Page 24 of Full Moon Frenzy

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The day had started like every other she’d spent in Cambric Creek.

Shileen had spent far too long taking vitals from a huldra with a swishing tail, and when Adriana had turned the corner to where they stood, she walked into a conversation about the tomatoes in that week’s CSA assortment, not getting back to the business of blood pressure until they noticed Adriana’s presence.

Her next case had involved a minotaur with swollen nostrils, an infection caused by an allergic reaction to his wedding ring, she deduced, the copper band cinching the bullman’s wide, pink nose the cause of his discomfort.

Exam two held an amphibious boy and his mother, suspected poison sumac exposure, she read from the chart after leaving the forlorn minotaur, the snipped remains of his wedding band in a baggie.

And this will take even less time.

“We had them in our backyard last year, and they caused so much trouble! You’ll have to be careful with that back door, especially now that summer is — Oh, Dr. Brunelli!” The medical assistant was still perched on the rolling stool, looking up guiltily when Adriana entered after knocking. “Um, Kiton and his mother were just telling me about the raccoons under their porch.”

Adriana paused, looking over the tablet screen with a frown. She couldn’t abide clerical errors, particularly when there was nothing urgent about the majority of these cases. A raccoon bite, on the other hand, was a serious matter.

“I’m so sorry, I thought Kiton was here for suspected poison sumac. If this is an animal bite, have we already followed the proper cleaning protocol? Unfortunately, we’ll need to do a full course rabies vaccine—”

“Oh! No, no, sorry . . . yes, poison sumac. The raccoons are just . . . well, the raccoon didn’t bite anyone.”

“Not yet,” the blue-skinned boy piped up, quickly shushed by his mother.

Adriana smiled thinly, stepping around the goblin on the rolling stool to reach the patient. “You were playing outside when you got this? Was it a very wet area?”

“The back of the property is a fen,” his mother confirmed. “And he knows not to go crawling through it.”

“It was an expedition!”

“No evidence of secondary infection,” Adriana murmured, looking the boy’s arms up and down. “No swelling beyond what we’d expect to see. It’s definitely sumac, but fortunately, not as bad as it could be. With the porosity of your skin, I’m going to recommend a hydrocortisone soak twice a day, in addition to an oral antihistamine. Absolutely no scratching,” she directed to the boy. “That’ll only make it worse. We need to make sure we’re wearing the proper coverings for exploration, okay? You should be feeling better within a few days, but don’t hesitate to call us or come back in if it gets any worse. And be careful in those fens!”

“Doctor Brunelli, would you like to sit here?”

Shileen made a move to get up, but Adriana’s hand was already reaching for the door handle.

“No, we’re done. Let’s find them a sticker and let them get home. Deneen will have the instructions for the soak at discharge.” She gave the boy and his mother a smile before turning out the door, pausing to tap in her prescription and close out the chart.

Her heart stuttered as she came down the hall, the familiar sound sending her heart racing, gasoline igniting in her veins. She could not see the flashing lights of the ambulance, but the sound of the siren kicked her system into overdrive. They were too close to be pulling into the neighboring trauma department, had to be coming to the clinic, she thought . . . and sure enough, the automatic doors opened a moment later, a gurney being wheeled in.

“I don’t want to stay here alone. I already told you, I didn’t even bump my head! That ninny Daronda didn’t even see it happen!”

It was the faun who’d been in with her husband earlier that same week with a UTI. Adriana had prescribed a broad-spectrum antibiotic that had proven efficacy in nonhuman patients and had ensured that a follow-up appointment had been made with her primary care provider upstairs, the sharp-smiled kitsune. The entire appointment had taken less than ten minutes, the pathology straightforward and low-acuity.

Now, though, the elderly faun looked peaked, wincing as she was rolled along, tightly gripping the hand of a tall, dark-haired medic.

“I told you, Gretna. Your head’s not what I’m worried about. I’ve already called Libby, and she’s on her way. I’m not leaving until she gets here.”

Adriana stiffened at the sound of his voice, her lungs tightening, seizing up until she could scarcely draw breath. She felt as though she had been sucked into a sewer, forcibly ripping her from the reality she knew and spinning her through time, ejecting her into the past. It didn’t make sense. Surely it could not be him. Owen. Sandi. Rina. A fireman. No doctor! Everyone told you there was no doctor! This, though, wasn’t a doctor . . .Surely her luck was not that bad; the last week and a half of her life a cruel practical joke engineered by some spiteful deity she’d inadvertently offended.

“Let’s get to work, Oleg,” the dark-haired man directed at his companion, his voice terse, completely unlike his gentle tone with the elderly faun, head raising at last, giving her a good look at the face she was already bracing herself for.

“Seventy-two, faunish female.” The speaker was a reedy troll, jumping to attention and straightening up at the other man’s words, his brow furrowed as he read with great concentration. “Suffered a bout of lightheadedness and vertigo at the grocery store and fell, striking the side of her head on impact.”

The troll recited the faun’s vitals, but Adriana could barely hear him.

It was the sheep at the coffee shop’s fault, she decided. Xavier and Xenna, speaking him into existence one too many times, like a summoning spell. Dark hair, even darker eyes, with a silvery sheen. Broad shoulders and thick biceps, he filled out every inch of the blue uniform he wore. An EMT?! No, she corrected, eyeing the stitched insignias on his navy polo shirt, remembering what the tiefling had said at the Black Sheep Beanery. A fireman. The blue and white Star of Life was contained inside the red Maltese cross, Paramedic stitched in white.

They were so close to the moon that the smell of his wolf nearly made her stumble, growling just beneath his skin. His knot would be swollen and hot, twice as fat as her fist. As it was, she was certain her body had never fully recovered from the girth of his cock, the hard fucking he’d given her in the campus library nearly breaking the table, and then again in his apartment, her astride his hips. She hadn’t so much ridden his thick length as she’d been impaled on it, his glans nearly tickling her uvula. Then again a few nights later after they’d studied together, his big hands squeezing her breasts as he’d pumped into her from behind, his knot swollen with the moon, kissing her entrance on every thrust, threating her with a good time, but never filling her completely.

She’d spent that moon in agony, wanting nothing more than to sniff him out, certain she’d be able to follow the smell of his drooling cock. She would throw away everything she’d ever been told about the wolves, everything her childhood had taught her, letting his wolf rut her into the dirt . . . but she never had.