Avet, Danica - Ain't No Bull [The Veil 4] (Siren Publishing Classic) (25 page)

“Please don’t piss my mom off, okay? She gets really…uptight about these matchmaking dinners.”

Izzy blinked at him. “You mean she’s not normally uptight?”

He laughed loudly. “I—”

She never got to find out what he was about to say because the world exploded in a ball of fire. The truck bounced off the road, Grant cursing and struggling to keep them from going into a deep ditch. Izzy grabbed the “oh shit” bar and tried to see past the flames to whoever was attacking them. She saw shadowy figures, but nothing that gave her real information.

“Shit,” she growled. She’d left her fucking weapons at Grant’s house. She hadn’t wanted to freak his mother out, and now she was without means to protect Grant. The truck bucked, throwing Izzy into the air, her head slamming into the ceiling.

“Dammit, watch where you’re going!”

“Yeah, easy for you to say, Miss Sitting-Over-There-Doing-Nothing!”

She would have responded, but the truck crashed into the wide trunk of a tree. The force of the wreck caused Izzy’s body to snap against the strain of the seat belt, her forehead hitting the dash. Pain exploded through her head, but she fought past it. They had to get out of the truck, get away from whoever was out there before things got worse.

“You okay, bull boy?”

Her hands fumbled with the buckle of the seatbelt and she kept seeing three of everything. When Grant didn’t answer her, the calm she’d forced upon herself threatened to crumple.

Shredding the seat belt to free herself, Izzy slid across the seat to the minotaur slumped over the steering wheel. He was breathing, though the sounds were ragged. She touched him, searching for an injury that would keep him immobile. His big body quivered in what she thought was pain, but the more she touched him, the more she realized that Grant was shaking with rage.

He lifted his head, his horns already growing as he shifted to his minotaur form. Izzy fell back as he turned towards her to avoid being gouged by his horn. Once she got a good look at his face, she scrambled for the door. He wasn’t in there. Grant, as she knew him, was gone, and in his place was a beast. She knew he would hurt her, not purposely, but she’d rather have him out of the truck where he had room to move. And that was the only reason why she backed away from him.

She landed on the ground with a grunt, jumping to her feet as soon as she could. Swaying in place, she squinted into the night. Her fucking head felt like Ronaldinho had bounced it off his knee a few million times. It was a concussion, but she didn’t have time for being hurt.

Grant roared. His door exploded outwards as he exited the truck.

Fucking show-off.

The ground beneath her feet trembled as he stalked around the hood to stand next to her. She didn’t look at him though. If she did, she’d probably lose it. Instead, she headed to the stainless steel toolbox in the bed of the truck. She didn’t have her knives, throwing stars, or her flamethrower, but she was an Amazon. She could improvise.

Sirens wailed in the far-off distance. Quiet, fugitive sounds from closer indicated that their attackers were nearing. Izzy pried open the toolbox, finding a couple of tire irons, a nail gun, pliers, and screwdrivers. Thank the gods for ranchers, she thought as she grabbed the tire irons and the nail gun. Making sure the gun was loaded she swiped another pack of nails and stuffed them in her bra. Yeah, not exactly comfortable, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Grant hadn’t moved from his spot, his eyes on her as though waiting for her to freak out, or faint, or some other sissy shit she didn’t have time for.

“Ready to kick some ass?”

He didn’t answer, his eyes drilling into her as though waiting for her reaction.

Okay, so she could see why he thought she’d freak. In his minotaur form, Grant would have been scary if Izzy hadn’t seen Rosetta without her wig and make-up and a five-day hangover.

Where he was a large male before, he was positively massive now. She guessed he stood at seven foot five, his shoulders more than a yard wide, with nothing but pure muscle packing his frame. His horns flared away from his temples, curling up at the ends at least a foot from his head. His face was harder, more angular. The proud nose she was so used to seeing was flatter at the tip and blackened just above the gold ring. He still looked humanoid, despite the horns and black eyes. If he were bright red, he’d look like Tim Curry in
Legend
. It was fucking awesome!

A pelt of short, black fur coated his body, making him gleam like onyx in the moonlight. Her eyes trailed down his body, pausing at his crotch because—hello!—how could she
not
look?

He was hung. His cock dangled nearly to where his knees would have been, his balls massive. She wanted to stare. Okay, she did stare, but she couldn’t help it. He was fucking huge! Some part of her, the weak, feminine part of her, prayed he didn’t plan on getting that thing anywhere near her. She was pretty sure minotaurs didn’t fuck in this form, but you never knew.

Reluctantly dragging her eyes from his cock, Izzy saw that from his hips to his hooves, he was all bull. Something moved behind him and she walked around him to see that he had a tail. How cool was that? She’d always thought she’d look sexy with a tail. But there was no time for daydreaming. Grant was waiting for her verdict and they had bad guys to beat up.

“You have a huge ass.”

* * * *

Grant’s heart stopped at Isola’s flat tone. Was she disgusted? Frightened? Then her words registered and relief flooded his system. Thank the gods she wasn’t running away from him screaming. It had happened once before, which was why he tried not to use this form as much. Although he seemed to slip into it more and more around her. He supposed Isola had the strange ability to let his true beast out of the cage. Gods help her.

It was a damn good thing he wasn’t able to get a hard-on in this form, too, because the way she’d stared at his cock would have had him sporting a bat-sized erection. He scented her unease and knew she was wondering if he would try to fuck her in this form. She had no worries about that, he wanted to tell her, but they didn’t have the time.

