Some Bunny To Love
River’s Edge Shifters #1
Lorelei M. Hart
Aria Grace
Surrendered Press
Some Bunny To Love
Copyright © 2020 by Lorelei M. Hart & Aria Grace
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Prologue
“Stop those motherfucking dogs or I’m getting out my shotgun.” Xander’s father bellowed through the house. Had he not been drunk and sitting in his recliner, Xander would’ve been preparing himself for a smack or a punch...or on a really bad day, a kick. But since his father was more screaming than anything else, he felt less afraid for himself and more for the dogs.
Xander ran into the livingroom to answer his father. For some reason, it was acceptable for his father to bark orders from all over the place, but Xander needed to respond in close proximity or face a beating for being disrespectful. He’d learned a long time ago some things were not worth pushing back against. “I’ll take care of Boxer and Stray.”
“Those dogs need to learn to be quiet. A man can’t think around here.” At least his dad was calm, or calmer than Xander was expecting given his earlier threat to put down the dogs.
It wasn’t a threat as much as a promise. Xander had lost more than one pet to his father's wrath. If it were up to him, they wouldn’t have gotten Boxer and Stray at all. It wasn’t fair to the dogs. They weren’t allowed inside. Their only purpose was to be silent unless they were catching one of the many invisible, nonexistent enemies his father was sure would arrive any day.
But the dogs had shown up one day as pups. They were in a box on the porch, and his mother had begged to keep them. His father, as cruel as he was, had a soft spot for the boy’s mother. Xander missed her so much. Cancer stole her before his fifth birthday. And now it was just him and his father.
“I will work on that, Father.” Never Dad or Daddy or even sir. Father was the only acceptable way to address the man.
The boy ran out to find the dogs, whose barks had carried farther in the distance. He ran toward them, his breath starting to become labored by the time he finally found them on the border of their property, both dogs standing side by side. The neighbor had an electric fence and they stood a foot from it. Smart dogs. But he’d known that. They had lasted twice as long as any that came before them. “Stop,” he shouted at them. “Come.”
They stopped barking briefly, looked him in the eye, and began to bark again. Xander closed the distance between them, wishing he had their leashes. It would be a long way back holding on to their collars, but whatever had them so riled up wasn’t going away fast enough for the boy’s liking.
He was only a step from Boxer when a small branch rustled on the ground beside him and caught his eye. He knelt down to see a rabbit with red on his fur. He was still breathing, but the poor thing was very injured. Next to him, Xander saw the evidence that had him putting the pieces together.
Fox print.
The kind thing would be to put the injured creature down, but Xander’s life had seen too much of that. His father loved that shotgun and took some sick pleasure in using it to kill innocent animals. No, Xander needed to save this little one.
He took off his hoodie, glad the dogs had been too distracted by the fox to make the injuries on the rabbit any worse than they already were. Chances were the furry being wasn’t going to see the morning, but it wouldn’t be for lack of trying.
Xander gently lifted the bunny, placing him on his warm sweatshirt, cooing that it would be alright. He held the bundled animal to his chest as he took him to the one person who might be able to help, Angeline Jackson.
1
August
“How did you manage all this?” I asked my grandmother for the thousandth time.
She didn’t answer. She would never be able to answer again, slowly slipping from this world a month earlier while she slept. That never stopped me from asking her questions or telling her about my day. This place was her.
When I’d gotten the call from my uncle, telling me her wish was for me to take up residence here, it made sense. I’d been the grandson who spent their summers here, helping with her rescue farm and giving my parents the freedom to pretend they didn’t have a son to bog down their fun. I knew the place better than most people.
I just wished she had told me. I hadn’t been married to my apartment back in the city. Shit, I didn’t even really like it much. But it had been home since I graduated from college, and going from city life to country life had been a challenge I probably could have succeeded better at if I had eased my way into it. Not that I was staying.
Probably.
Most likely.
Maybe.
Shit, I didn’t even know.
Giving up the only place that ever felt like home was hard. All of this was hard. Especially the part about my grandmother being gone.
At least my job allowed me to walk away until things with the estate were settled. I worked in real estate. Technically, I was an agent, but my job had morphed into a behind-the-scenes guy, putting up listings and optimizing searches so our company had better sales, that kind of thing. I liked the steady income of that versus the highs and lows of showing and selling homes. Eat what you kill was a hard way to live. For me, anyway.
My boss had been great about letting me work remotely. My work had grown the agency significantly since I first proposed it a couple years ago, sick of the rat race and without a degree that meant anything. Why I thought getting a major in English was a good idea I’d never know.
I stepped out of the house and onto the porch, carrying a bowl of water for the three-legged cat that had taken up roost there. I tried to bring him in at least fifty times since I arrived, but he snuck back there to sit on the porch, watching the driveway when he wasn’t sleeping. My gut told me he was waiting for my grams to come home, and I got it. There was a time or two when I looked to the driveway with the same longing.
