by R. E. Butler
The back door to the office opened, and Yasmine waved at Hadlee as she got out of the car. “Hi, how’s it going?”
“Good,” Hadlee said as she leaned in and picked up Osiris. She shut the door with her hip and walked up the wooden steps to the back porch. “How’s your day been?”
“Busy. In fact, it’s not over yet.”
“Oh? Everything okay?”
Yasmine pushed a lock of dark hair out of her face. “Yep. I’m going over to the Lowry’s farm in Owenstown to help with a horse giving birth. Come on in and I’ll show you what Breanna used to do.”
Breanna was the volunteer who’d been helping Yasmine out for years in exchange for free checkups for her dog.
“Basically,” Yasmine said as she pulled the door shut behind them, “run a broom around, then follow it with a good mopping. Everything needs to be wiped down. I’ve got sprays and paper towels.”
Hadlee put Osiris down and he stretched, his nails flexing against the white tile floor and his tail curling at the tip. “Any other animals here?”
“Just an old hound dog,” Yasmine said. Hadlee followed her through the waiting room to the back where two rows of cages were set into one wall. As promised, a hound dog was curled up on a blanket in a large cage, one of his floppy ears hanging out between the bars. He lifted his head a little and gave them a curious look before putting his head back on his paws and closing his eyes.
“What’s he here for?”
“He ate a rock. I tried to get him to throw it up, but it didn’t work so I had to remove it surgically. His owner is Bob McCullough.”
“Oh, he runs the feed store in Caster,” Hadlee said. One of their familiars was an owl, and Bob got them a good deal on frozen mice. Which Hadlee was super grossed out by whenever she was in charge of feeding Galahad. “He’s a nice fellow.”
“He sure is. Poor old Bubba here will go home tomorrow. He misses Bob.”
They talked a little longer about what Hadlee needed to do, and then Yasmine turned to leave. “If you finish up before I get back, lock the door on your way out. I have no idea how long I’ll be, but it will probably be a few hours at least.”
“I’m not the fastest cleaner in the world, so I might still be here.”
Yasmine smiled. “Thanks for helping out. I posted the need for help on a volunteer website and have some people coming to interview next week. My receptionist and my tech don’t like cleaning, and they’re really too busy during the day to do much anyway.”
“It’s not a problem. You help us out at the rescue on short notice without complaint. And there was that time Osiris had an ear infection and you came to the house to bring antibiotics.”
“Well, small-town people help out. It’s one of the things I love most about Sable Cove.”
“Me too.”
After Yasmine left, Hadlee looked down at Osiris who was sniffing one of the empty cages. “Ready to get to work?”
“Meow.”
* * *
Anders flew in a lazy loop over a patch of dense trees. They were somewhere near a cove. A lighthouse was shining its light over the water in the distance. He pulled his wings in close to his body and dove downward, narrowly missing a tree limb before he shot upward and broke through the trees.
Phoenix let out a piercing call, following close behind Anders. He could hear the occasional calls and shrieks from the males, most nearby and hunting in the woods below.
Anders suddenly felt ill.
His whole body shuddered, and feathers shook free and fluttered on the air.
He opened his beak to let out a call of distress when a sharp pain lanced through him and his vision darkened.
A squawk of alarm came from him as his wings jerked and his vision returned. He was shifting! Try as he might, he couldn’t stop himself as his body tumbled toward the ground at an alarming rate, his shift failing as he returned to his human form. Phoenix called out for him.
Pain blasted through Anders and bile rose in his throat. The ground came up hard underneath him, branches slapping and cutting his skin as he fell through the trees to the unforgiving ground below.
And then everything went dark.
* * *
Phoenix Rune dropped from the sky after his best friend and king, shifting as he landed. He dropped to his knees next to his friend. Anders was fully human now, and while he was breathing, he appeared to be unconscious. There was a dark spot on his stomach the size of a watermelon. It looked like he’d been punched in the gut and was now bruised.
But he hadn’t been bruised before the flight. Phoenix wasn’t in the habit of looking at males when they stripped to shift, but he would’ve noticed something like that, especially since Anders had spoken to the group before he shifted.
What Phoenix had seen in the sky was that Anders was fine one minute and then seemingly out of control the next. As if he hadn’t been able to stop himself from shifting.
“My king,” he said, shaking his friend’s shoulder. “Anders!”
Another male dropped next to them. Westlan, one of Anders’ personal guards, shifted to human. “What the hell happened?”
“I have no idea. He’s not responding.” Phoenix looked up to the sky but didn’t see any males flying near them. He didn’t even hear any in the distance. They’d been with a large group, but suddenly it was just the three of them.
Anders exhaled, his breath like a death rattle.
“Fuck,” Phoenix whispered. He looked at Westlan. “What should we do?”
Westlan opened the pouch he carried in his shift with a few items for emergencies. His mother, who had recently passed on, had been the nest healer and Westlan had learned much of what he knew about healing from her. “I’m not sure what happened, but he’s at death’s door.”
Phoenix felt a wave of sorrow push up from deep inside him. Anders was his best friend. It couldn’t end like this. “You can’t help him?”
