Quickdraw Slow Burn Read online

  “He’s bucking tonight?”

  “Well…” Raven glanced at the nurse whose eyes were a little too bright gray to be quite human. Robin, her nametag read. Raven had sniffed her out and brought her in to care for Annabelle. Was she a robin shifter? It would be kinda funny if she were a lion shifter named after a bird.

  Quickdraw was bucking tonight, but she just wanted Quickdraw to hold her and tell her everything was going to be okay. To tell her he was okay. Did robin shifters exist? What if chicken shifters existed? Would chicken shifters have to lay an egg every day? It would suck to be a chicken shifter. Where was Quickdraw? Who was caring for him? Her mind bounced this way and that.

  Raven cleared her throat. “Quickdraw’s not feeling so hot right now, but they’re fixing him up in the vet pen at the arena. I’ll take you to see him when they clear you to go.”

  “You still heal faster than humans,” Robin murmured. “Even pregnant, your healing only slowed a little. Your bruises are already looking better. Give me two hours in here, and I can get you papers to have you released. That was a nasty bump on your head.” She lifted her chin a little higher, and the flyaway strands of her mouse-brown hair fell backward toward her bun. “The person who did that to you. Did you make sure he will never do that to anyone again?”

  Annabelle shrugged. She didn’t give details to strangers, but Robin smiled like she knew the answer. “Good. Do you want to see him?”

  “Quickdraw?”

  Robin shook her head. “No, the baby.”

  Annabelle sat up straighter in the hospital bed, her heart kicking into a gallop. “Yes,” she rushed out on a breath.

  She’d already heard the heartbeat. Heard it with her own ears. Robin even had saved the audio file and emailed it to her. She’d opened it on her phone and listened to it over and over with Raven, so she knew he was okay. Her little moodude. She just had this feeling her boy would be a bull instead of a wolf. Or maybe she wanted him to be like Quickdraw.

  Was he disappointed? Would he run?

  Those questions played in an endless loop. Today had been endless, too. She could sleep for three years.

  Raven couldn’t stop smiling. Not since Annabelle had told her about the baby. Annabelle had a face filled with stitches, looked like she’d been through hell and back, and Raven wasn’t even concerned. Nope. She had been shopping online for baby clothes. Little baby boy was going to be spoiled rotten before Annabelle even finished growing him.

  Robin squirted warm gel on her belly and placed a wand there, moved it around until she found a blob in a blob. “There he is. Look, you can see his little heart beating.”

  On the grainy screen, it looked like a little person already with little paddle hands, a head, and little rounded tummy. Oh, the cute little tummy!

  “You’re a wolf?” Robin asked.

  Annabelle nodded. It’s all she could do. She couldn’t take her eyes off the little baby on the gritty black and white screen.

  “Then your gestation will be about half of a human’s. That’s why he’s so developed already.”

  “Well, that and you should see his daddy,” Raven muttered. “Heaven help Annabelle when she goes into labor. He’ll probably come out looking like a two-year-old. And when he hits his growth spurts? Good luck feeding him. His father is roughly the size of Mount Rushmore.”

  Raven was teasing, but Annabelle couldn’t help the grin on her face at the visual. “I won’t mind.”

  In this moment, she was falling in love.

  Her emotions got to her, and her eyes burned with tears. It was Raven’s fault. When she dragged her eyes off the screen long enough to look at her best friend, Raven was smiling and crying and all emotional, and it tipped Annabelle over the edge, too.

  Affectionately, Raven pressed Annabelle’s hand to her cheek as her shoulders shook. “This is amazing, Annabelle,” she whispered thickly. “I can practically feel how happy you are.”

  “I’m not a lone wolf anymore,” Annabelle told her. “I’m not alone.”

  “No, you’re not.” Raven squeezed her hand. “But you know, Annabelle? You never really were.”

  ****

  Everything was red. It’s all he saw. Everyone was red, and he hated everything. He wanted to kill anyone he saw. Where was she? Where was his?

