Page 5 of Bad Blood Wolf

Chapter 3

Brody should have left when he had the chance. But he’d stuck around to watch Jasmin, the Demon Queen of the Amazon.

She’d won her fight, like she always did. Her jaguar had looked sexy as hell doing it, like she always did. Which reminded him how long it had been since a woman had touched him with love, or even just lust, and that reminded him again how far out of his league this particular woman was. Like it always did.

And Rabid-Fire, aka Justin Dangerfield, had ended the fight by Changing back to human and tapping out.

Like they always did.

She never went for the knockout. He knew wild jaguars sometimes killed their prey by suffocating it. Not that he’d researched jaguars on the internet, or anything. He would have expected she’d use that instinct to her advantage when she could, cutting off her opponent’s air until he passed out.

But she seemed to want them conscious. She needed their submission, like an alpha wolf out of control. Not the kind of woman you wanted to mess with.

Damn, though, there was something about that sinuous, sexy jaguar that made him feel alive, as if he could fix what was broken inside him just by being near her. A fire burned in her belly, and he wanted that desperately. Wanted to touch her, wanted to burn.

Yeah. Like that would happen.

He headed for the door. He usually made sure to leave before Bastian and his minions, because they had a habit of waiting in the parking lot and mugging outsiders for their winnings, especially when they were in a bad mood. And Bastian was going to be in a hella bad mood tonight, after that run-in with Jasmin.

Brody had to grin at that, even though it hurt his cut-up face. The sight of her slicing the boobs off Bastian’s tattoo was priceless.

But tonight he’d stayed too long, and they were nowhere in sight, which meant they could be waiting for him. He stepped cautiously out into the frosty December night, head lifted, scenting the air for danger.

He was right about the danger—it just wasn’t aimed at him. From over in a shadowy section of the gravel parking area he heard jeering laughter, and then a woman’s voice in a mix of English and something that sounded Spanish, but wasn’t quite.

She was cursing someone out. In Portuguese.

Fuck. Jasmin.

She can take care of herself, he told himself. She’s undefeated in the cage. Not to mention that video he’d seen on the internet. A normal Brazilian jaguar killing a big-ass crocodile in the wild and dragging it off by the neck to eat it.

A crocodile, for fuck’s sake.

And Jasmin was half again the size of a normal jaguar.

But his legs were already moving, because what kind of an asshole was he if he just drove off and let four guys gang up on somebody who’d already been in a cage fight tonight? And yeah, because she was a woman, and that made his protective instincts kick in.

And maybe a little bit because he wanted to be a hero. Her hero.

By the time he got there, he’d recognized the voices. Bastian, of course, with his sidekicks Jimmy and Trace, and that little weasel Anton who followed them around, licking their cowboy boots and doing their dirty work.

He also heard the sound of fists meeting flesh.

Brody skidded around the tail end of a pickup truck and straight into the fight, punching Jimmy in the kidney. He waited for him to turn around, and then punched him in the face.

“Don’t shift!” he yelled to Jasmin, who was fighting like a trained martial artist, kicking and jabbing in a graceful blur of movement.

That was their MO. They wanted her money, and if she shifted, she’d leave her bag and her clothes on the ground for Anton to go through while the other three bled her.

She flicked a glance at Brody, and then ducked under Bastian’s arm and kicked him in the stomach. Trace knocked her feet out from under her, and Bastian kicked her in the ribs.

Brody’s focus was divided between worrying about Jasmin, and fending off Jimmy. He didn’t sense Anton behind him until the last minute, and he didn’t quite duck in time. The tire iron glanced off his skull and got him in the shoulder.

Sneaky fucker.

He swung around and kicked the tire iron out of Anton’s hands, but the asshole dodged between the cars before Brody could take him down. Jimmy had climbed to his feet and was pummeling him. Brody got him with a sharp kick to the side of the knee, ripping the ligaments and sending him to the ground. That would take some time to heal, and in the meantime he wasn’t going anywhere.

Behind Jimmy, he heard a snarl, and then bones popping as the jaguar ripped out of Jasmin’s clothing. There was a series of oh fucks, and then wolves were busting out all around him.