He finished it for her. “She’ll hate me. That’s okay. It won’t be like that forever. She just has to get to know me and figure out I won’t ever hurt her. When you’re changed, think of someone or something you hate and imagine that someone or something clinging to your back. Using you. Heckling you. Gonna benefit off holding on. This is your arena,” he growled. “Don’t let anything stay on your back.”
“I’m not a bull though, Dead,” she whispered.
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“Cows don’t buck.”
“Yeah, well, maybe that’s because nobody ever asked a cow to do it.” He gave her a swift smack on the ass. “Own your wild.”
Own her wild? She wasn’t wild. She had pet plants and a steady bedtime.
That’s not how she changed into her animal. Changing was a careful process with planning and safety measures involved. Owning her wild was out of the question. If he knew her animal, he wouldn’t put that dare on the table. To keep everyone safe, she had to change in a big barn on her parent’s property that had been reinforced at every wall.
This was a bad idea. It was a stupid, irresponsible, no-good, awful, bad idea. But if ever she was going to try a bad idea, then she supposed this was the place to do it. Surely, three mature bulls could get her animal in line.
Maybe.
****
Dead closed her into the holding pen and gave her his back. “Everything will be great, Raven. You’ll see. No one’s even looking over here, so you can change in peac—”
A ground-shaking bawl sounded from behind him and startled him so bad he hunched his shoulders and pressed his hands to his ears as he spun. It sounded like a damn foghorn and rattled his chest with the power of it.
And what stood behind that gate was the likes of which he’d never seen before.
Raven wasn’t Raven any longer. The fury…the rage, the hatred that wafted from that animal, clogged his throat and made it hard to breath. She stared at him through the metal slats. He couldn’t see much of her body with the gate between them. All he knew was she was black as pitch, and her eyes matched. Her horns stretched straight out to the side and curved up, with twists at the sharp ends like handlebars. They were white with black tips.
Dead had never been scared of anything in his adult life, but Raven’s animal was conjured straight from hell. She bellowed low, and then in a flash, she slammed her head against the gate of the holding pen with such force, the metal bent toward him.
“Dead!” Two Shots yelled. “Get her into the chute!”
“Holy fucking shit, what is that?” Quickdraw panted as he ran along the fence to undo the gate that separated the holding pen from the alleyway to the chutes.
She slammed her head against the gate again, and the metal groaned and bent more. The latch was holding on by so little, but Dead was frozen in her glare. She paced to the back of the holding area and turned to charge the gate. It wouldn’t hold.
“Dead, move!” Cheyenne screamed from somewhere behind him.
“Shhhhit,” he cursed as he forced himself to get out of the way of the gate.
She stopped mid charge and spun, and as Dead scrambled up onto the fence to tempt her into the chutes, he saw why she’d stopped. Two Shots had jumped into the pen with her.
He almost didn’t make it out. Raven charged faster than a snake strike. Her massive horns didn’t seem to weigh her down at all, and she wasn’t built like other cows he’d seen. She had more muscle, more mass, and aggression seeped out of every pore. Hagan. That’s what had done this to her. She had that dark Hagan blood pumping through her veins.
Two Shots had to leap over the fence, no time to climb it. She hit it hard, and the metal made a gong sound that rattled Dead’s head and nearly shook him off the fence.
“Come on, Raven. Come on!” Dead shouted.
Quickdraw was whistling. He’d climbed into the alleyway, baiting her. She went for it, charged straight for him, but she had to turn her head so her long horns could fit, and it gave Quickdraw time to run. She followed him right into a chute.
“Get out of there!” Cheyenne screamed as Quickdraw scrambled up the chute fencing.
Raven barely missed his leg. When Dead slammed closed the back of the chute, she kicked it so hard, he went flying off the metal.
Quickdraw had a rope agitating her neck, as if she needed it. Raven was pinned in the small space. She let off another foghorn bellow. Dead and Two Shots barely got the flank rope on her without being mauled.
“Does she even need this?” Two Shots yelled.
“Fuck if I know. She’s the size of a dinosaur! Let’s just get her out of here. She don’t like being pinned.”
Quickdraw rushed to the arena, readied the rope on the gate to pull it open. “Tell me when!” he shouted, his face red, sweat trickling down his temple.
“Tighten it quick before she breaks this whole chute, man,” Two Shots murmured low.
Fumbling, Dead tightened it, careful to keep it higher up her belly.
“Pull it!” Dead yelled.
And when he did, time became different. It became slow. Two Shots was yelling, Cheyenne was running along the fence shouting orders, Quickdraw was pulling on that rope, and his sweet Raven owned her wild.
That monster cow shifter followed that opening gate with no hesitation. She leapt out
