Cock and Bull Story

By J.J. Collins

Tauro is a bull shifter. Forced to leave the pro wrestling ring, he works off his aggressions as a street fighter. Gallano is a cockerel shifter from a family of famous luchadores. When the irresistible cock meets the immovable bull, sparks are bound to fly ... but only if they can fight their way past their own mutual stubbornness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Evernight Publishing
• Release date: May 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781773399584

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Published by EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ® at Smashwords

www.evernightpublishing.com

Copyright© 2019 J.J. Collins

ISBN: 978-1-77339-958-4

Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

Editor: Melissa Hosack

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

To Glen Kane Jacobs

My favorite Big Red Monster

COCK AND BULL STORY

J.J. Collins

Copyright © 2019

Chapter One

Introducing the challenger—new to the county, he’s a—

Tauro didn’t pay attention to who he was or where he was from, or even what his name might be. Already tonight he had faced five opponents and trampled them into the dirt. He would do the same to this one. Then he would collect his winnings, go home, beat out an orgasm or two, and retreat to his large but lonely bed. He would have much preferred the traditional way of assuaging his physical needs, but fighting satisfied him, and paid well.

"And our champion, already a five-time winner tonight, the incredible, unbeatable—Tauro!"

He stepped out from behind the shed that served as the competitors’ changing room and strode like a conqueror to the ring. His entrance was met with hoarse cheers from the humans and roars, bellows, and howls from the shifters. He ignored them all. He had no need to prove himself to them or to anyone else. He was here for the money and the chance to fight. Everything else was white noise.

His opponent was shadow-boxing in a corner of the ring.

Tauro stopped to stare.

Was this a mistake?

In his human form Tauro was a giant, nearly seven feet tall and all beefy muscle, as befit his breed. His friends often joked he was one single muscle, carved into a series of sub-muscles woven together by sinews of steel. The five men he had defeated tonight, three humans and two shifters, all of them nearly equal to Tauro in size and mass, would not have argued with that assessment.

Given that, this … person was an insult. The shadow-boxer was barely half his size and perhaps a third of his weight. He wore a muscle shirt, under which he had no real muscles to speak of, not when compared to a bull. And tights. What kind of man wore tights in public? His face, all but his eyes and mouth, was concealed behind a luchador’s mask of red, white, and black in a pseudo-Aztec design.

He wouldn’t elevate that slender stick to fighter status by thinking of him as an opponent. This had to be a joke, and a very poor one at that.

Although… The mask gave him pause, and prompted a closer study. The man boxed the air with quick, tiny jabs, and ducked and bobbed and wove with deceptive frenzy. Putting on a show for the rubes. What muscles he did have were honed to perfection. This was no amateur fresh off the farm. Perhaps he had earned the right to wear that mask.

He got the impression the luchador was studying him too, although the smaller man never once glanced directly at him. Tauro sensed a confidence that bordered on the cocky. This little bird had knocked down big men before, and fully intended to do so tonight. Well, he would soon discover Tauro did not fall so easily.

He entered the ring by the simple method of stepping over the three-foot-high stretch of chicken wire that defined it. These one-night-only rural field fights weren’t big on amenities. The rules were equally simple—opponents would battle until one was pinned, or fled or was thrown from the ring. No fights to the death (that rule was for the shifters). Beyond that, it was anything goes.

The luchador stopped boxing and turned to face him. He and Tauro stood motionless through the ref’s recitation, fully focused on each other. Tauro had hurled one opponent forcefully over the chicken wire, casually tossed three others, and contemptuously dumped one man, a human, outside the barrier. None of those endings, he suspected, were going to apply this time. If he were truly luchador, this might just turn into a fight.

Someone on the outside struck a cowbell to start the round. The little man danced and hurled a taunt at him. Tauro stood firm, waiting. His other opponents had charged right at him, looking for a quick victory. That was the road to a quick loss. Tauro never threw the first punch if he could help it. Let the other reveal himself, so he would know how to counter.

When Tauro refused to be baited, the man stopped hopping around and began to circle. Sizing him up, planning strategy. He continued to try to goad Tauro into an ill-conceived charge. Tauro nearly smiled at the puzzled set of the man’s visible lips. Did he think bull shifters were all brawn and no brain?

Did he even realize he faced a shifter? Probably, Tauro decided. He was certainly doing everything he could to provoke a rash attack, short of waving a cape. Could he be a shifter himself? With his eyes hooded by the mask, it was difficult to tell. He danced like a chicken, but wove like a snake. He also smelled like a barnyard. Although in this part of Texas, which was heavily agricultural, that could mean anything, or nothing.

All the meaningless movement with no punches thrown had begun to wear on the crowd’s patience. If one of them didn’t make a move soon, the audience would become a mob and were liable to start hurling rocks.

The masked man shared their opinion. Come at me, you lummox! he hissed. Don’t just stand there like a pile of cow flop. Are you a bull or a sloth?

Tauro made a show of looking around. Did someone speak? I see no one. He grinned. Ah, there you are. Way down there.

You think I’m too far beneath you to matter? Little white teeth flashed at the mask’s mouth