The Vet's Big Cat [Furnas and Gosper Shifters 1] (Siren Publishing Classic ManLove)

by Lilybeth Zefram

  Furnas and Gosper Shifters 1

  The Vet’s Big Cat

  Kit Pryde was adopted by his stepfather and stepfather’s pack of coyote shifters when he was a kid, after his parents had mated. Even as an adult, his mother and stepfather despaired over the fact that Kit would live a very short human life if he did not mate a shifter. The pack Seer says that Kit’s happily ever after is around the corner, he just doesn’t know it yet. Now thirty, Kit’s leaving his San Diego home for Holbrook, Nebraska, bringing with him a broken heart and baggage in the shape of his ex-boyfriend.

  For Leo Pard, enforcer of the Furnas and Gosper lion pride and policeman, the moment he sees Kit at his uncle’s Fourth of July barbeque, he knows that Fate has blessed him with everything he could have hoped for. Leo wants to do things right for his mate, but will a ghost from the past help Leo realize his own stubbornness and claim his mate?

  Genre: Alternative (M/M, Gay), Contemporary, Paranormal, Shape-shifter

  Length: 28,756 words

  THE VET’S BIG CAT

  Furnas and Gosper Shifters 1

  Lilybeth Zefram

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  THE VET’S BIG CAT

  Copyright © 2017 by Lilybeth Zefram

  ISBN: 978-1-64010-460-0

  First Publication: July 2017

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2017 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

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  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  DEDICATION

  This one is for the lovely readers of the Man Love Fantasies blog—thank you for wanting to hear more from Kit and Leo and thank you for your patience. Only took me a year to get my stuff together, I hope you enjoy!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Lilybeth Zefram is the pen name for an Australian writer and scientist, who still can’t figure out if she is a real writer yet. She is a lover and viewer/reader of sci-fi and history. She has been known to binge watch Time Team (UK), Doctor Who, FireFly and Star Trek TNG on a whim. (Can you figure out the inspiration for her pen name?). All her reading and learning has given her a somewhat philosophical outlook but deep down loves nothing more than a hot romance and a sweet happily ever after. The only problem these days is that work and the single life get in the way of writing!

  For all titles by Lilybeth Zefram, please visit

  www.bookstrand.com/lilybeth-zefram

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  Landmarks

  Cover

  THE VET’S BIG CAT

  Furnas and Gosper Shifters 1

  LILYBETH ZEFRAM

  Copyright © 2017

  Chapter One

  Kit Pryde

  Honestly, I never planned on being alone for the July Fourth weekend. I cannot say that I am the most patriotic person around, but I love my annual excuse for a barbecue and a few cold beers with friends or family as much as the next person.

  However, I was stuck here, alone, in Holbrook, Nebraska. Meanwhile my family—my mom, my stepfather who raised me as his own, plus my older stepbrother, Elijah, in addition to a sprinkling of cousins from my mother’s siblings and my stepdad’s massive family who had welcomed me with open arms—were largely back home in San Diego where I grew up.

  Jesus, I would kill for chicken chipotle flautas and a grande original flavored margarita from Cafe Coyote in Old Town, San Diego. I have to admit, reminiscing about home makes me hungry.

  I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Kit, if you’re that miserable, why did you move to Nebraska from San Diego?”

  Fair question, I must admit.

  And no, I cannot say that I am miserable.

  Yes, I fully own up to the fact of being disappointed that it was too soon into my new job to take time off to go back to San Diego for the Comic Con. All I wanted to do was see John Barrowman—Stephen Amell, Nathan Fillion, and Bruce Campbell would have been the icing on the cake of awesome actors.

  I am happy in my new job. I am a veterinary surgeon and moving to the heart of farm country was not the worst career move I could make. Even a city vet can find a reasonable job in the middle of cowboy country. Let’s face it, for this gay city boy cowboy country was also a literal and figurative wet dream. Even if I was only going to be tending the smaller animals at the surgery, while the two other more experienced vets went on calls to ranches to deal with larger animals. I hoped to get the opportunity to learn about farm animals, too. The country life really did call to me.

  I am happy in my new home. It’s a two bedroom home with a small patio and garden. The rent is pretty cheap, too. Though since I only know about the rental market in San Diego, I suppose I can only say it’s cheap to San Diego standards. I am actually making friends, so I am not always alone.

  It is just the circumstances surrounding the move that make me sort of bitter.

  I suppose most importantly, I do miss my parents, brother, and dad’s massive family, if that is what you’d call it being in a pack of shape shifters. You see, my dad and brother are shape shifters! It was a shock to my mom years back when the man she just met and had already started falling in love with claimed that he was her soul mate and could shape shift into a coyote. Eight-year-old me was excited to hear the news, and the first thing I wanted to do was ride on the back of my new fifteen-year-old brother. Living with coyotes was actually part of the reason why I wanted to study veterinary science in college.

