Sacrificed Soul

Chapter Fifteen

I sigh. If the pup doesn't get the rabies vaccine resting in my palm in the next five minutes, I'll have to discard it and grab a new one. It takes everything to just stand there and not squirm. Also, he's not really a pup. Not like Skunk, who is only eight years old. This is a teenager that is used to an easy life.

I wonder what kind of man that will make him.

The she-wolf is whisper yelling at her offspring where he hides behind the chair in the far corner. 

I'd like to grab him by the hind leg and rip him out from the piss-poor hidey-hole, but I don't think that will go over well.

"Toby, if you don't come out of there in three seconds, I'll make you regret it!" 

The fourteen year old boy had been all too proud to show off his second soul when I'd asked him to shift. They'd pranced a bit, showing off a coloring that looks more like a husky than any wolf has right to be, but I don't make eyes at his mother for it. I'm certainly not one who cares about what other creatures my lovers turn into.

I did text that horse shifter, after all. Unfortunately, neither of us were willing to travel out of state to meet with each other, and so our fuck-buddy status had officially ended. I was happy for him, though. It sounded like he was thoroughly enjoying the herd he'd recently joined.

"Ma'am," I say, the boredom finally getting to me, "You'll probably have an easier time if you shift."

She finally looks over to me. I see that she wants to snarl at my unsolicited advice, but she rethinks it when she looks into my golden eyes.

"Yes," she says, "I think I'll do just that."

As she backs away from the wolf-boy cowering in the corner and begins to divest herself of her sweater, the teenager sulks out. The threat of his second soul mother must have been enough to put the fear of the moon into him.

"Let me get to your right side, Toby. It's just a pinch." I refuse to use baby talk like his mother had first resorted to. He wasn't a child anymore. He was wolf. He was second soul.

After some maneuvering which includes his mother's two legged form practically jumping onto him and putting him in a vicious headlock, I inject the vaccine beneath the skin on his right hip.

The look he gives me can be called nothing if not betrayal.

I shrug, turning away to throw the syringe into the sharps container and remove my gloves, "Be happy it's not the peanut butter shot. You'd really cry if that were the case."

The air wavers as he shifts, growing hot in the small room, and he asks my back while he changes into his clothes, "What's that?"

"Bicillin. Look it up if you ever think about joining the military," which is already highly doubtful, and not just because he is a wolf.

What I'd like to say is that my eight year old nephew made a braver stance when faced with the little pinch and sting of an injection. I don't, though, keeping my fat mouth shut and smiling as I lead them out of the exam room. Checking the paper chart hanging on a crumbling clip board, I say, "You're good on shots until next year."

His mother braves a gentle smile and shocks me by leaning in and rubbing her chin on my shoulder, "Thank the nice Nurse Orion, Toby."

"Thanks," he huffs, pulling his hoodie over his head to hide the warmth in his cheeks.

I wonder if he'll pull the same shit when I see him next year. I don't think I'm cut out for this pandering to a people that need to coddled over a few sharp objects.