Page 45 of Destined Predator
Rhett scoffed. “I still might.”
“Really?” Aldan didn’t seem bothered—he smiled, showing two missing teeth. “You can try, but I think we’re gonna enjoy this more.” He kicked open the barn door at his back and two jackals snarled their way out.
The hairs on the back of Casey’s neck rose.
“These ain’t regular jackals,” Aldan said. “They’re what are calledshifters, but then I reckon you Akers clan would know all about that, wouldn’t you? Oh, yeah, I figured out why all the coywolves were sniffing around the Double T and no other ranches, and why the Tuckers weren’t doing shit about it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Rhett tried to bluff. He had no doubt that these two sons of bitches had sent the photos of Casey and his pack shifting, and set the traps, hoping to hurt or drive the coywolves away. But why?
“These mangy dogs are also human. Sounds crazy, if you don’t know, huh?” Vince threw in. “They were in town, looking for work, and we befriended ’em and saw it for ourselves. Saw ’em change to this.”
Casey’s gut twisted. “So you got proof and decided blackmail was better than decency. Figures.”
“Vince, you been at the moonshine?” Jack called across to them.
“You watch your mouth, queer!” Aldan sneered.
“You shut yours!” Jack yelled back. “Oh no, don’t—tell us how these curs transform into upstanding members of the community.”
The energy shimmered, and Casey saw a flicker around the jackals that made him tense—it looked like the beasts were trying to shift. But they didn’t.
“Oh, they don’t, that much.” Aldan sounded as though that were fine with him. “They’ve almost lost their souls, ya see. Lost their humanity, ya might say.”
“Which makes ’em hate shifters who still got theirs,” Vince added. “Like your pack. Oh, theyreallyhate you, even more than we do, for some reason.” His grin was pure nastiness.
Rhett’s grip on his gun tightened. “You talk about souls while you’re standing there makin’ deals with monsters?”
“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.”
Casey recalled Ernesto’s words perfectly, and bet the others did, too. “What’s that got to do with you? With this place?” he asked.
“We needed some place, some land, and so did they.” Aldan’s shrug made it seem simple. “So we said, what about this place?”
“And you…bought it off the Boyces,” Jack said, rolling his eyes.
“Well, let’s just saytheybought it.” Vince sniggered.
Casey exchanged a look with Rhett. Things weren’t adding up, or not enough. He could believe the jackals were doing the humans’ bidding in exchange for land, butthisland? “This place is a hobby farm. Ain’t much room here,” he said.
“True. But there is at the Double T. Or will be, when you Tuckers and you Akers are gone, and we take over your land.” Aldan whooped.
“Gonna have some fun with that ranch and give the jackals free run of your cattle. Thatmightstop ’em attacking any damn fool out-of-towner they can run off the road, or might not. Oh, what, you were planning to leave the ranch to your kids?”
His evil sneer said he didn’t think there’d be any, and a creep like him touching on that was the last straw for Casey. He gave a signal to his family, the coywolf and the human. “I think you’ll find you’ve underestimated us.”
Within seconds, they’d all stripped and shifted.
“And you us!” With a shout, Vince shoved open the barn door, and a dozen more jackals slinked out, snarling and snapping and as soulless as the first two. “They got themselves a pack too,” he said.
“And I’d saywegot ourselves a good old-fashioned ring fight.” Aldan couldn’t have sounded more pleased about it. “Usual rules, leaders first, then free for all?”
Well,shit.
Chapter Nineteen
Once he’d shifted, Casey’s world took on the flatter, more monochrome hues that the coywolf saw, and shrank down to immediate concerns, to the business at hand. Coywolves perceived the world in a simpler way all round. There were no big questions ofwhenorthenandwhat iforshould have, no headspace to ponder that a few minutes ago, they’d come here just to ask questions and find out information, and now they were set for a battle, one that had humans with guns in the mix.
And a battle in which Rhett was involved. Rhett, whose safety Casey, as pack alpha, was responsible for, and who he’d vowed to keep safe…as his mate. He didn’t let himself think about what that meant right now. Protect first, deal with feelings later. Casey raised his head and sent him ayip, the simple sound unable to convey all that, but primarily functioning as a warning, that Rhett should stay back. He would, wouldn’t he? He had to knowthat wading into the middle of predators fighting with claws and fangs was stupid?Is suicide.
