Stupid him, he’d thought she was in trouble, and he was here on some half-cocked rescue mission to get her out of whatever danger she’d found, but nope, she was just a damn big cat, doing big cat shit. Girls were complicated enough without claws.
Fuck, he’d really liked Annalise, but big cats and bears didn’t mix.
“Don’t run,” Ma said through the phone, like she could read his mind. He hated when she guessed his feelings. “See why she moved out there at least. She hasn’t been a part of a crew before now, so something happened. You owe it to yourself to at least see her tits.”
“Ma,” he gritted out.
“I meant see her.” There was the crinkle of paper, and then she was chewing loudly in the phone.
“Ma, listen to your maternal instincts and share,” Jathan demanded.
“Boy, I love you, but I’m not sharing my Twinkie with you. You’re a grown man. Go get your own.”
Tiredly, Jaxon muttered, “I’m hanging up now.”
“Don’t forget to expose your neck, boy,” Dad called through the phone.
Unease unfurled deep in his gut. “What do you mean?”
“If you’re in panther territory, they’ll be hunting you already. Put up a fight, but if you’re losing too badly, expose that neck and hope they don’t go for the jugular. Good luck getting boned.”
“Fight good! Bye, baby,” Ma sang.
“I’m kind of sorry, Jax!” Bash rushed out right before the line went dead.
Jaxon dropped the phone in the cup holder and threw the truck into gear. Hell no to all of this. He was out of here. He needed to regroup at a local hotel and figure out his next move, but he was definitely not ready to go to war with the panthers over Annalise. If he was perfectly honest, he was pissed at her for lying.
Jaxon spun his tires out on the grass. The headlights were facing the road again before he noticed the red-headed man standing in the middle of the dirt track. His blazing gold eyes were hard as stones, his head canted, his mouth set in a grim line of fury, and every muscle in his body tense. Sheeyit.
With a snarl, Jaxon slammed on the brakes and shoved the truck into park. His bear was right there now, ready to fight, just like always when he saw another male shifter. He pushed open the door and was pulling off his shirt the second his shoes hit the soggy ground.
“Careful,” the man drawled in a voice too low and gravelly to be human. “You’re in my territory. You’ll answer questions before we bleed. Why are you here, Jaxon Barns?”
Great, this man knew him, but Jaxon didn’t know a damn thing about him. He hated this kind of disadvantage. “You know my name, so you know who will come raining fire if I don’t make it back home.”
“Damon? Damon doesn’t scare me, Grizzly. I could have Dark Kane here much sooner than the blue dragon could burn my woods. Let’s not put our friends at war though, yeah?”
“Are you the alpha here?”
The man dipped his chin once, and his eyes blazed even brighter. Movement caught his attention to the right, and when Jaxon glanced over, there was a tall man with a single scar down his face, arms crossed over his chest. He spat and leaned languidly against the trunk of a tree. Jaxon wasn’t often snuck up on, so in a bout of self-preservation, he scanned the rest of the woods to find two more men. One was squatted down in the dirt, glaring up at him from ten yards off, and one was sitting up on a thick, low-hanging branch, one leg draped over the side, as he cut chunks of red apple with a foot-long bowie knife. That one smiled at him like a psychopath right before he popped a sliver of fruit into his maw.
Four cats, and he could take them easily. Still, he was careful where he waged war. He’d seen too much in Damon’s Mountains to waltz into fights unprepared, and he didn’t know much about the reclusive panther crew. They could have a dozen more hiding in the woods for all he knew. “Look, I’m not here for any trouble. This is all just a misunderstanding. I was looking for this girl—”
“What girl?” the alpha asked.
Jaxon narrowed his eyes and scrubbed his hand down his jaw. He might be pissed at Annalise for lying, but it still didn’t feel right putting her name in front of these backwoods shifters if she wasn’t here. The instinct to protect her was still strong as ever. “Clearly, she’s not here, so it doesn’t matter.”
“You talkin’ about the dumb one?” the man in the tree asked. “The one with no instincts at all?”
Pursing his lips, Jaxon angled his head in denial. “Nope. She’s smart.”
“Human smart or shifter smart?” the man squatting in the dirt asked. “We got a newcomer here who is one, but not the other.”
“Anson!” the alpha snarled.
“Well what, Ben? If he wants her, he should take her straight outta here and save us all some misery. I mean”—he shrugged and gave a quick gesture to the woods—“where is she? Surely she can hear a big-ass loud truck in her territory, but she’s probably holed up in her room, paintin’ her nails or doin’ a facial or whatever other dumb shit pretty girls like her do.”
“Annalise?” Jaxon asked.
“That’s the one,” the man in the tree said, waving the tip of his knife toward the road. “We call her Princess Panther.”
“Why are we talking and not killing?” asked the tall man leaning up against the tree.
“Barret, I’ve told you, we can’t kill everyone who drifts through our woods,” Ben murmured.