“The most important thing to remember is simply this, Willow. Don’t fear the shift. You’re going to have a good support system. Katie and Gretchen are both awesome gals, strong, smart, and sensitive. They will run with you—not too close, since canines might antagonize you initially—but able to intervene in an emergency. I’ll have eyes in the sky on you, and Chris told me he plans to be there, too.”
“Chris? He’s an herbivore.” Willow caught herself, knowing it must sound kind of kooky even as she blurted it out.
Michael laughed. “Well, yes, I suppose he is. Don’t worry about Chris. He can take care of himself.”
Willow thought about Guy, and his offer to run with her, cat and cat. She didn’t want to reject the help of her new friends, but somehow the idea of a 150-pound bobcat seemed more reassuring. Then she thought about Chris’ smile—and those very, very kissable lips of his. He must still be interested if he was planning on coming to her first shift. Shaking her head a little, Willow considered what she had just said. “Oh no, yeah, I mean…was that insulting? To refer to him as an herbivore, I mean?”
Michael smiled and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “No, not at all. I know this is a lot to take in. Gretchen is going to go with you and Katie on your shopping trip tomorrow and give you the crash course in shifter etiquette before the wedding on Saturday. She’s like our Emily Post—everyone consults her when they have a sticky social situation. You’ll feel a lot more comfortable with a few basic dos and don’ts.”
Willow nodded dumbly, like a tired child told to go put on their pajamas. One thing was exceedingly clear, though: she needed to completely forget about complicating her life with men until she got through the full moon.
***
When she arrived at the clinic Friday morning, Willow realized it had been days since she and Samuel had had a real conversation. He looked up from a journal article he was reading as she walked in, and Willow smiled, genuinely happy to see her boss.
“Well, good morning. If it isn’t the other doc in the Wetherwell box!” Samuel grinned. “You’re looking fit. I guess you’ve completely recovered now?”
“Seems so. I think it must have looked a lot worse than it actually was,” Willow fibbed. “Getting back in the saddle has been the best medicine of all.”
Samuel nodded. “Spoken like a true Yankee.” He tossed the journal aside. “That was some nice work you did on Winston. I checked the socket before George took him home last night. Neat as a pin.”
Willow smiled with real pleasure at the compliment. “Thanks, that almost makes up for the catastrophic horse fart the Johnson’s gelding let loose in my face.”
“No one said work in the Kingdom would be glamorous,” Samuel teased. “People like you, though. You’re getting a good reputation.”
“What I want to know is how you ever carried all this by yourself?”
“Truth is,” Samuel cleared his throat, “I didn’t. Well, not very well, at any rate. No vacations, no holidays, terminal sleep deprivation…and sometimes you lost an animal because you just couldn’t get there in time, or you were too tired to see what was really going on.”
“Why didn’t you hire someone before me?” Willow sat down in one of the rolling office chairs at the front desk, spinning it to face Samuel.
“Pride, I guess. I didn’t think anyone could ever live up to my standards. It took Grace threatening to divorce me for me to get it through my thick Yankee skull that there were other good veterinarians in the world.” He smiled mischievously. “So don’t prove me wrong!”
“No, sir. I’m the best damn vet in the Kingdom, present company excluded.”
“You will be, if you just put yourself into an animal’s shoes, well, paws or hooves, or…you know what I mean.” Samuel scratched his chin thoughtfully. “If you think like an animal, you can almost always figure out what’s going on with them.”
“That’s some good advice.” And a little too close to home.
The front door rattled, as someone tried to enter through the locked door.
“Someone is eager for us to get to work this morning.” Samuel yawned a little as he got up to open it. “We’re not officially open for another fifteen minutes.”
Willow turned as Samuel opened the door to reveal a very handsome color-point Siamese held by a very sexy Mace Leland.
Having only spoken with Mace on the telephone, Samuel had no idea who it was at the door. “Good morning—sick Siamese?” he asked.
Despite having sworn off men completely only the evening before, Willow couldn’t stop the voice emerging from her body. “That’s Earl. I can see them.”
