Quickdraw Slow Burn (Battle of the Bulls #3) - T. S. Joyce Page 0,52

bull drowned out everything.

“Move,” the wolf said. “Get out of here. He’s coming for them. He’s coming for revenge.”

Panicked, she unbelted herself with shaking fingers and yelped as she hit the smashed-in roof of the truck. Arrow was struggling to get out of his seatbelt.

“I can’t get it undone,” he gritted out.

“That’s tragic.” Sarcasm was her favorite trauma-coping mechanism.

“Help me,” he growled as she slithered her way out the misshapen window.

The other shifter had already escaped the crushed cab.

Another bellow from Quickdraw rattled the cab. Pieces of glass dislodged from the broken windows and tinkled onto the ground. She turned. “Would you like to die out here or in there?”

“Out there.”

“Request denied.” Annabelle gave him an empty smile. “Save me a seat in Hell.”

“Bitch, get back here!”

“It’s Annabelle the Bitch to you.” She walked away just as Quickdraw came charging down the dark road. That truck and those men didn’t stand a chance.

And while that monstrous, bleeding, enraged bull was destroying the people who had done their best to destroy them, she wiped the warmth that was dripping down her cheek with the back of her hand, unzipped her jacket, pulled her phone out of her hoodie, and connected a call.

“Good morning!” Raven answered cheerfully.

Annabelle didn’t know why that struck her as funny, but it did. Raven was completely unaware of the hell she and Quickdraw had just been through, and her cheerfulness felt so surreal. It also reminded her that everything was okay. Kind of. Well, they were okay except Quickdraw, who was a bull for an undisclosed amount of time. He was currently pulverizing the Chevy but, eventually, he was probably going to be okay.

Why was she so calm right now?

Maybe she was in shock.

“Good morning. There’s been an accident, and we need a ride.”

There were two beats of silence on the other end of the line. “What kind of accident?”

The truck flared up in an angry fire with flames twice as tall as her. Quickdraw was now pulverizing a burning truck. Huh. “Um, maybe it would be better for me to explain in person.”

“Where are you?”

“Uuuuh…” She looked around, trying to clear her head. Where the heck were they? Now she was starting to shake. Adrenaline maybe. Or another phase of the shock. “On the main road heading west away from the property of a man named Russ. He used to sell bucking bulls to the riders on the circuit for practice bulls, but he’s retired. Has a son named Scott who breeds bulls now.”

“Okay, I can use that.” Ravens voice was shaking in rhythm like she was running. “I’m going to wake up Cheyenne. Do we need a clean-up crew?”

“A clean-up crew?”

“Is there blood?”

Well, she and Quickdraw looked like they’d been through a woodchipper and back, but that probably wasn’t what Raven was really asking. Was there blood? “Yep.”

“We’ll be right there.”

Chapter Seventeen

“Did you hear me?” the nurse asked softly.

“Annabelle,” Raven murmured, squeezing her hand.

She dragged her eyes away from the bird sitting in a tree outside the hospital room window. “I should be with Quickdraw.”

“He’s not in the hospital right now,” Raven murmured. “Cheyenne and the boys are prepping him to buck tonight. Otherwise they would all be here.”

“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