Page 47 of Destined Predator
“Hey…” Worried for Casey, Rhett bent and tried to reach down to him at the same time as Casey was rearing up wildly, and Casey’s claws slashed through Rhett’s shirt…and chest.
Casey howled, long and loud.
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” Rhett pressed the torn cotton fabric to the claw marks. “Ain’t deep. Ain’t bad. See?” He felt Casey’s distress more than the pain from the cut. “Jack, you done? Help me see if this barn’s secure.”
Ben shifted to human, and Rhett averted his gaze until he had pants on. He ignored Jack assuring his mate that he didn’t need his help, that Ben should stay coywolf, to heal quicker, and focused on Aldan and Vince instead. Jack had cuffed and gagged them, his speed and efficiency testifying to practice that Rhett wasnevergoing to ask about. He prodded and dragged the struggling, bleeding pair to the trunk of a Lone Pine vehicle.
“Now, all of you get to the Double T,” Rhett ordered. “I don’t want any of us here when the feds come.”
“Feds?” Ben asked, wiping blood from his face with the back of his hand.
“Yep. Gonna dump this trash outside Clayton, and call Perez from a phone there. Put our tax dollars to work by makingthemdeal with clean-up.”Clean-up and hush-up.“Casey…” He didn’t answer, just lowered his head. The silence said plenty.
Casey didn’t shift, for which Rhett was kind of grateful—the coywolf needed to heal. When all the coywolves had slunk away, he and Jack collected any Akers or Tucker property or possessions, then Jack followed him in the truck to the next town. There, Rhett abandoned the Lone Pine car in a motel parking lot and called the feds from the payphone in its forecourt, leaving an anonymous message that sounded incredible to him, and he’d lived through the event.
He and Jack hardly spoke on the drive back to the ranch. “Guess I get to play doctor again,” Jack commented.
Rhett grunted. His adrenaline had ebbed, leaving him shaky and tired. The cab smelled like iron and gun oil. His hands wouldn’t stop trembling, no matter how tight he gripped the wheel. But what bothered him most was how Casey had reacted to having—accidentally—hurt him. Recalling that had Rhett pulling on an old jacket that he’d left in the truck months back.Best to hide the injury.He didn’t want Casey more distressed.
“Look out!” he warned Jack who almost hit the Dodge parked where Rhett usually left his truck. “What…?”Who?Olivia, who’d seemingly just arrived and was pacing between her car and the ranch door.
“Rhett?” she called, when he exited. “I think I saw visitors—is this a bad time?”
“Erm…” Rhett peered at the house but couldn’t see anyone, human or coywolf. “No. Jack, go on in. Livvy girl, what’s the matter?” Because something was.
“I tried to speak to you the other day. It’s what I came back to town for. I’m just gonna go ahead and say it.” Olivia took a deep breath, but nothing came out.
“Go on?” Rhett encouraged her, bewildered.
Olivia put her hand on her stomach and spoke. As monumental, aslife-changingas her words were, Rhett’s gaze was drawn to Casey, standing inside the entrance hall. He was too far away to hear what Olivia was almost mumbling, but it seemed seeing Rhett with her and his arm around her shoulders was too much.
His face anguished, Casey turned and fled, leaving Rhett in his dust, staring after him.
Chapter Twenty
Rhett paced the length of the stables again, kicking at loose straw. Olivia’s bombshell had rocked his world to its foundations, making him almost forget the vicious, bloody battle they’d just fought—even though his limbs wanted to tremble in the aftermath—and the realization that more evil and callous disregard for life had been shown by humans than predatory animals. No, Aldan and Vince had lost the right to be considered humans. Rhett hoped the Federal Bureau of Investigation brought the full wrath of P Division down on them.
As a consequence of that scheme, that fight, Rhett had a ranch full of possibly injured guests he should be attending to, but he was out here, leaving the doctoring to Jack and Ben. He’d swabbed himself down with antiseptic from the kit in the stables and stuck on a couple of butterfly bandages to close the gash in his skin. As he’d said, it wasn’t serious.
Whatwasbad was that Casey was gone, and Rhett couldn’t contact him, not by cell phone or “mind phone” as he called it. While Rhett tried to be understanding, fury kindled in him. “No. Not this time.” Rhett stamped a heel into the floor. “He doesnotget to flounce off again. Not this time,” he said, quieter. Like a promise to himself.
A fake cough had him spinning around to the door to see Jack sidle in. “No need to ask who you’re talking about,” Jack said.
“Didn’t know I was talking out loud,” Rhett admitted, unsurprised to see Ben with Jack. “Everything okay back there?” He laughed, although there was no humor in it.Are things okay? Sure. We just took on a pack of soulless jackal shifters and their evil human overlords and—“And Casey’s gone.” Damn, he’d said that out loud, too. “And don’t tell me to let him cool off.” He glared at the two of them.
“He’s mad at himself.”
Ben’s words had Rhett tilting his head at him, trying to understand. Casey was angry—and distressed at Rhett, surely?
“Whatever else was or is going on with the pair of you, I’ve seen him beat himself up enough to know that’s what this is.” Ben nodded.
“But…” Rhett filed that away. “So what, let him work it out of his system?”Because—
“Hell, no!” ThatBenpicked up on Rhett’s thought, his intention, was creepy.
“Go after him,” Jack added.
“Oh, I’m way ahead of you.” Rhett told his little brother. He beckoned them to Hurricane’s stall to peer over the doors and see the horse was saddled and ready.