Westlan worked swiftly, checking out the king, whose color slowly changed from tanned to a sickly gray. The male sat back on his heels and shook his head. “I’m sorry, but whatever is happening to him is too great for my healing abilities. I think we need a real doctor.”
Falcons didn’t go to real doctors. They healed swiftly thanks to their shifter genetics, and aside from their nest’s healer, they had no need for medical care. Westlan wasn’t the official nest healer, but he was the closest they had to one.
Another male landed next to them, shifting from his bird to human form. Rezik let out a sharp gasp. “Fuck me, what happened?”
“We don’t know,” Phoenix said. “One minute he was fine, the next he was falling to the ground as a human.”
“That bruise,” Rezik said. “It looks like he was beaten.”
“I know,” Westlan said. “But what I don’t know is what’s causing it. Something made him lose his ability to shift. The fall alone could have killed him, but he’s not long for this world unless we get him some help.”
“There’s a town near here,” Rezik said. He looked past them through the dense woods. They could hear the waves lapping on a shore, and if Phoenix was remembering right, there was a lighthouse near the beach and boats at a small marina.
“We can’t take him to a hospital,” Westlan said. “We’re all naked, for one, and for another, it will be a clear sign that he’s not fit to be king at the moment, and we all know that his uncle is chomping at the bit to take over.”
Anders’ Uncle Lars was a bitter old male who thought he should’ve ruled in Anders’ place when his father passed away. In their nest, the kingship passed from father to son, unless there wasn’t a son to take over the mantel of leadership. As Anders had no offspring to take over, Lars would be the next in line. And that was not a male anyone wanted to see rule. He was cruel and power-hungry. He’d destroy the nest in pursuit of money and power, and their people would be left in ruins.
“Fine, we’ll grab a doctor and steal one of the boats at the marina we passed over,”
Phoenix said. “Do you have anything to knock someone out?”
“Yep,” Westlan said, lifting a vial of purple liquid and a cloth from his bag. “Did you see a doctor somewhere?”
“I saw a sign for an animal doctor,” Rezik said.
Phoenix lifted a brow at the male. “We’re not animals.”
“Well, they still have general medical knowledge, right? And it’s possibly the best we can do on short notice. In case it escaped you, Anders’ breathing is tanking out and his heart is beating really slowly.”
“Fine, let’s go,” Phoenix said. “The animal doctor will have to do. The faster we get our king back to the safety and privacy of his home, the faster the doctor can heal him. But we must hurry.”
“We’re with you,” Westlan said.
Rezik nodded.
Phoenix lifted Anders over his shoulder, his king’s grunt of pain followed by a soft moan were the only sounds he made. Their group hurried through the trees in the direction of the lighthouse. He could feel it in his bones—time was running out.
Chapter Four
Note to self: Cats aren’t nearly as good watchdogs as they are mousers.
Hadlee hummed along to the song playing through her earbuds as she put the mop back in the bucket and then squeezed the water and cleanser out of it. Osiris had made himself at home in one of the open cages, which Hadlee thought was funny. Her familiar hated to be in a cage. She had a travel cage, but he mostly preferred to hang out on the seat next to her. She only put him in the cage if other animals were going to be in the car too, like if Kinsley and her cat familiar were going to be with them. It was just easier to use the cage then worry about Osiris feeling territorial over the back seat.
But apparently give him free rein of a vet’s office and he’d pick an empty cage for his evening nap.
Lifting the mop from the bucket, she moved to where she’d stopped and started up again, dancing a little as she walked. She hoped Bubba liked the show.
It was late, but it had taken her longer to sweep and mop the other rooms than she thought it would. She’d gotten a text from Yasmine that she was still waiting for the horse to deliver, so it had just been her and the two animals in the building. Hadlee was nearly finished with the back room and then she’d be able to wipe everything down with disinfectant and finish up.
She froze in place, the mop fanned out in front of her. She swore she heard something. Some kind of strange noise.
She touched one earbud to silence the music and pulled it out so she could listen.
But she didn’t hear anything.
Then she looked at the cages and realized that both Bubba and Osiris were standing up inside them. Osiris’ back arched and he hissed, which made every protective instinct within Hadlee rise to attention.
Bubba let out a howl, and Hadlee spun to face whatever menace was coming their way.
A dark cloth came toward her so fast she couldn’t even get a scream out before a hand clamped the fabric over her mouth and nose. A bitter smell filled her nostrils, and her vision went dark. Her arms and legs progressively got heavier, and as she drifted away, her last thought was that she wished she hadn’t had her earbuds in her ears.
* * *
Note to self: Getting drugged into unconsciousness is a son of a bitch.
Hadlee felt like she’d gone ten rounds with a semi-truck. Everything in her body ached, from her eyebrows to her toes. She tried to open her eyes, but her lids felt like they were glued shut. With an internal sigh, she focused her spinning mind and quickly whispered a protection spell. She didn’t feel any danger nearby. In fact, she felt the very opposite of danger...safety. Casting a second spell—this one for healing—she banished the heaviness from her eyelids and sent the pain receding.