“Not huge.” His fangs didn’t allow for easy speaking, but he couldn’t let her get away with calling him fat.

Those doe brown eyes surveyed him. “Okay, maybe not huge, but you definitely have a lot of junk in your trunk in this form. And how cool is it that you have your Halloween costume already!” She bounced a bit. “You should come to the camp for the annual party this year. I’ll go as Lili and you can be the Lord of Darkness!”

She lifted the nail gun and for a split second, Grant knew true fear. She’d lied to him. She was planning to shoot him because she really was scared of him! Isola fired. He felt the nail burst past him as it headed for an unknown target. He spun around to see an imp slide to a stop at his feet.

Blood trickled from a small hole right between its eyes, telling Grant that Isola had hit it spot-on. More poured out of the trees, no longer silent since their presence had been given away. They were small and usually very ineffective fighters, but in great numbers, they could cause a lot of damage. Someone was serious about this fight.

Brimstone singed his nostrils as they swarmed over Grant and Isola. These weren’t mage-summoned imps. No, that scent alone meant they’d been called forth by a demon lord. Small, wiry, and unbearably childlike, the imps wore uniform black chainmail with no discernable markings. They smiled with glee, incredibly sharp teeth bared at Grant and Isola.

Grant roared, charging forward as the first wave broke over him. He snapped necks, stomped on their four-foot bodies, but they barely put up a fight. They clung to him, trying to slow him down, but none of them inflicted wounds. The imps he killed were replaced until he was buried beneath a mound of the gibbering creatures. If they weren’t trying to hurt him, what did they want?

He heard Isola laughing hysterically even as the steady thumping of the nail gun echoed through the night air.

Chapter Twenty-One

Izzy shot again and again, nailing—she laughed at her own wittiness—the imps who charged at her. Grant was covered with the little bastards, though it didn’t look as though they were trying to hurt him so much as slow him down. The ones after her came with teeth bared and their little creepy hands extended.

One of them latched onto her leg, and without her leathers to protect her skin, Izzy felt every one of those wicked teeth going right into her calf muscle. Screaming out her pain and anger, she swung the tire iron down, laying into the imp with all of her strength. It fell in a broken mess, but was quickly replaced by another and another.

Shooting at them with her right hand and swinging the tire iron with her left, Izzy tried to make her way to Grant. She could barely see him he had so many imps hanging off of him. He kept breaking necks and throwing the bodies, trying to keep them away from his septum piercing, but it was only a matter of time before they brought him down. She couldn’t let that happen. She needed to get them the fuck out of there.

The wailing sirens were still too far away to offer help. His parents’ ranch wasn’t too far away, but she couldn’t bring this kind of hell on them. Swinging tirelessly, she mowed through the ranks, but for every imp she killed five more seemed to take its place. Her strength waned and she knew without a shadow of a doubt if they didn’t get some help soon, she was going down and Grant would be taken.

Izzy mustered all the strength she had and plowed her way to Grant’s side. The next packet of nails went into the gun. She fired more nails at the fuckers following her while her other hand dragged imps off of Grant’s back. He didn’t have a single mark on him. Thank gods.

His big hands cracked skulls at a steady pace while his hooves dealt brutal kicks to any that got close enough. She wanted to slump next to him with relief and exhaustion. She thanked the gods he was still going. Obviously his minotaur form was more durable than his human form.

A small fist landed in her eye and Izzy growled. “I hate imps!” She swung the tire iron at the imp who punched her, glad to hear it squeal and fall away.

“Run.”

The low growl vibrated through her back. “Are you out of your fucking mind, Raging Bull? These little creeps’ll pull you down and then I’ll have to save your ass anyway!”

Izzy fired again. She needed to make this last strip of nails last, so she made sure she aimed to kill. It was harder to do than it sounded since imps were small and fast, but she did her damnedest.

“You had an imp-killing party and didn’t invite me?”

The sultry voice was so unexpected, everyone stopped fighting at once. Izzy jerked her head around to see who had spoken, her heart beating a frantic rhythm of hope. Peering through the trees, she made out a pair of knee-high fur boots, then leather pants.

Rosetta Brown of the Blood Maiden Tribe sauntered out of the woods looking as though she’d just stepped off a fashion magazine. She’d obviously made an appointment with her stylist, because her hair was brilliant white, almost the same color as the snow, showing off her delicious tanned skin. She wore the Blood Maiden halter with a fur coat matching her boots over it. She looked exotic and not in the least bit feminine.

To finish it all off, she was in full makeup, her false eyelashes batting slowly as she took in the frozen tableau before her. Izzy wasn’t really surprised about the makeup. Rosetta never left her tent without looking like a billion bucks—she claimed inflation made her worth more.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Rosetta?” she demanded, though gods knew she was happy to see her.

“Bitch, you should be happy I’m here!”

“I am, but—”

“But nothin’!” Rosetta cut her off, giving her a once-over. “You look like shit. Haven’t you been using that facial cream I sent with you?”

“I haven’t had time. We’re kinda in a—”

“You need to use it twice a day! If you’re not careful, you’ll end up looking like a leather purse, and let me tell you, that bitch could bathe in a vat of moisturizer and it wouldn’t do a bit of good.” She paused to catch her breath. “You should’ve told me you were planning a party. I would’ve been here earlier. Do you like my new boots? I got them from Savio. Gotta love that fairy. Did I tell you he and I are dating?”