A few days ago, Squirrel Found, the fifth and last story in the A Scurry of Squirrels series, was released.
Like the previous stories in this series, it’s a fated mates, interspecies couple kind of story, where one of the MCs is a squirrel shifter. Unlike the previous stories, the love interest isn’t a wolf but a vampire.
I figured we can’t leave Doson behind without giving Nicodemus a happily ever after, so that’s what we’re doing. Our grumpy vampire in an immaculate suit deserves happiness too, does he not??
Of course he does!
Below you can read the first chapter! And like the others, you can read it as a standalone story, but it works better in the context of the previous ones.
Squirrel Found
Squirrels should never travel alone.
Three months ago, Deneb Hartman lost his cousin. They were in a clearing, in their squirrel forms, when wolves attacked them. His cousin never made it back, and Deneb’s world shattered. He never did well on his own, and he’s been traveling aimlessly ever since.
Nicodemus Zervas owns a thrift shop in Doson. He’s a vampire surrounded by humans unaware of the supernatural world, and it’s lonely. For a year, he had a squirrel shifter working for him, but now he’s moved on and left Nicodemus behind. But then one day, there is a naked man jumping out of his recycling dumpster. When Nicodemus runs after him, all he can find is a squirrel.
Deneb found a nice little forest behind a thrift store to hang out in. Had he known people stayed in the building overnight, he wouldn’t have shifted where he could be seen. Nicodemus is almost sure the naked man and the squirrel are the same, but how to get him to show himself to Nicodemus? Bribe him with macadamia nuts?
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Paranormal Gay Romance: 37,468 words
Chapter 1
Nicodemus Zervas loosened his tie and let his shoulders drop. It had been a long fucking day, a long fucking week, and it was only Tuesday. How was it possible?
Last Friday, Raaz had worked his last day at Get It or Get Out, and Nicodemus should be glad.
He was.
He wanted Raaz to find his place in the world.
The problem was he’d believed he had. Most people left when they no longer needed his help, but Raaz had stayed. He’d moved out but kept working at Get It or Get Out. He came into work every day, and he’d helped Nicodemus keep an eye on things. They worked well together.
Nicodemus didn’t mind the wolves.
For so long, he’d been the only supernatural in his life. He knew of the other supernaturals in town, of course. Had spoken to Konrad, the wolf leader, several times, and he’d been known to visit The Howling Moon once a year or so when he’d hung around humans for so long that he wasn’t sure he remembered what being a vampire entailed.
It had all changed when Raaz came to him. Raaz was a squirrel shifter who, when he arrived, had been running from a pack of wolves.
It hadn’t taken long before the wolves had come sniffing around, and at first, he hadn’t been pleased, but… He’d been part of something. They might not see him as a pack member, but they’d trusted him to look after Raaz while he was here. When there was trouble, they not only let him know what was going on, but they also asked for his help.
As pathetic as it was, Nicodemus liked it when he could be useful. He liked helping people despite not liking people. He didn’t want anything in return. He wasn’t one of those people who helped others to later lord it over them. No, he simply enjoyed knowing he’d made a difference. If the person he’d helped never spared him a second thought, that was okay. He did it for himself. To know he’d done something good.
He sighed and threw the tie on the bed.
Get It or Get out was a thrift store, one he’d built from the ground up, and he was proud of it. Not of the thrift store per se, but of the work he did there. The second floor of the building held eight small rooms. The doors were evenly spaced in a narrow corridor, and at both ends of it there were two bathrooms with showers. Around the corner of the corridor was a laundry room with one washing machine, one dryer, and a few clotheslines. There was also a small square room where he’d put a couch and a TV, and a small kitchen.
It wasn’t much, no luxury resort, but it beat sleeping outside. He didn’t invite strangers to stay—or he did, but he picked them. He didn’t run a charity organization, didn’t have the place listed as anything other than as a thrift shop, didn’t try to save the world. He only tried to help the ones he wanted to help. Women who’d been crushed by society, by their spouses, or by their families. Women someone should’ve looked out for and failed.
Raaz had been an exception. He wasn’t the first shifter he’d helped, but he was the first man he’d allowed to stay on the second floor. He wanted the women he took in to feel safe, and letting a man in wasn’t the way to do it, but Raaz was a squirrel. He couldn’t tell the women, since humans didn’t know of the supernatural world, but if he could have, they’d have known they had nothing to fear.
Squirrels were hunted. They might have the same strength as a human man when in their human form, but they were squirrels. Tiny, distracted, fluffy things, and it hadn’t taken more than a day or two before the women had let their guards down around him.
