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Rex held up his hands in front of him to stop her barrage of questions. “Hold up. I’d be happy to talk to you about all of this, but that’s a lot of questions all at once.”
She shrugged. “It’s science. I’m a doctor. Science is my jam.”
“Fair.” Rex smiled at her. “Did you finish sewing Bullet up?”
“Bullet?”
“My brother who can shift into a tiger.”
“Oh, shit!” She snatched up her medical bag and headed back toward Bullet’s room. “I think so, but I better check.”
Following her, Rex chuckled and shook his head.
Hours had passed with Rex sitting in the corner of Bullet’s room, watching Doc work on his brother. In his mind, he had taken to calling the vetDocbecause he didn’t know her name. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know now. It wouldn’t make a difference. She would always be Doc to him.
His wolf whined at the distance between them, even if it was only a few feet. Rex knew what it meant. He’d heard enough stories about how his brothers’ animals had reacted to their mates to know that was why his wolf was behaving so oddly, but he wasn’t ready to admit it out loud.
He didn’t even know what she thought about shifters yet. Her reaction was so strange. It wasn’t fear, but he wouldn’t say it was happiness, either. It intrigued him. Everything about her intrigued him. He wanted to know all of her thoughts and her hobbies and her passions. He wanted to know how she sounded in every situation, how she tasted everywhere, and her boundaries. Rex wanted to know everything that made up Doc.
“Tell me why you keep looking at me like that, Fido.”
Rex smiled, but his smile turned into a grin when he heard Bullet snort a laugh. He looked over at his brother and saw Bullet open his eyes.
“Think that’s funny, do ya?”
Bullet nodded and coughed, wincing at the pain it caused in his abdomen. “She… She?” He looked at the doctor and the doctor nodded, confirming her pronouns. “She called you Fido. Of course, I think that’s funny.”
Doc smiled as she lifted the bandage and checked on Bullet’s stitches. “Well, listen here, Tony, you shouldn’t laugh. For one, you need to take it easy. Also, you flashed your stripes at me a couple times over the hours.”
“What?” Bullet looked at her like he didn’t understand English, then he turned his head to look at Rex.
“You shifted. You were human when you were first worked on, then you shifted and tore your stitches, so you were tiger when I brought in Doc. She stitched you back up, then you shifted… and shifted… and shifted.”
“Yeah, so think you can stop doing that?” Doc looked at Bullet and raised a brow. “You keep ruining my good work.”
“You… shifters? You… know?”
Doc gave a humorless laugh. “I didn’t until you shifted while I was bandaging your wounds. I was going to leave, because I was positive I lost my mind, but Fido proved that I was still sane. Then I remembered that I took an oath, so… here I am. I’m full of questions, and Rex will answer them eventually, but you need to take it easy.”
Bullet sputtered as he tried to process her words. Rex chuckled. “It’s fine, Bull. Just try to stay human until your healing takes care of things. You had a rather large hole in your abdomen.”
Still confused, Bullet nodded. “Where’s Butterfly?”
Doc stopped in the middle of checking Bullet’s vitals and turned to look at Rex. “Oh god… please don’t tell me there are butterfly shifters, too.” Her eyebrows shot up as her eyes widened.
Rex smiled at Doc. “Nah… just us predators. Butterfly is his mate. She was in here earlier. She introduced herself as Harlow.”
“Oh.” Doc let out a deep sigh. “I thought those news reports were just a quirky twilight zone-esque part of the town, but… well, I guess it is… depending on how you look at it. The physiological changes as you all shift boggles my scientific brain. How? Why? What happens to your muscle structure? And your bones… how do they lengthen and shorten to accommodate the form of an animal? And the fur… where does it come from, and where does it go?”
Rex bit back a laugh as she mulled that over and put her doctor stuff back in that medical bag. Having her around was going to be fun. Now, he just needed to figure out a way to convince her to be around.
“I need water,” Bullet commented. “Yeah. I think that’s why I can’t think.”
Rex stood and went for a glass of water from the bathroom as the doctor replied, “Water can only help. Well, I assume. I mean, I don’t know much about shifters, but you seem to have the physiology of a human when human and that of a tiger when shifted, so yeah… water.”
Smiling at her words, Rex brought the glass to Bullet, helped him sit up enough to drink it, and held the glass to Bullet’s lips. When Bullet was done, Rex set the glass down on the table next to the bed.
Bullet looked up at him with a knowing smirk. “She’s yours, isn’t she?”
