Page 27 of The Buck Stops Hare

Special bunny!Hail gave Jacque a lick before they nuzzled and pawed at him some more.

“He’ll be safe. They know better. Just in case, Mattias.” Buck glanced at the adult that’d entered with them and exchanged a warm smile. “He’s growing so fast.”

“Yeah. I don’t miss the sleepless nights, but he was cute. Still is kinda cute.” Mattias crossed his arms over his chest as the two pups nipped and provoked Jacque into play before my hare chased them both outside with a squeaking bark of command.

Gonna getcha!

I should have been afraid, more cautious or something, but the way the pups gentled their play and knew instinctively that he was not a toy made my worries fade.

“See, he’s in good hands.” Buck swept an arm around my shoulders and guided me out, distracted in conversation with Mattias about a project they were working on, starting a shipping firm for a few owner operators in the pack. The details were lost on me as Buck paused and pointed me toward a well-lit house a few rows up surrounded by women milling about and the odd man with a child.

As I stared, he nudged my back. “Business calls. I’ll meet you there. Rayne is just inside the back door, but someone will welcome you in regardless.”

I nodded and headed off that way, confident that Jacque would be okay by some stretch of imagination.

I forged my way down the sloping landscape toward the teeming home, following the scent of roasting chicken and vegetables, wolves darting past me in the shadows, each lending me a golden eye for a curious blink or more.

I should have been afraid.

But I wasn’t.

“Well, hello, new friend!” The chipper voice drew my attention as I turned about.

Where behind me there had been nothing but a moment ago—there hovered the thin set frame of a short and pixieish male. Bright blue eyes the color of deep waters stared at me beyond ochre skin and long, pinned-up dark hair that seemed to flow about him, the odd lock twisted into a tiny braid.

Thin, cold arms wrapped around my chest for a squeezing tight hug. “You are not one with water like your brother. In my pathways, our union would be a waterfall, and your resilience would wear away bit by bit over time.”

I froze as the twinky male laughed like cold bubbles and slid off of me with a bright smile, revealing too-white teeth. Race was hard to gauge at the best of times with the shifters he’d seen. The pigs had been on the Caucasian side, while the wolves, with the exception of a few, leaned toward Native and African heritage mixed. Honestly, the ambiguous tan and features I wore seemed to blend right in with them, Rayne too. I’d been asked if I was Hawaiian before. Truth told, neither of my parents were familiar with who their biological fathers were. Maybe I could have been Hawaiian or Samoan.

The longer I stared at the male before me, water raced through my mind, harsh and whooshing. The creatures that came to me had scales and fins, sharp teeth and predatory eyes that reminded me of colder times and harsher years. Drowning men cried out in the titter of his shrill voice as he spoke. “You are Rayne’s brother, yes?”

I nodded dumbly. “Drowning River…”

He brightened when I said the name.

“Don’t stare too hard, now, young one. You’ll get dizzy.” He steadied me by holding my upper arms and patting me gently until I ceased to sway.

“Way cuter than I thought you’d be,” I said, blinking myself back into focus as I passed something that very much resembled a merman in his reeling forms.

“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not, young aspect.” He snorted and released me. “Come, I want my time with you before the children have time to corrupt you.”

A millennia of crazy swirled in his eyes, overpowering just as much sadness.

A stocky red-haired male approached us, a softer sort of blue in his pale eyes, a smile curving his lips.

“You’re a calm one, like me. Buck needs that.” He smiled and offered me a hand, catching my limp palm with a strong grip. Of all his forms, as I stared at him, River’s aspect, I knew he’d never been wholly human, like me or Rayne. “Brook.”

The name fit.

“Nice to meet you. Cliff.” I shook his hand, gaining my grip as the two ushered me off nearby, playful chaos in River’s every chuckle of excitement.

Where the river meets cliff, there shall be a waterfall.

Chapter Thirteen

Buck

As I finished my conversation with Mattias, I searched around for my mate, not seeing Cliff anywhere as pups and wolves chased one another over the dimming landscape.

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