Page 2 of The Buck Stops Hare

I huffed and offered her another round, or her check, and she pouted, moving off to try and flirt a sip out of someone else. I thanked the powers that be for the good fortune of her catching a hint and went back to cleaning other areas of the bar. I had two hours of my shift left, an episode ofBridgerton, and my pet bunny, Jacque, waiting for me.

He was a gift from a kestrel when I first started bartending a few years ago. He’d been plopped right on top of me while carrying out the trash, and the local animal rescue said they would just put him down because he had neurological issues. Since he was some kind of native species of rabbit, I had to have a permit, and that took a minute, but the little baby bunny had grown into the cutest little guy I’d ever met. He fell asleep in a hammock I made out of a jock strap the first night I’d gotten him, and it seemed like he responded to the namejock, so Jacque it was.

“What’s got you all smiling?” One of my coworkers, a little blonde that he’d taken a geology class with at one point, hip-checked me on her way by. “Cute girl catch your eye?”

“Ew, no.” I couldn’t help the reaction, and it gave her a scrutinizing pause. I wasn’t exactly out, or gay. I thought of myself as celibate. If I never had sex, I never had a sexuality.Boom. I won. No coming-out party, no awkward convo with Mom and disappointment from Dad. No teasing from my frat brothers. I’d be a bro’s bro forever.

“A cute guy?” She hesitated and I rolled my eyes.

“I was thinking about Jacque. I’m sure he misses me. We’re going to watch some Netflix when I get home.”

“Oh…” Her face soured, and I walked off with a caddy of empty beer glasses for the washer. She didn’t quite care for Jacque since he peed on her shoe the last time she came over. If he didn’t like her, then I didn’t trust her, either.

On my way back, I petered about, taking a moment to check the camera in my apartment. I refused to live in the frat house when I could live in an apartment for a tenth of the price. The little illegal studio on top of some old lady’s garage cost me a hundred bucks a month if I agreed to take her trash out and do an hour or two of chores once a week. Add in the occasional phone call where she heard a noise and wanted me to check it out, and it wasn’t too bad.

I didn’t have anything to really worry about, but it was nice to check on Jacque a few times a day. He was in the window facing the driveway, with his little word buttons staring at something, ears twitching.Mad! Animal! Person!He pressed the big plastic buttons by the window with shaking paws one by one, letting a fuzzy version of my voice pique the mic. He hated opossums and squirrels and would bark at them endlessly in his little bunny grunts that I loved so much.Aww!

He must have been waiting for me to get home to take a shower with me, shaking off under the hot water before getting towel snuggles. Every minute I thought about him made me want to call it quits for the night to get home right away to my precious little baby dumpster muffin.

I toughed it through though.

By the time the night ended, and I threw the last of everything away, I hopped into my beater, a mid-nineties model Suzuki Sidekick that I’d rebuilt. The thing broke down once a month, but it was cheap to fix and could run on duct tape and zip ties as long as there was gas and oil. Plus, Mrs. Pemberlin let me work on it in the garage with her ex-husband’s tools.

She claimed he skipped town with a stripper some odd years ago, but I had one of those gross feelings that he probably crossed a line, and she buried him out back in a shallow grave. I weighed the options of cheap rent versus concern for my well-being, and cheap rent won out again.

The road beneath me hummed away, the beautiful gas efficiency of my micro-SUV pumping all four cylinders to my place.

As I slowed to turn, I eyeballed a box truck parked nearby, wondering if the neighbors were moving. I pulled into the gravel drive and pressed the button to open the garage, rolling in next to her Venza before I climbed the internal stairs toward my apartment.

“Baby bunny boy!” I sang up the stairs and reached for my doorknob.

Before I could turn the knob, a scent caught my attention. An unfamiliar perfume? A shadow crept over my shoulder and a board creaked. Just as I turned, arms wrapped tightly around me. I flailed in start, throwing an elbow only to hear a surprisedoofof contact. Judging by the flurry of hands and stumbling steps, it was more than one person, and I struggled, finding a cloth shoved into my mouth and the prick of something right into the meaty part of my ass.

I jolted in shock and waited for the faint to come over me, like in the movies, but it didn’t. I struggled for what felt like forever as they dragged me kicking and flailing down the steps.

“He’s an omega, nice,” one voice said.

“Grim Dawn’s gonna have fun with him,” the other replied.

Omega?

Grim Dawn?

I didn’t have time to consider it as I wrenched my face away and spit out the cloth. “Jacque! My bunny. My—my…” I ran out of steam and my entire body went limp. I was vaguely aware of my body being moved and odd noises coming from my mouth. How the fuck was all the commotion not sending Mrs. Pemberlin into a hissy fit?

“Jacque…” I whimpered, and things melted away.

Chapter Three

Buck

I’d made my way to Ohio, following the vague trails I recalled toward the city Rayne best guessed he’d be in or near.

The whole state stank of betrayal and anguish. I’d never met the Iroquois people who originally lived there, but they’d named the placethe great river. Which might have explained a lot, considering that River haunted the state at one point until driven off by a new people. I forgot which ones because there’d been so many. Humans all seemed the same to me.

As I got to the crowded little city, dust in the wind scouring the landscape, I caught scent of Rayne’s blood near a trendy bar and took form down an alley. From there, I slipped from between the two buildings, slouched and unassuming. The bouncer at the door gave me the side eye, and his nostrils flared before he allowed me in without even asking for ID. Shifter of some sort.

I perused the area, finding the scent distant but condensed, like he’d been there a lot but not recently. It made me circle back toward the bouncer, shouldering up near him as his gaze slanted my way with a polite nod and thick swallow of nerves. “Cliff.”

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