by Cara Adams
Shape-Shifter Clinic 3
The Patient Is a Shark
Wynter Hall is a great white shark. She urgently needs knee surgery after a near miss with a sports fisherman, but how can she get across the country to the shape-shifter clinic? Clinic handyman and Dom, Quinn Johnson, and personal care attendant Rainer King come to escort her. Just as well because someone doesn’t want the clinic to succeed and tries to prevent Wynter from arriving safely.
First she receives e-mails telling her the clinic is a fraud. Then the attacks get far more violent and personal. The wolf pack is keeping an eye on them and provides them safe places to stay at night where Wynter, who must swim every day, can shape-shift and swim. But it’s a long way from California to Ohio by road with a shark, three people in lust with each other, a Dom wanting to be in control, and someone determined to stop them at all costs.
Genre: BDSM, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Shape-Shifter
Length: 36,372 words
THE PATIENT IS A SHARK
Shape-Shifter Clinic 3
Cara Adams
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
THE PATIENT IS A SHARK
Copyright © 2013 by Cara Adams
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-903-5
First E-book Publication: May 2013
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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THE PATIENT IS A SHARK
Shape-Shifter Clinic 3
CARA ADAMS
Copyright © 2013
Chapter One
The hook had driven far into the lower lobe of her caudal fin. Desperately Wynter dived farther under the sea. Although her favorite level to swim was about ten feet under the surface, she could go as deep as two thousand feet. Now would be the perfect time to practice diving as low as she could go. Deeper and deeper she swam, heading straight down into the depths. Actually, I bet the sea isn’t two thousand feet deep here anyway, but hopefully it’ll be far enough for the fishermen to let me go.
Wynter was only eleven feet long, not particularly big for a great white shark, but big enough, apparently, for some game fisherman here off the coast of California to decide to keep trying to reel her in.
She was almost on the bottom and starting to level out when she felt the line snap and she was free. There was dreadful, intense pain the moment the hook was ripped out of her fin, and then she was able to swim fast toward her home. She knew her fin was bleeding and that she had to get out of the water before she attracted other predators, nonhuman ones, who’d come after her and attack her. Already she was feeling weak from the pain in her fin and the enormous amount of energy it’d taken to gain her freedom from the hook. But that was okay. She’d rest when she got home. Home. The only problem was she still had about twenty miles to swim. But she was a shark, and determined, so she’d get there.
Wynter turned closer to the shoreline. Not so close as to alert any swimmers or recreational boaters to her presence, but close enough that if a predator did come to attack her she could race to the shore and transform. Although likely she’d get arrested for turning up on a public beach naked. Well, she’d just have to pretend she’d been attacked. Her hurt leg should be suitable evidence for that story.
As she swam on toward her home, more slowly now, Wynter thought philosophically that she couldn’t blame the sports fisherman for trying to catch her—that’s what fishermen did, after all—any more than she could blame another shark if it attacked her. Because that’s what sharks did. But it was a damn difficult life being a shark shape-shifter.
She had to live near a reasonable amount of water, enough to swim in. It didn’t have to be the ocean of course, but a bathtub was not enough. And swimming in her human form didn’t help, so a swimming pool was no use to her either. She had to be able to swim absolutely every day or her skin began to itch and peel, so the California coast was a good option. She’d heard there were shark shape-shifters around Hawaii, too, but she wasn’t prepared to swim that far alone, and she had no community of shark shape-shifter friends.
Her father had been the only other shark she’d ever known, although he’d said he’d met some others from time to time as he traveled up and down the coastline.
Her father. Wynter sighed. Her entire childhood they’d lived in an RV because he was constantly getting into fights and they were always having to leave town.
Her mother’s voice still rang through her head. “Learn to control your temper, Wynter. If you ever want to have a home anywhere, and friends for more than a few months, you’ll have to learn to control your temper.”
Well, she had learned, pretty much, although there were a few times when she’d gotten into fights as a teenager. But nowhere near as often as her father, who’d been terminated from more jobs than she could count, usually for fighting.
