Page 6 of Bad Blood Wolf

Brody had no choice. He Changed, just stopping to unzip his jeans and shove them far enough down so his legs wouldn’t get tangled. His t-shirt ripped off his back.

Then it was all teeth and claws and blood and growls, everyone rolling around between the vehicles, the scent of blood and fury permeating the night.

It was all over in less than ten minutes. Bastian and his buddies had counted on an easy three-on-one victory—three on two was too much for their pansy asses. Especially when one of the two was the Demon Queen of the Amazon with murder in her eyes.

Anton screeched up in a jacked-up pickup, and Bastian and Trace dragged Jimmy into the bed. Jasmin leaped at the truck, her claws raking across the fenders and making huge gouges in the shiny paint as they sped off.

When they were gone, Jasmin stayed crouched, ears pricked, as if listening for another attack. The only sound was a muffled cheer from the barn as another fight ended.

Brody Changed back, his joints and muscles protesting. Fuck, everything hurt. And his life was now a pile of steaming shit with kitty-cat footprints all over it.

He turned on her. “Damn it all, Demazon, I told you not to shift!”

She turned on him with a spitting snarl, and Changed. “Why the fuck not?” she demanded in that throaty, sexy voice. “Why would I fight as a human when my jag can rip them apart?”

“Exactly, sucker,” Brody said. “Go check your bag and your clothes, if you can find them. Wherever you put your winnings, they’re not there now.”

Jasmin emitted a low growl, her eyes slitted, and stalked off between the cars.

Brody started looking around for his clothes.

Sure enough, his stuff had been dragged off and scattered. He found his boots under two different cars, his bag tossed in the mud, and his jeans flung in the back of someone’s pickup.

He went through the pockets, trying to hold onto some hope, but he already knew what he would find. Nothing. Not one damn dollar.

While he was fighting for a woman who probably didn’t even need his help, that little shithead Anton had stolen his money.

“Fuck it all!”

He slammed his hands against the tailgate of the truck, not even caring that he dented it. He dragged his jeans on and stomped his feet into his boots. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

He linked his hands behind his neck, his mind racing. All of it wasted. The blood, the punishing fights, and now it was gone, all the money he counted on to keep him going, and everything was going to come crashing the hell down.

“My whole bag’s gone, money and all. They take yours too?” Jasmin was behind him, wearing her pants and dragging her shirt over her head. She looked massively pissed off.

“Of course they did,” he snarled. “Not the bag, just the damned money. And you’re fucking welcome, by the way.”

“Fuck you,” she snapped back. “Why did you barge in at all?”

Was she kidding? He hadn’t been expecting a parade and a medal, but a little appreciation would be nice. He was bleeding from half a dozen new places, and his right ear felt like it had been ripped half off.

He just shook his head. “Why do you think? Because—”

She didn’t even let him get the words out. “Because I’m a woman. And weak. Women always need a man to protect them.”

Seriously? He was having the don’t-underestimate-women conversation with the Demon Queen? She could probably take him apart without even getting serious about it.

He sighed. “You’re not weak,” he said. “You’re a cage champion, for fuck’s sake. But there were four of them—”

“I could have taken them,” she muttered.

Fine.

“Good for you, Demazon,” he said bitterly. “Next time I’ll leave you to it. I might even say something nice at your funeral.”

He shouldered his bag. “So unless you know where I can get another seven hundred cash by Sunday night, I’m just gonna take my shredded ego and my broke-ass self and go home. Have a nice life.”

He was walking away when he heard her voice behind him. “What happens Sunday night?”