For a short time everything had been great, but now Raaz had moved on. He’d taken a job at Mildred’s, the local coffee shop. He’d work there with Myka, who was a human woman mated to one of the wolves.
It was good. He was glad for Raaz. He’d be safe there, not as safe as at Get It or Get Out, since Nicodemus would die before he allowed anyone to touch one of his people, but the wolves would be able to keep an eye on him in town.
It was great.
It was… good.
Maybe Raaz would think back on his time with Nicodemus at some point in his life and feel… gratitude.
He undid the top button of his shirt and was fiddling with the second when his phone rang. Frowning, he grabbed it. Nicole’s name showed on the screen, and he took a deep breath before answering. “Yes.”
“Nicodemus?” She was whisper-yelling and all his senses came to attention.
“What’s going on?” He was moving toward the door before the last word was out of his mouth.
“There’s a naked man.”
“What?” He hadn’t meant to snarl, but he did what he could to keep the women safe. He didn’t invite them to stay in his building only to have a flasher pestering them.
“He jumped into the Dumpster. I was in the laundry room, folding some clothes. When I carried them back to my room, I saw him through the window. He climbed up on it and jumped inside. It’s pretty full. They’re coming to get it in two days, so I don’t think he hurt himself jumping into it, but…”
They had a Dumpster where they tossed all the clothes and fabric they got but deemed unfit to sell. It was picked up and replaced once a month.
“I don’t care if he hurt himself.”
“He’s naked, Nicodemus. Maybe he’s… Dumpster diving in hopes of finding something to wear.”
Nicodemus grabbed his keys off the small table in his hallway and stepped outside. “Is he still inside?”
“Yeah. Maybe he’s trapped.”
Nicodemus grunted. It would serve the fucker right. “Stay inside. I’m on my way.”
“I’ll keep watching.”
Nicodemus gave a short nod, then he hung up.
* * * *
Deneb Hartman tore open one of the plastic bags in the Dumpster. The first item he touched was a hot pink cotton top with Barbie written across the front in glitter. It looked perfectly fine apart from the seam at the arm having come partly undone, and a thread was hanging loose. It didn’t matter. He slung it over his shoulder and kept digging.
He needed pants. When his fingers brushed over a pair of dark teal lounge pants with a wide waistband, he deemed it good enough. He didn’t have the energy to care what he wore. He hadn’t worn anything in almost three months.
Not since Shun was eaten by wolves.
Shun was his cousin—squirrel cousin. He wasn’t sure how far apart they were in the family tree, but it didn’t matter. Shun had been his only safety in this cruel world. Naively, he’d believed they’d make it. Had believed they’d find a place where they could settle down and live happily ever after. Where they’d gather nuts for the winter and not worry about a thing.
Shun was smarter. He’d known things wouldn’t turn out great for them, had told Deneb over and over again, but he hadn’t listened. Instead, he’d dreamed. So stupid.
He tried to swallow around the lump forming in his throat. He’d waited for Shun to come back to the clearing where they’d been separated for as long as he’d dared to. Had left him a note and had lingered in the area for several weeks, but no word, and no Shun.
What was the point of continuing on his own?
He added the pants to the pile on his shoulder and climbed out of the Dumpster, no longer in the mood to get dressed. He had no money, so what had he been thinking? There was no use in going into town. He didn’t know where he was, having traveled aimlessly for months after he gave up on Shun coming back.
In a fit of insanity, he’d figured he could find clothes and rejoin civilization. He hadn’t spoken to anyone in ages. But for what reason? Shun wouldn’t be there. All it would accomplish was him getting eaten. Shun had often told him his need to talk to people would get them killed one day.
Deneb didn’t think the wolves who found them in the clearing had been his fault. They’d been in shifted form, so it wasn’t him talking that had given them away. But maybe it was his fault anyway.
He jumped off the Dumpster, only wincing a little as his bare feet touched the ground. There were a few trees behind the building. He’d spent the day there, had watched cars coming and going, and then, when it’d quieted and all cars had left the parking lot, he’d had the idea of trying to see if he could get some clothes. He’d seen a red-haired woman throw a thick winter jacket into the Dumpster.
Pointless.
Walking between the trees, he picked the tallest one, threw the clothes over a branch in case he changed his mind later, and shifted into squirrel. He climbed to a fork in the tree and burrowed down. A sigh wrapped around him.
He needed to find a hollow to spend the night in. Sitting here was too exposed, should there be an owl or something else nasty, but for now he didn’t want to move. Maybe waiting for an owl was the best he could do.
Ofelia Grand 