“Is it just me, or is Kane starting to relax around us?” Winter asked.
“Well,” Logan murmured, “he did sit on a dirty bathroom floor just to hang out with us, so I’d say yes. Except for Dustin. He still hates Dustin.”
“Thanks, man,” Dustin muttered, typing something into his phone.
“What are you doing?” Emma asked him.
“Inviting Kane and Rowan to the party for brownie points.”
“Damn, you really do want to pledge to this crew,” Logan said, pulling to a stop in front of his and Winter’s doublewide. It was still getting electrical and plumbing hooked up, so they hadn’t moved it yet, but soon. A wave of envy washed through Emma.
She didn’t know if she and Dustin could pledge yet, and she was sick of living in the motel room. For a moment, she imagined her and Dustin coming up on their moving day. It wasn’t fair to Winter, though, for her to be jealous, and Emma was really happy for her and Logan. They’d found a place, found home, and this, in this clearing, would be it for them. This would be safety and security. This would be their constant.
Suddenly, Beast snarled. As he swung toward her, Emma squeaked and threw herself against the backseat. He reached for Dustin. “What did you do to her?”
“What are you talking about?” Dustin said, ducking his swiping paw.
“Why the fuck does she smell sad?” he bellowed.
“Why aren’t you buckled?” Winter yelled equally loudly.
“Everyone get out of my truck!” Logan also yelled.
Emma held onto Beast’s arm, chanting, “He didn’t do anything! He didn’t do anything!” But now Beast was hanging halfway in the backseat with his hand around Dustin’s throat. Dustin kicked him in the face, and though Beast’s nose bled like a bloody fountain, he wouldn’t loosen his grip. And now his eyes were bright gold. Fuck!
Panicked, Emma reached into her purse and pulled out her pepper spray, popped the top, and squirted a healthy dollop into Beast’s face. The spray filled the cab of the truck like a fog, and the burn in Emma’s eyes was instant. They all started screaming and yelling at once, scrabbling for doors, falling out of the truck, crawling on the ground.
“Fuck, Emma!” Logan yelled. “Why didn’t you just knee him?”
“Don’t yell at her!” Dustin said from where he was rolling on the ground rubbing his eyes.
Choking on the spray, Emma bolted for the blue cooler in the back, fumbled desperately to get it open, and pulled out bottled waters. She dumped one on her face and scrubbed her eyes as fast as she could. Her eyes were watering so bad she could barely see. She wanted to dump another one on her face immediately, but her guilt was real and deep, so she lobbed a bottle at each of the D-Team.
On accident, she pegged Beast in the face, and he roared a terrifying sound.
“No, no, no!” Winter screamed as a monstrous lion exploded from Beast.
He turned furious eyes directly at Dustin. Dear lord, he was as tall as the truck bed. Three times bigger than Winter’s panther at least.
“Oh, my gosh,” Emma choked out.
Dustin looked back at her. “Get out of here. Now, Emma!”
Beast stalked closer, his lips snarled back over impossibly long, white canines. Dustin Changed in an instant, and the snarling black wolf placed himself in front of Emma, backing her up slowly. She could barely see now, but something huge was coming in fast from the other side of the truck.
A monstrous grizzly tackled Beast, and then there was a panther in the fray, clawing, slapping, and hissing as the titan shifters went to war. Shit! She still had pepper spray, so she bolted for them. They were going to kill each other!
She emptied the entire damn canister, but all she got for her effort was a lion ass to her chest, which blasted her backward. She screeched as she hit the dirt, and now Dustin was in the fight, teeth sunk deep into Beast’s back.
Her tailbone felt like it had just rocketed through her esophagus, but this was deadly bad, so she forced her way upward and to the back of the truck.
“Stop it, all of you!” she screamed as loud as she could as she lobbed water bottle after water bottle at them. A jug of Fireball Cinnamon Whisky hit Logan in the face, and he roared at her.
“What the fuck is going on?” Kane bellowed. “Change back! Now!” Power crackled through the air like lightning and, whoo, the dark dragon looked pissed.
Rowan was giggling behind him like this was funny, but it most certainly wasn’t. The D-Team had just done the most D-Team thing ever, and it was all Emma’s fault.
The roaring turned to grunts of pain, and then there was a pile of naked people trying to untangle. Apparently somebody accidentally touched Winter’s boob because Beast got popped in the jaw by Logan, and now the two were brawling in their human skins, just…blasting each other in the faces, fists connecting with sickening thuds. The sheer violence was terrifying.
Kane ripped Logan backward and shoved a hand on Beast’s chest, then gave Dustin an I-fuckin’-dare-you glare when he trotted forward a couple steps.
“Fuck,” Dustin said, then spat red into the grass. “For the record, this one isn’t my fault.”
“Separate! Logan, over there.” Kane shoved him toward one side of the truck. “Beast, over there.” He shoved the tatted-up lion shifter to the other. “Dustin, stay right there, and Winter, I swear to God, if you don’t stop stalking Beast, I’m going to burn your tail hair off.”