But it hadn’t been a bad life. While she’d never stayed anywhere l
ong enough to develop deep friendships, they’d travelled up and down the coast from Oregon to California and Baja California, living in the RV. She’d attended school in any town where her father had gotten a job, but there’d also been endless sunny days playing on the beach and swimming. It’d been a wonderful life for a child, most of the time.
Of course, now she was an adult she’d had to get a job of her own to support herself, and she was almost certain her knee was damaged. Her current job didn’t come with health insurance and she had no accumulated vacation time, so she’d just have to get it bandaged or stitched or whatever it needed in the emergency room and go on in to work tomorrow as usual.
Until she saw her leg she wouldn’t know what story to tell the nurses, but possibly, “I hurt it swimming,” would be good enough. Mostly they were so busy in the local emergency room they weren’t interested in too many details anyway.
Fuck, it hurt though. She swam in a circle, but there didn’t seem to be blood in the water around her, so likely she was exaggerating the pain. “I’m just tired. Suck it up and keep swimming, princess,” she told herself firmly.
But by the time she got back to the small, hidden beach where she’d left her car, her entire body was one huge ball of pain. Telling herself to be tough wasn’t exactly working anymore. She stayed under water, looking around, but she’d swum so slowly it was already dark and the place was deserted, thank goodness.
Wynter transformed and pulled herself up onto the sand. Quickly she looked at her left knee. It was very swollen and the huge gash seemed to be quite deep just behind her knee, but even twisting her leg and head right around she couldn’t see much. She’d have to look in a mirror at home to see if it needed stitches. Maybe just putting some ice on it is all it needs, she thought hopefully.
But she couldn’t convince herself of that. It seemed awfully sore for just a minor injury.
Time to go home, Wynter. Get moving.
She pulled herself to her feet and screamed, falling straight back onto the sand.
Holy shit that hurt!
When the throbbing eased off a bit, she stood up again, this time putting all her weight on her right leg and just resting the left foot on the sand to balance herself.
It was a long, long distance to hop on one leg all the way back to her car, but she made it eventually. Her naked body was dripping with sweat and she was afraid she’d vomit from the pain, but she got there.
As always, she’d buried her car key in the sand immediately behind her back driver’s side tire. Sticking her leg straight out behind her, she bent over and dug it up, smoothed over the hole, and popped the trunk.
Resting her body against the car, she toweled herself dry and pulled on shorts and a T-shirt, not bothering with underwear. It was hard enough to get her shorts on without trying to put on panties first. She toweled her short, pale-blonde hair dry, then climbed into her car, grateful it was an automatic, not a stick shift.
She wasn’t sure what lie she would tell the ER staff, but she was too weak and ill to worry about it. She needed to get there and get some painkillers. She’d think of a good story to tell them when she arrived.
* * * *
By the time she was released from the emergency room the next day, Wynter was in a state of complete shock. She was limping along on hired crutches she hadn’t paid for, with a pile of bills she wasn’t sure she could pay, and a certificate to say she couldn’t work for three months, which she was almost certain meant her job would have mysteriously disappeared by the time she got back to work. She needed surgery, expensive surgery, and she couldn’t afford that either.
The nursing staff had been wonderful—helpful, caring, and polite. She’d been pumped full of painkillers, antibiotics, and fluids, her wound stitched, had been given a bunch of injections, and had more blood than she thought she could spare taken from her for various tests. So she’d expected that would be the end of the adventure.
But no. A doctor had sat beside her bed and explained clearly and succinctly that whatever piece of metal she’d caught her leg on had “considerably damaged” her knee and she needed a full knee reconstruction.
“What we’re talking about here is an anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. We should be able to use your own tendons to replace the damaged one which has to be removed, which in turn means there’s minimal chance of rejection. It’s a complex procedure, I won’t try to deny that, but twelve months after the operation more than eighty percent of patients report a favorable result.”
“Twelve months?”
“You’ll most likely be on your feet in two weeks and back at work in twelve weeks, but it usually takes about twelve months for complete recovery. You’ll be hopping and jumping with equal hamstring strength on the injured leg as the uninjured one by then.”
