“Do me a favor?”
“Yeah?” I arched a brow wondering what this man could possibly want from me.
“Don’t eat anyone while you’re here. Ty will want way too much paperwork if he finds out,” Philip rolled his eyes.
The bear cub in his arms had fallen asleep and he turned to leave without giving me time to double check that Ty was the leader of the GGB. I shrugged and pushed open the door to cabin number three. Inside the living space was larger than I expected. The living room and kitchen were a combo with doors breaking off into the bedroom and what looked from where I stood to be a fairly large bathroom.
I shrugged off my backpack and examined it. I’d paid a pretty penny for the bag that could grow and shrink with me while I shifted back and forth. It made traveling for work easier. At the heart of my profession, I was a domestic canine therapist. I worked with traumatized dog shifters but also trained non-shifting dogs. At least that’s what everyone called it. Most of my job was explaining dogs to people and people to dogs. Occasionally, I’d smuggle a dog out if it really wasn’t a good fit. When that happened, I had to hightail it back to polar bear territory. If the dog ‘owners’ were particularly annoying, I’d cut through moose territory and scream my head off until the moose came over to see what was going on. Most shifters don’t really know how big moose are until they’re face to face with them.
After checking that all my stuff survived, I tucked my bag under the bed and shifted. I did a big stretch and yawn. ThenI did my bark scream to check out the acoustics of the cabin. I liked when my own call echoed back to me. I waited a few seconds to see if anyone shouted for me to shut up and when no one did, I called out again. I’d been accused of enjoying the sound of my own voice more than once. With everything clear I decided I’d sing some more later, and it was time to sniff around.
It took me nearly an hour to sniff around the whole cabin. Someone had taken time to clean it and try to scrub out the pheromones, but I still smelled a lot of the people who stayed here before me. When I ran out of things to sniff, I sang for a while. It was a Grim Howlers’ song that my carrier really liked. It was catchy and always got stuck in my head. I might’ve went on for longer if a woman hadn’t stopped at the door and put on her ‘I’m talking to a dog voice.’
“Oh, did someone leave their baby locked in there?” she said.
I stopped singing and walked over to the door. I sniffed at the crack. It was a lioness. A lioness was talking to me in a sing song voice.
“I’m going to have to kick someone in the shin and tell Canton to fine them. It’s against the rules to lock puppy dogs in the cabin when you go out. I guess yet another guest didn’t read the contract they signed,” she said, sounding a bit irritated. She smelled irritated too. I did know about that clause in the cabin contract, but it said pets.
I pushed the foot pedal to open the door and blinked up at her. She was tall and smelled a little bit like a bear. We blinked at each other for a second and she started to stoop down to pet me but stopped mid-motion.
“Oh, sorry,” she said, obviously picking up that I was part polar bear and thus not a non-shifting dog. “You wouldn’t believe how many people come to visit and try to leave their dogs locked up or maybe you would.” She shrugged. “I’m Evie. I’m the resident vet and the one who can hand out fines for people who break animal rules on the farm. If they don’t want to pay, I get to thump them. That might be my favorite part.”
I shifted back. She wasn’t a bear, but she was mated to one, hence her unusual scent. I introduced myself and told her why I was there.
“I’m Evie. Philip and Canton are my grandpas. I wasn’t thrilled to hear Canton hired a trainer. We’ve had farm dogs before and never had one. Is there something different about Gooseberry?” she asked.
“I’m not sure yet. While trainer is the word most people understand, I’m actually a canine therapist and practice doctor-patient confidentiality. I don’t mind being called a trainer because that’s probably what it looks like to the owners.” I air quoted owners automatically as I spoke.
“Cool!” Evie grinned and tightened her high ponytail. “You should swing by the party later. There’ll be lots of food. Other dogs too. Wait. You can talk to non-shifting dogs, right?”
“Yeah. We don’t even have to speak the same human form languages. Dog is universal.”
“Evie!” Philip’s voice rang out. “That damn colt has its head stuck in the fence again! That damn dog’s howlin’ has them all worked up.”
“Duty calls!” Evie grinned.
“Sorry,” I mouthed to her and she shrugged. “It’s good training for the colts. They have to learn that noise is gonna happen and if they’re reactive bad things can happen. Just don’t eat my horses or I’ll eat you.”
Chapter 4
Eran
Guardians of Glitter Bomb Territory
I arrived home in time to see Diamond hugging Bernard like she wanted to squeeze out his eyeballs. For a second, I wondered if she’d squeeze me like that. I shook my head to bat the thought away before my cat forced the question out of my mouth because that dragoness smelled like she might gobble me up in one bite. Might gobble us all up in one bite.
“Did another ghost thing happen?” I asked, leaning in the doorway, taking in the boxes and bags that were mostly Bernard’s things. His parents had helped him and Nashen move most of the hissy lynx’s stuff from his family home into the house they were moving into.
Nashen glared at me from across the room where Bree sat with her long arm around his shoulders. I waved and smiled because what else was I supposed to do? Nashen hissed at me and I fought off the urge to facepaw. Then I opened the fridge and tossed him a danish and he caught it. Then, of course, he hissed again before taking a bite.
The truck was running a few minutes behind because Bernard’s parents had stopped at Sandy’s to pick up some meatball subs for everyone. It was a bit early in the morning forthem, but I liked the sentiment. I thought about volunteering to start carrying boxes down but Diamond spoke first.
“We need more of a plan than to just wait on Clarence,” she said.
“He has us over the fire,” Nashen said from across the room in between bites of pastry. “Pras won’t do anything unless Clarence tells the story. Clarence thinks he has to tell it in some magnificent way. I think he’s just putting it off. Pami’s locked in there with him and Ferrick. So we can’t even figure out how to banish her and the hummingbird ladies at the farm swear they saw Sharon Claudis the other day. So we’re up to our necks in fucking ghosts and Clarence is trying to control the narrative.”
“Who else knows the narrative, though? Except maybe his mate? Pras knows but that’s the whole point. He wants Clarence to acknowledge it,” Bree said.
