4. Levi

4

Levi

“ H ey, Kellan, how can I help you?” Levi asked. Kellan usually texted; it was rare for him to call.

Levi was in his office after having left a horse farm. He’d gone to check on a mare who’d fractured her hindleg. He needed to call in some additional antibiotics for the horse, but he could do that from the car if Kellan needed him.

“There’s a bear on my property,” Kellan said.

“A bear? Is it injured? Even if it is, I don’t usually handle wild animals. But I know someone over at Parks and Wildlife who is qualified to come look. She won’t—”

“I’m pretty sure the bear is a shifter,” Kellan said.

“Oh. Well.” Levi had not been expecting that. “In that case, I’ll come right over.”

“We’re out behind the barn,” Kellan said, and hung up.

When Levi arrived, almost all the cows were mooing, and sure enough, there was a bear on Kellan’s property. Not that Levi had doubted him. Kellan was a savvy male, who had traveled the world and been in numerous battles. It was just that bears didn’t live in Texas, and it was hard to imagine how this particular bear got into his ranch without being spotted.

One of the blue heeler dogs was barking up a storm and racing around, so Liam picked him up and took him inside. “I’m working from home today,” he said. “I came over to help Kellan, but the closer we got the more the bear seemed to get upset. So, we’ve stayed away.”

“Do you think it’s injured?” Kellan asked.

“I can’t tell. I brought my tranquilizer gun with me.” Levi patted his hip. “I also brought a sedative in a syringe, if I get close enough to inject it. But I’d prefer not to traumatize the bear. Especially if it’s a shifter.”

He certainly had not specialized in bears. But in school they had covered every type of animal imaginable, and this bear’s behavior did not seem typical of a scared or injured wild black bear. He wasn’t going to get too close yet, but he was going to go with the theory that it could be a shifter.

“Have you spoken to her?” Levi asked. He wasn’t sure why he knew it was a female, but he did.

“Yes,” Kellan said. “We told her that we were dragon shifters and that we would be happy to help her. That just seemed to make it worse.”

He was right. As soon as Kellan said the word dragon the bear had cowered. Which was another point in favor of it being a shifter.

It wasn’t openly spoken about, but dragons were at the top of the food chain in the shifter world. They were bigger, they could fly, and they could breathe fire. They were very hard to injure, kill or capture.

No wonder she was scared. And there were two males staring at her. Levi looked at Kellan. “Do you mind giving us a minute?”

“If you’re sure.”

“What’s the worst that can happen? If she’s really a bear and she attacks me then I’ll just shift and sedate her.” It was really important to him that she not be injured. Although, if she was a shifter, she would be fairly tough as well. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t escape though. I know there are humans in your family.”

Kellan nodded. “Thank you.” He went back inside, and Levi was left alone with the bear.

Levi didn’t want anyone else close to her for some reason. At that moment, he knew with one hundred percent certainty that she was a female bear shifter. He’d worked with a lot of animals from cows, horses, pigs, dolphins, hippos, cats, dogs, birds and even a crocodile. He never minded an audience. He also had never felt this protective. Yes, he wanted them to be safe and happy but in the general sense that most veterinarians want it for their patients.

He did not want any other males near this shifter.

“Hello. My name is Levi. This is my friend Kellen’s ranch. I’m assuming you came here by accident. If you want to shift back to being human, I’ll turn my back. You can let me know when you’re ready and I’ll bring you some clothes.” He went ahead and turned around. “Kellan has all kinds of clothes in the house, and I can bring you anything you want.”

He waited, but she never spoke. He slowly turned back around. The bear was still there with her side pressed up against the barn, trembling. “If you’re not ready to shift that’s okay. We definitely need to find you some shelter for the night though. There are some humans that live here so if you want to stay in the house, you’ll have to shift it to your human form. But if you’re not ready to be human, you can come back to my house with me. I’m a vet so if someone sees me with a bear in the car, it will be less alarming than if it was someone else.” He chuckled, hoping to put her at ease.

Still nothing. The bear hadn’t even turned her head toward him. As shifters they could understand what humans were saying. They often nodded or gestured or used other forms of communication while shifted. But he was getting nothing from her.

He tried not to get frustrated. This obviously wasn’t her territory.

As dragons, they always had to make sure no one saw them shifted. But many bears and wolves spent time shifted in places where they could be seen by humans, especially in their natural habitat.

In a flash he was hit with an image of what she would look like as a woman. Had she sent him that picture with her mind? It was true that mates could communicate telepathically, or that’s what he’d always been told. But he’d certainly never experienced it himself.

“Did you do that? Did you send me an image of how you look?” he asked her. There was no response. She didn’t even look at him. But it was astounding—it was like seeing a photograph in his mind.

She had dark brown hair with streaks of red running through it. Her eyes were a vibrant green. She was short, but lean with toned muscle, as if she’d spent a lot of time being active, even in her human form. The look on her face was intense, but wary. Then he caught her scent. It was nothing like that of a bear. She smelled like raspberries and honey—she smelled like a woman.