Page 32 of Beware of Hodags

RACHEL

Calmer now that I’m with Shepard and I know he’s safe, I remember to use ‘reverse breathing.’ During an attack, instinct makes you fight to suck in air, trying to get oxygen.

Which may as well be a lifetime. It feels like I’m dying every time I try it.

But then when I finally calm myself enough to really focus and try—I manage it.

My lungs inflate with a sweet rush of oxygen and my lips stop tingling.

I feel less dizzy. Another attempt, and the pain in my chest eases by a fraction.

I can feel all my fingers again. I repeat the technique. Then I repeat it again.

My mind turns to Shepard. His chest is solid comfort, and warm to the point of being too hot.

My cheek is sticking to him. He’s sweating.

Not enough to be gross, just enough to be a little gummy.

His heart is pounding. He’s stressed. Even if I couldn’t feel his sweat slickened skin, feel his heartbeat, I can smell his stress.

I can also smell that he’s producing a spike in what I associate as pain hormones.

It’s probably mostly cortisol and adrenaline that my nose can detect.

I want to ask him if his wrist hurts, but my throat and chest hurt so badly I don’t want to risk talking anymore if I don’t absolutely have to.

Not yet. Even if I could ask him though, it’s obvious that he’s willing to push through his pain if it means he can help me.

I wrap my arms around his neck even tighter, hugging him .

Exhaling in a puff, he hugs me back and his pace increases to whatever a speedwalk is called when you upgrade it from hurried to really, really hurried.

It’s weird to be carried by a naked man. And sad, because this is Shepard and I can feel so much of him that I should really enjoy touching, and yet any sexy effect is lost due to the direness of the circumstances. I exhale a choppy sigh. This is a travesty.

Shepard growls, “Finally!” as we burst from the tree line. He hustles us into the murky glow emanating from the ancient pole light in the middle of the farm yard.

Dylan’s ride is parked around the side of the barn.

It’s not the Mecosta County animal control truck he uses for official business.

It’s his personal vehicle, a mean-looking late ‘80s special GMC Jimmy with a sky-high lift kit. To top off his redneck testosterone mobile, the thing is donked out with beastly tires. If being souped up to the nines wasn’t enough to make it stand out, it has inarguably cool monster art airbrushed on it, everything from Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster to wendigos and Dogman.

As Shepard practically sprints us past it, I see that Dylan’s vanity plate reads CRPTCHSR. Which is short for cryptozoologist chaser, in case anyone misses the other clues that spell out he’s a hardcore cryptid hunter.

My eyes narrow as it occurs to me to wonder how Dylan found me. How did he know I worked here? I never filled out any paperwork. Cryptid hunters have sources.

I’m so busy staring off in thought at Dylan’s vehicle that I don’t at first realize Shepard’s slime green truck—hodag green, I decide, thinking of the color much more fondly—is on the other side of it.

Shepard beelines us for the passenger side where he jerks to a stop to set me down on my feet. His hands grip my arms. “Steady?” His voice is gruff .

Jerkily I nod.

Releasing me, he yanks open the door and lunges inside for my purse. I may be out of breath but I am still alive enough to appreciate his fine set of rear dimples as he twists and thrusts my purse at me.

Weakly, I take it from him and dig out my inhaler. As I suck in the first burst from the canister, greedily gulping down the cocktail of bronchodilator and corticosteroid suspension, Shepard watches me anxiously.

When I don’t keel over, he runs an agitated hand through his hair and seems to fight with himself to turn away, to do something else, something productive other than worry maybe. He faces his truck and starts digging in the back seat.

He hauls out a tote. He drops to the ground with it and rips the lid off, revealing that it holds some spare clothes and winter driving supplies, like a telescoping ice scraper and a blanket.

He digs beneath all of it and pulls out a twenty-four pack of water bottles.

He rips one out and holds it up for me. I barely close my fingers around it when he’s taken up another, this one for himself.

He pops off the top before he tips it back and begins to gulp it.

My poor hero. He’s thirsty from exertion, sure—but also multiple rapid changes and healing. He’s got to be starving. Healing damage takes a lot of energy. He’ll need to replenish.

Holding in a chestful of inhalant, I give him a belated nod of thanks for the water he gave me, but I don’t drink it yet. Instead, I keep downing inhaler shots until my throat finally, finally starts to relax— praise Jesus.

