Page 10 of Beware of Hodags

RACHEL

We pull up in front of the cabin.

Parking in the same spot he did before, Shepard kills the engine.

The veins in his hands bulge as he grips the steering wheel and stares hard at the scuffed horn cover with its big old honkin’ Chevy logo.

The bowtie looks to be made of steel and, while it could maybe use a buff ball and some metal polish, since I can’t see that anything’s wrong with it, I have to assume that Shepard’s stare is actually turned inward. “Rachel?”

I brace. The giddiness that had been swelling up inside me when we left the restaurant is deflating rapidly. The tone of his voice warns that something bad is coming. “Yeah?”

He stares some more at his steering wheel. “Before we go into the cabin… I need to tell you something. Something you’re going to find hard to believe.” He turns to me, his eyes troubled. “But it’s true, and you need to know about this. I never want you to feel like I’m hiding something from you.”

I frown. This sounds a lot like the ‘I’m a shifter’ speech. I know it well. But it almost seems like he doesn’t know that I know that he’s a shifter. Which would mean he doesn’t know that I’m a shifter. “Shepard,” I start.

He takes my hands and stares imploringly into my eyes. “I don't want you to be freaked out.”

“I’m not going to be freaked out,” I tell him .

But he’s talking over me as if he thinks I’m objecting. “Hear me out. I’m a hodag and you’re my mate.”

“You're a…” Wait. What?

He’s not a siren who will sing me into a sexual frenzy?

No merman tail?

His eyes are wide with sincerity. “I know this is hard to believe! But I can prove it!” He shoulders open his door and gets out of his truck.

“You’re a hodag?” I start. But I lose the ability to speak, because he takes off his shirt.

Oh. My. Gosh.

Yes, I saw his pectoral show earlier, but I can already tell that there’s never going to be a day when he won’t be able to derail my higher faculties by flashing me his rippling torso.

Also, I’m enjoying the sight of his somewhat silvery chest hairs again. Rawr.

He kicks off his boots, peels off his socks, and unbuttons the fly of his pants.

My breath catches.

Perched on the bench seat of his truck, fingers splayed across the cracked vinyl, I lean my right shoulder against the steering wheel and I watch raptly—but he doesn’t strip further. Instead, power fills the air. It floods over me and I gasp.

Shepard’s handsome face transforms, turning blockier, lengthier—and his mouth fills with gigantic white teeth. Sharp ones. A pair of protruding upper canines erupt from under his upper lip, like saber tooth fangs.

Two horns burst out of either side of his head, just above his ears—which flush green, lengthen, and taper into points.

His eyes flood with red, redder than a maple leaf—fire engine red, until there’s just a hint of gold remaining on the lower ring of his irises.

His skin all over his face and neck turns green.

His upper body expands, his chest broadening until he can pass for a bearded Hulk.

His forearms bulge with even more muscle mass.

Then they stretch until he’s long-limbed, making his already alarming form look even eerier.

His hands turn into tremendous paws—and each fingertip’s nail turns into a hooked claw.

Wicked ginormous ones. His back lengthens until he drops heavily to his paws and jean-clad knees.

Along his back, a row of ivory bone spikes jut up from his green spine.

Making him look like a hairy green monster wearing pants.

Oh shit.

As I gape, transfixed, something like fear causes a weird zap in my chest. An unpleasant tingle rips down my neck and across my shoulders before it shoots down my back.

It’s the tiny hairs on my body standing at stark attention.

With a huff, I reach back and scrub the sensation away. Shaking off my instinctive alarm at seeing such a hideously threatening-looking creature burst out of the man I’m attracted to—who is also my mate— I pull myself together and make myself look at him objectively.

Uttering the understatement of the year, I meet Shepard’s unsettling red eyes. “You are most definitely a hodag.”

He reverses his change. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he pants. He kept his human legs, and his human tailbone too, judging by the lack of hodag tail bursting out of his jeans a split second ago.

“I’m not scared.”

He peers at me, his brow furrowed with concern. “Are you sure? You look spooked.”

“I’m—I just need to process some things.” I try to think quickly. Shepard’s not a triton. He’s not a werewolf or a werecougar or any of the shifter kind I’m familiar with. The only notable thing I know about hodags isn’t a good thing. At all.

He gives me a pained smile. “Like the fact that I just showed you that I turn into a monster?”

“Something like that,” I mutter.

His eyes scan my face .

