24. Isobel
I remain subdued while I finish my late breakfast, silence reigning as I clear the table of dishes and take them over to the sink. I scrape the worst of the grease and remaining scraps of food off everything before loading them all up into the dishwasher. Done with the mundane chore, I turn back to face Paw Paw, crossing my arms protectively over my extended belly.
I stare at him and wait.
It doesn’t take long before the old coot folds. He’s never really been able to resist my stare, and my parents used to joke that I must be the reincarnation of Maw Maw, as I’m the only other person aside from her who has ever been able to rein Paw Paw in.
“I’m sorry, Izzy-bizzy. I know he’s a sore subject for you. I just—” he breaks off, turning to stare into the middle distance, his throat visibly working as he swallows down whatever it was he wanted to say.
“Forget about it, Paw Paw,” I murmur softly, a sad little smile twisting across my lips as his gaze meets mine once more. “What’s done is done, and all I can do is keep moving forward. Maybe one day the truth will out, but until then, I’m just gonna keep taking one step at a time and get ready to meet this little one.” I pat my belly, only to giggle as my baby responds to the movement by kicking at my hand.
I head toward the back door, Paw Paw holding it open for me, and make my way to the wildcat pens behind the house. The ocelots are both sprawled out on top of one of their “shelves,” soaking in the warmth of the day. The bobcat is sunning himself in an errant shaft of light, and Deedee is all up against the chain link of her enclosure, nuzzling at the metal and making love to it. Her pheromones are stinking up the air and I wrinkle my nose at their scent. I dart a glare over at Paw Paw, rolling my eyes at his sheepish expression.
“I fed all the critters when I first arrived and spent some time in my fur with Deedee. I think she might be coming into her season a tad early…” Paw Paw tapers off at the exasperation pouring from me.
“Well, of course she’s gonna go into season early!” I snap back, torn between screaming in frustration and letting myself fall into hysterical laughter. “She has her preferred suitor already sniffing around, and a tiger cub preparing to drop in the next month or so. The question is, what are you gonna do about it, because I sure as heck ain’t touching that snafu with a ten-foot pole, Paw Paw!”
My grandfather looks away from me, his cheeks reddening with embarrassment. It doesn’t matter that I am grown, mated, and have a cub of my own on the way. To him I will always be his little Izzy-bizzy—his latent shifter granddaughter with a gap-toothed smile, hair in messy pigtails, and knobbly skinned knees.
I eventually take pity on him and change the subject.
“C’mon, Paw Paw. Let’s go take a look-see at our newest arrival before the boys arrive with supplies. I want to get a good look at him in the daylight and try to see if we can figure out where he came from.”
I link my arm with Paw Paw’s, tucking my hand around his bicep as we turn our backs on the wildcats and crunch over the gravel drive separating the barn and surgery from the rest of the sanctuary. The barn is open and ready for deliveries, which usually happens after lunchtime when Dillon and Dane drop by. While Paw Paw and I deal with the day-to-day running of the sanctuary, the two of them help out in other ways. Mostly anything dealing with heavy lifting.
Dillon and Dane are my two older brothers, and both are cougar shifters like our father and Paw Paw. They also share Da’s dark brown hair, steely blue eyes, and skin that tans as soon as the sun hits it. Mama calls them her “Irish twins” because they’re only ten months apart, with Dane deciding he was going to make an early entrance. Despite this, Dane is the larger of the two, and his cougar is an absolute brute.
I, on the other hand, take after Mama’s side of the family. While Mama’s dark auburn hair is now streaked with gray, mine is still the color of a fiery sunset. We’re both as pale as milk and burn in the shade. She’s a human, as are about half of her siblings, and that entire branch of the family tree is littered with latent and non-shifter members. Despite occasionally feeling the cat inside me, I’ve never shifted and probably never will.
Thank the gods that none of us are allergic to fur.
As we reach the door to the surgery, Paw Paw tucks me behind him so I’m following him rather than entering first. I know he’s simply being protective of me, but at the same time, I locked the battered monster behind a reinforced steel door. If he managed to get through that in the state I left him, then Paw Paw isn’t gonna be much of a barrier.
Paw Paw pushes the door open slowly, keeping his body between me and the empty surgery. The door to the recovery room is still bolted shut, so I duck under Paw Paw’s arm and stride over to look through the window. I ignore the spluttering consternation coming from behind me, especially when it becomes all too obvious that the lion hasn’t moved a single gosh-darned inch since I left him at dawn. He’s still on his side and unconscious, the partially frozen chicken pieces now fully thawed at the bottom of the bowl.