  He couldn’t change into a human to ask. He just had to sit here in this fucking chute, pinned in a small space, while people doctored him with some putrid smelling cleaning shit. He would rather roll in guano than have this crap on him. He smelled like a fucking sterilized mango. Whatever scientist invented this medicine was definitely a woman and probably spent too much of her salary at lotion stores.

  Was she okay? His?

  He’d never wished to turn back into the man because the man in him was weak. Or so he’d thought before today. His human felt too much and offered too much mercy but, now, after he’d killed all those men to protect his, the bull didn’t hate him quite so much.

  He wished he could be human so he could ask where she was. Where was his?

  “He’s as good as he’s going to get,” Cheyenne said to Two Shots.

  He had a good herd if one ignored their taste in medicine. It was hard to be a badass and smell like a fruit.

  The announcers were calling a buck right now, describing it, explaining it to the crowds. He wanted to buck. He wanted to kill something. More somethings.

  Someone was messing with his horns. He slammed his head against the chute.

  “Cool it, man. We have to clean the blood off before you go out there. There are two more bucks before you’re up.” Two Shots was on one side spraying water and wiping down his horns with a cloth, and on the other side of the chute, Dead of Winter was silently doing the same.

  He’d been quiet since they’d come to pick them up and seen the destruction Quickdraw had done. Good. The herd should know what he was—a monster.

  “I wish I had been there to help you,” Dead murmured.

  What? Quickdraw stopped struggling against his horns pinned between the slats in the chute.

  “Your lady is pregnant, and you had to watch them do that to her face. And I know there were moments you couldn’t get to her, and that fucks with a man. Fucks with a bull, and I’m sorry we weren’t there. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” Dead swallowed hard and dragged emotion-filled eyes down his wrecked body. “You did good. You made sure she was all right.”

  His was all right? Quickdraw perked up, ears erect. The baby?

  Dead lowered his voice. “They’re both all right. Annabelle is trying to get here in time. Do this one for her. You got a tough lady. You gotta good match.”

  God. Bless. Dead.

  Huffing a long breath, Quickdraw leaned against the fencing on Dead’s side for a few seconds, but then stood back up and slammed his horn against the slat just to remind everyone he wasn’t soft. Because he wasn’t.

  Not tonight.

  Tonight, he had shit to do because it wasn’t just him and his goals anymore. Triumph meant he could build a better life for Annabelle. For the baby. Those two words had changed everything. They’d saved them both. I’m pregnant. That had filled him with a protective rage that had turned the tide. Those two words weren’t shackles. They’d freed them.

  And, tonight, he would buck for someone outside of himself.

  He would buck for Annabelle and the boy.

  And heaven help the rider who tried to spend eight seconds on his back.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Hurry, hurry. This way,” Raven murmured, clutching Annabelle’s hand as she led her through the bottom level of risers toward the chutes.

  Annabelle’s heart was hammering. They’d rushed from the hospital the second they’d secured discharge papers, but she could see the handlers had already loaded Quickdraw into bucking chute number three. There was already a rider on his back, trying to secure the rope around his hand and settle into position.

  “He’s going to buck him off in the chute t
o shake him up,” Annabelle said excitedly.

  “Here, here, here,” Raven said frantically, yanking a rope with a Reserved sign off an entrance to a private box.

  Annabelle rushed down to the front of the box and watched as Quickdraw went straight up, nearly cleared the side of the chute, and slammed his head toward Brandon Murphy’s team. The announcers were going wild, and the crowd was cheering and jeering, ooing and ahhing, as they showed Brandon’s team pulling him off the bucking bull’s back and dragging him behind the chutes.

  “Hey, you knew he was going to do that,” Raven said, gripping the rail beside her.

  “He won’t be spinning either.”

  Raven was staring at her.

  “What?” Annabelle asked.

  “Happy sure looks good on you.” She used the words Annabelle had told Raven in the Dusty Armadillo that first night.

  Annabelle bumped Raven’s shoulder. Annabelle was banged up, had a baseball cap on to hide a gnarly set of stitches on her bandaged hairline, had been through something horrifically traumatizing, but no one could accuse her life of being boring. She was okay, the baby was okay, and Quickdraw was clearly okay. The announcers were explaining that they had to skip Brandon’s turn for a moment to get him settled and reset.

