Home > Dead of Winter (Battle of the Bulls #2)

Dead of Winter (Battle of the Bulls #2)
Author: T. S. Joyce


Chapter One

 


“Are you sure you belong here?”

Raven stopped shifting her weight from foot to foot and twisted around. “Me?” she asked the woman standing behind her in line for the beer truck.

The pretty woman was dressed in bootcut jeans, muddy boots, and a flannel shirt that she’d tied just below her perky boobs. Her tight midriff was exposed. She had platinum locks cascading down her shoulders from under her white felt cowboy hat.

Blondie was the complete opposite of Raven.

“You sure have a lot of tattoos.” The woman scrunched up her face. “You would be so cute if you hadn’t done that to your skin.”

Stunned, Raven glanced down at herself. Black ripped-up shorts, black motorcycle boots, black tank top, and a red and black Harley Davidson flannel tied around her waist. And yep, she had tattoos—a sleeve of them down her right arm and all down her left leg.

Raven’s cheeks were burning. Shyness was a beast she still hadn’t figured out how to deal with. She didn’t know how to respond, so she said awkwardly, “Umm, I just like tattoos and how they look.”

“Huh,” the girl said. “Are you here to see the riders or the bulls?”

Okay, friendly conversation. The woman wasn’t going to make her feel like an outsider anymore, so this was good. She parted her lips to answer, but the girl’s eyes went wide and she took a step back.

“Your eyes. They just went from light green to brown. I know what that means.” She looked around as if checking to see if any of the rodeo-goers around them were paying attention to her discovery. Louder, she called out, “I know what changing eye colors mean!”

“Okay,” Raven murmured, stepping forward in line to put in her order. “Think I need two beers,” she told the cashier of the little booze truck parked outside the rodeo arena.

“Are you with one of the bulls? Are you a girlfriend? You’re a cow shifter, right?” the girl asked from way too close behind her.

Inside of Raven, her animal stirred. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. Cow shifter sounded lame, but her animal was a monster. Purebred Texas Longhorn shifter and full of fury when she took the skin, so… “Can you give me a little space?” Raven whispered. “Please?”

“Right, right,” Blondie said, throwing her hands up and backing away a maximum of three inches. Freakin’ humans.

“Are you with one of the bulls? I’m a huge fan of Quickdraw Slow Burn. I came here to cheer for him. I follow him on social media. He has an eight-pack.” Blondie was staring down at her phone.

“Here you go,” the cashier said with a friendly smile as he set two plastic cups of frothy light beer on the counter. “That’ll be ten bucks even.”

Raven pulled a ten-dollar bill out and then two more dollars to put into the tip jar beside the register. “Hey, thanks mister.”

“It’s so weird to hear a country drawl on a goth chick,” Blondie said. “Okay, here.” She shoved her phone at Raven just as Raven was turning around with both beers in hand. She jerked to a stop and spilled a little. Blondie was showing her a picture from Quickdraw’s Instagram page. A picture Raven had already seen because she’d stalked all the bulls being represented by Cheyenne Walker.

“This is who you’re with, right? He is covered in tattoos, too. Y’all would match.”

“I don’t know him,” Raven murmured, staring at the background of the picture. The background was more important than the giant, muscled-up, black-haired behemoth cheering behind the chutes at the second event of the Battle of the Bulls circuit. Behind him was the man she’d come to see. The one who had caught her attention from the moment the news broke that he had a human mother.

Dead of Winter was standing behind Quickdraw, screaming, gripping the top of a gate behind the chutes. He’d been cheering on Two Shots Down, who was bucking during the taking of this picture.

“Damn, I totally thought I had you pegged.”

“Nope. Just here as a fan. Like you,” Raven assured her and walked around the nosy human.

Are you sure you belong here?

She looked around at the cowboy boots, the hats, the Wranglers, the belt buckles, and gripped her beers a little tighter as she stepped around a giant pile of horse crap in the middle of the walkway.

Hell no, she didn’t belong here, at some rodeo in Boise, Idaho.

She didn’t belong anywhere.

 

 

Chapter Two

 


“You don’t belong here.”

Dead of Winter charged First Time Train Wreck and just barely missed the bull shifter in his human skin when he scurried up the alleyway fence. He rammed where the heckler had disappeared and dented in that length of fencing. Across the alleyway, his agent, Cheyenne, was yelling profanities at Train Wreck. Little hellion woman didn’t like anyone messing with their heads right before a big buck.

As a kid, he’d always wanted a guard dog. Who the hell would’ve ever thought he would get one in the form of a five-foot-six mouthy woman?

The handlers were behind him with hot shots in their hands, threatening him to move forward by the pulsating electric current on the ends of the long wands.

First Time Train Wreck, watch your back tonight. I’m gonna find you after you buck.

He bolted forward, his hooves sinking into the alleyway dirt. The crowd outside was cheering a deafening sound. He trotted to the end of the alley and loaded into chute number two. The handlers closed him in, and this was the part he hated—the before. The cage. The waiting. The few minutes before a buck where a rider had to settle on his back and he was trapped under that human’s weight and spurs. The clang of a fence made him flinch back, and he slammed his horn against the gate hard. The gateman was ready, holding the rope attached to the gate taught, weight on his back leg, eyes boring through the slats of the gate at Dead. Dead had trampled him before, but the old coot had learned his lesson. Now, he always got out of the way fast. Pity.

Dunbar Cooper was settling onto his back now, his spurs running painfully down Dead’s ribs as he eased his legs on either side of his back. Dead held still. For now. Quickdraw was loading two chutes down, ready to buck after Dead. He was kicking and headbutting the rails, making a mess of his rider’s head. That was his favorite move in the chutes.

Dead’s? He liked to stay still, and then when the rider got comfortable and distracted, he would screw with him. The announcer was telling the huge crowd Dead’s entire life story. God, he hated this part of the circuit now. All the research into his past, all the rumors, all the conversation about who he really was. Right now, they were talking about his mother, the human, the vessel for this monster bull shifter, and blah blah blah. Too bad Mom didn’t mean to be a vessel for a bull shifter. Too bad she’d done her best to cut the animal right out of Dead. But go ahead, Mr. Announcer. Talk about her like she’s worth a damn. Talk about her like Dead hadn’t gotten himself here by his own bootstraps with no help from anyone, especially not his mother. That’s what humans did. They took the credit away from the animals. Of course, the announcers would give credit to his human mom.

Dunbar’s spur dug into his side harder, and Dead reared back and slammed him against the gate. The rider yelled but held. Little barnacle. He was going to be tough to buck. Dunbar had been making a run and had some confidence in him now.

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