She opened her eyes and found a rock ceiling. It was roughly hewn, like someone had taken a hammer and chisel and gone to town on it, creating crevices and craters. For sure she wasn’t in the vet clinic. Or her own home.
Or anywhere she’d ever been.
Under her hands, she could feel a soft blanket, which was reassuring in some ways, but disconcerting in others. She listened intently and couldn’t hear anything at all except the beating of her own heart.
There was a gasping wheeze of an inhale to her left and her whole being snapped to awareness. She turned her head and saw the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen in her entire life.
And he looked like he was dying.
Dark circles ringed his eyes that were framed by thick lashes. His cheeks were sunken and hollow, and his skin looked gray.
Sitting up, she looked around the room and gave herself a once-over. She was still dressed, but she had a new accessory on one ankle—a metal cuff attached to a length of chain, attached to a bolt in the wall. With an irritated snort, she moved her ankle and the chain stretched taut and bit into her flesh.
“Fuck.”
She was on a mattress on the floor. The rock ceiling was connected to rock walls and a hardwood floor. One of the walls was a section of prison-like bars.
So she was in some kind of jail cell?
With Sexy McHotPants?
Maneuvering to her knees, she laid a hand on the sexy male’s forehead and found his skin dewy with sweat and ice-cold.
And something else interesting happened when she touched him. She was one hundred percent certain he was her mate.
Shaking her head at her wayward libido that was suddenly springing to life, she looked to the bars of the cell and decided to give shouting for help a try.
“Hello? Is anyone there? I’m the girl in the bed.”
There was a rushing of boots on hardwood and three males skidded to a halt in front of the bars. “Help him,” the one in the middle demanded. He might have been cute if he hadn’t opened his mouth and growled a demand at her.
“First of all, who are you and why did you capture me?”
“You’re a doctor. Heal him.”
Hadlee sat back on her heels in confusion. “I’m not a doctor.”
All three males looked stricken.
“No, you must be!” one of them said. “You were at a medical building.”
“Uh yeah, helping my friend the doctor by cleaning her place.”
“You have to help him,” the other male said. “He’s our king and he’s dying.”
She looked at the male next to her. His breathing was shallow, his heartbeat erratic. He was definitely dying, and that was completely unacceptable. She hadn’t spent the last few years dating a bunch of frogs to find out her Prince Charming was at death’s door.
“This is bad, Phoenix,” one of the males said to the one in the middle. “Our hope is shattered.”
“Then we have to get rid of her,” the one named Phoenix said. “I’ll do it.” He pulled a large key from his pants pocket and fit it in the cell door.
“Hold on, get rid of me? Like, kill me? You must be joking.” She pushed a bit of her protective power toward the door and the key flew out of the lock and clattered on the floor behind them.
“I wasn’t going to kill you,” Phoenix said irritably.
“How did you do that?” one of the males asked.
“Because I’m a witch. I have healing powers, so I can probably help your king. But I need to know what happened to him to make him like this, so I know how to heal him.”
“We don’t know,” Phoenix said. He picked up the key and put it back in the lock. He opened the door and stepped inside. “I’m Phoenix, King Anders’ right-hand male. This is Westlan and this is Rezik.”
Phoenix said they were falcon shifters and out on a hunt when Anders shifted back to human mid-air and plunged to the ground. Considering that, he should’ve had multiple broken bones, but he didn’t. He only had a huge purple bruise on half his abdomen.
“It sounds like poison,” she said.
“Who would poison him?” Rezik asked.
“How on earth would I know?” she asked. “I just got here. But if you’re in the habit of
drugging people and bringing them wherever the hell this place is, then maybe someone is pissed at you all and took it out on Anders.”
“You’re the first person we’ve abducted,” Phoenix said.
“Well, you did a fan-fucking-tastic job of it.” She rolled her eyes and then laid her hands lightly on the bruise. Anders moaned softly, and the sound pricked her heart and made tears spring to her eyes. “You’re not going to die, got it?” she whispered. “We’ve got some stuff to discuss, mainly how your people should not be abducting anyone for any reason.”
Closing her eyes, she drew on her power and sent waves of it into his body. She chanted a healing spell, focusing on the bruise and attempting to locate the source of the problem. Her power flashed suddenly, and she was knocked backward, nearly falling off the bed.
“You okay?” Westlan asked as he helped her sit up.
Shaking her head to clear the ringing in her ears, she said, “Yeah, I think so. But there’s a bigger problem here than being poisoned. Someone cast a spell on Anders to slowly kill him. It’s stripping him of his healing powers from his falcon, and it’s destroying him from the inside out.” She looked at the males and ticked off a list of supplies she needed them to procure for her. She could perform a powerful healing spell that hopefully would counteract the spell cast on him.
“Hurry,” she said. “I can’t help him without the spell. And I really need my damn cat.”
“Cat?” Phoenix asked.
“My familiar Osiris is in the medical office where you abducted me. He’s my familiar and he makes my spells more powerful. I can heal Anders, I think, but the spell cast on him is a big one and I’m not sure I can get it all the way out of him without help.”