Page 12 of Destined Predator
Should he call? That might distract Greg while he was driving, and if he picked it up, talking on the cell would definitely split his focus.If he picks up.And wasn’t it a little cowardly to apologize on the phone? Rhett thumped the flat of his hand onto the roof of his Silverado, then opened the door and climbed in. Greg lived at what the town still thought of as the Edwards’ place, and Rhett knew where it was.
He was about to start the engine when another car eased into the lot, its headlights bright and dazzling him…and making him remember the way Casey’s eyes had gleamed a sudden vivid yellow. It had been just a flash, but Rhett had caught it. He shivered and touched his fingers to the back of his neck, whichwas still prickling, then swiveled around, because he had the stupidest feeling that he was being watched. Nothing there but wind and neon hum. Still, the sense of being marked didn’t fade. It rode with him—shotgun—until the highway took the town away and left him with night, corn, and the steady thud of his own pulse.
For a second, he wondered if Casey had followed him and was standing spying on him.No. Stupid.Rhett didn’t like the way things had ended with Casey, either.Well, not ended, he acknowledged.More like paused.The inside of his truck felt too stifling, like there wasn’t enough air, or enough pressure, making his head bang and start to throb.
He cracked a window, letting the chill pour in, and clutched the steering wheel.Didn’t drink enough to feel loaded. Maybe the beer’s off.He should warn Bard. He forgot about it when he felt okay to drive a half-minute later and set off. The Edwards’ place—Greg’s place—wasn’t that far and with Britton traffic being what it wasn’t, as they said, it wouldn’t take him long. He hoped he’d have time to think of what he was going to say to Greg when he got there.
Lucky he wasn’t concentrating too hard on that or he might have missed seeing the vehicle that wasn’t quite pulled into the side of the road—its trunk stuck out into the traffic some. “Idiot!” Rhett yelled, braking sharply. “Who leaves a fucking…Ford Explorer…abandoned…”Greg!
It was Greg’s vehicle. And if Greg had pulled off the road to take a piss, he’d have parked properly. Two beers wouldn’t have made him so desperate that he flattened some scrub and rammed into a bush then left his almost-new car near the road like that. Plus, he’d have finished taking a leak by now!
Was it a carjacking? Rhett took his Glock from the glove compartment. Didn’t Greg carry? Strangely enough, on their disaster of a date, the subject hadn’t come up. There was no onearound. About to get out, Rhett thought to call Greg’s number. A ringing started immediately, from inside Greg’s car. What kind of thieves would ignore Greg’s fancy new phone?
Rhett swung his feet to the ground and stood, clipping his waistband holster onto his belt and settling his gun in it. “Greg?” he called, switching on his flashlight. “It’s Rhett.” The Explorer’s hood was warm, as Rhett would have thought, seeing as Greg couldn’t have been gone long, and the driver’s door was open, which was less to be expected. Rhett swept the flashlight low. Boot prints, fresh, scuffed deep. Another set overlaying them—lighter trot marks that weren’t boots at all, but pads. Not dog. Not coyote, either. Bigger. His mouth went dry.
Rhett shone the beam of his torch along the line of low bushes Greg had driven into. They bore further damage to that he’d made with his vehicle—they’d been trampled and torn, and a large hole suggested someone had forced his way through them.Or he was forced.But by what? The break would have been wider, if someone had dragged Greg through, into the field beyond, although the lower-growing scrub was beat-up looking, too.Small carjackers? Kids? Or Greg fleeing something?
“Hello?” he called, taking a glance all around and wishing there were more moonlight to see by. The empty land was eerie by night in a way it wasn’t by day.Night.Now that word, that image, had crossed his mind, it refused to leave.Things that go bump in the night. Creatures of the night.
The night carried every sound sharper—the wind worrying the corn, the soft rasp of dirt under his boots, even his own breath coming too quick. The hair on his arms lifted, the way it did before a storm, and he couldn’t shake the thought that something was out there watching.
Right on cue, he heard scuffling and—Is that panting? Up ahead?He swung the torch wildly, trying to distinguish one patch of dark from another. He caught something moving andwhispering, then felt stupid when he understood it was corn, the breeze making it sway and rustle. What else could he expect in a field in Wyoming but crops? But there wassomethingabout. He could feel it. Then he heard it. A snarl and a growl, maybe at his presence.
Rhett lifted the flashlight high…and the beam picked out two glowing yellow circles, shining like glass. No. He must be imagining it, especially when his light revealed two more, about the same height as the first, about as yellow and equally as inhuman. But there was something all-too-human about the way the creatures stared back. It chilled his blood.
