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Authors: Stephani Hecht

Tags: #Romance, #Contemporary

Doc Featherstone's Return

BOOK: Doc Featherstone's Return
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Sometimes the ones you love the most are the hardest to save.

 

Ever since Hawk Shifter Ash suffered near fatal wounds in a Raven attack, he has slumped into a deep depression. Now unable to walk, let alone shift, he has lost his spark for life. His friends and loved ones fear they will lose him forever.

Desperate, they think that the only one who can give him the will to live is Doc Featherstone, the one man that Ash has ever shown any interest in.

The problem is Doc Featherstone has returned to his family to recover from his own wounds from the attack.

Bobcat shifter Joshua Featherstone has harbored a secret attraction for the spunky Hawk shifter for a long time. But he has kept his distance, afraid that their age difference would be too big to overcome. Although once he hears that Ash is in dire need of his help, Joshua rushes back to the coalition. Will he make it in time? Or has Ash turned to the darkness forever?

 

The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this
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monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is
punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a
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Please purchase only authorized electronic editions,
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author’s rights is appreciated.

 

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

 

Doc Featherstone’s Return

Copyright © 2013 Stephani Hecht

ISBN: 978-1-77111-515-5

Cover art by Angela Waters

 

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

 

Published by eXtasy Books

Look for us online at:

www.eXtasybooks.com

 

Doc Featherstone’s Return

Lost Shifters Book

 

By

 

Stephani Hecht

 

To everybody who asked for Doc Featherstone’s story.

Here it is. I hope you like it.

Chapter One

seless pieces of shit,” Ash muttered as he “U looked down at his own legs.

It was the first words he’d uttered in days and probably the last he would say for days to come.

Once a notorious chatterbox, Ash had now become sullen and known to lapse into long spells of silence sometimes lasting for weeks.

“Did you just say something?” Jacyn, one of the medics from the coalition’s infirmary, anxiously asked him.

In response, Ash turned his wheelchair around and gave the Jaguar shifter his back. Ash knew it was a dick move on his part, but if he interacted with Jacyn in any way, then they would just start pushing. Pushing him to go to physical therapy.

Pushing him to fight. Pushing him to take part in his recovery.

Ash knew it was all futile. He was never going to get better again. He was never going to walk again. Never going to shift to Hawk form. Never going to fly. So, why should he pretend
otherwise? He was nothing. A waste of space.

Useless. Other coalitions or casts of Hawks would have had mercy on him and culled him by now.

But not this one. No, they believed it would be immoral to do so. So instead they kept him around and decided to try to make him
better
. Ash let out a bitter laugh. Like they could do that when he had not one but two bullets lodged so close to his spine that no doc would dare operate.

Jacyn moved around so he was standing in front of the chair. “This silent treatment is getting old, Ash. You need to knock it off or you’re never going to get better.”

Ash answered him by flipping him off.

Jacyn cocked a brow. “Is that the best you have?

You need to remember that Carson is my brother-in-law. I get that kind of greeting at the breakfast table every morning. You’re going to have to do better if you want to impress me.”

Okay, fair enough. Ash lifted his other middle finger and gave him a double decker.

Jacyn let out a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s not what I hoped for, but it’s a start.”

“Okay then, how about a fuck you?” Ash said, his voice raw from being unused.

“At least I got something verbal. So I take it that’s a no to physical therapy then?”

“Why bother? It won’t help, and we both know 2

Doc Featherstone’s Return

 

it.”

“You don’t know unless you give it a shot.”

“Just do us all a favor and have Mitchell cull me,” Ash said between clenched teeth.

“If you’re so eager to have it done, why don’t you ask Daniel to do it? After all, he is the leader of your cast?” Jacyn asked shrewdly.

Ash shoved angrily at his wheelchair. “Fuck it!

I already did, and he said no. You know that.”

“Then you know better than to go above him and ask Mitchell to do it. Besides, even if it weren’t against protocol, he wouldn’t. This coalition doesn’t cull its members just because they’re injured or disabled in some way. That’s not how it works here. You, of all people, should know that. Isn’t that one of the reasons why you picked to move to this cast and coalition in the first place?”

Damn it! This is what Ash got for talking. He should have gone with his original plan and just kept his trap shut. But no, he just had to rise to Jacyn’s bait. Now Jacyn had him by the short and curlies, and he knew it. There was no way that Ash could answer that question without losing the argument.

Ash looked down at the ground and pressed his lips together into a tight line. “I’m such a loser.

The sad thing is I got into all this by protecting some guy who didn’t even give a damn about me.
In fact, he’s so disgusted by me that the first chance he got, he left.”

