Somebunny to love virtue.., p.1
Somebunny to Love (Virtue Shifters Book 7), page 1
SOMEBUNNY TO LOVE
A VIRTUE SHIFTERS NOVELLA
ZOE CHANT
SOMEBUNNY TO LOVE
Copyright © 2023 by Zoe Chant
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Art: Ellen Million Graphics
Created with Vellum
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
A Note from Zoe Chant
Teaser: Gladiator Bear by Murphy Lawless
CHAPTER 1
Emilia Jones was not a small bunny.
She was not a particularly large human, at least not in terms of height, but she was, in bunny terms, a chonky girl. There were many reasons for this. One—perhaps the most significant one—was that shifter animals tended to be larger than their true animal counterparts. Even, somehow, the ones that didn't make any sense. Grizzlies, for example. An average male grizzly bear weighed in around, say, five hundred pounds. Grizzly shifters, though, they landed in the six hundred and up range, and that was without even being, like, a Kodiak brown bear.
So Emmy would be big for a rabbit anyway. But to make matters…well, larger, if not worse, she was a Flemish rabbit shifter. Flemish Giants were the largest rabbits in the world. Been around for centuries. Bred for meat and fur, back in the day, but they were often show rabbits now. Emilia's family had raised them back in the old country, and kept doing so after they emigrated to Virtue, New York, more than a hundred and fifty years ago. Mostly because it was very hard to disguise a family of giant rabbit shifters in a place where there were absolutely no giant rabbits at all. It was practical. Emmy's family approached things practically.
Somehow no one had ever approached the practical topic of what a very large rabbit shifter was supposed to do if she had been out hopping around the springtime woods, sniffing flowers and nibbling grass, had gotten spooked by a fox, and had bolted into a no-kill trap somebody had set up at the edge of a clearing, probably for the fox.
The fox had come to sniff at her with a combination of bewilderment, amusement, and fascination. It couldn't get to her, although it tried for a few minutes, sticking its slender black paws through the small wire squares, and poking its skinny pink tongue in to lick her nose and ears. After a while it gave up and sauntered off through the grass, leaving Emmy to her utterly ridiculous fate.
There was nothing she could do. She couldn't even turn around in the stupid cage. She was too big. Her sides pressed against the wires, fur fluffing through the squares like a 'pet this!' display at a zoo or a museum. If she could turn around or even roll over, she might be able to jimmy the mechanism and release herself. She did, after all, at least still have human intellect behind her soft rabbit paws. But no. There would be no turning, no rolling, and certainly no shifting, because while her rabbit self barely fit in the cage, her human self wouldn't fit at all.
This was mortifying.
Her rabbit, who was relatively placid by rabbit standards, said, We're going to die here, because 'placid by rabbit standards' equalled 'wildly melodramatic by most shifter animal standards.' Otters were worse, maybe, but they were just ridiculous. Rabbits were, by nature, prone to alarm and panic. Emmy was used to it; her rabbit had been saying things like that her entire life.
We are not going to die here. The entire point of a no-kill trap is somebody comes along and gets the animal out and takes them to safety.
GOING. TO. DIE.
Emmy's little rabbit heart was going, well, rabbit-fast, and occasionally she was absolutely unable to stop herself from trying a desperate kick against the cage floor. Mostly, though, she sat there grouchily, concentrating on breathing slowly because otherwise her rabbit would make her hyperventilate, and waited for somebody to come let her out.
Although honestly, it was hard to be grouchy on a day this beautiful. The trap had been set deep enough under the trees at the meadow's edge that she wouldn't get too hot, and mild sunshine fell beautifully over the young wildflowers, bringing them to life. A gentle breeze ruffled the new grass, and birds darted across the blue sky, or paused in the branches to sing and call to one another. Everything smelled fresh and green and alive, and Emmy's rabbit gradually calmed down. She even started to get sleepy, because there wasn't much point in being awake when she couldn't go anywhere and nothing could eat her. Her ears twitched as a bug landed on them, but that was really about the extent of her ability to move.
Somewhere in the midst of drowsing, she realized the birdsong had changed. It took a while longer to realize the bird was whistling Ode to Joy, which, while not impossible, wasn't super likely. Emilia's ears perked as far as they could under the circumstances. Someone was coming to rescue her.
We're not going to die?
I told you we weren't going to die. Emmy tried to sit up so she could get the rescuer's attention, bonked her bunny head on the top of the cage, and sank down again, squeaking with irritation. Rabbits weren't exactly known for their vocal range, but they could make noise. They just preferred not to.
At least, they preferred not to until it became clear that Ode to Joy was walking right past them. There was a footpath at the edge of the meadow, tromped down by animals and humans alike, but it was far enough from the tree cover that unless someone was looking, they wouldn't necessarily see a giant rabbit stuck in a no-kill trap. And apparently her rescuer was not the person who'd set the trap, so they weren't looking. Emmy took a deep breath and threw herself sideways against the cage wall.
