Dead of Winter (Battle of the Bulls #2) - T. S. Joyce Page 0,54

he said at the door. He gave her a wink. “I’ll see you out there. I’ll be with you the whole time.”

When he disappeared out the door, Raven clenched her shaking hands. “Be tough. Be the animal. Be tough. Be the animal,” she chanted to herself.

The change was painful because she pushed it, but a few moments of bones breaking, skin stretching, fur growing, face elongating, and horns pushing out of her skull, the pain was done, and only a tingling headache was left behind. But that, she didn’t care about in this body. All this part of her cared about was filling a bone-deep need for violence. That was the Hagan blood in her. Thanks, Ma. Thanks, Pa.

She charged the door and slammed it open so hard, the thing fell off its hinges. Outside, Dead and a handler were sitting on top of a fence, and Dead was pointing to the rope the handler had just dropped. It had been attached to the door handle. “Told you you wouldn’t need that.”

The handler looked terrified.

Ima kill him. Teach him real fear. She charged him, but Dead pulled him off the fence easily. Killjoy.

She tossed him a snort and looked for another victim, preferably one that wasn’t under Dead’s annoying arm of protection.

There. At the end of the alleyway was a human. Just a little one. Just a man waving a glow stick. Fuck that man. And fuck that glowstick.

Also screw that television above her that showed her trotting down the alleyway. She bucked her back end and kicked up dirt. Screw you TV. She pushed her legs and charged toward the man at the end, but he was a smart little cockroach and scrambled over a gate. Oh, another human, another glowstick, and he was in a little pen. She bolted for him, but as soon as she was within killing distance, he slipped through an open gate, and it slammed closed behind him.

Screw you, Billy Buzzkill.

The sting of betrayal was as long as a river and deep as a canyon, and it fueled her rage.

There were people up on the fences of the holding pen now, yelling, pissing her off, and something hit her hind end and stung. A cattle prod? Had someone just hit her with an electric current. Everyone was going to die.

She pushed forward, charging at a man up ahead in the narrowing alleyway. This time, she took matters into her own hooves and jumped for the top of the metal panel to get to him. He yelled and fell backward into the dirt, and she would’ve cleared it and landed on top of him if someone hadn’t used the cattle prod on her shoulder right at that moment. She clattered back to earth and bellowed a battle cry. The panels were closing in behind her, and she had to turn her head to fit her wide horns through the narrow alleyway. She saw light through the open gates ahead, so she kept moving forward, until suddenly the panel in front of and behind her slammed closed with a resounding gong. She butted the one in front of her face and kicked viciously at the one behind her, but those suckers were sturdy.

“That’s a cow?” Buster asked from above her on the chute platform. She looked up at him and wished to God she could smile at him from this body.

Her horns made it hard to move, and someone was rubbing a rope on her neck. It pissed her off more. Stop!

The flank strap was around her waist now and Buster was easing his legs over her sides. She bucked and kicked, but her horns were between slats of metal in the chute and she was pinned from going anywhere.

Hagan’s Lace slammed her side against the chute gate, and Buster cried out but stayed in place. He was messing with another rope on her front end. She hated everything about what was happening. Being trapped. The rope agitating her neck while some cowboy on the other side of the chute panel in front of her rubbed a rope back and forth behind her horns. The rider digging his metal spurs into her ribs. The rope tightening on her front. The rope tightening around her belly. She couldn’t see Dead. Dead?

Through the slats, a gateman held a rope taut, waiting to pull the gate open. There were a few bullfighters and some pickup men on horseback on the other side of the brightly lit arena. The crowd