Puppy Problems: A Reverse Harem Werewolf Romance (Her Secret Menagerie Book 3) Read online

  Puppy Problems

  Sadie’s Sanctuary Book 1

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living, dead, undead, masked, or unmasked, events, places, or names is coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced or transferred in any form or by any means without the written permission of the author. Upload and/or distribution of this book without permission of the author is illegal and punishable by law. If you buy, read, and return, please consider getting a free trial of Kindle Unlimited instead. We love you.

  Text © 2020 Katelyn Beckett

  Cover by Enchanted Ink Studio

  Her Secret Menagerie

  Book 1 Puppy Love

  Book 2 On Wings

  Sadie’s Sanctuary #1 Puppy Problems

  Book 3 Unbridled Passion

  Sadie’s Sanctuary #2 Rescuing Us (Releasing for the Holidays)*

  Book 4 Simply Purrfection (early 2021)*

  *= Upcoming Title

  If you read Puppy Love, this one is for you. When characters are loved so much that the readers want more, you make sure to give it to them. Here it is. I hope you’re glad the Fontaines are back, because I am. Let’s explore this whole new world together.

  I hope you brought something to wipe the steam off of your glasses. You’re going to need it.

  Chapter One

  Sadie

  My mate slammed into the cave wall and the crunch of his body will never leave my mind.

  The wolf within me screamed and I shifted in a panic. I tore away from Xavion and ran to Hudson, throwing myself over him as the dragon sneered at the collection of shifters surrounding the cave mouth. Jeremiah, the head of the local herd of unicorns, said something that I didn’t hear. I was too busy making sure that Hudson was still breathing.

  His muzzle was open. Foam mixed with blood gathered on the ground beneath him, his tongue limp in his jaws. I pawed at his face; my ears flat to my head. The dragon, Eskal, turned to us again and I skinned my lips back over my teeth, my ears flattening. Eskal, the draconic shapeshifter who had judged me for becoming a werewolf illegally from an accidental bite, had broken every part of the Supernatural Secrecy Pact.

  And he'd done it for love.

  Fucking hypocrite.

  I wanted nothing more than to tear him limb from limb, taken by the savage presence held deep within the feral part of my mind. Hudson wasn't my only mate, but he had children; they all did. And I wasn't going to let some vicious, arrogant dragon ruin my family. As Eskal ignored me, the fur between my shoulders peaked. I crept low toward him, circling over Hudson's fallen form, stubbornly intent on finding a way to get my teeth through thick, meaty scales that were all but plate armor.

  "Sadie, you don't want to do that," whispered a female voice.

  Olivia was a paleontologist from the mess our new pet food factory had become. Upon finding a single fossil that was worth preserving, we'd had to hire a crew to scope out the rest of the dirt to make sure there wasn't anything else hidden. She was part of that crew; the same ones who'd found dragon eggs hidden in the land that Eskal's real estate company had sold us. I glared death at her, the more rational side of my mind clucking its tongue at me. She was just another human caught up in the wildness of the shifter world.

  But she was on Eskal's team, and that was enough for me. I snarled at her and put the soft hollow of my belly over Hudson's neck, protecting him as much as I could. She shook her head at me. "Get him out of here. You aren't going to beat Eskal today."

  I could. I would. She didn't own me. The wolf within rebelled. I was going to save my pack if it was the last thing I ever did. The dragon could not be allowed to live; his presence was too much of a threat-

  "Come on," Xavion hissed.

  Hudson slid out from under me and I whirled, teeth snapping on empty air. Gabe caught me in a headlock and ran his hand between my ears, shushing me. Hot, worried alpha scent hit me full in the face and I breathed it as if it were life-giving oxygen. My mate. My mates; all of them. They were here. The pack was united, safe, secure, and my alphas were here to help me deal with the problem of the dragon; to protect the pups, to save us all.

  Leo and Xavion grabbed Hudson and slid him onto a tarp. Gabe kept a hold on me as two men I only briefly knew ran over to help them. Elijah and Timothy; Eli and Tim, were stallions in the only unicorn herd near us. Both of them had the look of backwoodsmen, the sort that showed up on the porch with a banjo and a jug of whiskey on a balmy summer night. Only after the four of them had hefted Hudson into the air and were headed back toward the Hummer did Gabe let me go.

  I hurried after them, tail tucked between my legs. When Gabe didn't follow immediately, I turned to whine at him.

  My mate, the second highest ranking alpha of the pack, stood human-formed and watching the exchanged between Jeremiah Watkins and the dragons. He had his arms crossed over his chest; his head cocked as he listened. I let out a breath and hurried back to his side. Careful not to hurt his tender human skin, I hopped up and took his wrist in my mouth, leaving bloody paw prints on his jeans as I slid back to the ground.

  He sighed and put his hand between my ears again. "Okay, okay. I'm coming. I wasn't going to risk anything. I promise."

  I snorted at him and towed him all the way back to the Hummer, let go, then nosed him toward the cab. He would be safe there, from dragons that wanted to kill us.

  "Hell of a strong omega, boys," Eli said, offering his palm to me.

