Lift Her Up (Kaid Ranch Shifters #3) - T. S. Joyce Page 0,25

and used that awful, sickly bond for evil. Wes could feel something crackling through the bond the instant before his mind was filled with an image of Sam dragging Summer by the hair into the woods. She was screaming for Wes to “Help me!” Her eyes were so full of fear.

Wes’s body seized. He released Sam’s arm from his bite and hit the concrete hard enough to rattle his body. He couldn’t see anything but the image of Sam in his human form, laugh echoing through the woods as Summer held his wrists to ease the tension of him pulling her by the hair, kicking her legs through the snow. Snow? It wasn’t snowing. She was trailing a river of red through it. Bones was a sick fuck for imagining this and giving it to Wes. She looked so scared.

“I want you to see your death coming,” Bones whispered as the image in Wes’s mind dissipated, exposing the real world again. Bones stood over him, pinning him to the concrete by his neck, his massive clawed hand in the air, his fucked-up wolf face covered in blood and twisted with that empty smile.

Wes could play with the bond, too, and if he was going out, he would poison Bones with the truth. He ripped that bond wide open and shoved a vision through.

Four matching blue bag chairs sat on the edge of the river. Blue cooler. Cold beer. Laughter echoing through the clearing as Sam swung way out on a rope and cannonballed into the water. Ten out of ten, Summer called from one of the bag chairs where she sat with her toes in the water and a beer in her hand.

Sam broke the surface of the water. No scars, no emptiness to his smile. He shook the droplets out of his hair and treaded water.

“My turn next,” Hunter called.

“What trick are you going to do this time?” Sam asked.

“Same as you,” Hunter answered, pulling the rope back to the swinging tree on the shore.

“Lame,” Wes called from where he was sitting in the bag chair next to Summer. “Why do you always copy us?”

Hunter shrugged. “Because you’re my big brothers. I want to be just like you.”

Wes could hear the gasp in the monster’s throat, and closed his eyes, waiting for a death blow. The pain didn’t come though. Wes eased open his eyes, and for a second, he could see a flicker of his brother in the monster’s face. He could see an instant of confusion, of recognition. Just a second, and then it was gone, replaced by a wave of fury.

“Liar,” Bones snarled out, lifting his hand higher in the air.

Wes struggled, but he was pinned, choking, and no amount of clawing at Bone’s chest and arms loosened the monster’s grip. There was nothing more painful than being killed by one of the people a man loved most. By his brother.

I’m sorry, he whispered through Hunter and Bryson’s bonds just as Bones’s claws came at his face.

Boom! Bones was blasted sideways by a big black cannonball.

Wes sat up in shock. Summer’s wolf was latched onto the back of Bones’s neck, shaking her entire body to get a better rip. And Wolf didn’t give a fuck about being gentle. She was in it to kill.

Wes tried to get up, but his body wasn’t working. Red painted the sidewalk, and now he was beginning to feel it. The ache of what Bones had done to him. Bones’s short fur was matted and wet with crimson. His flesh hung in tatters from their war, but he was a different creature. Wes’s body could take a helluva beating. But Bones’s could take more.

The monster reached over his shoulder and ripped Summer off his back, threw her hard, and she hit a tree on the side of the road.

“Summer!”

She yelped a whine and Changed back to her human form, kneeling on the dried leaves, her teeth bared as she glared at Bones. “Wes isn’t a liar. I saw what he showed you. I was there. I looked different, but that was me, giving y’all tens on every dumb rope swing trick you did into that river. If you wanna call someone a liar, aim it at me. At most, your dumb cannonball was a six.”

Bones was shrinking slowly, his shoulders slimming, his muzzle shortening. He had his hands over his ears, shaking his head. “Stop,” he said, desperation tinging his voice.

“Wes, show him who the fuck he is!” she yelled, standing