“Here you go, Lux.” Grams had named him that, saying that after being found in the blue freestanding mailbox in town, he was now living the life of luxury. “A fresh bowl for you. I’m not even going to pretend to bring you inside.” I placed the water on the tray, swapping it out for the bowl I had placed there that morning and dumping its content over the rail and onto the azalea bush.
Lux bounced over, rubbed against my foot, and then began lapping at the water. He was gorgeous, all calico with a tad of white on his nose. I felt bad he was still in mourning, but there was not much I could do about it except love on him and hope he got over it. I already had half a notion he’d be coming back to the city with me. It was selfish. I knew this. He liked the fresh air, not a tiny apartment.
“I’m going to leave the door ajar, just in case you change your mind.” I walked back inside with the empty dish, leaving the door cracked open for him.
I had a lot of animals to think about. My grandmother’s heart of gold meant she had more rescue animals than she probably should have—not because the farm was too small because it was plenty big enough, but it had taken her all day to mind them. Although, as my uncle reminded me, that was the life she had wanted.
Gods, I missed her.
A knock on the door startled me, especially as the pounding of feet began to accompany it. A young boy, ten possibly twelve, stopped dead in his tracks. “You aren’t Miss Angeline.” He stood there, his h
oodie in a bunch in his arms as if he were carrying something fragile inside it, and Lux was rubbing his leg.
Interesting.
“Lux, I need to find your mama.” The boy talked to the cat as if they were best friends. And given the little meow he gave him in return, it wasn’t the first time.
“No one told you?” Shit. I was gonna have to tell the kid my gram was dead.
“About?” He took a slight step back as if he were getting ready to bolt.
I hardly considered myself scary. I was tall, sure, but my scraggly self posed a danger to no one. But he didn’t know that. He was just a kid.
“Angeline was my grandmother,” I offered, attempting to put him at ease. The entire situation was bizarre, but then again, my grandmother had always said she collected strays. Maybe he was one of them. I had a half a memory of her talking about a boy who helped her around the barn from time to time. I had assumed a teenager, but maybe this was him.
“Was?” His face dropped at the realization of the power in that one little word.
“She passed away last month.” I lurched forward, immediately reaching for him when it looked like he was going to drop the bundle in his arms. But his grip actually tightened. Whatever he was holding was important.
“No one told me.” Tears began to flow down his cheeks. “No one told me.”
I wanted to comfort the boy and tell him everything would be okay. Instead, I did the only thing I knew how to do. I embraced my inner grandma and turned toward the stove, grabbing the tea kettle. “Want to put your hoodie on the counter, and I can make some tea?”
Tea had been Grams’s solution to all the wrongs in this world. She even had different types for different woes.
“It’s not my hoodie.” He bit his lip, the tears still on his cheeks. He’d not loosened his hold long enough to wipe them. “I mean, it is but it’s more than that. I thought Angeline could help.” His words confused me, but his tone told me to keep listening. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
I had no answer to that. He’d obviously loved her or at least trusted her with whatever the catalyst for him being there was. He should’ve been told.
“I don’t know.” I filled the pot and waited for him to say something. Anything. He did not. “I’m August.” I set the kettle on the burner and turned it on. “I’m staying here for a while.”
“Like the month?” He quirked his eyebrow. It wasn’t the first time someone questioned my name. Adults tended to wait until an appropriate time, but kids always blurted it out, and I appreciated that.
“Probably.” I shrugged. “I was born in August.” My mom thought it would be an adorable story. She swore she would not be pregnant in August, so when I was born on August first, what else could she name me or some shit. The story changed with her audience. That was how she was.
“Clever.”
I held up a box of strawberry tea. Grams had said strawberry brought smiles. He gave me a nod of approval, and I took out two bags, placing them in the mugs permanently residing on the drainboard. My grams would not have been impressed with that. “I’m Xander. I live next door.” He tilted his head in the direction of an old, run-down cabin and no-trespassing signs. “This is Bunny. He needs help.”
Xander held out his hoodie, and I grabbed it with care, taking it to the table. Bunny. I didn’t know spit about animals other than the ones on the farm. Even then, I only knew about basic care. I certainly had no ability to take care of a sick rabbit.
I pulled back the warm fabric and caught myself as I almost screamed out a wide array of cuss words all in a row. This poor creature had been bitten. Badly. Possibly more than bitten. He wasn’t going to make it.
How was I supposed to tell this kid my grandmother died, and he was about to lose his pet all in the same conversation? It would break him. He might have a tough facade, but it broke so quickly that I had a feeling this would be one blow too many for him.
“What happened?” Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked. Like when someone gets a cut on their forehead and they look like they had just been attacked by zombies because there was so much blood. Please let it be that.
“I think a fox. My dogs chased it away before I got there, but the pawprints looked like fox. I looked around, and I didn’t see a bunny nest. Maybe he’s a boy, but I can’t tell. Hopefully there aren’t any babies.” He sighed, obviously distressed by the whole situation.
