it. Casey had chewed his ass out over that already anyway. And now Casey was going back with him so Ben wouldn’t be alone.
“You’re questioning your alpha?” Casey replied, tone cold, eyes colder.
Emil huffed. “I’m questioning mybrother, who is supposed to be myalphabut isn’t exhibiting the smarts to be one.” He folded his arms over his chest. “Scowl all you want. I don’t care. I’m more worried than usual and I’ve never been scared of you anyway.”
None of the pack—all Casey’s siblings—had been scared of him. Ben wasn’t. They stuck together because they were family, and the only coywolf shifters left in the area that they knew of.
Casey rumbled unhappily. “It’s a matter of respect.”
“It’s a matter of loving my brothers and not wanting them shot dead by an angry rancher—or his brother,” Emil said. “Or, you know, attacked again by wolves and coyotes.”
“I don’t think that last one will happen for a few days at least. We killed too many from the local packs last night, there at the Double T and before then.” Casey tucked a few strands of black hair behind his ear. That one lock always fell over his left eye. “They’ll need to regroup, if they can. Seems like their numbers should be getting low enough that they’d leave us alone.”
“They’ll never leave us alone,” said Robin, their youngest sibling. At twenty, he was still wallowing off and on in the joys of teenage moodiness. “We’ll be hated and huntedforever.”
“What a ray of sunshineyouare.” Lacey poked Robin in the ribs. “Chill the eff out, kiddo.”
Robin pressed his lips together like he did when he was trying not to give in to anger and mouth off. He gave a clipped bob of his head instead. “Sorry. I just get tired of them all coming after us. If we weren’t meant to be here, nature wouldn’t have created us.”
