Page 33 of Beware of Hodags

Agitatedly, Mirk grips his fists. “I’ll look. For real though, I just… I feel protective of you. You’re sweet and I don’t want to see you get hurt. Or eaten,” he says meaningfully, eyes sliding from me to Shepard.

Shepard’s hackles rise, making him look even bigger. And meaner. He takes a measured step forward, like a stalking tiger.

“Easy,” I murmur to him and move up to lay my hand on his shoulder.

He halts—but I can feel that it costs him. His big body is scary tense. I almost jump when my phone starts ringing.

Reaching for it, I assure Mirk, “I’m going to be fine and,” raising my phone and swiping accept with my thumb, I tell him, “I need to introduce you to someone.”

Mirk’s face registers how very thrown he is at this pronouncement. “Who?”

I tap the speaker button and begin introductions. Or I start to. “My sis—”

“Oh. My. Goodness. THAT GUY IS HOT,” Adrian exclaims. “Is that your boss?! Are you dating him? Is that why you’re taking pictures of his man chest in the dark? You lucky bit—”

“The very same. And I’ve got you on speaker. Adrian, meet Mirk. Mirk, meet Adrian.”

“Hi, Adrian,” Mirk says. And he’s standing a little taller. His voice is more confident than he usually sounds. Hearing a woman unreservedly gush about him must be doing him good.

“Ha. Hi back,” she says, only sounding a little embarrassed.

I’ll make it up to her later. “Sis, you need to come to Rhinelander. Bring Desdemona. Mirk will love her.” And I’m pretty sure he’ll love you too . “And I think you’ll like Mirk. A lot.”

Shepard sinks down beside me. Not sitting so much as crouching, but I hope it’s an improvement. I pet him. His fur is coarse, like a wolf.

“Oh?” Adrian says.

“Yep. And if you think you’ll like being kept captive in a barn, I’m pretty sure he’s your soulmate.”

“WHAT?” she asks.

“I wouldn’t do that to her!” Mirk interjects, looking stricken.

Shepard tenses even more beside me, perhaps taking offense that Mirk thought it was perfectly fine to do that to me.

“If you’re gonna be shirtless in this barn with me, Mirk, I may not mind too much,” Adrian flirts.

When Mirk can only gape at the phone, I smile. “You’ve stunned him. Will you come meet him?”

“Does Saturday work?”

“That’ll work fine,” I say breezily. “He’s got loads of cranberries to harvest, but he can take you to his bogs and have you help.”

“Bogs?”

“That’s right. Mirk will love to show them to you. And wait till you meet the workers here.”

“Oh?”

“Mmhmm. It’ll be your kind of thing,” I assure her.

“I’ll be in Rhinelander on Saturday,” she says.

“Okay. Love you,” I tell her.

“Love you too. Bye, Mirk,” she purrs.

“Bye…” he breathes. “Uh, see you soon,” he adds quickly .

But I’ve already ended the call.

Shepard launches himself at Mirk. Mirk crashes to the ground—pinned under a snarling hodag.

Perhaps in reaction to being attacked, extra arms explode out of Mirk’s torso, turning him vaguely and terrifyingly spidery. Shepard latches onto the third arm on Mirk’s right side. Mirk yells a loud protest before he shouts, “DON’T—”

But it’s too late. There’s a horrific, sickening POP!

Mirk screams—and his arms flail.

Even the one Shepard is holding flails—and it’s no longer attached to Mirk’s body.

“Gross…” I say into my hands, horrified.

Hearing my distress, Shepard turns and immediately bounds toward me.

I back away from him, eyes locked on the limb of my boss—which is still moving.

Shepard drops it and rushes up to me, his red and gold eyes worried.

Behind him, Mirk is cradling the gaping hole where his spare arm was plucked from, and he’s bent over, gritting his teeth.

Shepard’s face is suddenly taking up my vision. Effortlessly, he transforms into a human again and gently takes my face in his hands. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I say sickly. But my heart feels warm.

As I stare into his eyes, I’m touched that Shepard is so concerned for me.

He is however naked again, and now that I’m not in mortal peril, his body is no longer a second priority in the hierarchy of my needs and attention.

Most unfortunately though, here is not the time nor place to ogle.

A bloodcurdling scream erupts from the woods, making us all jump.

If I’m not mistaken, it’s a man’s scream .

Clutching my heart to my chest, my face still caught between Shepard’s hands, I send a spooked look in the direction the scream came from. The woods are dark and perfectly creepy and chock full of spiders.

Shuddering, I look around Shepard to chide Mirk. “You know, when he gets done being freaked out, he’s going to be thrilled enough to thank you.”

“Who?” Mirk says.