Jacyn knelt down so he was face-to-face with Ash. “Doc Featherstone didn’t leave because of you. He went home to be with his own family while he healed. He’s not disgusted with you at all.”

Ash snorted. “Please. You don’t need to lie to me to save my poor, hurt feelings. We all know he’s hated me since I got here. He never did give me my
F
or my
L
. I was never Flash, just Ash, because I was never good enough for him. Hell, he wouldn’t even let me work in the infirmary because he couldn’t stand the sight of me. I had to be a field medic instead.”

“Don’t take it bad, the doc was hard on everybody. Not just you.”

Ash gave him a sideways glare. “He never treated you or the others that bad, and we both know it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to not talking again. Things are much easier for me that way.”

With that, Ash turned his chair around to face the wall. He expected Jacyn to continue to argue with him, but instead the medic gave up with a sigh and walked away.

Ash knew he’d probably hurt Jacyn’s feelings, and a huge part of him felt bad for that. Jacyn had been nothing but good to him. Not just since he’d
been injured, but since he’d come to live at HQ. So Ash realized he should have handled that situation better.

But damn, he was sick of people telling him to fight to get better and he was sick of people sticking up for the doc. If it weren’t for the doc, then Ash would have never been in this damn situation to begin with. But nooooooooo, they continued to act like the doc was a god.

Ash, snorted, like he was one to judge. Despite the way Featherstone had treated him, Ash, the stupid ass that he was, had developed an infatuation with the man. One so great that when he saw the doc was in the line of fire, Ash had dived in front of him and taken most of the bullets.

How does the doc thank him for that? By going and deserting him when Ash needed him the most. Sure, the doc was wounded, but thanks to Ash, he wasn’t injured nearly as badly as Ash. He should have healed up a long time ago. So there could only be one reason why he wasn’t coming back. He didn’t want to have to face Ash and have to treat him.

Ash clenched his hands together in tight fists.

Fuck Doc Featherstone. He didn’t need him. He didn’t need to walk again. He didn’t need to shift again. He could just stay in this chair and slowly rot away.
After all, it’s what he deserved for what he’d done to his last cast.

Jacyn walked from the infirmary and went straight to Mitchell’s office. Even though they were brothers, he still paid his leader due respect and knocked on the door instead of barging in.

Once Mitchell called for him to come in, Jacyn entered.

For once, his brother’s office wasn’t a mess, and he immediately saw why. Mitchell’s mate, Dean, was there, cleaning up. He would do that every so often even though Mitchell would just wreck the place again. It showed how patient and loving Dean could be.

“Hey, Dean,” Jacyn said.

“Hi,” Dean called back, before he sneezed. As a Wolf shifter, his nose was particularly sensitive, and the dust had to be killing him. Yet he kept on going, without uttering a word of complaint.

“Mitchell,” Jacyn nodded respectfully.

“What can I do for you? Or did you just come to gab?” Mitchell asked.

“Actually, it’s a professional visit. I’m here about Ash. I’m worried about him.”

Mitchell ran a hand through his hair. “Let me guess. He’s still refusing to talk, eat, and cooperate
with his treatment.”

“Yes, it’s almost like he thinks he deserves what happened to him. Which is ridiculous. He got his wounds saving somebody else’s life. He should be considered a hero.”

Mitchell gave him a knowing stare. “Yes, but you know what happened at his last cast.”

It was something that Mitchell had confided to him, not even Ash knew that Jacyn was privy to the information. They both felt it was better that way.

Jacyn felt a brief flash of irritation. “That was a long time ago, when he was practically a kid. I don’t see how anybody could hold that against him.”

“But they did.”

“They sound like a bunch of assholes to me.”

Dean let out a snort. “Hawks, by nature, usually are. We just happen to get a few good ones in our bunch.”

Mitchell gave a slow nod. “Dean is right.

Hawks have the tendency to be arrogant and mean. Why do you think they used to be in an alliance with the Ravens? They thought they could control them. It was only when it was too late and the Ravens turned on them that they realized what a big mistake that was.”

“Do you trust the cast that’s with us now?”

Jacyn asked, his heart pounding with fear.
With the way they were talking now, for the first time ever, Jacyn felt doubts about their allies.

Allies that were currently living in their HQ and had access to all their secrets and weaknesses.

“I trust Daniel and Colin, that’s enough for me.”

“I also trust a few of the others like Ash, Garrett, and Gage,” Dean added. “And believe it or not, I also trust Tatum and Ackley. I think they would give their lives for this coalition. As for the others, I think they’re just following orders and doing what Colin and Daniel tell them to. They could give two shits about us.”

BOOK: Doc Featherstone's Return
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