  “I have to get back and change. I’m bucking in two turns, but that guy volunteered to bodyguard you.” Raven twitched her chin to a man sitting behind them. “He’s already bucked, so now he can just sit here and fuck up anyone who messes with you.”

  Annabelle smiled at First Time Train Wreck who tipped his cowboy hat, leaned back into his chair, and scanned the risers around them.

  “I’ll be fine,” Annabelle assured Raven. “You’re fussing. Go on, Hagan’s Lace. Go show those boys how it’s done.”

  Raven grinned. She was a scrawny, tattooed goth girl with a monster in her middle that had never made sense until she met Dead of Winter and started bucking in the circuit. Now, she was the one to watch. She even had a chance to finish in some money tonight if she dominated. She would. Annabelle knew she would.

  “Hey, Raven,” she said as her friend went bounding toward the chutes.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m proud of you.”

  And, damn, did happy look good on her friend. Pink cheeks, big grin, mushy eyes, the works.

  They were about to pull the gate on Quickdraw. Brandon was settled again, and Quickdraw was leaning his weight on the chute gate, pinning his leg. Brandon was yelling something at his handlers, but she couldn’t hear what over the cheering of the crowd. Fans were holding signs for Quickdraw, and the song “We Will Rock You” blared over the loudspeakers as the announcers talked him up.

  “Come on,” she murmured to herself. “Come on, Quickdraw. Do it.”

  The gate was pulled, and there was a split second where Quickdraw froze. And then he flew out of the chute like a bat out of Hell. He sailed toward the rafters, kicking, twisting his body. And, God, what a shredded body. He was covered in claw marks and gouges. His face was swollen on one side. Half of his horn had busted off, and there were streaks of crimson stained into the splintered parts. He was massive, every muscle tensed as he went insane. Brandon was sitting sideways, hanging on for dear life, as Quickdraw slammed his massive hooves into the arena dirt, then jerked the other way, swung his hips out hard, and flung Brandon into the fences.

  Brandon scrambled up as four wranglers tried to keep Quickdraw’s deadly attention from the downed rider. He charged anyone close, moving always toward where Brandon was climbing the fence to get out of the way. Quickdraw rammed the fence so hard it dented inward, and the crowd went wild as he turned and trotted toward the middle.

  He looked like he’d been through Hell and back, a bleeding bull of the apocalypse. Looking for his next victim, he took off and smashed into a barrel one of the wranglers had ducked into. The song was still playing, and the announcers were gushing. Annabelle couldn’t be any prouder if she tried.

  As the barrel went rolling across the arena, his score was announced. 44.1—a damn-near perfect score.

  “And there you have it, folks. Take a good luck because you are witnessing history right now. Quickdraw Slow Burn has won the finals a day early. He’s so far ahead in points this season, no other bull can catch him, even with a perfect score. This is your number one bull shifter in the world.”

  “He won?” she asked Train Wreck.

  Train Wreck nodded. “I knew he would. Whatever shit he’s been through today? Whatever hurt him? That’s fuel for a bull like Quickdraw. He doesn’t even have to buck off Lee Bristol tomorrow, but I bet he will. He’ll give the crowd the show they want.”

  Shocked, she cheered at the top of her lungs with the other fans.

  Quickdraw was trotting around the arena, charging any wrangler that got too close, also the pickup men who tried and failed to rope his neck. He dodged out of the way and was scanning the crowd. He was looking for something.

  “He’s looking for us,” her wolf said.

  Annabelle leaned over the railing and murmured, “Quickdraw.”

  He twitched his head immediately and locked eyes on her from across the arena. He’d told her he wanted her to be there. He’d told her he wanted to see her in the stands when he finished a buck.

  He galloped straight for her and, for a second, she thought he would jump the fence, but he didn’t. Instead, he skidded to a stop in front of her and bumped the fence, rested his head there.

  She reached down and pressed her palm on the top of his head, right between his horns.