I rub my temple. “Believe it or not, you turning into a monster is not a problem for me. I’m only shocked that you’re this type of monster.”

“What do you mean?”

I shake my head quickly. “Nothing. Give me a second.” He doesn’t know that I knew he was a shifter. He doesn’t know I’m one too.

It’s not so unbelievable that he can’t sense that I’m a fellow supernatural. I’m hardly powerful, and lots of shifters have never encountered one of my kind. If I’m the first of my family that he’s ever scented, he must think I’m just a funny smelling human.

He’s doing up the button on his jeans. “Please don’t be scared of me.

” He spreads his fingers, then curls them into loose fists before relaxing them again, like they ache.

It’s something I’ve seen bear shifters and tiger shifters do.

It’s my understanding that the switch to long claws and back hurts.

“Or of how you feel if you start getting urges to… get closer to me,” Shepard continues.

“You should know that it’s common for shifter mates to feel compelled to get as close as possible, so…

” His eyes search mine. “Don’t be spooked. ”

I lick my teeth. “Thanks for that. But let’s set that aside for now. Because, real quick, we need to discuss a fable that I heard today,” I tell him. “About hodags.”

“Sure,” he says, forehead furrowed quizzically. “What fable?”

I give him a cagey look. “I also have something to tell you. About myself. But first, the question. Because I, uh, I heard the weirdest thing.”

He looks worried at what I might ask. “Shoot.”

“I was told that hodags eat…” My eyes pin to his. “Dogs?”

Shepard winces. “Yeah. That’s not a fable. That’s true.”

I squeak.

His eyes widen. “Only bulldogs though! And only the white ones.”

I make a wordless noise of disbelief .

He shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know what it is about the white ones. They taste like mustard pretzels. And they’re just as addictive.”

The lingering taste of my mustard Hodag Crunch milkshake with pretzel cookies that I so enjoyed not even an hour ago suddenly sours on my tongue.

I gape at Shepard, utterly horrified.

Taking in my expression, his eyes widen. “I’ve heard. I’ve never eaten one myself.”

“Well, that’s something at least,” I mutter, and scoot back until I’ve retreated to my side of the truck.

Then I snag my purse before I crank open the door and hop out.

Looping one purse strap over my arm, I stretch the other one out to give myself the maximum viewing area of my inner purse contents.

The memory of Mirk’s adorable puppies is so strong I can almost smell their puppy breath. Shepard would eat them?

Spying my takeout container, I fish it out.

“That’s why Tula’s serves that mustard ice cream with pretzel cookies,” he’s saying, his tone so reasonable. “It’s a joke. Kind of. Rachel?”

I look up to find him watching me over the hood of his truck. “You look upset.”

I gesture at him—and the growing space between us—with my takeout container. “That would be because this is upsetting. I thought nothing would stop me from jumping you the minute I got you alone.”

His expression turns pained. “That you’re no longer contemplating this is definitely upsetting.

” He runs his hand over his hair, then grabs the back of his head.

“Is this because of me—purely by association—having an infamous affection for bulldogs? I personally don’t have a huge desire to eat them. It’s really more of a curiosity...”

I feel my nose wrinkle. I hold up my hand, a plea. “Stop. You’re making it worse.”

He hurries around his truck, shoving his arms in his shirt sleeves and ducking his head through the collar opening. Before he flicks his shirt down over his chest, I’m close enough to him now that I can see the color of his chest hairs. They aren’t silver.

They’re green.

As interesting as this is, my focus is stuck on Shepard’s affection for mustard pretzel-flavored puppies. My mate might eat dogs. But I tell myself, trying to find the positive in this, not all is lost. After all, there are no white bulldogs here. I just have to keep him away from Mirk’s puppies.

I’m staring blankly at the clingy fabric being shoved the rest of the way down his strong torso as Shepard steps, barefoot, in front of me.

He doesn’t touch me and he tries to make his voice softer.

He even manages to sound like he’s trying to be playful, although it’s a forced playfulness, the stress evident in his tone, probably afraid his revelation is so repugnant to me that we’re in danger as a couple before we’ve even gotten started. “So what secret are you hiding?”

I press my takeout container with my leftover salted pretzel praline cookies against his chest. “Eat these.” Turning away from him, I start for the cabin, my thoughts going a million miles a minute.

“Look,” he says a little desperately—and his hand appears in front of my arm. There he hovers, wanting to catch me but clearly afraid to.

I turn back around to face him.