Page 34 of The Healer and the Wolf: Part Two

I also noticed that my healing balms and teas were far more potent. The burn salve I made for a couple shifters and mindwalkers had them healing within a day rather than three. My headache tea had the recipients marveling at how fast the storm in their head died down. Even my own period had been noticeably affected. Normally, I suffered from bad cramps, exhaustion, and a blinding migraine or two for days, but when I drank my soothing tea, took my supplements, and used my heating pad, I was right as rain a couple of hours later. Definitely different from the norm.

I didn’t say anything to anyone except Leo. I took immense comfort in all of his assurances, and it was helping me come to terms with whatever was building inside of me. As scary as itwas, and as much as it confused me, it was nice to feel more like an active part of something. I was no longer the single human who clung to the periphery of all the shifters around me. No, whatever I was, I was one of them in a way. Which was nice. I just couldn’t think too hard about the mystery of what the hell was going on with me.

Luckily, I didn’t have a lot of time to sit and marinate in it. I was always doing something. Between my cats, my garden, and work, I was pretty occupied. Occasionally, I was tempted to help chip in with the search for the two remaining brothers, but since I already had so much on my plate I figured it was time to let the more experienced folks take over. Still, it felt like there were never enough hours in the day to get everything done—and it wasn’t even like I was working forty hours a week anymore.

After some not-quite-so-careful consideration, I’d reduced my work hours to part-time, much to the chagrin of my manager. I’d told him it was nonnegotiable, and he could either fire me or deal with it. He’d chosen to deal with it, so I was now only working two six-hour shifts a week.

At first, I’d never thought such a thing was an option for me because I needed money to pay my bills. Even with all the food being handed to us, I still needed to pay my phone, the heat, the electricity, and perhaps most importantly,the internet.But the grateful families of those who returned had donated a lot more than food.

I now had a sizeable nest egg that would allow me to take a year off work if I wanted to. That idea was far too mind-boggling for me. I’d had a job pretty much since I was fourteen, and I couldn’t imagine being completely reliant on others, so the part-time transition was my compromise. And thank goodness for it, because there was an uncanny surrealness to being a grocery store clerk by day and an unknown magical entity hunting downa group of evil warlocks by night. To make it even better, Tiffany was leaving me alone, too.

I didn’t know if it was because management had told her to ease off, or because I radiated a new don’t-fuck-with-me energy, but I was grateful for the reprieve. Considering everything that had changed since meeting Leo, I couldn’t see myself rolling over and being the doormat I’d once been for her. Now, I knew my worth. I knew I was loved, and I was worth standing up for.

A screech sounded from the sky high above me, and I looked up to see a large eagle descending. While I was fairly sure it was a shifter and not a wild animal, I was still awed at the beauty of the creature’s wings as it cut through the golden light of the afternoon. I wasn’t surprised when it landed and shifted into a woman, but I was surprised when I didn’t recognize her. Not Alicia, and most definitely not Esperanza, who was apparently still chained to her studies. Honestly, good for America and her family for enforcing that. While college hadn’t been for me, Esperanza had mentioned a couple of times that she wanted to get her degree in journalism. Passion like that needed to be encouraged, and maybe if I’d had the support of a family like America’s, I’d have finished college.

“Are you the one they call Vanessa?” she asked, and the slight accent to her deep voice told me she was probably from the reservation. That was a pretty big deal. Leo had told me there were several different shifter packs hidden in the reservations across America, and they were even more insular than anybody else. They rarely came out or engaged with other magical communities. I couldn’t really blame them. From what Leo had said, they were long-lived, and some of them had parents who were around during colonization. I didn’t imagine that those wounds were much healed considering that they were only a generation ago.

“I am,” I said, standing and wiping my hands on my ratty sweatpants. It had gotten to the point where it was seriously time to prune my tomatoes considering I followed the one-stem method, so my fingertips were sticky with brown tomato tar. “Can I help you?”

I probably shouldn’t have been admitting my identity to any stranger who stopped by, but since the eagle shifter had landed right in front of me, she likely already knew who I was and was only asking as a formality.

“From what I hear, you already have. I have a gift for you from our family. One of our young men disappeared on his journey to meet his ancestors from a different tribe. Yesterday, he returned to us, and he told us how you and the people you gathered saved him and many others.”

“Oh, uh, we more came together as a matter of circumstance. It wasn’t like I went and recruited them.”

But the woman was already reaching into her pocket. She pulled out a beautiful necklace with polished-wood beads and what looked like several hand-shaped geodes. It was truly stunning in a very antiquated manner.

“This is for you,” she said. “If you are ever need help, hold this tightly and whisper your need into it. As long as our people live, we will come to help.”

She said it so matter-of-factly, but my eyes went wide, my eyebrows shooting up to my hairline. I couldn’t tell if she was being literal or not, but still, what a gesture.

“Wow, I don’t know what to say.”

“You need not say anything. Your actions have spoken. You returned one we thought lost, and we will never forget that. We are the oldDinè,and we do not forget kindness.”

I took the necklace with trembling hands. The woman gave me one more brief nod before she was enveloped in a thick cloudof steam. A moment later, she took to the sky in her magnificent eagle form.

Huh. Word really was getting around.

I didn’t know what to think about the whole situation, and to be honest, I was quite touched. Tomatoes momentarily abandoned, I hurried inside to find Leo and tell him what happened. I was pretty sure he would be just as amazed as I was, if not more so considering how ingrained he was in the shifter community.

But as soon as I got in the door, a deep, rumbling voice I could feel through the floorboards distracted me. It was the kind of voice that went viral on streaming channels for being so masculine and foreboding. But hearing it wasn’t what made me stop, rather it was the words themselves that had me frozen in my tracks.

“Yeah, you’re just a cute guy, aren’t you? Just a little, cute guy. Look at these fuzzy, widdle ears. Look at your fuzzy, widdle face. I could just eat you up, but then the world would be so much less cute, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it? Yeah, you know it would! You know that you are the cutiest of patootiest, yes, youarrreeee.”

That might have actually been the most adorable thing I’d ever heard. I hurried around the corner of the kitchen to see a truly giant of a man sitting in the living room with Ricky, America, and Leo.

He was sitting on the floor, his legs splayed out, taking up half of the space, and between the trunks of his thighs was none other than Goober himself, who was clearly having the time of his life as the giant enthusiastically stroked the Maine Coon’s back.

“Hello there,” I said, trying not to laugh at the sheer camp of it all. Considering it was the first time I was meeting the man, I didn’t want him to think that I was making fun of him. I wasdelighted at someone so blatantly loving on one of my cats, as well as the completely goofy look my big, old cat had on his very contented face.

Granted, Goober didn’t look all that big between the legs of the man who was fawning over him. God, the stranger had to be nearly seven feet tall.

Still, as pleasant as I tried to keep my tone, the man blushed crimson when he saw me. “Ah, are you the mother?”

Some people hated when pet parents refer to themselves as parents, or their charges as fur babies, but that single sentence from the man told me he was one of my kind. A dyed-in-the-wool, true animal lover. Not someone who was preachy about it or who used animals for moral grandstanding, but genuinely enjoying the company and personalities of all sorts of critters.

“I am,” I answered with a smile. “That’s my precious Goober you’ve got there. He loves back scratches and booty pats. And you are?”

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