Dark eyebrows arched high, Barret asked, “Why not? I know like six ways to hide a body.”
“You know six?” Bowie Knife asked, leaping gracefully from the tree and landing with almost no impact on his legs. “Bullshit, list them.”
Barret lifted his middle finger. “One, alligators.”
“Oh, God, here we go,” Anson said, rolling his head back.
“Two,” Barret said, lifting his pointer finger, “we could call Dark Kane to eat all the bodies.”
The alpha rolled his eyes and threw his head back. He inhaled deeply and released the breath in a puff. “Can we talk about this dumb shit literally any other time than right now when we’re supposed to look like we aren’t idiots.”
“He’s a bear shifter,” Anson said in a thick southern accent.
“So?” Ben asked.
“So, who gives a fuck what he thinks because he’s a bear shifter.”
Bowie Knife snorted.
“Annalise isn’t up for grabs, Grizzly,” Ben said, running a hand over his cropped blond hair. “If I were you, I’d get out of here while the gettin’ is good.”
But Jaxon hesitated. She was really here. Ben and his crew had confirmed it. She was so close he could practically feel her, smell her, and he imagined what tasting her would be like. He’d been doing this for four months, wishing he could be close enough to see her, and now he was within spitting distance. And yeah, he was angry she’d been a lying little liar. But he also wanted to see if their connection in real life could be as strong as it was through those text messages.
Fuck, he was gonna bleed today. Fight good. Ma’s voice rang in his head as he kicked at the mud with the toe of his work boot. “I can’t leave without seeing her.”
“Can we kill him now?” Barret asked.
Jaxon chuckled and shook his head. “You can try, kitty cat. I don’t die easy, though.”
“Last chance, Grizzly, because you ain’t seein’ Annalise,” Ben said. “She’s part of my crew, and panthers don’t mix with other shifters. Everybody knows that, so don’t push me on this one or I’ll let Barret have you.”
“And me,” Anson said.
“And me,” Bowie Knife muttered, chucking his knife at the ground. It flung end over end and stuck blade first. And then he pulled his shirt off smoothly to reveal a chest that was scarred to hell. These boys were brawlers and dominant, every last one of them. Jaxon cursed Bash and Ma for not giving him more of a head’s up. He could’ve come and stolen Annalise in the night, caveman style, and saved himself some scars if he’d known she was in hillbilly panther-land.
A smattering of pops sounded, and the scent of fur hit Jaxon’s nose just as he looked over at Barret. He was already Changed into a massive black panther and was charging Jaxon. Shit, he was fast. The echo of bones breaking filled the clearing around the road, and then his own Change came out of nowhere since his inner grizzly was pissed.
Barret barreled into him and slammed him into the side of the truck just as his bear hit the ground on all fours.
And then there were claws, teeth, and pain.
Chapter Three
The scream of a panther made Annalise sit up straight in bed. Frozen, she sat there, ears straining, staring at the door of her single room cabin. Perhaps she’d imagined it.
A deep, terrifying, and unfamiliar roar shook the entire house.
“Oh, my gosh,” she murmured, flying into action.
Something was wrong. They were under attack, or the police were here, or they were at war with another crew, or something equally bad. She just knew it.
Instincts blaring, Annalise threw open the door and looked frantically around. Two cabins down, Jenny, the alpha’s mate, stood staring at the woods, her six-year-old son, Raif, gathered against the front of her. She cast Annalise a worried glance, her shoulder-length brunette locks twitching with the movement.
“Not much scares the boys,” she murmured, “but if it’s a grizzly shifter…it’s bad news.”
“What do we do?”
Another roar sounded, followed by the screams of two panthers.
“Jenny, what do we do?” Annalise repeated louder as panic did something awful to the animal inside of her.
Jenny sighed. “We kill it.”
Annalise’s legs were moving before she fully registered what Jenny had uttered. Kill it? She’d seen bear shifters before on television. They were monstrous things, massive bruins twice the size of panthers. Three times, perhaps. But kill it? She didn’t even know why she was running through the woods right now. She didn’t understand her panther’s reaction, but now she could smell fur and blood, and the fighting was so loud it made her dizzy.
A tree root came out of nowhere, tripping her, and with a cry, she pitched forward. Before she hit the ground, something more terrifying than a grizzly in her new territory happened. Her panther exploded from her.
And now she was going to kill everyone.
She wanted to sob and scream, “No!” and tuck herself back into her human skin so she wouldn’t hurt anyone, but it was too late. She-Devil was out.
The Red Havoc Woods blurred by, and her stomach dipped with how fast she was in this body. She was a black-furred bullet headed straight into the heart of the fight. This was what She-Devil lived for—bleeding things. Ben and the crew were going to be so mad at her.
Through a break in the trees, she could make out the clearing around the single dirt lane that wound through the forest. Parked near the trees was a giant, jacked-up silver Dodge Ram that was a damn monster truck, and beside it was the battle she’d heard. The grizzly was bigger than any she’d seen in the news. It had reddish brown fur and black, six-inch claws that arched through the air as he swatted a panther across the ribs and sent it flying into a tree. It’s glowing green eyes sparked with intense fury as he swung around to the cat currently biting the muscular hump on his back. He reached over his shoulder and ripped it off with such violence, it should’ve stopped her in her tracks.