“Are you the alpha here?”
The man dipped his chin once, and his eyes blazed even brighter. Movement caught his attention to the right, and when Jaxon glanced over, there was a tall man with a single scar down his face, arms crossed over his chest. He spat and leaned languidly against the trunk of a tree. Jaxon wasn’t often snuck up on, so in a bout of self-preservation, he scanned the rest of the woods to find two more men. One was squatted down in the dirt, glaring up at him from ten yards off, and one was sitting up on a thick, low-hanging branch, one leg draped over the side, as he cut chunks of red apple with a foot-long bowie knife. That one smiled at him like a psychopath right before he popped a sliver of fruit into his maw.
Four cats, and he could take them easily. Still, he was careful where he waged war. He’d seen too much in Damon’s Mountains to waltz into fights unprepared, and he didn’t know much about the reclusive panther crew. They could have a dozen more hiding in the woods for all he knew. “Look, I’m not here for any trouble. This is all just a misunderstanding. I was looking for this girl—”
“What girl?” the alpha asked.
Jaxon narrowed his eyes and scrubbed his hand down his jaw. He might be pissed at Annalise for lying, but it still didn’t feel right putting her name in front of these backwoods shifters if she wasn’t here. The instinct to protect her was still strong as ever. “Clearly, she’s not here, so it doesn’t matter.”
“You talkin’ about the dumb one?” the man in the tree asked. “The one with no instincts at all?”
Pursing his lips, Jaxon angled his head in denial. “Nope. She’s smart.”
“Human smart or shifter smart?” the man squatting in the dirt asked. “We got a newcomer here who is one, but not the other.”
“Anson!” the alpha snarled.
“Well what, Ben? If he wants her, he should take her straight outta here and save us all some misery. I mean”—he shrugged and gave a quick gesture to the woods—“where is she? Surely she can hear a big-ass loud truck in her territory, but she’s probably holed up in her room, paintin’ her nails or doin’ a facial or whatever other dumb shit pretty girls like her do.”
“Annalise?” Jaxon asked.
“That’s the one,” the man in the tree said, waving the tip of his knife toward the road. “We call her Princess Panther.”
“Why are we talking and not killing?” asked the tall man leaning up against the tree.
“Barret, I’ve told you, we can’t kill everyone who drifts through our woods,” Ben murmured.
Dark eyebrows arched high, Barret asked, “Why not? I know like six ways to hide a body.”
“You know six?” Bowie Knife asked, leaping gracefully from the tree and landing with almost no impact on his legs. “Bullshit, list them.”
Barret lifted his middle finger. “One, alligators.”
“Oh, God, here we go,” Anson said, rolling his head back.
“Two,” Barret said, lifting his pointer finger, “we could call Dark Kane to eat all the bodies.”
The alpha rolled his eyes and threw his head back. He inhaled deeply and released the breath in a puff. “Can we talk about this dumb shit literally any other time than right now when we’re supposed to look like we aren’t idiots.”
“He’s a bear shifter,” Anson said in a thick southern accent.
“So?” Ben asked.
“So, who gives a fuck what he thinks because he’s a bear shifter.”
Bowie Knife snorted.
“Annalise isn’t up for grabs, Grizzly,” Ben said, running a hand over his cropped blond hair. “If I were you, I’d get out of here while the gettin’ is good.”
But Jaxon hesitated. She was really here. Ben and his crew had confirmed it. She was so close he could practically feel her, smell her, and he imagined what tasting her would be like. He’d been doing this for four months, wishing he could be close enough to see her, and now he was within spitting distance. And yeah, he was angry she’d been a lying little liar. But he also wanted to see if their connection in real life could be as strong as it was through those text messages.
Fuck, he was gonna bleed today. Fight good. Ma’s voice rang in his head as he kicked at the mud with the toe of his work boot. “I can’t leave without seeing her.”
“Can we kill him now?” Barret asked.
Jaxon chuckled and shook his head. “You can try, kitty cat. I don’t die easy, though.”
“Last chance, Grizzly, because you ain’t seein’ Annalise,” Ben said. “She’s part of my crew, and panthers don’t mix with other shifters. Everybody knows that, so don’t push me on this one or I’ll let Barret have you.”
“And me,” Anson said.
“And me,” Bowie Knife muttered, chucking his knife at the ground. It flung end over end and stuck blade first. And then he pulled his shirt off smoothly to reveal a chest that was scarred to hell. These boys were brawlers and dominant, every last one of them. Jaxon cursed Bash and Ma for not giving him more of a head’s up. He could’ve come and stolen Annalise in the night, caveman style, and saved himself some scars if he’d known she was in hillbilly panther-land.
A smattering of pops sounded, and the scent of fur hit Jaxon’s nose just as he looked over at Barret. He was already Changed into a massive black panther and was charging Jaxon. Shit, he was fast. The echo of bones breaking filled the clearing around the road, and then his own Change came out of nowhere since his inner grizzly was pissed.
Barret barreled into him and slammed him into the side of the truck just as his bear hit the ground on all fours.
And then there were claws, teeth, and pain.
Chapter Three
The scream of a panther made Annalise sit up straight in bed. Frozen, she sat there, ears straining, staring at the door of her single room cabin. Perhaps she’d imagined it.
A deep, terrifying, and unfamiliar roar shook the entire house.
“Oh, my gosh,” she murmured, flying into action.
Something was wrong. They were under attack, or the police were here, or they were at war with another crew, or something equally bad. She just knew it.
Instincts blaring, Annalise threw open the door and looked frantically around. Two cabins down, Jenny, the alpha’s mate, stood staring at the woods, her six-year-old son, Raif, gathered against the front of her. She cast Annalise a worried glance, her shoulder-length brunette locks twitching with the movement.
“Not much scares the boys,” she murmured, “but if it’s a grizzly shifter…it’s bad news.”
“What do we do?”
Another roar sounded, followed by the screams of two panthers.
“Jenny, what do we do?” Annalise repeated louder as panic did something awful to the animal inside of her.