Page 9 of The Coyote's Veterinarian Omega

I had plenty of experience with that, so I knew I needed to avoid Cam like the plague.

Still, I’d gone home and jerked off, thinking about Cam’s smirk.

Thankfully, there wasn’t much doing today, so I was able to finish up my rounds and stop by Rocky Ridge mid-afternoon, which meant there was no chance of another awkward dinner invite. As an added bonus, the house was quiet, suggesting everyone was out.

I crept in, toeing off my muddy boots. I’d check my patient, get in, get out, and that would be that.

I peered into the laundry room, and my stomach dropped.

My patient, the coyote, was nowhere to be seen. The blankets were mussed, but the food in the dish hadn’t been touched.

“Oh, fuck,” I muttered, then booked it back to the door.

Cam

Istumbled back into the door as someone slammed into me at light speed. i grimaced as i hit my bum shoulder against the solid wood, gritted my teeth against a curse, and straightened up.

I clapped my hands on the new vet’s shoulders. He looked up at me, eyes wide.

“What’s going on?” I heard myself ask.

“The coyote’s gone,” he said, and I could have kicked myself.

Of course the coyote was gone—I had shifted back last night before dinner, because being penned in the laundry room was uncomfortable. I’d eaten dinner with Wyatt and Cal, then taken a shower and slept in my own (much more comfortable) bed. I’d got up this morning and headed out to do some “light work,” as Burt, our lead hand, called it.

“Gone?” I asked, stalling for time. I hadn’t expected Wyatt todrop in this early. I needed to distract him somehow, so I could run off and shift, then get back into the laundry room in coyote form. Without him noticing.

“Y-yeah.” Wyatt sounded scared shitless. “I’m sorry, there’s a coyote running loose in your house—”

I frowned a little. I’d thought for sure that, since Wyatt was an omega, he’d know about shifters. Heck, I figured he probably was one. But it seemed like he hadn’t put two and two together, which suggested he didn’t know about shifters.

Which meant he either didn’t know he was one, or he wasn’t one at all.

But that couldn’t be right—he smelled like an omega. He had to be a shifter. Humans didn’t have omegas.

“Well, come on,” I said. “We’d better go find him, before he can get into any mischief.”

Wyatt blinked, apparently surprised at how calm I was. Honestly, I wished I could tell him that the number of times there had been more than half a dozen coyotes on the loose in this house was in the hundreds.

But I couldn’t risk it. We never knew who did and didn’t know about shifters when we got new blood in town, and Cal would have my hide if I accidentally revealed to a human that shifters were a thing that existed.

I clapped Wyatt on the shoulder, then dashed toward the laundry room. Maybe I could hop into the room and shift while he was standing there dumbfounded.

No, that wouldn’t work. He’d see me.

I rushed past the laundry room and slipped around the corner instead. I wound up in the family room. I heard hesitant footsteps coming down the hall after me. “Uh, Cam?”

Thinking fast, I dashed through the room, around another corner, heading to the stairs. “I’ll check the upstairs!” I hollered. “You check in the basement!”

“T-the basement?!” Wyatt sounded horrified, but I heard him tromp down the stairs.

Excellent. I didn’t bother heading upstairs. Instead, I waited a beat or two, then shifted and trotted back to the laundry room. I hopped over the fence meant to keep me penned in, wincing as I landed. I settled down on the blankets Cal had so generously provided for me to sleep on—the oldest, most threadbare ones in the house. I put my snout on my paws and waited.

A few minutes later, Wyatt treaded back up the stairs. “I can’t find the coyote anywhere,” he announced as he wandered back toward the living room.

When he didn’t get a response, he called, “Cam?”

I pricked my ears and lifted my head, an instinctual response to hearing my name.