by Chant, Zoe
“But you weren’t out of control this time,” Waylon said. “Or was that your bear attacking that creature?”
She shook her head, beaming. “Nope! That was all me. And I think I can do it again, too.”
Then it was Waylon’s turn to hug her. “Rae, honey, I’m so happy for you. Do you know what did it?”
“Black Flame,” she said. “And Judy. And you too, Dad. But mostly Black Flame. While we were teaching him not to be scared of people and to control his flame, I guess it taught me, too. I kept saying and thinking ‘Calm, calm,’ to him, and it worked so well, I did it to myself. And it worked!”
“I take it back,” Judy said. “That does make me think of you a bit differently. I think you’re even more amazing than I did before.”
Raelynn grinned and took a gulp of hot chocolate.
“I would think that if it was possible,” said Waylon. “I’m not sure it is, though. Also, you’re grounded for sneaking out.”
“Daaaad!”
“Grounded,” he repeated. “No arguments.”
“I can still go to the stable though, right?”
“If Judy’s there with you,” said Waylon. “I don’t want to punish Black Flame too. He didn’t do anything wrong.”
Raelynn thunked her mug down on the table and ran for the door, shouting over her shoulder, “I’ll tell Caro she can come back in now!”
“Tell her to wait a couple minutes!” Waylon called. “And you wait too!”
“Gotcha!” The door slammed behind her.
Waylon waited a moment to make sure she was out of earshot, then said, “I wish I could’ve told you earlier, Judy. But I couldn’t figure a way out of that mess to do right by you both.”
Poor Waylon, Judy thought. What an awful dilemma!
And yet she couldn’t regret that it had happened. His explanation of it made her love him even more, if that was possible. “You did do right by us. You kept your promise to your daughter, and you never lied to me. And when the chips were down, you both protected me, no matter what it meant for you.”
“And you protected Rae. I’ll never forget how you jumped in front of her and squared off against the beast with nothing but a poker.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t have time to think. It was pure instinct.”
“That’s because it came from the heart.” He took her hands in his and gazed into her eyes. She recognized the heat of desire, the warmth of love, and the steady shine of loyalty and commitment. “There’s something else I need to tell you about shifters. I don’t just turn into a bear. A part of my personality is the bear. It’s the part of me that’s more primal. More instinctive.”
“Is that why Raelynn was having so much trouble shifting? That part of her took over?”
“Yeah, exactly. But there’s more to it than that. The part of you that’s the inner animal doesn’t have quite the same priorities that humans have, but it can perceive things that humans can’t. One of the things it can do is recognize our true mates.”
Judy had never heard the phrase before, and yet it rang a bell somewhere deep inside her. “Is that like your one true love?”
“Yes,” Waylon said simply. “It’s exactly that. Your mate is the person you’re completely compatible with. The person you’ll love with all your heart and soul, and always be faithful to. You don’t have to be a shifter to have one, of course. But shifters know earlier, and we know for sure. Judy, when I first looked into your eyes, I knew that you were the one for me. When we were driving home singing Dolly Parton songs, I was already in love with you.”
The raw honesty of his confession brought the sting of tears to her eyes, but she blinked them back. “Me too, Waylon. Me too. I just couldn’t admit it to myself. I was scared it was too fast and too good to be true and I wasn’t the family type and I’d mess things up with Raelynn and—”
He silenced her with a kiss. In the heat and passion of their embrace, Judy knew that none of her fears were true. She was his mate, and he was hers. They were also part of a family, and she belonged with it and it belonged with her just as much as she and Waylon belonged with each other.
“To think it used to just be me and a bunch of horses,” she murmured.
“Now it’s you and me and a bunch of horses,” said Waylon, smiling. “And two donkeys and a mule.”
“And a dog,” Judy added.
And two cats.”
“And Bryan and Angel and Everly,” said Judy. “Right?”
“Oh, definitely.”
“And Denise.” Judy had met Raelynn’s mother via Zoom, and they’d had some awkward chats. “She knows about shifters, right?”
“She’s one herself,” said Waylon. “That’s what I meant when I was talking about our families both being from the same cultural background. They were back-to-the-earth shifters who thought we needed to live closer to nature, like our animals did.”
“Oh!” Maybe those chats would be less awkward now. Or maybe the shifter thing had nothing to do with it. All the same, Denise was family.
Raelynn barged back into the room. Excitedly, she said, “Dad, Angel says the armored wolf-thing isn’t hurt, just scared and lost. He says we need to load it into the back of your truck and put it back through the portal, but it’s really heavy. He wants me and you to shift into bears and help him lift it that way, can I?”
“Is the portal still open?” Waylon asked.
