Page 34 of Beware of Hodags
RACHEL
I manage to convince Shepard that I don't need the hospital. Grumbling about my stubbornness, he fishes an emergency pair of sweatpants out of his truck tote before he climbs behind the wheel. Mouth set, he holds out his hand to me.
Sliding over to the middle seat until I’m pressing against his half-naked side, I study his slightly spread fingers and his grouchy face, and then I smile and I lace my fingers with his.
He brings my hand to his mouth and presses a kiss to my knuckles. Then, shaking his head, he releases me to start the truck. “Buckle up.”
I do as he says.
Tossing a look at me to let me know how reluctantly he’s agreeing to my wishes, when we exit Mirk’s driveway he aims us not for a medical care facility but the cabin.
Smiling, I settle my face against his shoulder with a sigh of contentment.
He scoffs. It’s a grumbling sort of sound. But—once we’re up to speed and he doesn’t have to shift gears—he fishes for my hand and links our fingers again. He manages this feat without taking his eyes off the road and I feel a warm curl as I once again admire his competence behind the wheel.
We’re a mile or two down the road when he kisses the top of my head. “Up.”
I sit up .
He unlaces our hands and reaches behind our seat for the tote, digging around until he comes out with a bag of jerky. It’s not the mass-produced storebought stuff. This is a handmade batch that’s been salted into dried planks, and it smells so good my mouth waters.
He holds it out to me, almost urgent. “Here.”
“No thanks.”
“You need to eat,” he insists. “So you have the energy to change and heal.”
“Shep, don’t freak out but my throat is bothering me too much to risk swallowing food yet.”
His eyes nearly pop out of his head. Then he cuts me a dangerous look.
I hold up my hands. “I know, I know! I probably should have gone to the ER, but I didn’t want to go—and I’ll be fine,” I stress. “My throat is getting better, really.” And it is. Just not enough that I want to try choking down anything dehydrated.
From his wild-eyed face, I’m not sure if Shepard even hears me. He grips the steering wheel hard enough to make it squeak before he sends me a very threatening conversation using only his eyes. In terms of nonverbal communication, it’s tremendously impressive.
However, I’m not swayed. “I want to go to the cabin,” I reiterate in case he’s thinking about pulling a U-ey right here in the middle of Highway 17.
“ERs mean hours of waiting and mounds of paperwork and money, and by the time treatments actually happen, I’d have naturally healed anyway.
Believe me, Shepard. I know this for a fact because I’ve done it all before.
They can’t do a lot for me, and it’s better to heal in the peace and quiet of home and leave emergency care to humans who need it. ”
Shaking his head, he faces the road again, snarling under his breath. As he inhales the jerky by himself, we get re-situated with me lying against him, my cheek resting on his shoulder once more.
“Are you okay?” I ask him. “Not hurt anywhere? ”
I feel his head turn, his beard brushing over my face as he sends me a look so loud I can see it with my eyes closed. It makes me smile faintly.
He sighs, sending a waft of beef jerky breath over me. I don’t mind. He smells good enough to eat. “Not anymore. Feeling half starved but I’m not hurt.” He pauses. “Do I dare ask how about you?”
Oof. Telling him the extent of my discomfort is just going to wind him up.
But I don’t have to tell him that my skin is on fire.
That Mirk's hairs are painfully festering in my skin and it itches like crazy. That some spots are throbbing—sickly, pain fully. I feel like I’ve got the world’s worst splinters.
If touching Shepard weren’t a distraction, I’m sure I’d be scratching my skin raw and screaming from the pain.
I settle for telling him, “Now that I’m with you, everything is better. ”
He makes a disbelieving noise. “When we get to the cabin, you're shifting.”
I'd already planned on it. The change will clean the setae out.
If I were a human who didn’t have the luxury of shifting, I’d be suffering for weeks. Not all people react badly to urticating hairs, but evidently my sister and I are some of the lucky people who do.
“On a scale of one to ten, how does your throat and chest feel?” he manages to ask almost neutrally.
I avoid giving him a number and select a safer answer. “Better.”
He grinds his teeth. “You’re going to be a pain in my—” he growls under his breath, each word dropping a register until the last word is lost on a growl.