It would have worked better if she'd had more than half an inch of room to spare. She tried again, hoping to knock it over with a satisfying, human-attention-grabbing thump.
On the positive side, after a few more tries, the cage fell over.
On the not-so-positive side, it did not thump. There was too much new grass. It just fell over with a relatively quiet fwump, and now Emmy was stuck on her stupid side instead of on her tummy, which was at least comfortable. She started squeaking in earnest, and, discovering she had a smidge more room to move, began kicking the bottom of the cage with her very strong hind legs. To her relief, it rattled meaningfully, and she let her rabbit decide they really were going to die, so she could really shriek.
Ode to Joy stopped and a man's voice said, "Oh my God, what the hell? Hello? Is everybody okay? Is anybody okay? Hello? Are you okay?" A few seconds later he came under the tree, and Emmy, who was in full-on Bunny Panic Mode now, caught a glimpse of wide shoulders made wider by a backpack, a baseball cap, and sunglasses getting knocked to the ground as the man knelt to right the cage. "Oh my God, bunny! Look at you! What are you doing in there? Okay, okay, calm down, baby, I'll get you out. Oh my goodness, aren't you the biggest fluffiest bunny I've ever seen. Look at you. Look at you, yeah. Yeah, it's okay. It's okay, sweetie. You'll be okay."
He had a soothingly deep voice, although a great deal of what he was saying was pitched high and soft, in the reassuring tones used for babies and frightened animals. Emmy tried to slow her heart, but her rabbit had complete, terror-stricken control and was trying with everything it had to escape the cage. Calm down, Emmy told it. He's rescuing us. Okay? We'll be fine.
We're going to DIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
The thing was, as a nearly-thirty-pound rabbit, most of the ordinary threats were not actually all that threatening to Emilia. Hawks. Foxes. Owls. Weasels. A coyote or a bobcat, or even an ambitious eagle, would probably judge her worth trying to take on, but most predators that would normally go after rabbits weren't really all that dangerous to a rabbit her size. Convincing her inner bunny of that, however, was a lifetime job that had not yet fully succeeded.
In case of point, the rabbit, catching a glimpse of their hero's shadow as he moved in more closely, shrieked, DEATH! FROM! ABOVE! and tried with everything it had to run away.
Emmy swore to God, next thing she knew, the rabbit would decide she was under alien attack. Nothing less than pure, unadulterated drama would suffice.
"Shh, shh, shh, it's okay. Gosh, how did you even get in there, you must have been going headlong," the man murmured as he righted the cage. "What a big pretty bunny you are. Okay. I'm going to open the end of the cage now, all right? Don't turn out to be the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog, okay? It would be embarrassing to have hiked from Seattle all the way to New York only to be taken out by a rabbit before I finished my trek."
Emmy, forgetting she was a bunny, squeaked, "The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog!" and did her best to give the hiker heart eyes.
He winced apologetically as she squeaked and stared at him, which, from his point of view, no doubt looked and sounded like an abjectly terrified bunny. "It's okay, sweetie, I'll have you free in a second, okay? Yeah. You're gonna be fine, poor thing."
She wanted to say, "But Monty Python!!!" and wiggle with excitement at meeting a guy who obviously, instantly, Got Her. Except that would look like continued fear, so she tried hard to ho
He'd come out into the sunshine and pushed his baseball cap back on his head to reveal a wide smile. "Hey, bunny. There you go. You're safe now. Have a nice bunny life." He actually waved, then, as she sat there in star-struck awe, flapped his hand at her. "Go on, bunny. Stay away from traps!"
Her rabbit flinched as he flapped his hand: flapping things were scary. But Emmy never wanted to go anywhere in the whole wide world again, if the hiker wasn't there. The goodness in his heart practically radiated from his handsome, strong-jawed, broad-shouldered, hiking-gear-wearing self. He was very, very tall. Of course, almost everyone was, from a rabbit's point of view. Even a big rabbit's. But he was tall for real, too!
He was also sweaty, even disheveled, both from hiking and from rescuing a terrified rabbit. His arms were brown from sunshine, and what hair stuck out from beneath his baseball cap was sun-bleached, and he was sensibly wearing long pants to keep ticks away but they fit snugly against what were clearly terrific thighs, and he was the most appealing person Emmy had ever laid eyes on. And it wasn't even because he'd rescued her.
No, it was that her hero was absolutely, without question, her fated mate. The person she was meant to be with. The man of her dreams. The perfect guy.
And she was a bunny, with no way to tell him without instantly revealing her secret.
CHAPTER 2
Karl Sutton had never seen a rabbit that big before.
He kept thinking about it, as he continued his hike. He was supposed to be another eight miles east by evening, more if he could make it, but the bunny, like, haunted him. It had sat there in the middle of the meadow for a bizarrely long time, once it had hopped out of reach. It had looked at him like it wanted to communicate, although he had no idea what a bunny would say. 'Carrots, please,' he supposed. They'd stood there looking at each other for at least a full minute, maybe longer—and a minute was actually a really long time when you were gazing into a wild animal's eyes—before it had heaved a very large bunny sigh and hopped away into the woods.