“Yes! Caro and Moonbow flew to it with Bryan and he called from the woods. He says to hurry because it might close at any second, and then Angel would be stuck with the armored wolf calming it down around the clock until the portal opens again because we don’t have any cage strong enough to hold it.”
“Well, we can’t have that.” Waylon stood up and offered Judy his hand. “Want to come along for the ride?”
“With you and Rae and Angel and an armored wolf-armadillo being magically calmed down by a man who turns into a unicorn? Any time.” Then, considering, she said, “Unless you need me to return Black Flame to the stable.”
“He’ll stay in the backyard until we get back if I ask him to,” Raelynn assured her.
“I guess the whole family’s going, then,” said Judy.
“Except Black Flame,” said Raelynn. “And the cats. Probably Bruiser shouldn’t come either. And Mom’s in Finland, of course. But a bunch of the family will be there.”
“Were you listening at the door?” Waylon asked.
“No.” Her puzzled look made it clear that she was telling the truth. “Why?”
“We all have the same idea of who’s in our family,” said Judy.
“Of course we do,” said Raelynn. “Because we are one.”
Epilogue
“This is the best place in La Puerta for a picnic,” said Raelynn, brandishing an egg salad sandwich like a conquering flag. “Right in front of a portal to other worlds! Thanks for letting us do it, Dad. FINALLY.”
Waylon was regretting it already, but managed a smile. It was true that Rae had been begging for it for years. He and the other vets had only agreed to it because the portal had opened the day before, allowing them to return a sparkling star-rat and a hissing, thrashing, tongue-lashing chupacabra. Nothing had come out of the portal, and it had closed soon after. In the entire time he’d been working there, it had never opened two days in a row, so he figured it was reasonably safe.
All the same, the vets has their tranquilizer rifles, butterfly nets, and cages of assorted sizes within easy reach of the picnic blanket. Though they’d safely returned the armored wolf and caught a brief glimpse through the portal of it being welcomed back to its pack, the incident had left them all very aware of how dangerous the magical creatures could be.
The vets, their mates, and Raelynn were all eating a lavish spread provided by Coffee. They had egg salad sandwiches, chicken salad sandwiches, roast beef sandwiches, and delicate little cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. They had potato salad, coleslaw, and a summer salad of arugula and watermelon. There w
ere brownies, blondies, lemon bars, and raspberry crumble bars for dessert. And to wash it all down, they had watermelon lemonade, cucumber-and-mint lemonade, elderflower lemonade, plain lemonade (which Everly had brought just in case someone didn’t want the fancy stuff, but no one was drinking it), and milk.
Bruiser was happily rolling around in the grass, his little legs paddling in the air. Rock was swooping and diving at the edge of the glen, her blue body and white wings flashing in and out of the green leaves.
“Has the portal ever opened when you’ve been right here?” Judy asked.
“It did once when I was hiking by myself,” Angel said. “A rain bird flew out, created a storm over my head, and got me completely soaked before I coaxed her to come to me so I could calm her down. Only it turned out she didn’t create storms because she was stressed, she did it because she liked to. My back seat has never been the same since.”
“But you never know! It could open at any time, and anything could come out.” Rae clearly hoped it would.
Please no, Waylon thought.
Rock let out a piercing shriek and dove into Everly’s cleavage. Bruiser jumped up, faced the portal, and began to bark.
The portal shimmered silver.
“I knew it!” Rae said delightedly.
“Rae, get back!” Waylon shouted, grabbing his tranquilizer rifle. “Judy, you too.”
He, Angel, and Bryan instantly formed a protective line between the portal and the others, tranquilizer rifles held ready.
A fluffy gray puppy flew out, flapping hard on furry wings. The silver shimmer winked out as the portal closed behind it.
“Oooh,” Raelynn exclaimed. “A flying puppy!”
“A winged wolf cub,” corrected Bryan.
Since he obviously knew what it was, Waylon asked him, “Do they have any special powers?”
“Just wings,” Bryan said.
The wolf cub was circling in the air well above the reach of their butterfly nets, and showed no inclination to come down. Its flight pattern was erratic, sometimes soaring high, sometimes veering abruptly off to the side. The cub whined as it flew, an unhappy sound that went to Waylon’s heart. It clearly wasn’t having fun flying—it was injured or scared.
“Wish I could reach it,” Angel said, holding a butterfly net like a batter waiting for a pitch. “We’ll have to wait for it to come—”
The cub, whose zig-zag flight pattern had led it to one of the tallest trees in the grove, flew straight into a branch. It let out a yelp and began to fall out of the sky.