Now I open up my water. First I gargle it, then spit. I repeat this twice before I feel safe enough to take a sip to drink.

Why the caution? Because just like a human, the inhalant can give me a case of thrush. I will eventually shift forms and that will fix it, but the less my body has to work on healing until I change, the better. Healing saps a lot of energy. Shifting and healing takes even more.

And it’s taking everything I’ve got just to breathe .

Mainlining his fourth bottle of water, Shepard pants, “Get in the truck, Rach.”

Throat aching and still itching like crazy, I bob my head to let him know I heard him and I wearily shuffle around him, getting positioned to climb in.

“Rachel, wait!”

Mirk's voice.

Shepard growls. “GET. LOST. I’m taking her to the hospital!”

Mirk sounds worried. “Is she hurt?”

“Why the hell else would I take her to a hospital?” Shepard retorts bitingly.

When I risk a look over my shoulder toward the barn, Mirk is human.

His glasses are back and he’s wearing sweatpants. Like all shifters, he probably has spare clothes stashed all over for when he has to make a fast change and loses whatever he’s wearing.

But I bet he doesn’t have spare truck keys. And he had them in his pants pocket when he changed. Perversely, something inside me is a little pleased that he’ll have to search the barn, through the torn bits of his clothing, if he wants to get them back.

I rub my forehead. Pique aside (justified, justified pique), I recognize that Mirk could have hurt me—but he didn’t.

He even went after Dylan, freeing me. If he hadn’t, I have no doubt my panic would have reached the point where my air was cut off.

Out in the woods so far from help, it would have been really bad.

Mirk did say he was a guardian. At the time, I thought he was talking about his bulldog puppies. Considering him and his actions knowing what I know now, it seems his protective urge covers a little more.

His guardian skills need serious work… But he might be in luck.

I happen to know a girl who has the chops to school a clueless but well-meaning guy.

I give him an objective once-over. He looks good in sweats.

He’s also very shirtless as he strides down the sloped path le ading from the big barn door.

And his chest… huh. Red-furred and strong. Farm boys are pretty.

I grab my cell phone from my back pocket and frame him, watching his step falter as he frowns, clearly wondering why I’m taking his picture in the dark.

“Don't move,” I tell him, my voice tight and hoarse. I sound like an alligator that’s been smoking for fifty years.

My breaths are coming easier though. I don’t think I’ll require a hospital visit—although Shepard might not agree.

I hit the shutter button. “Stay still…” I encourage.

And ouch. My throat scrapes the two words out, extra sore.

It always hurts after one of these attacks but this one was a doozy.

I must wince or something because Shepard makes a danger noise. “You get five minutes and then I’m throwing your pretty little butt in the truck,” he warns from beside me, his low voice a remarkable blend of growly impatience and caring restraint. “We need to get on the road and get you to the ER.”

Then he poofs into a green-furred beast.

He storms abreast of me, a giant emerald sentry.

Maybe he changed forms because he doesn’t want to be vulnerable and naked in front of his enemy.

But it could also be because he’s been attacked, hurt, and he’s been forced to watch his mate struggle to live.

Any one of these things could cause a male to lose his cool but all of them at once means Shepard may have shifted so he can kill Mirk more expediently in his hodag form.

Still, he isn’t blocking my shot and that’s very conscientious of him.

Fondly, I run the toe of my sneaker along his tail, which is stretched out on the ground toward me like a furry anaconda.

At my touch, the end of it rises up before plopping down again.

A friendly-enough-looking acknowledgment.

And he doesn’t lunge at Mirk so I count it as a victory.

When the circle on my phone completes and the finished picture fills the screen, I nod.

“Thanks. Sorry for the delay. It takes an extra second with the darkness mode on to get a good picture,” I explain.

I note with relief that my phone has service here in the yard so I quickly send it to my sister and return the phone to my pocket.

Then I address the spider among us. The one we can see anyway.

“So, Mirk, are you hailing me to apologize for locking me in a barn and telling me you were keeping me, or for one of your people trying to kill Shepard?” I make a face. “I hope you say for both.”

Mirk spares Shepard a glance before he gives me a tight, chagrined look. “Sorry for both. But I was coming to apologize that I abducted you.”

I sniff. “If you can’t find a card for that at Hallmark, you might have luck on Etsy.”