Be brave. “Your mom is human.”
She could hear him swallow hard, and his voice lost some of its luster. “Yeah.”
Be brave, be brave, be brave. She forced her gaze from his boots to look him in the eyes when she asked, “So how did you learn how to be a bull?”
The muscles in his face relaxed, and he just stared at her like he was looking right into her soul. “Who’re your parents, Raven?”
“That’s not why I came he—”
“Who?” he asked again.
Raven shrugged. “I’m adopted.”
“By humans?”
She nodded.
“Shit, girl.” He scratched the corner of his lip and got a faraway look before he repeated that softer. “Shit, girl.”
“I’m just… I guess I’m just…”
“Trying to learn.”
“Y-yes. Trying to learn.”
“How to be goddamn longhorn.”
“You ever feel stuck between two worlds?” she asked on a breath.
He dragged those darkening eyes down her throat to her chest, then to her arms, stomach, legs…motorcycle boots. “Sometimes. Most the time, no. I picked. I chose the bull when I was twelve. I don’t call myself half-human. I’m shifter, that’s it.” He jerked his chin up toward the rodeo arena behind her. “That announcer can say all he wants about my human side, but the truth is, there is no human side. My choice.”
He set the box back on the table and leaned against it, eyes on her…always eyes on her. “Did your adoptive parents understand you?”
“They tried their best.”
“Mmm. Do you have any friends who are shifters?”
“Yes.”
“Another cow? Or a bull?”
“No. Wolf.”
He huffed a humorless laugh and clutched the edges of the table he’d sat on. His strong triceps flexed with the movement. “Well, aren’t you interesting? A cow named Raven who thinks she’s human. What color is your animal?”
“I don’t think that’s appropriate to—”
“Rule number one to being a cow shifter? There’s no shame in your animal, and you sure as hell shouldn’t want to hide her. What color?”
“Black.”
“Black and…?”
She pursed her lips, but he asked again. “Black and what?”
Her voice barely sounded like anything as she whispered, “Just black.”
“Holy fuckin’ shit.” Dead stood and laughed so loud it echoed through the empty space. “What’s your last name, Raven?”
“O’Connor.”
“No, I mean what’s your real last name?”
Why was she shaking? Why was her heart pounding so hard? She couldn’t speak. Didn’t want to. She’d come here to ask him questions and maybe understand herself better, not be interrogated on stuff she didn’t want to discuss. Ever.
“Forget it.” Raven turned and made her way for the exit. This had been a bad idea. A really bad idea.
“Did they brand you?”
Those four words froze her in her tracks. Her feet turned to cement blocks, and she couldn’t move.
He was coming closer. Dead. She could feel him and hear him. Closer and closer until he lifted the hem of her black tank top from her low-rise shorts, exposing the top of that awful, ugly brand that took up most of her right hip.
She thought he would replace her tank top and walk away, spitting in disgust. Boys didn’t like girls with scars like this.
“You’re a Hagan,” he murmured, tracing the H with the tip of his finger. “The sixth calf of a Hagan pair.” He traced the six. And then he traced the circle that overlapped them. “The only heifer.”
“The shame,” she said, plastering a smile on her face and turning toward him. “Hagans don’t like having girls.”
“I know.” His eyes tightened at the corners. “Don’t make you less valuable. The assholes who brought you into this world did you a favor by dumping you. Stick around this shifter rodeo circuit long enough, and you’ll learn that down to your bones.”
“What do you mean they did me a favor?”
“Any part longhorn bucker in the circuit will know your lineage just from your brand. Everyone knows the Hagan breeders. That’s all they are, Raven. They’re breeders. Those herds are run by shifter stock contractors who don’t have any ethics. They make money on breeding the meanest, gnarliest bucking bulls. And not just for rodeos. You ever hear of the Bull Fights?”
Raven shook her head. Most of this was news to her.
“Rodeo ain’t the only way a mean bull can make a living. Underground fighting is even bigger than this circuit. They just hide it from the humans. For now. Their human sides? Killers. Psychopaths. That’s the cost of being the best at bad deeds. I’ve never even met a half-Hagan that was salvageable, but you? You seem okay. You don’t smell head-sick, you don’t feel off, you don’t even have my bull rankled around you, and I can imagine what kind of beasty you turn into. That makes me think it ain’t just genetics in that Hagan lineage that make them bad. Those baby bulls go into training young.”
“Training?”
“Gotta mean ’em up. Make ’em rank, make them live up to the name. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I…I think so.”
Dead gripped her hip right over the brand and pulled her closer. “None of your brothers are okay in any way now, but you are. Do you know what they do to Hagan baby girls most of the time?”
She shook her head, her heart in her throat.
“They cull them. But not your parents. Or maybe it was just your momma doing it behind your daddy’s back. She didn’t cull you, Raven. She gave you to some humans, and that probably gave you some awful-feeling moments being left like that, but you know what?”
Her eyes burned with the tears that were welling up, threatening to spill over. “What?”
“You’re still here.” A small smile curved up his lips. “You won.”
Chapter Four
You won.
Just like that, a stranger had taken away the sting of twenty-eight years of uncertainty.
You won.
His revelations about the Hagans had unfurled a wave of chills through her stomach, and for the first time in her life, she felt grateful she’d been left behind. That she’d been abandoned. She had more understanding now in one conversation with Dead than she had in a hundred conversations with her adoptive parents.
You won.
His words had shaken something loose in her middle. Something that had been all cramped up and uncomfortable for as long as she could remember.
She swiveled and studied her brand in the bathroom mirror. H6O. She’d only figured out the H meant she was from a Hagan herd, but that bloodline had so many members in the world. And the information about Hagans was so guarded and secretive, she’d been spinning her wheels for years trying to learn anything about them.
Cull the girls? That meant they killed them…right? Had her biological mother, or whoever had snuck her out of that herd, been caught? Had she gotten in trouble?