But I can guess. I pet his arm sympathetically. “My dad says the same thing about my mom.”
“She’s stubborn too?”
“I dare you to ask her that.”
“I wouldn’t ask your mom. I’m going to ask your dad,” Shepard corrects. “He’ll know where you got this from.” Dropping all hints of playfulness, he asks, “Why won’t changing help you when you’re having an asthma attack? ”
“Because it’s my family’s shifter quirk. When I shift I can heal wounds, but this breathing trouble follows us whichever form we’re in, unfortunately.”
He grunts and kisses the top of my head.
The moment we reach the cabin, Shepard unlocks it and ushers me inside to the vanity, throwing on the bright lights. And it's immediately and very visually obvious why all my bristle sites hurt.
I’m covered in a rash-red flush. From my hairline down to the collar of my shirt, I look like someone tried to boil me alive.
When I tug up my sleeves, the skin of my arms and the backs of my hands are bubbled, covered in hot blisters and welts.
I tug up my shirts high enough to expose a bit of my belly, and find more of the same.
No wonder I’m itching all over. I’m having a full-body allergic reaction. Now that I’ve seen myself, it itches even worse.
“FUCK!” Shepard barks. “Rach, change right now!”
I look at him and hesitate.
His mouth goes slack. Hurt flashes across his face. He stumbles back from me like I’ve struck him. He starts to reach out for me—but then he jerks his hand down like I'm a panicked animal and he’s realized his proximity is frightening me.
Roughly he clears his throat. “Change in the bedroom. I'll, uh… I’ll go make food.”
“Wait.” I snatch his hand before he can leave. “It's just that we need to talk. About what I change into.”
He exhales a choked wordless sound. His eyes show white all around. And then he explodes. “Does it matter? Do we need to talk about it more than you need to change?”
I don’t have to tell him yes. He can tell it’s what I’m thinking.
His brows slash low and his eyes search me. His face has gone severe. “It’s killing me that you’re afraid I’ll think less of you.”
Hand still gripping his, I lower my gaze. “That’s not… Shepard, I ne ed to—”
He grabs me, startling me. When he feels me jump, he swears.
“Sorry. But listen to me.” His eyes are so serious.
“There is nothing you can change into that would change the fact that I’m crazy for you.
Do you hear me? You’re my mate. I’m going to love you and protect you for the rest of our lives.
Star-nosed moles have suddenly become my favorite animal, alright? ”
“A star… what?” I shake my head and focus on the important parts of what he said. “Never mind. Thank you for your reassurance. And just putting it out there, I’m going to love you too, and any time you want to get lucky, all you have to do is take me for a drive. Maybe parallel park.”
His face shows his confusion. “Are you saying parallel parking turns you on?”
“Watching you navigate into a parallel spot would turn me on,” I explain. “There’s something about the way you effortlessly handle your truck.” I raise and drop my shoulders, unable to explain it better than that.
His mouth quirks up a little. “Good to know.” His gaze moves to my inflamed skin and his face goes hard. Carefully he takes my shoulders in his hands. His eyes flash with intensity. “Enough stalling. Change.”
Sighing, I pull back from him. My birthmark gets textured, growing velvet.
My skin ripples and my body develops an excess of it, rolls and wrinkles appearing everywhere.
Short fawn fur floods over my skin—starting at my face.
My arms and legs become muscular and stumpy, and I shrink until my body is draped in my shirts and jeans and underthings.
Only a little cumbersomely, I step out of them.
My torso thickens. My ears lengthen and turn floppy, and my jaw protrudes until I have an underbite.
My nose shrinks until it’s nearly between my eyes.
My tailbone extends—but it doesn’t stay straight. It curls into a weird little corkscrew.
This all happens really fast. In a blink, I’m the other me .
And Shepard’s eyes have gone comically round. “Rachel… you’re a—you’re a bulldog?”
I’m a fawn and white-colored English bulldog.
Heaving a sigh, I trot to the vanity’s cupboard with its stack of neatly folded towels.
Facing it, I shift back into my human form and snatch one.
To my relief, when I stand I can both feel and see in the mirror that my skin is completely healed, no longer covered in a red rash.