“You’ve seen this cat before?” Samuel asked.
As a patient, no, but she had seen the cat before. “Yes, he’s a new patient. Bring Earl on back to exam room number one, Mr. Leland.”
“Mr. Leland?” Samuel echoed. “Mace Leland?”
“Yes, nice to meet you, Dr. Wetherwell.” Mace shook Samuel’s hand. “I’ll just be on to exam room number one now,” he said pleasantly.
Mace shut the door behind him, and Earl meowed at Willow, leaping from Mace’s arms onto the exam table. He sat for a moment, and then stretched up, putting his paws on Willow’s chest and giving her a face full of tongue.
Mace raised an eyebrow. “What a rogue. Beating me to the punch.”
Willow tried to remain professional as she ran her hands down Earl’s body, automatically checking for anything abnormal. “What seems to be bothering Earl?”
“Earl? Nothing is bothering Earl. Earl is fine. It’s me who’s out of sorts.”
Willow froze. Was Mace seeking her out as a shifter medical professional? “Umm, I’m not really qualified yet to treat…you know…exotic animals.”
Mace closed the distance between them. “Is that what I am, an exotic animal?” His eyes narrowed, and Willow could see the cat coming out. He rolled his head, and Willow was sure that he was going to roar.
The sexual attraction she felt for Mace was undeniable, Willow realized. Even though he wasn’t touching her, the proximity of his body made her blood boil. She could feel herself growing wet and ready, and the memory of his beautiful cock sliding into her as he slowly kissed her made her gasp. She tried to edge away from him, but the exam room was too small. Earl began to play with a wooden tongue depressor he pulled from a jar, oblivious to the rising temperature in the room.
“I’m certainly an animal,” Mace continued. He brushed the back of his hand down Willow’s face. “A lovesick animal.”
Willow tried to remember her vow. No more men until after the full moon. She couldn’t trust any of her feelings, not for Guy, not for Chris, and definitely not for Mace Leland.
“What’s a matter, Willow? Cat got your tongue?” He leaned in, still keeping air between their bodies, but allowing his lips to brush hers, then his tongue to part her mouth. He nipped her lower lip between his teeth, and Willow felt all her resolve buckling. Releasing her mouth, he stepped back. “I’m not interested in cat and mouse, only cat and cat. I know you’re scared about your first shift. Let me shift with you. I can protect you, just like I promised before. Don’t push me away, Willow.”
“You don’t even know me, Mace,” Willow said sadly.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I do know you—maybe I haven’t known you for a long time, but I understand your nature, what will move you, what will sooth you. No one will ever understand you like this cat. Let me take you to the wedding on Saturday, let me show you what it means not just to be a shifter, but to be shifter royalty. I may be the last New England catamount, but I am still a king.”
Mace looked into Willow’s eyes, and for one long moment, Willow glimpsed his anguish and his loneliness. Somewhere deep inside, she felt her heart crack with the weight of the overwhelming sadness of the last catamount.
TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK FIVE: Party Animals - Volume 5
***
Party Animals
***
; Synopsis
What better opportunity than a moose prince’s wedding for a cat in the making to be introduced to shifter society? At the urging of her friends Katie and Gretchen, Willow decides she needs to relax a little and see the upside of becoming a shifter. With handsome out of town guests in town for the wedding, the carnivore girls are on the prowl for a little fun! It doesn’t take long, however, before competing suitors, shifter politics, and old wounds bring the party to a screeching halt.
***
“Get in the car!” Katie commanded with a laugh. “And stop screwing around.”
“Don’t be bossy!” Willow hooted. “I need my notebook and a pen that works so I don’t miss any of the wisdom Gretchen is going to impart!”
Gretchen glanced at her watch. “The wisdom I have to impart right at this moment is that La Belle Femme Boutique in Concord closes at eight!” She turned to face Willow with a giggle as she jerked a thumb in Katie’s direction. “Yeah, what she said! Get in the car!”