Letting go of my face, Shepard moves to my side, unobstructing my view of Mirk, and he puts his arm around my shoulders possessively.

I soak in the contact like a sponge. “Dylan. The cryptid hunter you caught back there.”

Mirk is still gripping his arm wound, which—like a regular spider after it loses a leg—isn’t bleeding. “The one who caught me in his stupid netting, you mean?”

“Yeah. But you returned the favor by jumping him at the burrow so you’re even. What did you do to him? Wrap him in a web to keep him still?”

“Rachel,” Mirk says, face pinched in pain but his attention focused on me now instead of his missing limb. “I didn’t jump anyone.”

“What?” I croak.

The woods have gone eerily quiet.

Mirk looks at the wall of trees, lips pressed together. “I’m guessing my aunt Saenathra got him.”

I croak, “Your aunt…? You mean the woman who introduced us, who pushed you to offer me this job in the first place?”

Shepard sneers.

Mirk nods. “Remember that guy she was entertaining at the coffee shop?”

“The guy at the end of the bar who couldn’t stop staring at her? ”

“Right. He disappeared that day and hasn’t been seen since.” He moves his gaze to the woods again. “I’m guessing she turned him and needed to feed him.”

“She did,” growls Shepard. “The Charlotte tried to feed me to him. Corey’s dead now.”

Mirk’s brows hike. He takes Shepard in with something like respect dawning on his face.

“‘Charlotte?’” I ask, thrown.

Shepard looks at me. “Hodags call female spider shifters Charlottes. It’s from the talking pig movie.”

“You mean the book,” Mirk corrects.

Shepard shoots him a threatening look.

Mirk shrugs in an I don’t know what to tell you fashion.

“My grandad said hodags were calling our women Charlottes when he was young. He was born in the fifties—pretty sure that’s when the book came out.

” He waves one of his remaining spider legs, which are still sticking out of his sides like he’s some freak science experiment.

“The movie didn’t come out until when? The seventies?

I’m simply saying the origin must have originally come from the book, which came out long before the movie. ”

“I’m going to feed you the fucking book,” Shepard says dangerously, “and every one of your legs—”

My face is screwed up in confusion. “Babe?”

Shepard swings his head to me. “Yeah?”

I huff a laugh that strangles into a painful cough. When I recover, Shepard is right in front of me. “I meant,” I struggle to say, “the talking pig book.” At his wounded look that says I’ve just sided with the enemy, I feel moved to pacify him. “The talking pig movie. You mean Babe?”

He shakes his head, searching me worriedly. “No. The other one.” He lowers his eyes and thinks for a moment. Then he snaps his fingers. “Charlotte’s Web. ”

“I could have helped but it seemed like you wanted to struggle that out for yourself,” Mirk mutters.

Snapping his head around to face him, Shepard bares his teeth.

Smiling at his grumpy threatening expression, I run my fingers through his hair. Instantly, he calms. He snatches my hand and grips it between his own.

Lacing our fingers together, I look back at the tree silhouettes—and my skin chills.

Because as I take in the jagged lines and shapes of them, it occurs to me that some of these shadows aren’t trees.

What I’m very afraid they look like is an army of forest-sized spider legs.

I no more than think this when one of the dark tapering shapes rises up in a distinctly not-a-tree fashion and waves to me.

Swallowing a yelp, I clutch at Shepard’s hand. “Okay. That’s it. We’re gonna go.” I look back at Mirk. “Adrian will be here Saturday, you have a potentially missing cryptid hunter’s vehicle to take care of, and Shepard and I are leaving now. Also, I resign.”

“I figured,” Mirk says glumly. “I really am sorry, Rachel.”

Now hugging Shepard’s whole arm, I give Mirk a curt nod. “Don’t hurt my sister or I’ll send Shepard to take off your other legs.”

Mirk’s lip curls. He aims a nasty look at my mate.

Shepard tips his head challengingly and smiles with altered teeth—he’s shifted a little, and now they’re far too big to be a human’s. His gaze, locked darkly on Mirk, holds a bring it on look if I ever saw one.

I pat his green chest hairs but address Mirk. “You know what they say. Beware of hodags.”

Shepard snaps his teeth, resulting in a loud ivory click.

Mirk flinches, then sighs. “Yeah.”

“Good night,” I tell him. And Shepard is only too happy to steer me away.

He adjusts us so that I’m no longer gripping onto his arm.

Instead, he has me thread it around his back, and he curls his around mine, ushering me to the truck.

It’s dark enough that even under the yard light I can’t tell for sure, but I think his skin has turned green.

And I notice that although his steps are confident and he doesn’t look spooked, he never gives our back to Mirk.