“Isobel Maree Basset-Calhoun, git your heiny back here before I decide to tan it for you! Just because you managed to wrangle that beast last night when he was creeping on death’s door, it don’t mean you get to put yourself and your cub at risk.”
I huff as I spin back to face Paw Paw, gesturing at the locked door behind me.
“Oh, knock it off, old man. As you can see, the door is still firmly bolted, so there’s no need to panic. I’ve been dealing with furry and feral critters my entire life. If that lion was gonna take a chunk out of me, he would have been more likely to do so last night when my back was turned, instead of waiting until a steel door prevents him from getting to me. Besides, it looks to me like he’s using this time to take advantage of my hard work and regain his strength. Look for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
I step to the side and allow Paw Paw to squint through the window, the tension draining out of his body as he sees for himself that the lion is secure and sleeping. I move away from the door and over to the fridge where we store the antibiotics, gathering a trolley on the way, along with the necessary materials for further treatment. Saline, trauma shears, latex gloves, bandages, swabs, sterilized sutures and needles and syringes, they all go on the top tray of the cart, ready for me to wheel it into the recovery room.
Paw Paw’s still grumbling to himself about “danged stubborn females just asking to be et,” even as he unlocks the door and holds it open for me. He’s hot on my heels as I enter the room, almost crowding me as I make my way over to the supine feline.
The lion’s side rises and falls in a steady rhythm, his breathing deep and even. It reassures me somewhat that his breathing isn’t labored or struggling, and that he’s well on the path to healing. Paw Paw and I work quickly and quietly checking him over, and I’m glad to see that underneath the dressings I’d stuck to him, my hard work from last night is still intact and doing its job.
“So, what are we going to do with him?” Paw Paw’s gravelly voice jerks me out of my study of the healing wounds, and I sit back on my heels and stare into the middle distance as I think. We’ve got some larger, open-air enclosures that we use for injured wildlife, but I don’t feel that they’re secure enough to hold a monster like the beast before me. We certainly can’t keep him locked inside the surgery and recovery room, and I want to keep him away from the other animals, if at all possible. At least until we can determine this monster’s temperament.
There’s nothing else for it.
“I think we’re going to have to lock him up in the Pound,” I reply.
The Pound is one of our older out-buildings, isolated away from the rest of the enclosures and generally only used when we have an animal who needs to be quarantined away from the others either for health or safety reasons. It consists of a fully caged and secure outdoor enclosure connected to a large, reinforced cell. It reminds me of the old-style zoo cages a little, and while it isn’t the most attractive or welcoming space, it is safe, protected, and structurally sound enough to hold even the most enraged or rabid feral hog or black bear. An injured lion should be a piece of cake.
“Well, in that case I’ll get your brothers to clean it out and prepare it for our newest resident when they get here,” Paw Paw grumbles. Satisfied with the state of the lion, I head back into the surgery itself, rummaging through drawers for a notepad and pen. It takes me a minute to find one that works, but once I do I start making a list of the equipment and paraphernalia I’ll need to relocate over to the Pound. The lion will need tending to, and I want to keep a close eye on the more serious of his wounds. While I’m currently satisfied with his progress, he’s also unconscious and unable to do any further damage to himself. All that will change once he wakes, and I don’t have a large or strong enough cone of shame to prevent him from pulling at his stitches.
The rest of the morning flies by as Paw Paw and I load up the ATV trailer with supplies for the Pound, and then I make my rounds. Deedee is not overly impressed that Paw Paw isn’t with me. Bonnie and Clyde, my dangerous duo of ocelots, are making the most of the watery sunbeams streaming into their pen, their fur glowing in the light as they sleep off last night’s excitement. But our three-legged bobcat Tierce is ecstatic. His purrs resemble a rusty chainsaw, rumbling away as he nuzzles his ruffs all over my hip and belly, scent-marking me with his affection. I have to be careful with him, as he likes to lean heavily on me and then overbalance if I move away. The loss of his foreleg impacted on more than just his ability to hunt, and I will forever curse the poachers who left their illegal traps behind and out of season. Their cruelty, neglect, and ignorance nearly cost him his life, and we were lucky that it was only the necrotic remains of his leg that had needed to be amputated.
I spend a little time in each of their pens checking that they have enough food and water, and giving their enrichment toys a once-over. The last thing they need is to choke or otherwise injure themselves on broken or disintegrating equipment. I leave them to their own devices after chin and ear scritches, before heading over to the pens holding the canids. The bays, yips, and howls that greet me are deafening, but at least they’re not aggressive. The wolves, foxes, and coyotes in our care have grown used to me smelling like cats, but I’m still careful around them all. The last thing I need is for my brothers to hulk out and start a cat fight because their little sister was stupid enough to get bit by a dog.