“If I know Zach, he’ll leave her in the paddock.” Cara grimaced at Jessie. “He tries to control me. But no one controls a cat.”
* * *
Tucker was a shaking mess.
Zach was at his wit’s end with him. The horse needed Zach to be balanced. Calm. At the moment, those two things were as far out of reach as the moon.
But he eventually managed to lock down his emotions. Tucker settled enough for Zach to hose the sweat and dirt off. Zach squeegeed the water off the horse, turned him loose in the corral, and threw in extra hay. He shoved Willow back in when she tried to follow him out.
The donkey brayed mournfully after him, but he wasn’t about to have Cara’s Familiar following him around all afternoon. He needed time to cool off. To think.
Usually the farm supplied him with an abundance of alone time, but now it crawled with people. Or rather,notpeople. Kade had proved that even riding his back forest couldn’t guarantee he was alone.
Zach stalked into the barn and loaded his wheelbarrow with tools. Then he turned off the electric fencer before pushing the old barrow across the yard and out into the pasture.
Someday, he’d get himself a nice quad or side-by-side for farm work. They were expensive as hell, so he’d put it off until he got his delivery business up and running. It seemed like ages ago since he’d last thought of his future, and what he’d planned to do with it. Time he remembered that this would be over soon, one way or the other. And things could go back to what they’d been. With a few notable differences, like his job. Or lack thereof.
Something twisted inside him. He set his jaw against it as he pushed the wheelbarrow across the uneven ground. For a brief time, a mere flash of an instant, he’d thought his future might look different. That he’d found someone who might be willing to share his life.
He squelched the thought. The sooner he got through the next few days, the sooner he could leave this behind and get on with his life.
Spike trotted along beside him. The dog was fiercely loyal. Not his fault the Weres scared him silly. But they’d be gone in a few days, too.
The dog and he just had to ride this out.
A faint brush of something—a Sabre, patrolling along the pasture. Not visible in the bushes. Did Spike sense him too? The hair along the dog’s back stood on end.
Zach ignored the Sabre, shoving his ancient wheelbarrow along the pasture fence. He’d meant to get out here to fix it over a week ago, but he’d been preoccupied looking for Jessie. He usually had the horses on pasture by now. The grass was growing like mad, and he was running low on hay. But he hadn’t wanted to put them out until he repaired the fence. Horses had an uncanny knack for getting hurt—twelve hundred pounds of brute strength combined with powerful flight instincts tended to cause some nasty injuries if they got tangled up in something.
Of course, with the Dires out there, it was safer in the yard. But all that would be over soon. Time to get the fence ready to go.
The entire twenty-acre pasture had originally been fenced for sheep. It was woven wire which wasn’t the safest fence type for horses as they might get their feet caught in it. But removing it was a huge job, and he didn’t mind having fencing that held smaller animals as well. He’d like to replace it with the smaller horse-safe mesh. It was expensive and had been put into the same category as the quad, for now.
Instead, he’d run electric wire along the sheep fence to keep the horses away from it. A good temporary solution, but the fragile wire used for the electric was easily broken by branches in storms or grounded by tall weeds and bushes. And bears, deer, or coyotes occasionally got tangled in it and ripped it to shreds. Maintaining it was a constant challenge. A good project for today. To keep his mind off—
Well, to keep him occupied.
Sure enough, a long stretch of the top strand in this spot had been broken and trailed across the pasture, inviting entanglement. Zach picked it up and strung it back along the insulators, then cut a new piece and used it to patch where the strand had frayed.
It was exactly the type of work that usually calmed him. But today, it wasn’t enough. Images kept spinning through his brain. Of Jessie. Laughing. Of her gray eyes, flashing fire when she was mad. Of her brushing the wild mare.
Even Storm had known she was unique.
His fingers finished crimping the wires together and folded around them, gripping so tight they turned white. His instincts were to fight for her. To fight, until it was all over, one way or another. They were meant to be together. That’s what his gut said.
But none of that mattered. If she couldn’t break free from Braden, she’d belong to the bastard Dire. Forever. Was there a worse fate? To live with the abuse, mental and physical, day in and day out? How long before even Jessie’s brave spirit succumbed? Until Braden beat her down to nothing?
Zach sank to the ground, bracing himself against a post. He rubbed his temples hard.
Unless Braden died. Kade had already tried that and failed. Braden was too well protected. What if Zach went after him? Could he use his talent to kill? Scare the piss out of them, yes. But kill?
Cara thought it was possible. If there was any chance, he’d try it. The issue: Braden hid behind a few dozen snarly bastards. And Zach was no warrior.
What if he took the Sabre blood? Became a Sabre? As Kade pointed out, it wouldn’t be in time to save Jessie from Braden. Even if the injections worked, it wouldn’t turn him for another month. If he survived the transformation, then he’d become part of a Sabre mating triad. With Kade, if he was the one Jessie chose.
Zach’s stomach twisted into a knot. The thought of going through such an ordeal—becoming a beast—was more than he could wrap his head around. AndsharingJessie with another? He might be Cryptid, but he’d been raised human. Monogamy had been imprinted into him. Sharing her with another male seemed obscene.
But if the alternative was to not have her at all?