  “Ma’am, don’t touch him! He’s dangerous,” a pickup man yelled a warning as he galloped toward her on a horse.

  Annabelle shook her head. “I’m his. He won’t hurt what’s his.”

  A glance up on the huge screen mounted above the center of the arena, and the camera was on her, leaned over the railing, resting her hand on a monstrous looking bull that was holding still for her. He was the bull. He was her bull.

  Quickdraw Slow Burn wasn’t running.

  He’d found her in the crowd and let the world know exactly what she was to him.

  They were going to do this.

  Together.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “What if he never changes back?” Annabelle watched Quickdraw trot around the holding pen, spin, and then pace back the other way. He didn’t slow, he didn’t stop, he didn’t rest.

  The rage never rested.

  His hide was covered in blood and sweat, his head up, ears erect, looking right through anyone who dared to look at him. Everyone but her. Annabelle was safe from his fury.

  “He’ll change back as soon as the drug is out of his system,” Two Shots murmured from where he stood next to her, elbows resting on the fence.

  They all looked the same—the entire herd. Dead of Winter and Raven, Two Shots Down and Cheyenne, and her…Annabelle Faulk, because she had chosen this life in the quiet moments as she’d waited for her man to come back to her. She’d chosen these people. No, she wasn’t a lone wolf anymore, but she wasn’t part of a pack. She was different, and that was okay. She was a wolf in a herd, and perhaps that would be strange to others, but for her? It felt right.

  A week of exhaustion and worry, taking shifts to watch him through the night, all of it. They wore matching black circles under their eyes, and there was such a deep hole in the herd that there was no smiling, no laughter anymore—only an air of worry.

  She was standing in the middle of bull shifter royalty. To her left was Two Shots Down, number two bull in the world, finishing with a three hundred-thousand-dollar purse in the finals. Next to him was Cheyenne, the badass manager who wrangled these beasts. On Annabelle’s other side was Raven, the number four bucking bull…er cow…in the world as of last Saturday night. She’d brought it, just like Annabelle knew she would, and ended up with enough points the last half of the season to rank up there with the big boys. So far, no one had made it eight seconds on her back. On Raven’s other s
ide was her mate, Dead of Winter, number three bull in the world, who had finished in the money, too.

  And in the holding pen in front of them, the number one bucking bull in the world—Quickdraw Slow Burn. And he’d done it severely injured, poisoned, and with his human side muted.

  And on the other side of Dead? First Time Train Wreck said, “He’ll change back. The Hagan’s have all changed back. The drug just needed to get through their system. I took the last of them where they needed to go today.”

  “Why?” Dead asked him. “You’re spending your own money on their travel, on taking care of them. Why do that?”

  “Because once upon a time, someone drugged me and two of my friends, and I lost one. And a werewolf who didn’t even know who I was stood guard over me when I was in the hospital.” Train Wreck slid a glance to Annabelle. “I believe in paying it forward.”

  “Aw, look at you, being a decent person and all,” Dead crooned.

  Train Wreck snorted. “Fuck off. I’m here for the karma points.”

  “Lie,” Two Shots said softly.

  And Annabelle could hear it in his tone, too. She watched Train Wreck’s solemn face as he tracked Quickdraw’s progress across the back of the holding pen.

  Simply, Cheyenne said, “You care.”

  Train Wreck shrugged up a shoulder, flipped them off, and then walked away into the night shadows, headed for his truck.

  They were the last ones left in the venue RV park right outside of the arena, but Train Wreck had stayed behind in some hotel in town, checking in with them each day. He’d even taken a couple shifts watching Quickdraw at night so the herd could get a little sleep.

  “Sloane is still out there,” Dead called. “He’s going to be a problem for all of us.”

  “No, he won’t,” came Train Wreck’s echoing response from the dark.

  “I fuckin’ knew it,” Dead murmured.

  “Knew what?” Raven asked.

  “He’s been hunting Sloane. Hunter called tonight and made sure it was okay to give Train Wreck information.” Dead perked up. “We picked up a stray!”