  Quickly, I rubbed my head under it; I had to be polite, and leapt into the Hummer beside Hudson. As my alphas piled in and started the vehicle up, I laid down and tried to remain calm. Or as calm as I could. Blood dripped from his nostril and one ear was completely crumpled. I looked down at my paws, my white socks splattered with crimson that was drying into a terrible brown.

  The trip down the mountainside from the dragons' cave was treacherous, but the Hummer held up. I didn't know what we were going to do when we got to the hospital, but surely we had to go there; didn't we? It was what you did when someone got the hell knocked out of them, but how were we going to explain to a doctor that the wolf on the tarp was a human being named Hudson Fontaine?

  Worse, if he shifted back, it meant that the injuries were probably even more traumatic than they looked. What if his brain started to swell? What if he had internal bleeding? What if-

  "Sadie, shift back. You've got clothes in the trunk. We're heading to a safe hospital," Leo said, reaching back to me.

  Shapeshifting takes some getting used to, but I'd been doing it for almost two years now. I crunched and popped, bones and joints complaining as I transformed back into my human body. I reached back over the seat and hauled a cotton sundress out of the duffle bag back there, loaded with season-appropriate clothing. It was something I'd recommended keeping in the vehicles full-time since I'd joined the pack and the suggestion had served us well many times over.

  I threw it over my head and tried to ignore the yellow color of it, then made a mental note to switch out the clothes soon. Fall was well on its way, even if it was still warm during the day. But I swiped that away as Hudson shuddered.

  I wanted to hug him, but I was deftly aware that was a stupid idea. Again, we didn't know how bad the injuries were. Werewolves have some pretty impressive healing abilities, but it still took time and we were still vulnerable to being killed if we were hurt badly enough. What would we do if Hudson didn't make it? I tried to imagine raising Tommy or Jenelle without their father, explaining to them what had happened when they
were old enough to understand it.

  The thought sent a shiver through me. It was if someone had opened a pit in my stomach. The rest of the pack wouldn't abandon me. We loved each other and I'd found my one, true home with them. But Tommy and Jenelle would be left fatherless while Norrin, Analise, and Caleb had both of their parents. Would that change the dynamic my puppies had with one another?

  I tried to calm myself down. I was catastrophizing the whole situation. Hudson wasn't dead yet and he'd certainly had his share of scrapes over the years. The Hummer jerked to a halt and I grabbed the edge of the tarp to keep him from sliding into the footwells. A little more foam dribbled down his tongue and I chewed my bottom lip to ribbons in a second.

  "Let me have him, love," Leo said, taking up both edges of the tarp.

  We'd pulled up to a veterinary clinic in the middle of nowhere. The lights were still on; or maybe they'd been turned on if someone had notified them what was going on. I'd been too caught up in my thoughts to think if anyone had bothered to call ahead. Leo leaned in and kissed my forehead before he and Xavion pulled Hudson out of the Hummer. Barefoot, I slid out the other side and hurried along the gravel driveway after them.

  The vet greeted us at the door, opening both sides so help us get my mate inside. "Looks like he's been through the wringer, hasn't he?"

  "A dragon bashed his brains in," Gabe said, defeated.

  Reptilian eyes, slitted like the dragons', looked up at Gabe. "The Nightflight did this? What happened?"

  "I'll explain while you work."

  Another shifter. Another reptile shifter. My bones turned to jelly and my inner wolf threatened to rip the vet's throat out. Clearly, they were in cahoots with Eskal, were going to kill my mate on the operating table. Why had we gone to a vet, anyway, instead of a real hospital? We didn't have enough money to keep a few humans quiet? A growl crept its way up my throat but I managed to silence it before it got out of hand. If my mates trusted this cold-blooded shifter, I would trust them to know who to trust; essentially.

  I missed Gabe's explanation because I was too focused on not trying to eat the doctor. I sniffed the air, breathing the faintly sticky scent of reptile shifter throughout the building, but it wasn't a type that I recognized. The dragons had a fiery smell to them, but these were the petrichor after a thunderstorm and the sticky sweet breeze that followed them. I tried to follow the vet back into the examination room, but the door shut in my face just after I caught sight of two women in surgical masks behind it.

  Xavion drew me into his arms, carried me to a seat, and sat me down. "He'll be fine, Sadie. He's gotten stomped before."

  "Not by a dragon."

  Leo settled down beside me and nestled my cheek. "No, by a phoenix."

  Phoenix shifters were some of the best raw fighters in the supernatural world. They prided themselves in raising tough, robust kids that were capable of taking a punch; something that I found to be completely unnecessary. But if I'd learned anything about the shapeshifter community, it was that every different species of shifter had their own standards and different ways of living. There was no set of rules particular to everyone.

  Except for the Supernatural Secrecy Pact.

  Which Eskal had just blown to hell.

  We were in so much trouble. I rubbed my forehead, ignoring the blood on my hands. The world would be up in arms in no time over the Nightflight's fuck up. They'd taken on tanks in the middle of a neighborhood, for crying out loud. They'd gone flying during daylight hours. Worst of all, they'd robbed a museum to get their eggs back.