The three of them piled into Katie’s SUV; Katie strapped in behind the wheel, Willow riding shotgun, and Gretchen in the backseat.
“Oh my god, I can’t remember the last time it was this hot in the Kingdom!” Gretchen dug through a mini-cooler and passed icy sodas around. “Or the last time I took a girls’ road trip.”
“That’s because you’re always busy catching babies, and I’m stuck dishing up hash,” Katie said with a sigh.
Willow fanned herself with her notebook. “Get this buggy on the road since it seems you only have 460 AC.”
“460 AC?” Katie asked, baffled, as she pulled away from Willow’s apartment.
“Four windows at sixty miles an hour!” Willow grinned, and the trio dissolved into laughter once again. Twisting to look at Gretchen in the back seat, Willow asked, “Are you going to look for a dress to wear to the wedding, too?”
“Depends. It might be fun to surprise my fiancé with something new.” Gretchen wiggled her eyebrows. “You know…he’s a real fox!”
The group chortled at the stupid shifter pun, and soon they were chattering about the wedding.
“I heard,” Katie said knowingly, “that there are over two hundred guests coming from New Hampshire and Maine, mostly royalty.”
“Who needs blue bloods? I like my ordinary Vermont fox just fine.” Gretchen flipped open her wallet to show Willow a photo of a very nice-looking, slender guy with reddish-brown hair and soulful brown eyes. “He’s a schoolteacher,” she said proudly.
“Hubba hubba,” Willow acknowledged jokingly. “Your fox is a catch.” She turned back to Katie. “So did your sources say anything about wolf royalty showing up?”
“As a matter of fact, a pair of princes—twin brothers—are supposed to be…coming.” The group giggled at the double entendre. Katie made kissing noises. “Ménage à trois here I come!”
Gretchen echoed Willow’s teasing, “Hubba hubba!” She pecked Katie on the shoulder with one finger. “What about Willow? What’s the word on cats?”
“Rumor has it that every tom in New England is trying to wrangle an invitation to this wedding once word got out that there’s a new…pussy in town.”
Willow almost spewed her soda, choking on a laugh. Swallowing, she smacked Katie. “A little respect, girlfriend!”
Gretchen responded with her best Aretha Franklin imitation, singing “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me!”
Katie and Willow jumped in on the classic chorus, “Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me…” until they were all laughing so hard they could barely speak.
Collecting herself, Gretchen sat up straight, pretending to be prim and proper, “Boys have no idea what girls are like when left to their own devices.” She grinned wickedly. “We’re much cruder!”
“Well, since our ability to make bad puns and double entendres is absolutely not in doubt, maybe it’s time I got clued in on how not to make an ass of myself tomorrow night?” Willow arched an eyebrow.
“I mean,” Katie snickered, “how embarrassing would it be to mistaken for a grass-muncher?”
“Katie!” Gretchen’s voice was sharp as she poked her with a finger. Putting a hand on Willow’s shoulder, Gretchen continued, “Calling someone a grass-muncher is like calling a human a…hillbilly. It insinuates that they are an unsophisticated herbivore.” She thought for a second. “Under no circumstances should you use the terms grass-muncher, swamp-walker, or muzzle-loader at a moose wedding. It will get you tossed.”
“Muzzle loader?” Willow asked, puzzled.
Katie drew the outline of a huge moose muzzle in the air in front of her face. “You know, the giant nose?”
Willow stuck her fingers in her ears. “For Pete’s sake, stop talking! I can’t offend anyone if I don't know these expressions!”
Gretchen hiccupped on her soda. “Good point. I’m probably not doing much to impress you with my credentials as an etiquette maven.”
“Did you know…” Katie started cracking up before she even finished the sentence. “And I swear that I’m not making this up, that the Maine shifters have an etiquette…raven?”
The trio deteriorated into wholesale guffaws, holding their sides they were laughing so hard. “Geez, Katie, stay on the road, would you?” Willow grabbed the steering wheel with a laugh to make a course correction. “Clearly things have gone to the dogs!”