  So yes, my mom is my dad’s soul mate. That means that they are together forever and all that mushy stuff.

  I’m sure it was more difficult on my parents, the whole mating thing, some mates came together easily, and others took a bit of fighting. We are not the only humans in the pack—that’s what a group of coyotes were—so shifting was just a normal part of life. We were made aware of, and met other shifting species who joined the pack. But I am only one of two unmated humans. I know that is difficult on my mom. Before she mated my stepdad, she had been scared knowing that, like shifters who lived for centuries, I could not unless I found my own mate to extend my lifespan. However, the pack elder that was also a renowned seer assured her and Dad that I would one day find my mate outside of the pack, a long way from San Diego, and
that he would be a lion. So my parents knew I was gay before I did, that would have been useful information to know. But, and this is a big one, I never knew the exact details from the seer about my mate until my dad told me after I told my parents that I had broken up with my ex, and was not sure if I should continue the move, even though I got the job. Dad figured it was time to give fate a hand.

  Needless to say, shape shifter and other paranormals decided centuries ago to keep their society secret from the humans. Humans like mom and I were only taken into the fold because of the whole soulmate thing, but paranormals consider our place in their society as equal to any other.

  As part of my move to Nebraska, dad’s alpha—who is a scary biker looking dude who is over one hundred years old but didn’t look a day over thirty-five—had spoken to the local lion pride and bear clan. It was a simple courtesy call to the alphas, and no one had asked me any strange questions yet, so I assumed that it was kept between the alphas.

  Now, let’s get back to the point of my sitting here in Nebraska and not in San Diego.

  There were three main reasons I moved to Nebraska.

  Firstly, my ex-boyfriend got a job out here as an accountant for Furnas County. Mr. X—we’ll call him Mr. X because lying-cheating-bastard-who-I-don’t-want-to-see-again does not have the same ring to it—had been my boyfriend for eighteen months, and I had thought we had been happy. He had sprung the job offer onto me. I only found out later that he had hoped I would not have taken things so well in order to break up with him. He was seeing at least two men on the side and had wanted to move to Nebraska to chase a cowboy he had got his hooks into. However, I did the unexpected and got a job just so I could stay with him. His job was meant to be in Beaver City, but after we broke up I changed my plans to rent a home in Holbrook, which I had liked, but Mr. X had not. I only had a ten-minute commute to work in the neighboring town of Arapahoe.

  Secondly, I had found a job that would be a challenge, and I believed it would be a satisfying career move. When Mr. X decided it was time to come clean a week before we were to move, we broke up. His cowboy didn’t want to see him ever again, and so Mr. X no longer had reason to move to Nebraska, and was able to get his old job back. As for me, I decided that I would keep with the plans, just remove Mr. X out of the picture. I was happy to do that. In the aftermath of the relationship, I decided a fresh start would be perfect.

  Thirdly and most obviously, there was the elders’ vision that I would find my mate far away from home and he would be a lion. I’m not going to lie. The idea of having a mate is awesome and romantic. Despite how much I had loved Mr. X, I really had never been in love with him. Until after I broke up with Mr. X, I hadn’t known about all the key bits of information about what the seer saw either. All I had known was that I did have a mate out there somewhere. To my thinking, Nebraska is far away enough from San Diego for me to find a potential mate. When I had first announced the move my dad had quickly looked into things and said that there was a considerably large lion pride in the area. Despite being a seventy-year-old coyote, quite young in shifter standards, my dad was desperate not to lose me to something as typically human as a short life span.

  But here I was on Independence Day with no plans whatsoever, except for perhaps sitting out in the yard of my rental soaking up the sun’s rays. The friends I had made for the most part were either doing nothing at home or over in Arapahoe for the day. It wasn’t terribly hot, only eighty-two degrees, much drier than San Diego, but the temperature itself was close enough. It was hot enough that I decided the best plan for the day was to sit back, bring my laptop outside and watch some TV that I needed to catch up on, put a couple beers in a bucket of ice, and sit back and relax.

  The plan went fantastic throughout the morning. I had three beers and made my way through a pack of salt and vinegar chips. I caught up on the last few episodes of Outlander I hadn’t seen.

  More than anything else, Outlander has taught me that Scotsmen are fucking hot and it was a wonderful way to spend a few hours relaxing. Jesus, if I couldn’t get my chicken flautas I would definitely like to get a Jamie Fraser all to myself instead. I hadn’t understood my brother’s use of the phrase knee porn until I had seen Sam Heughan – the actor – in a kilt. Sweet baby Jesus on a jet ski – it was enough to think about jerking off. Ok, I may have shed a couple tears at the end of the series, but a phone call to my brother gushing at how wonderful the series was and begging for spoilers because he had read the books, got me the answers that I wanted. I was certainly breathing better knowing what I could expect in series three for Jamie and Claire.

