Quickdraw Slow Burn (Battle of the Bulls #3) - T. S. Joyce Page 0,47

practice, but it might help to get my belly burned before tonight. The bull will be even more pissed when they tighten one on sensitive skin.” He removed his shirt and hopped the fence easily, walked away toward the chutes while rubbing the rope back and forth across his stomach.

She winced at how much that must hurt, but he didn’t respond to the pain at all. And it hit her as she watched him walk away. His whole career revolved around pain. He had to shred his body and condition it to keep in shape for bucks. He had to stave off injuries or heal them fast. He lived in pain for the love of his career. This man thrived on suffering. He excelled at it, which was how he’d gotten that top bull rank. And he never complained about discomfort.

She’d never met a man so tough, and it made her respect him even more.

A bull bellowed from the holding pens on the opposite side of the arena and, on instinct, she sniffed the air. She inhaled something she hadn’t expected; the air was heavy with the smell of man and fur. Not Quickdraw and not Russ.

Maybe Russ’s son had spent a lot of time here last night and his smell was lingering?

She narrowed her eyes at the chutes beyond the arena. Russ had acted weird about her being around those bulls, and now her wolf instincts had perked up.

She made her way around the corner of the arena to the straightaway behind the chutes. She could see the bulls moving around in the pens as she approached, but they weren’t targeting her. They were actually moving away from her and restless. Huh.

She rested her arms on the pen of the three in front. Dang, they were monstrous, and their horns were much longer than she’d seen on other bucking bulls.

“Hey, boys,” she murmured as one paced across the length of the pen right in front of her. It had a brand that looked so familiar.

The half-moon was low in the sky and cast everything in a blue light. That brand, though.

She turned around and started walking away, shaking her head to try to rattle a memory loose. H10R. The font was even familiar with the little hooks on the end.

Raven.

Annabelle locked her legs and skidded to a stop, frozen there as the memory of Raven’s brand filled her mind. On her hip, there was an H6O. The sixth calf of a Hagan pair, and the only heifer.

H10R was the tenth calf from a Hagan pair, and the R would be the first letter of the Hagan herd name.

They had a Hagan brand on a bull that wasn’t a shifter.

Chills rippling up her spine, she padded back toward the bulls, dragging her cell phone out of her pocket. She turned on her light to see the brand better.

Oh shit. Those brands…she knew those brands. Shocked, she looked at the hips of all three bulls in this pen.

H10R

H8R

H1C

Her heart drummed against her chest. Those were just like Raven’s brand. She hadn’t been mistaken. Annabelle shone her light over the other pens. There had to be a dozen bulls, and from what she could see, they all had Hagan brands.

The big gray brindled bull in the pen walked directly in front of her line of site and stopped, and when she shone the light on his face, she stumbled backward.

His eyes were human. They were a light hazel color.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered in horror.

These bulls weren’t animals at all. They were changed shifters! They were Hagan bulls!

“Quickdraw!” she yelled. “Something is wrong!”

She turned and started running toward the chutes. A man appeared out of nowhere, and she almost ran into the chest of Arrow Caster. He gripped her shoulders. She opened her mouth to scream out a warning to Quickdraw, but Arrow shoved her backward. She barely caught herself from falling. Fury flooding her veins, she staggered upright and clenched her fists at her sides. She was going to fucking kill Arrow.

“I told you not to go back near them bulls,” Russ said from behind her. As she turned around, she saw the shovel just before it connected with her head.

There was an agonizing flash of pain, and then everything went dark.

Chapter Sixteen

The buzzing noise in her ear was getting annoying. What was that? A fly?

Shoo fly, I’m sleepy.

The buzzing got louder.

She cracked an eye open but didn’t understand the world around her. Didn’t understand the chaos.

She was in an arena,