Quickdraw Slow Burn (Battle of the Bulls #3) - T. S. Joyce Page 0,49

around his wrists and stretched them visibly. God, he was strong.

“Stop!” Arrow demanded, running the last few steps toward him. “Boys, hold him down!”

Annabelle kicked wildly as the man with the needle approached her.

“I’m pregnant!” she screamed. “I can’t change. I’m pregnant! You’ll hurt my baby with that Filsa. You’ll hurt him! Please don’t!”

Her last plea echoed through the arena, and everything faded away except for Quickdraw.

He froze, mid-struggle, his eyes went wide, and his mouth parted like he wanted to say something. She’d never witnessed actual horror flit across someone’s face like this before.

“He’s yours,” she forced past her tightening vocal cords.

The whites of Quickdraw’s eyes disappeared, and turned pure black. As he gritted his teeth, his focus slid to the men holding her, and his features twisted with rage. The air grew heavy with this dark power that clogged her airway. With a bellowing roar, he snapped the ropes on his wrists and shrugged off the four men holding him. He slammed his fist into the face of the one on his right so hard she could feel the vibration from his hit across the arena. The man went down and didn’t move as Quickdraw pulled another man over his shoulder like a rag doll and threw him at Arrow.

Arrow ducked out of the way, but he dropped the syringe in the dirt.

“Shit! Trevor! Get the tranq gun!”

Trevor? Trevor Watkins, owner of Trusted, that Goddamn assassin company.

Annabelle twisted away from the human with the needle and clamped her teeth hard onto the behemoth’s wrist. Now it was her turn to snap bones.

“Kill them,” her wolf whispered. “Kill them all for me. For us.”

She reared back and blasted her fist across his face. He shrieked in pain as blood poured from the sides of her mouth. She hated the taste of him. Bear tasted awful.

The first snapping of his bones sounded, and she had to move. Twisting fast, she ducked out of the way of the other man, barely escaping the syringe in his hand. She grabbed his wrist and slammed the Filsa into his own neck. The man dropped, and his pupils dilated in an instant.

“It kills humans,” she snarled over him so he would know he didn’t stand a chance. So she could see the fear of the end in his eyes.

Hurt Quickdraw? Try to hurt her baby? She would kill every one of them.

Across the arena, Quickdraw was laying waste to the men who had held him, and he was dragging that fight toward her.

The bear shifter was almost changed, and he was going to be a big problem. He was a grizzly. Fuckin’ Griz had two-inch claws, and razor-sharp teeth, too much power, and always fought dirty. If she were a wolf, she would stay in this fight, but not in her human form and not when she had her baby to protect.

“Run,” the wolf urged.

The shifter who had stepped on her with his boot and held her from behind was nowhere to be seen. Ol’ Boot had run like a coward. All that remained was the dead human with the needles in his neck and the giant blond grizzly standing up on his hind legs. As she ran away, Griz roared so loud the earth beneath her feet shook. Two quick gunshots echoed through the clearing, and horrified that Quickdraw had been shot, she cast a glance behind her. Griz was coming for her, but so was a bull.

A bull she knew.

He was dark brown and tan with a white blaze down his face and thick, blunt, filed-down horns. Monstrous hooves and a tail that twitched with rage. Bigger than any bull she’d ever seen. That bull was hers. Quickdraw was changed, and he was coming like a damn torpedo for Ol’ Griz.

“Get to the fence. Don’t climb it, dive through it,” the wolf said. “Roll. Protect the cub. No time to climb it. They’re coming.”

Legs burning, she pushed her way through the deep arena dirt. She grunted as she launched herself through the slats of the fence and rolled while protecting her belly. Thank God for Rork’s training. Thank God.

She turned in time to see Griz coming straight toward the fence. He was going to go through it, and she could be crushed. Scrambling, she tried to get out of range, but just as he reached it, Quickdraw slung his head and slashed his horn against his hind end so hard the grizzly spun midair. He didn’t recover before Quickdraw was on him,