Karl had hitched his backpack higher and struck off along the path he was following, but he kept looking back and looking around, like the rabbit would be there to keep him company. Part of him thought it hadn't even been a real rabbit. He was fairly certain rabbits did not come in XXL sizes, although that one had been so unbelievably cute that they really should.
There was a town just south of his hiking trail, a place called Virtue. He'd semi-consciously avoided it while planning his trek, on the assumption that it would be full of the kinds of judgemental people who thought living in a town called Virtue signalled something about their values. He still thought that, but for some reason, rescuing the rabbit had really thrown his day off kilter. Possibly a night at a hostel, where he could take a shower and sleep on a mattress, would be good for him. He'd been on the trail a long time, and his last break had been ten days ago. Somehow the last eight miles to his planned rest spot seemed like too much for today.
"Mom would say listen to your body," he said aloud to himself. "So listen. You've been walking for seven months. One more day isn't that big a deal."
"But Karl," he added in a mocking high-pitched voice that he'd assigned to the part of him that never had listened to his mom, anyway, "you're so close! Eight miles is four hours at the most! What's another four hours?"
Well, for one thing, it was four more hours of listening to himself do a stupid voice, and when he got like that, it was definitely time to talk to other real live human beings. He checked his hiking map app. It claimed there was a public-access path leading almost straight into Virtue less than half a mile ahead of him.
Of course, four times out of five, those public paths had a catch. Sometimes the catch was an owner who didn't even know there was a public path on their property, and came out with a shotgun to see what he was doing. Sometimes it was a swamp. There was almost always something. Still, Karl took the branch when he reached it, and was heartened by a well-kept kissing gate in the fence where the path met private land. Maybe this would be one of the good ones. He went through the zig-zag of the gate and struck out across the pasture, watching bees dancing with young dandelions. It was a gorgeous afternoon, and everything was perfect.
Everything except the cows on the far side of the pasture hill he crested.
Cows were often not a problem. They were pretty chill, for animals that could weigh a couple thousand pounds. They mostly chewed cud and watch him walk on by when he had cause to pass them on his hike. A few friendly ones had ambled over for some lovies, and Karl had come to appreciate why 'cow eyes' had once been a flattering beauty standard. They really did have big beautiful eyes, with long lashes. He liked those cows. Those were nice cows.
He did not like cows with babies.
Or, rather, cows with babies were adorable, because babies were adorable. However, cows with babies also felt they had something to protect, and very unfortunately for Karl, these cows had babies. At least eight of them.
Eight was a lot of babies, and, by weight, a lot of cautious mamas.
And the public access pathway went right smack through the middle of their little herd.
He turned around to look back the way he'd come, and laughed. Not a funny laugh. More ironic despair. There were now cows behind him, too. Cows with babies. Big-eyed, silly, romping babies who were simultaneously extremely cute and also representative of a great and terrible danger. No one in their right mind wanted to accidentally get between a large hoofed mammal and its infant. Karl liked to think he was in his right mind, despite having decided to walk across the entire continental United States.
There was no going forward and there was certainly no going back. Not for a while. Possibly not for quite a while, given that a couple of the calves looked like they were settling down for a nap. There was fresh water and new grass for the cows to eat. He could be there all night. Karl looked behind himself again, then down the hill at the little herd in front of him.
Maybe if he went slowly and cautiously, speaking gently the whole way, the cows would meander to one side, or at least not trample him to death if he passed between one and its baby. He said, "Hey cow," as softly as he could.
A couple of tails twitched, but otherwise, they didn't seem to care. Karl began a murmur of pleasant nonsense, "I'm just walking along here, okay, cows? I'm just going to follow this trail to the other side of your pasture and then I'll be out of your hair. Fur? Horns. Out of your horns. I definitely don't want to be in your horns," he told them soothingly.
They were clearly accustomed to humans. Most of them didn't pay him any attention at all, although a few of the calves stepped his direction, curiously, and one—evidently a cautious soul—pressed up to its mother. "That's a nice baby," he told it. "Stay nice and snuggly with mama. I'm just walking along here, minding my own business…"
He got most of the way through the little herd before a calf snuffled with excitement and gamboled straight across the path in front of him, chasing a butterfly. The calf's mother snorted with warning, not at the baby, but at Karl, who made more soothing noises and tried to back away.
He bumped into another cow who'd snuck up behind him, closed his eyes, and whispered a prayer. This was it. His gravestone would read 'Here Lies Karl Sutton, Trampled To Death By Cows.' The fine print would say 'stay out from between mamas and babies, kids, it ends badly.'
A few seconds later, one of the cows made a noise he had never heard before. A pleased snort, as if amused. Karl hadn't known cows could think things were funny. He peeled one eye open, and there, twenty or so feet away, sat the very large bunny from earlier. It—she; Karl was determined to think of it as a she, for some reason—sat up on her haunches, twitched her nose, and thumped one foot invitingly. Then she bounced a couple steps away, paused, and looked over her shoulder.