  I then moved onto watching Ash vs. The Evil Dead and contemplated getting out a steak to cook for lunch. It was at this point my cell phone rang.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said, smiling. “How are you? How’s Dad?”

  “Happy Fourth of July, darling.” My mother’s voice was cheery on the other end of the phone line. “Your brother told us he already spoke to you not long ago. Got any plans?”

  “I’m thinking of grilling myself a steak, but at the moment it’s just me, some beer, and watching stuff on my computer outside. All in all, a great plan.”

  My mother sighed softly. “It sounds a little plain but as long as you are happy, Christopher.”

  Typically, my mother was the only person who called me Christopher. My dad got away with the odd Chris. However, for the most part I was Kit.

  “To be perfectly honest I would rather be at Cafe Coyote, but with my new job no such luck.”

  I know for certain that Cafe Coyote is not some pack member’s twisted sense of humor to open a cafe-restaurant in Old Town. The place had nothing to do with shifters at all. They just have awesome food that happens to attract a pack of coyotes in the mood for some delicious Mexican food.

  “Of course,” my mother was quick to assure. “You have only been gone six weeks, but it feels so much longer.”

  “Tell me about it,” I grumbled into the phone.

  “Don’t get all upset, sweetheart!” I heard my dad in the background. “It’s not like Kit is on another planet.”

  Great, I could hear my mom sniffling. I was really hopeless when it came to dealing with my mom’s emotions.

  “Mom, it’s ok.”

  I heard muffled movement and knew my dad was taking the phone from my mom. “Kit, how is it going, my boy?”

  “Great, Dad.” Hearing my dad’s voice made me smile. “I’m busy doing a lot of nothing.”

  “Excellent, just how it should be.” There was a long pause. “Have you heard the song yet?”

  I groaned. “Jeez, Dad, not since you posted it to my Facebook timeline for the third time since I left San Diego. Just because I’m in Nebraska doesn’t mean I’m going to hear it every day.”

  I bet you know the song I’m talking about. My dad was probably more supportive about my move than my mother. He was even more supportive when I broke up with Mr. X. However, he never stopped going on about the song – Hazard by Richard Marx – I would have only been a couple years old when it came out back in the early nineties. For some reason dad was convinced I would hear it all the time on the radio because it references Nebraska.

  Whatever. I love my dad. My dad is a great guy. He just happens to be a dad with a pile of corny dad jokes that could go around the world at least twice. I’m just not sure that’s normal of a sixty-one-year-old coyote shifter, or if maybe it was just my dad.

  We talked for a few more minutes and as soon as I said my good-byes and disconnected the call, I went inside my home to prepare lunch. The smells of barbecue coming from my neighbors made me hungry. I got everything I needed out of my refrigerator and stepped back outside to grab my still open beer.

  That was when a sandy colored, shaggy mop of hair popped out on the other side of the fence. His entire face seemed to be grinning. He wasn’t my neighbor. My neighbor was actually the town pastor and his wife, Pastor Andrew and Beth Pard. The pastor said it was amusing that we were neighbors
and both our surnames were linked to cats. I suspected that the pastor was part of the pride that was in the area, if for no other reason than they had at least eight kids who were all grown and they didn’t look a day over fifty. They were a really lovely couple and not judgemental about my sexuality at all when I accidentally let it slip I had an ex-boyfriend, then again being bisexual in shifter society was normal it seemed. Instead, the pastor’s wife quickly started to list all the young gay men she knew – three in all, two of them nephews. She wanted to set me up on a blind date. I told the well-meaning lady that I did not do blind dates. I just don’t think that my words stopped her from planning these blind dates. Only time would tell.

  “Hey, dude, sorry. My grandad – Pastor Andrew – told me to check with you before we put our music on. Will it interrupt your plans if I put it up a bit?”

  Ok, they had to be shifters if this kid was their grandson and looked like he was around about twenty.

  “I got no plans today, so not a problem.”

  The kid frowned slightly. “Oh. Ok.”

  Apparently doing nothing on July Fourth was a confusing prospect, at least for this guy. Then again, in the pack back home any holiday or event was enough of an excuse to have a party with other pack members. I assume that this pride was the same.

  A few minutes later, I brought everything inside the house and cranked up the air conditioning. Just as I was about to start to cook there was a knock at the door. I opened the door to the pastor himself.

  “Hi, Pastor Andrew.” That was the name the man insisted on being called, and after six weeks I was comfortable with it, in fact, the title fit the pastor’s physical appearance. He looked welcoming, jolly and genial. “Happy Fourth of July. I think I just spoke to your grandson? I really do not mind the music volume.”