Everyone rushed forward to try to catch it, but Waylon knew with a gut-clenching anticipation of disaster that they’d be too late.
Cloth tore as a huge gray wolf exploded out of Bryan’s clothes. But even with his wolf’s speed, he too would never reach the cub before he hit the ground.
Furry gray wings unfolded from Bryan’s back. He sprang into the air, arrowed toward the tumbling cub, and caught it in his jaws by the scruff of its neck, his paws outstretched to cushion the jolt.
Everyone stood staring as the winged wolf who was Bryan settled gently down on the ground with the winged cub dangling safely from his jaws. He folded his wings, and they instantly blended into the fur of his back and sides. If Waylon hadn’t already known they were there, he’d never have noticed them.
In fact, unless Bryan had acquired wings very recently, Waylon never had noticed them.
What the hell…? Waylon thought.
The big wolf lifted his front paw and curled it under the cub. In the blink of an eye, the wolf vanished and Bryan stood in his place, stark naked and holding the cub in one hand.
Raelynn let out a shriek and dramatically flung her forearm over her eyes. “Pants, please! I want to look at the flying wolf cub and I can’t when there’s naked men being naked in public!”
Bryan turned around, giving everyone an excellent view of his backside. He seemed completely unselfconscious about his nudity. His entire attention was focused on the wolf cub as he gave her a quick but thorough examination.
“Is the cub a shifter?” Angel asked.
Bryan shook his head. “No, she’s a magical animal. She doesn’t seem seriously injured. Bruised a bit. I think she hit the branch hard enough to stun her, and that’s why she fell. But there must be something wrong for her to have flown into it in the first place.”
“PANTS,” demanded Rae. “IS HE WEARING PANTS???”
Waylon picked up Bryan’s pants from the ground. They were torn but wearable; his shirt had been destroyed. He tossed them over. “Bryan’s putting them on right now. Right, Bryan?”
Most people would look awkward and clumsy trying to put on their pants with one hand while holding a flapping wolf cub in the other. Bryan did it with the quick, dangerous grace which invested all his movements. By the time he zipped up, the wolf cub had calmed down and was trying to chew on his ear.
“It’s safe now, Rae,” said Judy. “You can look.”
Raelynn dropped her arm, and everyone began talking at once.
“A flying fluffy wolf cub,” Raelynn exclaimed. “And Bryan’s a flying fluffy wolf too!”
“Why didn’t you ever tell us you had wings, Bryan?” Waylon asked.
“How did we never notice you had wings?” Angel asked.
“You can’t see them at all when they’re folded,” Everly pointed out.
“Maybe it evolved as a hunting strategy,” Judy suggested. “Prey animals get ready to evade a running wolf, but they don’t know the wolf can fly till it’s too late.”
“But why didn’t you tell us?” Angel asked.
“They’re so cool,” Raelynn said. “I want to see you fly again!”
Bryan glared at them all as he protectively cuddled the wolf cub to his chest. “What are you all staring at? Haven’t you ever seen a winged wolf before?”
* * *
If you enjoyed Bear Vet, have you read Unicorn Vet yet?
Get Unicorn Vet on Amazon!
* * *
And you can read more about Caro, Shane and Catalina, the Defenders bodyguards, and their magical pets in Protection, Inc: Defenders!
A Note From Zoe Chant
Winged Wolf Vet will be next in the Shifter Vets series. If you’re starting here, the first book was Unicorn Vet.
If you enjoyed the magical creatures in Bear Vet or would like to read more about Shane, Catalina, Caro, and their magical pets, you’re in luck! Shane and Catalina’s story is told in Protector Panther, the third book in the Protection, Inc. series about shifter bodyguards. You can get their book, along with the first two, in the discounted collection Protection, Inc. Collection One.
Caro and Moonbow are introduced in the spinoff series Protection, Inc. Defenders, which is about the east coast team of sexy shifter bodyguards, their strong mates, and their magical pets. You can start with Defender Cave Bear, or get the first three books in the discounted collection Protection, Inc: Defenders Collection One.
If you’d like to be emailed when I release my next book, please click here to be added to my mailing list. You can also visit my webpage, or join my VIP Readers Group on Facebook!
Please review this book on Amazon. Hearing from readers like you is what keeps me writing!
Also by Zoe Chant
Shifter Vets
Unicorn Vet
Bear Vet
Protection, Inc.
Bodyguard Bear
Defender Dragon
Protector Panther
Warrior Wolf
Leader Lion
Soldier Snow Leopard
Top Gun Tiger
Protection, Inc: Defenders
Defender Cave Bear
Defender Raptor
Defender Hellhound
See Zoe Chant’s complete list of books here!
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