Trigger Massey swallowed hard and forced himself to look at the carnage. Dad had always told him not to look away from things that were hard to deal with. He’d told him from age three to accept the tough parts of his life. Own them. Get to a point where he could eventually revel in them, but he’d never quite gotten there. The scent of blood was still his least favorite smell in the world. Why? Because his life had been bathed in it.

Fourteen cattle, chewed up and left scattered across his south pasture. Fourteen. He calculated the money this cost him in his head, money he didn’t have. Fuck. The worst part was he didn’t know if they’d been killed by the local cougar clan as a warning, or if he’d done this. Sleep walker killer—that’s what the monster inside of him turned him into.

“Come on,” he murmured low, nudging Harley, his coal black work horse. The critter was big, sixteen hands high and intact, so the stallion was a handful on a good day. He fuckin’ loved his pet monster. Mean as sin with the speed of a demon to match. A kindred spirit perhaps. If Trigger didn’t get bitten or kicked five times a week, well, it was a slow week. The horse snorted and dragged his front hoof through the snow as if he was impatient after just thirty seconds of standing here. Spoiled beast. He wasn’t bothered by the blood or the dead cattle, but he was bothered by not having a job to do. Sitting and thinking was Trigger’s gig, not Harley’s. He just wanted to run and terrorize the other horses and cause havoc.

Trigger heard Colton way before he saw him. That was the beauty of his extra senses. Perhaps it was one of the only benefits to the monster that raged inside of him. They were in the piney mountains of Montana, right on the edge of the continental divide. It was beautiful here, but on his property, there wasn’t much open space. For a creature who relied on all senses, especially his sight, he needed to remedy that fast. He needed to rent some equipment and clear land, but with what money? Either his animal or the Darby Clan of mountain lion shifters was slaughtering his meager income.

“What?” he growled at Colton before he even turned around.

“Man, fuck you and your attitude today. I got you help.”

“Don’t need no help.”

Colton pulled his bay horse up next to Harley and nearly got his mount kicked.

“You know better,” Trigger gritted out, casting him a fiery glance. “Harley hates that horse.”

“Harley hates every horse, and you never trained him to behave. Your fault.”

“I like him mean.”

“Ava’s coming here.”

When Trigger jerked with shock, Harley skittered to the side and snorted in agitation. His frozen breath blasted in front of him like freight train steam as he reared. Trigger yanked him back under control and kicked him, took off at a dead sprint, got him a hundred yards, and then circled back to Colton.

When he returned, Colton said, “He’s the worst horse,” as he leaned on his saddle horn and looked as bored as his horse with Harley’s antics.

“Ava ain’t welcome here.”

“Why not?”

“Because she ain’t!”

Colton’s eyes flashed gold, and he sat up straight. “That ain’t a good enough answer this time, Trigger. Explain why not!”

“Because she’s a girl.”

“This ain’t fourth grade, and I’m not posting a no-girls-allowed sign on the front gate, you sexist dick!”

“It’s not about being sexist, Colton! Have you told her? Huh?”

Colton didn’t answer and turned away to hide the scars on his face.

“Hide them marks all you want from me. Won’t stop me from thinking about them. Won’t stop the guilt. You tell me all the time to get out of my head and stop thinking about what I did because you don’t think about it. Lie. Big fuckin’ lie.”

“It ain’t a lie! I came to grips with this five years ago, Trig.”

“But you haven’t told your baby sister what you are.”

“That’s the rules, right?” he yelled, lifting those fiery gold eyes to Trigger. When his face got red with fury, the scars looked even worse.

Don’t look away, his dad’s voice whispered in his mind. Own the devil in you.

Trigger wanted to puke off the side of his horse, but he made himself hold Colton’s disfigured gaze. “Even if you had told her. Even if she knew what to expect when she saw you…” Trigger jammed a finger at the massacred cattle lying in stiff mounds in the thin snow. “How will you explain our lives to her? How will you explain the shit that keeps happening? We’re in a damn freefall, and you’re inviting a stranger to watch it.”

“She’s not a stranger, Trig. She’s my sister.”

“Who you let go.”

“Because I had to.” He gave Trig his profile, hiding the damn claw marks again. Colton swallowed hard and stared at the dead cattle with an unreadable expression. “Ava can stop our freefall.”

Trigger snorted. “How?”

“She’s good with money. She can tell us how to save this place from the clan.”

“It ain’t savable.”

“Fuck that. We aren’t to the give-up part yet, Trig. You hate everyone and everything, right?” Colton flicked his fingers at the mountains. “You don’t hate this place. It’s your connection to your dad. Losing it can’t happen. You’ll truly be a monster if you do, and I ain’t shooting you in the head, Trig.”

“You swore—”

“I swore if it got to that point, but it ain’t getting there! Ava will stop it!” Colton gritted his teeth, and a snarl ripped up his throat. His horse was used to that, just like Harley was, but the bay bounced to the side just the same. Colton gripped the reins and turned the horse in a tight circle once, then spat on the ground, eyes locked on Trigger’s. “You made me into this, you sonofabitch. You don’t get to leave me here alone to manage it. Fuck the clan. Fight everything. Ava will be here soon. Do yourself a favor and wash a fuckin’ dish. She’s not a laid-back woman. She’ll give us hell, so prepare.” Colton kicked his horse and bolted back in the direction of the barn.

“Fantastic!” Trigger yelled after Colton. “Like I’m not already in Hell!”

Stupid Colton. Ava couldn’t stop anything. Trigger was a runaway freight train someone had set on fire. He had no brakes and had been rolling down a steep hill on greased tracks for years. There was no stopping his downfall. There was only slowing it down and dragging out the torture.

Therefore, he hated Ava just like he hated everyone else.

She wouldn’t help.

Her good intentions would just make everything worse.