Wynter wanted to ask about swimming but decided not to. There was a much more important question to ask first. “Roughly how much will it cost?”
“Assuming your insurance covers anesthesia and postoperative physical therapy and rehabilitation, on the order of three, three and half thousand dollars.”
Wynter gulped. Three thousand? She was going to be really struggling to pay the three hundred she already owed. She was on minimum wage with no insurance.
“And if I don’t have the surgery?” she asked.
He shook his head at her. “A torn anterior cruciate ligament will not repair itself. With careful management and pain relief you’ll be able to get by for some months, while the pain will gradually get worse and the limb less mobile. Once you start walking off balance to minimize the pain to your knee, you will start putting additional stress on other areas of your body such as your hip and your back, which will then begin to ache. I wouldn’t recommend delaying the surgery. If you wish, I can ask the hospital social worker to drop by and see you. There are organizations that will help you get a loan to pay for the surgery.”
“No, that’s fine, thank you. Everyone here has been most kind. It’s just a bit of a shock. Yesterday morning I was fine. Now, not so much.”
“Of course, and you’re in pain. Take things easy. Rest. But don’t delay the surgery more than a few weeks if you can avoid it,” the doctor said. He stood up, nodded to her, and left.
Wynter took an Instagram picture of her medical certificate and e-mailed it to her boss. She received a very terse text message back saying he was sorry she’d been in an accident and, “if she wanted to,” to come and see him when she was recovered.
“My chance of getting that job back again? Basically zero.” Wynter slouched on her couch, her leg resting on the soft velvet cushions and the bills she needed to pay in a pile on her lap. With the help of her phone she worked out she could pay them all, and her rent, as long as no utility bills arrived this fortnight and she didn’t buy any food. She didn’t go and look in her refrigerator, but she knew there wasn’t enough food there to last her two weeks unless she began a really strict diet instantly.
Wynter laid her head back on the couch. It wasn’t even comfortable to do that sitting sideways. “Well, get used to it. Nothing’s going to be comfortable until you’re better.” The pep talk to herself didn’t help. She wished she was still a child and could run home to Mom and be cuddled, but the last time she’d heard from her parents they were in Florida and that was six or seven weeks ago. They could be anywhere now. Her father’s short temper hadn’t suddenly improved as he’d aged and they still moved from place to place as often as they’d always done.
Wynter pulled out her cell phone. That was something else she wasn’t going to be able to afford much longer, but she still had plenty of credit on it for the current month so she might as well find out how she could get better without the surgery. Maybe shape-shifters were different. Maybe she could regrow or repair her ligament naturally.
* * * *
Quinn Johnson had been working as a handyman at Thorne House Clinic, a clinic that helped shape-shifters heal at their own pace, which was usually consid
erably faster than humans, for a couple of months now. It was his idea of heaven. He loved fixing things and he loved animals. Of course, shape-shifters were actually people, but they were animals, too. He got a burst of pleasure watching a person limp out past the barn and maintenance shed to the small gazebo he’d helped the clinic carpenter, Danny Davies, construct. A few minutes later a wolf would emerge from the gazebo and begin to run toward the lake.
The lake was at the far corner of the property, likely half a mile from the house, and it was Dr. Oscar Thorne’s personal test to see if a patient was well yet. They had to shift and run to the lake, circle it, and run back, without breaking into a sweat or panting. Only when they could do that were they able to be released from the clinic.
This one Quinn was watching now had no hope. He was still limping quite noticeably in shifted form. But the run would encourage him and he’d get stronger.
Quinn owned a rather rundown farm a half-hour drive from the clinic. He’d been gradually renovating it himself, but he’d really bought it so his ever-growing menagerie of animals would have space to stretch their limbs and exercise. At last count he had eleven dogs, four cats, two horses, a goat, rabbits, chickens, and fish, but he never knew when another animal might turn up at his back door looking for a place to rest. He welcomed them all.
He’d even hired a Bobcat machine to dig his small lake deeper and longer so the animals could swim there on hot days.
Quinn shook his head. This wasn’t getting his work done.
