Page 15 of The Coyote's Veterinarian Omega

Both Cal and Wyatt blinked owlishly up at me, Wyatt over the rim of the chipped coffee mug he was nursing.

“The hell are you talking about, Cameron?” Cal’s face clouded over. “Sit your ass down and help me explain this mess. After all, it’s your fault.”

I pursed my lips, then slowly sank into one of the honey-colored, round-back chairs at the table.

Cal glared at me for a second or two, a silent threat. Then he turned his head to look at Wyatt again. “We’re shapeshifters,” he said, as gently as he could. “There are … I won’t say lots, but a fair few of us around at least. As far as I know, shifters—that’s what we call ourselves—have been around for as long as humans, maybe longer.”

“Since time immemorial,” I said, echoing some of the tales our MeeMaw used to tell us, which she had heard from her great-grandma, who heard it from her grandma, and so on.

“We don’t much like humans, so we tend to keep to ourselves.” Cal paused, looking up at the ceiling. “Or maybe that’s the otherway around—humans don’t much like us.”

Wyatt took a pointed sip from his mug, his hazel gaze pinned to Cal. He pressed his lips into a thin line, but he said nothing.

I used the moment to study him—the red of his cheeks wasn’t from the wind but a low fever. His eyes were bright too. And here, sitting this close to him, his winter-fresh scent washed over me in waves. I had to fight the urge to nuzzle right up to his neck and inhale as deep as I could.

“Anyway,” Cal said when Wyatt remained silent, “it is what it is. Either way, humans and shifters tend to avoid mingling. We’ve got our own little towns and enclaves—Coyote Creek is one of ’em.”

Wyatt licked his lips, and I tried not to stare. God, he looked kissable. “You mean there’s more of you?”

Cal offered him a sheepish grin. “Sure,” he said. “There are humans here too, but a lot of the folks in this town are shifters. I won’t tell you who, but there’s us, for starters. The whole Carlyle clan’s one big coyote pack. And there’s at least one fellow who’s a horse shifter, and another couple of bovine shifters live on nearby ranches.”

“I see,” Wyatt said very slowly. “And it’s not … like being a werewolf?”

I cleared my throat. “Not like in the movies,” I said.

Relief washed over me, along with something like pride, as the brunet turned to look at me. I had his attention at last. Our eyes met, and I held his gaze as steadily as I could, swelling with the profoundness of the moment. “We can shift anytime we want,” I said, “not just when the moon is full. And we can control it.”

Cal shot me a look, and I wilted into my chair. “Well, most of the time, anyway.”

Wyatt twisted around in his chair so he was facing me. His brow crunched with worry. “You mean you shifted accidentally there?”

I felt heat in my cheeks. “Well, yeah—” I certainly hadn’t meant to shift in front of him and reveal that shifters were a thing, especially not when Cal had told me specifically not to do that.

Wyatt’s frown deepened. “Why? Is it because you’re injured? Does that have something to do with it, is it interfering with you being able to shift or—”

“It’s you,” I blurted, feeling my own cheeks warm as his got redder.

He blinked. The mug trembled in his hand. “What do you mean?”

I glanced at Cal quickly, then took a sharp breath. “Wyatt, this might be hard to hear, but please don’t freak out. I … think you might be an omega.”

Wyatt stared blankly at me. Which I supposed was better than freaking out. Then he said, in measured tones, “What’s an omega?”

“Not this again,” Cal muttered, slapping the table as he stood up. “All right, that’s enough. Wyatt, I’m gonna drive you up to Vern’s, all right? You’ve had quite the shock, so I don’t want you out there on the roads by yourself—it’s getting late, and you look bone-tired.”

I shot up out of my seat. “I’ll drive him.”

Cal and Wyatt both gave me a pointed look. Slowly, Cal’s gaze lifted from my hastily wrapped sling to my face. “You can’t driveyourselfanywhere right now, Cam.”

Shit. I’d forgotten about that. I clenched my hands into fists, letting my nails bite into my palms. I couldn’t let Cal separate me from Wyatt. Not while Wyatt was in heat.

Not even after that. Noteveragain, I realized. I didn’t want to be away from my mate ever.

I blinked.Mate?Where the hell did that thought come from?

Wyatt was getting to his feet now too. “It’s a real nice offer, Cal, but I think I’ll be okay—”

“You can’t,” I said, desperation bleeding into my tone. Oh God, I sounded like some lovesick teenager.