The coyote leader lifted his brows at that. “So she’s dead?” Good. One less worry for him. Of course, picking up the bounty on her head would have been a nice bonus, and killing her would have given them a good in with the other wolves but . . .
The coyote shifter in front of him raised his head, and the guy’s thick, dirty brown hair scraped across his shoulders. “Simone didn’t kill her,” Marcus DePaul confessed.
Very, very slowly, Jess Ortez lowered the shot glass he’d lifted to his mouth. “He didn’t kill her,” he repeated softly. “You didn’t kill her . . . so what the f**k happened to Sarah King?”
“Sh-she’s under his protection. They were together. I-I followed ’em to the park, tried to get her—”
Oh, shit. His head began to throb. “You weren’t stupid enough to attack when Lucas Simone was there.”
But the idiot’s trembling lips told him that, yes, he had been. Fuck. The glass started to crack. “We’ve got a truce with him!” He threw the glass back over the bar.
“But Alpha, I thought you wanted—”
Jess lunged forward and caught the shifter’s head in his hands. He stared into Marcus’s eyes. “Don’t think.” One twist, that’s all it would take and he’d snap the wiry bastard’s neck. “You’re not supposed to think. You’re just supposed to do whatever the hell I tell you.”
That was the whole point in being the coyote alpha, right? He gave the orders, all the other bastards rushed to obey, and if they didn’t rush fast enough, he killed them.
Sweat trickled down the dumb bastard’s face. “P-please . . .”
“Does Lucas know I’m here?”
“I don’t th-think—”
His fingers tightened.
“No! He just—he must have figured we were just hunting! Said if he saw me or Grimes again, we were dead.”
Not as bad as it could be, but still . . . now the wolf would be on guard and if that bitch managed to get him to believe her story . . .
Screwed.
He drew in a long, slow breath. “Guess what?” he murmured.
Marcus blinked his watery eyes. “Wh-what?”
“You are dead.” His hands yanked hard to the right.
Snap.
Lucas watched the wolves close in on her, and he crossed his arms over his chest. And waited.
Sarah stood in the middle of that tight circle, her body tense, her hands fisted at her sides. Her gaze darted from wolf to wolf, and the scent of sweat and fear teased his nose.
Again, the smell of fear didn’t tempt his wolf. But, it did have the beast inside snarling . . . and damn if he didn’t want to go back to her. Protect.
“This should be easy for you,” he called out, deliberately keeping his voice cool and expressionless. “You’re the charmer. Just tell me what they’re thinking.”
Her lips pressed together. So he wouldn’t see the tremble? Too late, he’d already seen. Sarah was scared. Charmers didn’t usually fear their linked animals, but then wolf shifters weren’t your typical beasts.
“I’ve already played this game,” she gritted. “You were there, you saw me with the boy.”
The boy. Jordan. “All you did was guess that he was a young wolf. Not a very impressive guess.” He shrugged. “This time, I want details.” Proof. “Tell me what they’re thinking.”
Because if she really was what she claimed to be . . .
Her right hand lifted and her index finger pointed to the white wolf that stood less than a foot away from her. “Piers here thinks this test is a damn waste of time, and he wants to go for my th-throat.”
The drumbeat of Lucas’s heart echoed in his ears. Could be a guess. Everyone knows my first-in-command is Piers.
Lucas lifted a brow. “You’ve got three other wolves still waiting,” he said.
But she wasn’t looking away from Piers. “Tell him to stand down. I don’t want this jerk taking a swipe at me.” She backed up a step. Not the brightest move. You didn’t show weakness to a wolf. Wolves liked weakness too much.
Lucas dropped his hands and rolled his shoulders. “Ease back, Piers.”
The white wolf immediately backed off.
Sarah’s green gaze rose to meet his. “Thank you.” No mistaking the fear in those eyes.
He inclined his head. “Three more.”
“You really are a bastard, aren’t you?”
“That’s what they say.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Right, you’re—” Her gaze shot to the left. To the big, black wolf with night-black eyes. “He says you’re a bastard, but you’re a fair bastard.”
“He?”
“Michael.” Her breath heaved out. “He says I shouldn’t worry, that you don’t usually eat women.”
Then her face flushed. A dark, fiery red. Her gaze darted to the other white wolf, Caleb McKenzie. He was a little smaller than Piers. Just a little. “He says you—ah—in bed . . .” Her hand lifted and shoved back a heavy mass of her hair. “I don’t need to know this.”
Lucas never looked away from her. “One wolf to go.” She swallowed. “Dane knows I’m telling the truth, so he’s trying to keep his mind blank now so I can’t see inside.” A brittle laugh. “No dice, Dane, and yes, I do think more coyotes will be after me. I think they’ll be here by nightfall and we need to stop screwing around with these stupid tests and get ready for them.”
“Shift,” Lucas ordered.
Sarah threw up her hands. “Wait!”
Too late. The snap and crunch of shifting bones filled the air. Fur melted away from the bodies of the wolves as dark, golden flesh appeared. Hands formed from paws. Muzzles slid back into the curved features of men.
Didn’t take long. Just a few minutes, and the wolves were gone. Naked men stood surrounding Sarah. Lucas bent toward the bag Piers had brought out earlier. He pulled out the jeans and tossed them to his men. Then he marched to Sarah’s side. The pulse at the base of her throat beat far too fast.
“You play with us,” he murmured as the men dressed, “but we scare the hell out of you.”
“Trust me on this, Lucas,” she said, voice quiet, “if I could have chosen, wolves would have been the last animals I would have linked with.”
But charmers didn’t have a choice. Their gift just kicked in when the right animal was around.