Knot His Bunny

Penny

My thighs shook as I braced my palms against the cool metal stall in front of me to remain upright. I sucked in huge lungfuls of air, my head swimming and a low hum pulsing beneath my skin.

I was having a heat flare in the middle of Shifter Central Command’s third-floor bathroom. My head thunked forward. My skin soaked up the minor relief the wall offered. Heat still licked up my spine, but it became bearable with each moment that passed. Slick coated my panties and inner thighs, and I squeezed my legs together again.

This can’t happen here.

Being a rabbit shifter in a city ran by apex predators was bad enough. Going into heat around them?

I was asking to be dinner.

I touched the top of my head, feeling the tips of my ears trying to push free.

No!

I dug into my crossbody bag with trembling fingers, shoving aside sticky notes and pens until my hand wrapped around a blister pack of suppressants. I popped a chalky white pill free then another and swallowed them both without water. It scraped the inside of my throat but it beat being on the menu. Next, I grabbed the matte-black aerosol bottle labeled Apex-B-Gone. A sales clerk down in a specialty prey boutique downtown swore up and down that it masked natural pheromones and made the wearer unpalatable to canine and reptilian predators.

I gave two quick sprays at my wrists and one at the hollow of my throat. The sharp scent filled the narrow stall and my eyes watered. I blinked them rapidly.

It will keep me safe.

Most days, no one looked twice at me. I’d seen one or two predators wrinkle their nose as I passed but they never stopped me. So it had to be working. But today, I needed it to perform a miracle.

Commander Knox noticed everything. If he suspected I was going into heat…he’d probably fire me for risking pandemonium by not calling out, and I needed this job. There weren’t many like it for prey shifters in Sector 3.

Even the term ‘prey’ implies we’re inferior to those “in charge.”

No, I couldn’t afford to get fired or using a sick day. A sick day meant questions and paperwork and someone looking too closely at me.

It was better to pretend everything was fine, and it would be fine. The pills would take the edge of long enough for me to finish my shift and scurry home right after.It wasn’t like I went out with the predators when my shift ended, even though a couple had extended the invitation. I assumed they did it to be polite. Predators and prey rubbing shoulders?

Ridiculous.

City Hall could pretend all it wanted that we were one big “harmonious metropolis” but it didn’t erase the fact prey-owned shops got shoved into under-funded alleyways and they had to build Command—an eight floor monolith armed with enforcers—just to keep the anti-predation treaties from collapsing.

Predators enjoyed the hunt—enjoyed killing prey.

Everything else was just window dressing to mask that truth. Which was why I was hiding in a bathroom stall from the dozens of hyenas, foxes, wolves and whatever other predators worked in Command.

I was a bunny.

I was food to them.

And I just needed to survive another day.

Knox

Renfri, a badger shifter, sat across from me on the other end of the mahogany conference table, his heavy jaw set in a defiant line. He sneered. “We need to move the crates across the rail yard. The docks in Sector 7 are under Command surveillance.” He lifted a bushy brow. “Unless his Lordship is too busy playing military bureaucrat—”

He didn’t get the rest of the words out, choking on them with my claws embedded in his thick neck—sharp enough to break the skin but not deep enough to cost lasting damage. I’d moved faster than anyone could blink and everyone froze before several hands dropped to their holsters.

I released a warning hiss, my pupils shrinking to razor-thin vertical slits and my tail slithering out from under my waistband. It wove through the air with quiet menace, capable of crushing the life out of a man in under thirty seconds. No one moved.

I leaned close to Renfri, letting the scales along my jaw brush his cheek. “You exist because I allow it.” I squeezed lightly, watching his face turn a mottled purple. “Mention my position in this room again or question me, and I’ll empty my venom glands into your jugular.” My forked tongue flicked out, tasting the air. “The street sweepers will have to scrape you off the pavement when I’m done.”

I let him choke a little longer, his clawed hands scrabbling uselessly at my wrist, unable to pierce the scales. His eyes pleaded with me and his chin wobbled as he gave a frantic nod. I opened my hand and he fell from my grip, gasping for air. I turned away to address the rest of the room.

“We’ll use the docks. I am Command surveillance.” The corners of my mouth hiked up. “Isn’t that the benefit of having someone on the inside? My uncle knows this.” I retook my seat, and my tail slipped back inside my pants and wound around my waist. “Clear the manifest at midnight. Don’t dawdle. You won’t have infinite time to do the job, but by gods, get it done. Fast.” I sliced my hand through the air. “Dismissed.”

Chairs scraped, and throats cleared. A few murmured “Good day, Commander” filled the stifling quiet until everyone had emptied the room. I ignored my vibrating comm and exited the conference room, turning down the east wing of the third floor. I didn’t know where I was going, merely seeking some place quiet—where I could hear myself think and smell only my scent. There were too many bodies here. Command was always like that.

For a reptilian shifter with a sensitive nose, it was hell. Our senses beat even the wolves.

I rounded another corner and reared back, my head snapping to my left.

What was…that?

I tasted the air again, narrowing my eyes. Something floral and musky—was someone in heat? Here?

My tail uncoiled, pressing restlessly against the fabric of my pants. Blood rushed south as I took in a sharp inhale of that scent.

Like a moth drawn to a flame, I followed the trail, my scales feeling tight and uncomfortable against my skin.

Who would dare work through an active heat on this floor?

The scent along was enough to drive any shifter mad.

I kept walking until my feet froze outside the clerical bullpen. My eyes landed on her immediately, and it wasn’t even the first time I’d noticed her, though I’d admit it to no one.

Penelope Villar, a beautiful brown-skinned rabbit shifter who always looked like she was trying to disappear by force of will alone.

And I didn’t know why that bothered me.

Command was perfectly safe for the shifters who fell into the “prey” category—herbivores mostly. Prey just meant they didn’t eat meat or hunt other animals for food.

It didn’t mean weaker. I’d seen a mother mountain goat gore an attacker with her horns to protect her cubs.

Rabbits were no different. Shove Penelope into a corner, and I was certain she’d come out swinging.

But she couldn’t be here, not like this—her scent practically an invitation for every predator who strode past her.

I couldn’t allow it.

She froze as soon as I stepped into her cubicle, her fingers pausing above the keyboard. She didn’t look up, but I watched the rapid flutter at the base of her neck with interest. I made her nervous—probably all predators did.

“The Sector 9 logistics reports were due on my desk at fifteen hundred,” I said by way of greeting, keeping my voice low and rough. I needed her off this floor. “I’ll need you to pull the hard manifests from Archival Records to cross-reference. Think you can do that?”

I heard her swallow. “Yes, Commander.”

How did she know it was me?

I nodded, though she couldn’t see me and whirled on a heel. As I strode away, I sent out an override.

Sub-basement archives are restricted for an unscheduled diagnostic. Only Clerk 4482 may enter. Station one neutral watch officer to maintain perimeter until she logs off and exits the facility.

I straightened my shirt and told myself I was doing it to prevent an interspecies incident—not because I didn’t want another carnivore to catch her scent.

That was ridiculous.

She was just a bunny.

What did I care if she fucked the first predator she saw in her current state?

I bit back a growl, and people leapt out of my way. I ignored them and the niggling voice in the back of my head telling me I should create an excuse to visit Archival.

Absolutely not.

Predators and prey rarely mixed.

Everyone knew this, despite what City Hall advertised.

As long as carnivores had fangs and claws, herbivores would stay away.

It was just how the world worked.