  Hudson had been a jerk about that whole situation just because Eskal had insulted me. What did I care if the big lizard didn't like me? I shot a look off at the closed door. If Hudson had just agreed to help out, had agreed to buy the eggs back from the museum; they'd been found on our land after all, I was certain that nothing would have ended up like this. We would have been home, sipping wine and watching a movie.

  Not sitting here and wondering if our big alpha was going to make it.

  "When did Hudson fight a phoenix?" I asked, my voice breaking on the last word.

  Gabe pulled a chair up and around to face me. "It was just before we got Fontaine Feeds off the ground. We were over at Masque, and you know; they have that fight pit in the bar. Hudson was hammered because his girlfriend had dumped him, so we were spending every last dime we had on making him forget."

  "Can't imagine anybody dumping any of you," I said, furious and trying to hold back tears at the same time. I rubbed my arm across my eyes and sniffed.

  He shook his head. "We weren't always the best alphas. Anyhow, he got it into his mind to go and fight this phoenix. The guy must have been at least 30 feet tall-"

  Xav interrupted, shaking his head. "Fifty, minimum."

  "A hundred?" I asked, sniffling again.

  Gabe nodded. "Three hundred feet tall. Mammoth-sized phoenix. Hudson gets it into his head that he's going to lay this guy out and show everyone he's a big, strong alpha. Maybe he'll attract the attention of some sexy, horny omega that will crawl up on him for the night and give him a little fun."

  "He climbed into the pit and flipped the guy off," Leo said, dreamily. "Unzipped his fly and pissed on his boots. His own boots, that is. Huds was so goddamned drunk he couldn't see straight. The phoenix picked him up by the ankles and smacked him face-first into the piss puddle. Broke every single bone in his face."

  I flinched. "Ouch."

  "Spent two weeks healing up," Xav shrugged. "Came out of it in great shape, wanted to go back and fight the damn bird again. He was a lot wilder before Tommy came along. You should've seen him."

  I took Xavion's hand in my right and Leo's hand in my left. Then I slumped back into the chair and sighed as I watched my mates. "But he got hammered by a dragon this time. Not just smacked into the ground. That was an awful lot of weight for him to bear."

  Gabe began to answer but the door popped open and the vet came out, pulling bloodied gloves from his hands. The tension in the room made my stomach knot itself in a thousand terrible ways.

  "He'll live," said the vet. "But he's got a long way before he's shapeshifting again or before he's leaving this hospital. There's not a bone in him that isn't bruised or fractured in some way. We've got him on enough pain medication that he should be on cloud nine, but we're going to have to keep him under for a day or two while the worst of the healing goes on."

  "Do you know how long?" Gabe asked, standing and shoving his hands into his pockets.

  It was something he only did when he was upset, angry, or nervous. I assumed it was option 1 and 3. I clung to Xav and Leo. Hudson would be okay, eventually. But it was the eventually that worried me; how long was he going to be out? Money wasn't an issue; the family had so much cash that we were practically swimming in it. Yet the time away from the pack and the office...

  The vet shook his head. "A month? Two? It'll just have to depend on how he goes. Another stomp and he wouldn't be getting back up, Gabe. We had to cauterize a few things just to guarantee that he'd make it through this." He fell silent, pausing to let us ask questions or say anything, but what was there to say? The lump in my throat stopped me from speaking. Finally, the vet continued. "You all get back into your car and go home. Hold your kids tight. Try to put it out of your mind until the morning. You can't do anything for him that isn't already being done."

  "Thank you," Leo said. "Come on. Let's go home."

  When I didn't move, he scooped me up and carried me back to the Hummer. Gabe, who usually took the passenger seat, crawled into the back with me. I put my head on his lap and I sighed, closing my eyes. The vet was right. There was nothing we could do. That didn't make me feel any better about it.

  The ride home was more or less silent. There was the occasional soft curse word when we hit a bump in the night, and a deer dove in front of the bumper about a mile from home. We were late; far later than we'd told Lillian we would be.

  And she was waiting for us on the f
ront porch of the lodge, worry written all over her face. Hudson's former sister-in-law, Tommy's aunt, stood wiping her hands off on a kitchen towel. The porch lights were the only ones still on so late, but they illuminated her entirely.

  "What's going on?" she asked, walking to the window once we'd stopped.

  I shook my head, but Gabe took up the charge. "Hudson's hurt. Eskal smashed him into a wall. Shifted bodies; a wolf's no match for a dragon's power. Not like that. He's at Doctor Ioane's place."

  "Jenelle's been asking for him all night," she said. "Maybe she knows."

  The stark contrast between the human world and ours was evident. In most human interactions, the people would have been worried. Lillian wasn't because she knew Hudson would heal if he wasn't dead; he was with a doctor, he was being cared for. Why would she worry about it?

  But somewhere at my core, I was still very much human. I had been turned, not born into a society where it was normal for people to shift from human to beast and back again. And even after all this time, there were some things that still didn't sit right for me.