“Fair enough,” he shrugged.
“How’d you come to work here?” I asked, making small talk while I tried turning the blanket over the other way.
“Eh, complicated.”
“Man of many words,” I chuckled. “Sorry. We’re all nosy here.”
“My carrier is a drag queen,” he offered up.
“Oh, that’s not complicated. Is he in town visiting for the show coming up this weekend?” I asked.
“Not this time. He hasn’t been here in a while,” Amorti said. “Needed a lower stress thing to do.”
“Squashing cats for the win!” I mock-cheered and he huffed out a laugh.
The blankets finally decided to play by the rules and fall in the correct formation for me to lay on. I stretched out, wiggling my fingers and toes, before giving in to my cat. White fluff sprouted from in between my toes and fingers and I shrank into the most perfect specimen of Felis Catus to ever grace the Cuddle Club. I groomed down a stray piece of fluff sticking up on my paw and looked up at Amorti waiting for him to join me. He smiled despite himself. I could tell he was trying not to. Big shifters never knew how to react to those of us who shifted into what were considered more domesticated forms. To his credit, he didn’t try to pet me.
Instead, he pulled off his t-shirt, hooking his finger into the front collar and yanking it over his head.
“That collar isn’t going to last long,”my cat chimed into my thoughts as he did a big stretch before curling up.
Amorti was fit. He had the combo of muscles and fluff you expected to see on a bear alpha who lived off the land, had outdoorsy hobbies, or worked manual labor. The Cuddle Club wasn’t exactly manual labor, but I glanced at his hands to find a few spots that might’ve been calloused at some point. Then his hands were gone and a few moments later a hulking grizzly bear stood over me.
I waved the bear to me with a wag of my paw. He took tentative steps as if trying not to step on me. It took him a few seconds to get into position over me. His fur brushed against mine as he lowered himself down. He was slow at first and then I was squashed. Amorti relaxed slowly and then I was squashed to perfection. Every atom in my body purred underneath his bulk.There was something about being under something fluffy and big that made the world seem right again. Maybe it was because my carrier laid over me a lot when I was a kitten. Maybe my sire tucked me into their bear fluff. I didn’t know but it squashed the anger right out of me. I knew from my formal education that deep pressure therapy was recognized as a method to regulate the nervous system but sometimes it felt like it went further than that. Like it might’ve squashed my soul back into the right place.
Fifteen minutes after Amorti laid down, he stood up slowly and stretched. Then looked at me between his front legs like I might be a pancake cat from a cartoon. His scent turned a bit relieved as he shifted back into human form. I loafed up and presented him with my head. With a single big finger on either side he massaged my temples while I gave in to the grumbling purr vibrating through my body. Yep. He killed my last brain cell and then and only then did I shift back into my human form and grin up at him.
“Don’t worry. I’m weird but I tip well,” I laughed.
“Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect working at the Cuddle Club even after training. It’s a lot easier than what I was doing before,” he said and then his brow creased as if he immediately regretted what he said. I decided not to ask him about it this time because there would definitely be a next time. If he didn’t put me on his nope list I’d ask for his big fluffiness by name.
“Eh, I think you might get some weird requests, but everything is rated G. You can work with couples but that’s a whole other ballpark,” I said. “As for me, I’m always a solo squash.” I stretched my arms and legs as far as they could reach before springing to my feet. “Hate to squash and run but I havea house moving party to get to. I’ll leave your tip up front. That’s how they normally do it.”
He flashed me a look that said I was telling him something he already knew but he was letting me by with it because I hadn’t actually left the tip yet.
Chapter 2
Diamond Moonscale
Canton Valley Farm
Originally, we were set to meet Bernard and Nashen at their current home, but Bernard was nice enough to offer us the chance to drop our stuff off at their new place because we’d be staying on with them a few days. We had plenty to discuss and I wanted to give Bree a chance to be in a house and not a hotel room. She’d spent most of her life traveling the oceans and I figured she had to be getting cramped by now even if she wasn’t complaining.
We’d just finished dropping our stuff off at the first-floor guestroom and looking around a bit. Bernard’s parents had done a wonderful job putting it all together. After locking up the house, we headed off hand in hand headed towards Ears’ house. I wanted to see if he had any pies ready yet because I wanted Bree to try one. His pies were one of my favorite things about the GGB. It was also close to one of my favorite stateside airports but that was neither here nor there.
“Medwin, I don’t see—” a voice hit me like a mac truck. I’d know that runaway weasel anywhere.
“Honey!” Bree said as I dropped her hand and kicked off my low heel sandals. I sprinted straight for Clarence Moonscale. He had more explaining to do than he was aware that I knew about.
“Shit!” Clarence swore and tried to disappear back down inside the trapdoor that he must’ve come out of Canton’s Burrow from. I tossed my purse hard, projecting it not toward his lying face but the spot where the door would slam shut. It fell perfectly, wedging it open. He popped up a bit and Clarence tried to move the purse and shut it before I reached him. Only I was driven by the sheer rage of the fact that he knew what his dead carrier did and now that same man, as some deranged chthonic creature, sent some crazy bitch ghost to attack my egg carrying mate. I’d sharpen my teeth on him if I didn’t get answers.
I jumped and slid until my fingers wrapped around his big wrist. He froze, looking at me through the crack before I flung the trapdoor open. Either he had to come out or yank me down. I wasn’t afraid of the fall. I’d survived worse but Clarence Moonscale thought himself too chivalrous to yank a woman down a ladder – alpha or not.
“Diamond, now really isn’t the time,” he said as I pushed myself up onto my knees, dragging him with me. “There is a time and place for these things and we are all guests on this farm. This isn’t the way we show the international world that Moonscale Dragons aren’t barbaric.”
“Oh, don’t you even dare! Don’t you dare to lecture me, UNCLE!” I spat out the words. “That’s what you’d be, right? If Pras Moonscale was your brother? You’d be my great UNCLE!”
His face fell. Medwin climbed out of the trapdoor, looking no worse for wear from his time in the Burrow nor his eggcarrying days. If he was miffed about me snatching Clarence, he didn’t smell like he was. If anything, he smelled a little tired and hungry.
