I know. Look, I get that you’re on the side of these animals, Adrienne, but this is gonna be our new home. I need my pack to feel comfortable here, or they’ll start thinking things might be better with Dallas. That means the hornets and the badger got to go. Now, I respect you witches and all you’ve done for me and my kind here in Accident. That’s why I came to Cassie and didn’t take these things into my own hands. But I can’t have hornets stinging folk. And I can’t have badgers spraying Bruce.”
I understood, but I wanted to hear this badger’s side of the story. And I wasn’t inclined to go kicking him out of his home just because he sprayed some werewolf. This was Accident, and here we all tried to get along. I know I was the only one who included animals in that mandate, but it was important to me that I didn’t evict a creature when there was another solution at hand.
Which was odd given that outside the wards, in the world of humans, evicting animals was exactly what I did. Still, I never displaced bats or rodents when they had young in a nest, and I always made sure to provide an alternate home for them. I’d put bat boxes, bird houses, and squirrel boxes all over the place. I’d relocated insect nests and made sure animals I moved had plenty of food to get them started in their new location. I just wanted everyone to get along. I wanted a win-win situation.
So I wasn’t going to evict a reclusive badger living a hundred yards from the werewolf compound just because some wolf named Bruce with poor personal hygiene had gotten himself sprayed.
I made Clinton go back to the compound, then I knelt by the sett once more, hoping this badger wasn’t overly grumpy when awakened.
“Mr. Badger? I’m so sorry to disturb you during your sleep, but I need to discuss something with you. It’s about the incident the other night with a werewolf?”
The furry form grumbled then twitched, his long claws scratching along the dirt.
“Badger, I know it’s early for you to awaken, but I need to talk with you.”
Go away.
I recoiled, not because of fear, but because of shock. My gift allowed me to communicate with animals. It also allowed me to communicate with shifters in their animal form. Thus I knew very well that a wolf expressed himself in a far different manner than a werewolf on four legs.
This wasn’t a badger. At least it wasn’t a badger-badger. It was a werebadger.
Shifters continued to retain some of their animal traits in their human form, so although this guy probably preferred to stay up all night and sleep all day, he was perfectly capable of getting his ass up and out of his sett to talk to me.
“Hey! You!” I shouted. “I’m Adrienne Perkins, a witch of Accident. Get out of there and talk to me right now or I’ll have you tossed outside the wards and banished.”
The werebadger rolled over and opened an eye. He might be here under the radar, keeping his presence a secret by hiding out in his animal form, but I was sure he knew the rules and regulations of being in Accident. Otherwise he wouldn’t be here when badgers typically weren’t found on the east coast.
Slowly he made his way out of the tunnel. I backed up to give him room and he shook the dirt off his fur, stretching a bit before transforming into his human form.
A naked human form.
I was used to seeing naked shifters, naked fae, and the occasional naked human, but I didn’t know this guy and he was…well, he was fairly impressive in the reproductive organ department.
I tried not to stare. “A werewolf pack is taking possession of this section of the mountain, and the other night you sprayed one of them.”
He wiggled his hips making things bounce around. “He deserved it, the wanker. Guy was poking at me with a bloody stick.”
I had no idea why a man who shifted into an American Badger was speaking with a British accent, but it wasn’t the weirdest thing I’d ever encountered in my life, so I let it go.
“Did you identify yourself as a shifter?” I’m sure Bruce thought he smelled funny, but given that we don’t have badgers here, he probably thought this shifter was just a weird animal—a weird threatening animal with huge claws.
“I shouldn’t have to shift