“Oooo, someone let the cat out of the bag!” Katie retorted.
Gretchen was close to hyperventilating she was laughing so hard. “Okay, okay, a moratorium on the bad jokes. We really do need to get Willow ready for royalty.” She wiped at the tears in her eyes. “Although, I have to admit, this job is like…herding cats!”
“Oh crap!” Katie yelled. “We just missed our exit!” She pulled off the road, looking up and down the highway. No cars were in sight. “U-Turn!” Katie threw the SUV into four-wheel drive and headed directly over the rough grass median separating the lanes of the divided highway.
“Apparently,” Willow laughed, “it’s not going to be curiosity that killed the cat, but dress shopping in Concord!”
***
The fact was, Willow couldn’t remember the last time she had so much fun. On the drive to Concord, Gretchen managed to turn etiquette lessons into a comedy routine while providing truly useful information. There would be multiple buffet lines, to cater to the different palettes. It was impolite to start eating or drinking before the wedding party arrived and speeches were made so it wasn’t good to arrive too hungry. Everyone knew the story of a terrible winter during the Great Depression when several starving carnivores couldn’t control themselves at a wedding, shifted, and ended up eating the groundhog bride and groom. It took almost two decades to heal the damage of that horrific faux pas.
Fortunately, Willow learned, the modern royals were pretty informal. It was expected at first introductions to refer to them as King or Queen or whatever, but in general, no one bothered much with titles. Their status should always be on the radar, though, and it was considered good manners to defer to the royalty of what one might think of as a less dominant species. So a non-royal wolf, for example, might invite a squirrel prince to cut in front of them in the bar line, or pull out the chair for an opossum queen. Among the royals, there was a hierarchy, with wolves and big cats at the head of the carnivores, moose and deer topping the herbivore species, and bears presiding over the smaller omnivores like raccoons and minks. Council members, as elected representatives, held a position not unlike quasi-royalty.
To avoid anyone being traumatized or offended, topics of conversation to avoid included shifter politics, individual food preferences, cross-species couples, what one did on a shifter run and, of course, mating. The less than amusing part of the lesson involved the biggest shifter taboo, what happened if one made even the slightest suggestion to a human that shifters existed. Human partners were not allowed at shifter-only functions, and if it was discovered that a human so much as suspected something odd was going
on, there were basically two potential outcomes—the blabbing shifter and their human were executed, or, if the shifter council deemed it appropriate, the human could be turned with the understanding that he or she— and anyone they ever told—was under penalty of immediate death if they so much as breathed a word. Gretchen reported that the threats were enough, and no one had ever been sentenced to death in their lifetime. Willow was glad, though, to dispense with that part of her education.
After grabbing some burgers from a drive-through, the group finally made it to La Belle Femme Boutique at 6:00 pm sharp.
A bored-looking saleswoman brightened when the trio of young, attractive women came through the door. “Good evening, ladies!” she said in a sprightly voice. “Are you looking for anything particular, or just browsing?”
“It’s a wedding emergency!” Katie smiled at the saleswoman. “We hear that there will be lots of handsome out of town guests.”
“Ah ha. I think we want to look over here on the wall.” Leading them over, the saleswoman studied her customers for a moment, then rifled through the rack. She pulled off two gorgeous cocktail dresses and held them up, one in each hand. She thrust an emerald green dress at Gretchen. “Size six, right? This will look stunning with your auburn hair.”
Gretchen’s head bobbed up and down in agreement; she was mesmerized by the lovely crystal beadwork around the scooped neck. She took the dress without a word and made a beeline for a dressing room.
The saleswoman passed the other hanger to Katie. “You’re slim and athletic, and the design of this one is going to accent your elegant lines.” She waved the slit going up one side. “Just because it’s below the knee doesn’t mean it isn’t sexy! Look how beautifully it drapes with the open back…and this deep blue is going to look great with your complexion.”
Willow Run: Boxed Set (Books 1-6) Page 11