“Get away from here!” he yelled, his voice cracking.
They didn’t answer, of course, but whatever the shape was between them, lying on the ground, groaned. And that was definitely human.
“Greg?” cried Rhett, advancing. He drew his gun. If he took a shot from here, he risked hitting Greg, but if the creatures didn’t move, he’d—Oh God.He was near enough now to see blood on the ground and glimpse the trail from where Greg must have dragged his wounded body.
Not just wounded, Rhett discovered, firing a wild shot into the air to scatter the predators and racing to Greg. The eyes vanished into the stalks, not retreating so much as rearranging. Rhett planted his boots and didn’t give them his back. He clapped a hand over his mouth at the torn, ripped, bitten flesh and the blood coating the man’s skin.
Greg Manning had been mutilated.
Chapter Six
It was early the next morning and Casey felt anything but bright. He swung the sledgehammer again, the dull thud as it hit the wall loud, and the heavy impact juddering through his arms to his torso. Using a power tool, like a drill or a hydraulic breaker, would have been quicker and easier, just as using a smaller lump hammer and a bolster would have been more precise and made for a quicker clean-up, but he needed this, needed to take his aggression out on something and a concrete wall was good. Every swing had his blood singing. It wasn’t just about the wall—it was about control, about reminding the restless thing inside him that it still took orders fromhim. Not the other way around.
He was lucky to have one to demolish as part of his work on the Miller house. He took another swing and dodged as the force of his hit made another fist-sized lump of concrete fly off. It was easy to get into a rhythm doing this and despite the strength andcoordination it took to use the sledge, it could be lulling—which was when people made mistakes.
But Casey’s mind wasn’t wandering, adrift, in some cottonwool fog. Oftentimes when he did this, each blow released the tension that came with being an alpha…to a family composed of his own younger brothers and sisters. The Akers being the only coywolves in existence demanded a lot of work, and a whole heap of self-control. But now, with each hit, Casey was replaying a scene from last night.
He’d stayed in Bard’s, taking his frustration out on challengers at the pool table, then, when there were no more takers, at arm wrestling. There were usually challengers for that. It didn’t call for the same precision that pool did, the reason the bar’s clients tended to cry off from the table when they’d been drinking, whereas having drink in them made them more likely towantto arm wrestle.
He might be feeling like hammered crap but recalling the expressions on the brawny farmers’ and truckers’ faces when they realized how strong the wiry-looking Casey was made his lips turn up in a grin. He’d bet he had more strength in his sinews and tendons than they had in their muscles. His thoughts soon spiraled back to their original groove and his mouth pulled into a thin line again.
His attempt at self-medicating hadn’t worked. Even when bending low over the baize or sizing up a bared-arm competitor out back, Casey had still been prey to the image of Rhett striding from the bar after another guy.Rhett Tucker.Could the Wyoming rancher have a more Wyoming rancher name?Casey couldn’t think of one.Shit.Attempting to mock the man didn’t work either. Not when Rhett had gotten under his skin, or drawn him in, or whatever the hell it was he’d done—from Casey’s first meeting with the meat-and-taters rancher, one who hadn’t even known about shifters.
There’d been something in Rhett’s eyes even then—a steadiness that wasn’t fear, not exactly. More like curiosity trying to disguise itself as irritation. Casey had known right there that the man would fight whatever pulled between them, and he’d love every damn second of that fight.
Casey rested the head of the hammer on the uneven ground of the half-walled, half-roofed house and leaned on the handle to take a breather.Give him a break. He’s new to this, the rational part of his brain urged him. That was the side Casey was listening to, not the more primitive animal layer. After all, he’d be seeing more of Rhett now Ben and Jack…
Casey’s thoughts trailed off as he tracked the Chevy Silverado speeding down the street toward the Miller house.Rhett’s truck.It felt almost eerie, that he’d been thinking about Rhett and he was here, as if Casey had conjured him up. He straightened, his shifter senses prickling when Rhett barely cut the engine before leaping out, not bothering to close his door. The scent hit before the words did—dust, adrenaline, and blood. Old instincts roared to life before Casey could think. The air itself seemed to tighten, as if it knew a confrontation was about to get personal. Almost before Casey could react, Rhett was on the raised ground where Casey was working, and had pushed him, hard.
“Whoa, whoa,whoa.” Casey righted himself from his near stumble. He shoved Rhett’s hands away when Rhett got in his space, perhaps to grab him. “Just so you know, only the first one’s free,” he warned him.
But Rhett wasn’t listening. “I went by your house, and your bike wasn’t there, so I guessed you’d be here,” he spat.