The dogs chasing the fox away might not have been a kindness for this poor creature. Right now, he looked like he might appreciate the relief only death could bring him. He wasn’t even trying to get away.
That was not a good sign.
“I am not a vet.”
As if trying to prove me Dr. Doolittle or something, Daisy came traipsing in. The silly pig thought she was a dog and my sweet grams had let her. I used to corral her outside when she snuck in but had long since given up. At least she was small-ish for a pig.
“A vet won’t see him. Dr. Barry only sees cats and dogs...and really only dogs. He’s kind of a butt. And besides, vets cost money. I don’t have any.” I’d have offered to pay, but if the vet was a jackass, which it sounded like might be the case, it would have done nothing but made the situation worse.
I had the number for the large animal vet my grams used. He came to the farm to give vaccines and to take care of the animals when they got sick. I was pretty sure bunnies didn’t fall under their normal clientele, but maybe I’d give them a call once the boy left.
“I’ll see what I can do. My grams would’ve been better at this,” I said more to myself than the kid. I needed to watch my words. I wasn’t used to being around children.
“Can I come back and check on him? I need to go and take care of the dogs before—” He snapped his mouth shut, and I had a feeling whatever was coming next was not something I wanted to hear, so I didn’t push it.
“Sure. Do you want me to call the vet for the dogs?” If money were the issue, that was something I could help with.
“No, they’re just being loud.” He looked down at the bunny. “Don’t die. Okay?”
My heart broke in two. I was going to save this bunny. The question remained: how?
2
Jase
When I decided to pull over and stretch my legs after eight hours in the car, I anticipated a little run, nothing more. I’d been so stupid, not bothering to scent the area thoroughly first. My sleep-deprived haze resulted in a lapse in judgment that almost cost me my life.
I’d been on my way to start a new job. A crappy job, but a job was a job, and it paid halfway decent. The company I worked for back east had been kind enough to put out feelers for all their employees when their closing became eminent. About half of the employees were lucky and found local jobs. I was in the second category that had to move. But still, I was glad not to be in the group of my former colleagues who were still looking for work.
I was trying to look at this as an adventure and not what it really was, which was a pain in the ass. That’s what I got for having a generic degree instead of something more specialized. What had I thought I would become, an English professor?
The countryside was beautiful where I stopped. I had never been a city guy, but had spent the last couple of years there trying to make ends meet. If I’d had my way, I’d have been living in a place like wherever it was I stopped. All I could see for miles were farm houses and a quaint little downtown.
I shucked my clothes and allowed my bunny to take over. Of all the shifters in the world, I had to be the fluffiest, most useless one out there. Wolves could hunt and defend their property. Bears could fish and intimidate the entire food chain. Heck, even owls had their practical uses, keeping mice away or some shit. But no, I wasn’t anything cool or tough like that.
I was born a bunny.
Had my parents also been bunnies, life would have been much different for me. But I was one of the very lucky few who possessed a recessive gene that made me a bunny shifter and not the fierce
wolves they were. And when I had my first shift… Well, let’s just say it was interesting.
Or mortifying.
It sucked so bad that I told my family I wasn’t going to stay with our pack because I needed to pursue my dreams of becoming an—well, an English something since I had no practical dreams. Thankfully, they allowed my pretense, knowing how hard it had been for me growing up with all my friends shifting into my natural predators.
Happy to be out of the car, I hopped around, enjoying the stretch in my legs and the feel of my fur in the wind. Unfortunately, the same wind had come from the wrong direction, shifting only quickly enough for me to run a few feet as the scent of a fox tickled my nose. Had I been a predatory shifter, I could’ve attacked the creature. Shit, had I been a quick shifter, I could’ve become human before he got to me.
I was neither of those.
The rest of it was a blur, a blur that ended up with me being wrapped in a hoodie by some kid. I wanted to shift. Needed to shift. But my injuries prevented me from doing so.
The kid promised he’d take good care of me, get me to some miracle worker old lady. I believed him. I had no choice, falling in and out of consciousness along the way.
I spent my youth besting wolves in the chase, and yet now, when it truly mattered, I lost to a freaking fox. A real one too, not even a shifter with the brain capacity of a human. I was officially the loser of the shifter kingdom.
Yay, recessive genes.
The next thing I knew, I was being looked at by someone who was definitely not an old lady. His scent was all lavender and calming and very much human. A vet, I hoped. Although the location appeared to be an old lady’s bathroom, complete with three-dimensional wall hangings of seahorses.
But I didn’t care about that. I was too focused on the man. He was cleaning my fur with a washcloth, his strokes so soft. “I’m going to do the best I can for you, little fella.” He turned to the side, and while I couldn’t see what he was doing, it sounded as if he were wringing out the washcloth. “I promised Xander I would do whatever I could for you, and I will. I have a feeling his life is not too good, so how about you pull through this so he can smile again.”
Some Bunny To Love: River’s Edge Shifters #1 Page 1
