Quickdraw Slow Burn (Battle of the Bulls #3) - T. S. Joyce Page 0,51
men.
“Get them talking,” her wolf urged. “Keep your head. Think.”
“Why isn’t she dead?” Arrow growled out.
“Because we still need her to draw out the other three.”
The other three? “Let me guess. You want Two Shots, Dead, and Hagan’s Lace, too? Good fuckin’ luck.”
“We won’t need luck if we have bait, bitch.”
“Only bitch I see is you,” she enlightened Trevor. “Traitor.”
“Shut her up,” he growled low.
The shifter beside her hesitated. “But she’s got a baby.”
Twisting in his seat, Trevor yelled, “I don’t fucking care.”
Boom! The trailer behind them echoed with a kick from Quickdraw.
“Keep them talking.”
“Your Filsa didn’t work on him,” she rushed out.
“You really haven’t figured it out yet, have you?” Arrow said. “You think Filsa is the only drug for shifters? You think there isn’t science for anything but the ability to put a shifter animal to sleep?” He snorted like she was the dumbest thing on the planet. “We gave him Humlactol. We put his human to sleep. We put all their humans to sleep.”
Dread hit the pit of her stomach. “You did what?” she asked in horror.
“He’s all bull until the drug wears out of his system. And it’s long-lasting. For all intents and purposes, your man is dead. He’s just a dumb animal now.”
“Why do you want to kill him?” she asked.
“Oh, we don’t want to kill them. Not anymore. The man who hired us figured out they are worth more alive.”
“Sloane Brander?” she asked.
“Mmmm, clever little wolf,” Arrow murmured.
“You know too much,” Boot said. He was beside her, staring out the window at the trees rushing by, sitting as far away from her as possible.
She knew what that meant. They would use her for bait to bring in Raven, Dead, and Two Shots, and then they would kill her.
“Sloane Brander is turning his business into something no one has seen before. He’s a different sort of contractor now.”
“What sort?”
Arrow’s smile made her want to retch. “Now, he sells the bull shifters to underground medical companies for testing. Genetic testing, hormone testing, hybrid testing, breeding research, creating new medicine to harness their power, and on and on. Apparently, there’s a big need for test subjects. And they don’t want just any run-of-the-mill bull shifters. They want the best.”
“That’s awful,’ she whispered.
Callously, Trevor assured her, “That’s business.”
Boom! The trailer rocked hard behind them, and Arrow twisted around, frowned at it. “Maybe we should’ve put a few Hagans in there with him so he didn’t have so much room to move.”
“Those Hagans would’ve been dead by the time we got there,” Trevor said without turning around. He pushed his shoulder-length, dirty-blonde hair out of his face and wiped sweat from his forehead. “Hagans we can get more of. Their stock contractors send them to us straight from their fucked-up inbred herds. Quickdraw is a different kind of beast. He’s worth the most money. And when the powerhouses all disappear, attention will filter back to bull riding. Just man versus beast. No more shifter sport. And good ol’ Sloane will get paid twice.”
“You won’t get away with this,” she said, clenching her fists on her lap. Blood was still dripping down the side of her face so that tiny pit-pats hit the sleeve of her jacket. Everything hurt, but none of that was important. Just that Quickdraw and the baby were okay.
“We will get away with it,” Arrow said. “Those poor saps lying dead in the arena will not. The hard part is over for us.”
Boom!
Boom!
The forest blurred by outside the window, and dawn was starting to show its first gray light on the horizon ahead of them. Quickdraw was going to flip them. She smiled sweetly at Arrow and buckled her seatbelt.
“Hey, Trevor?” Arrow asked, rushing to buckle his too. “Do you think we should—”
BOOM!
The entire trailer toppled, flipping the truck on its side and then onto the roof. There was the chaos of screeching metal. Time slowed. The front end of the truck aimed for the tree line, and the men were yelling and scrambling inside the truck.
A giant oak stood there waiting, wide and patient, like it knew its fate was to stop this truck. As the front end wrapped around it, glass shattered and flew through the cab. Annabelle curled in on herself and threw her arms around her belly.
Gas.
Smoke.
Blood.
The sound of her panting breath was deafening.
Trevor wasn’t in the truck anymore. All she could see was the front window was completely busted out. Shattered glass coated everything. The driver wasn’t moving.
The bellowing of the