Goose and the Ocelot Read online

  Goose and the Ocelot

  A FUC Academy Story

  Renee Hewett

  Copyright © 2020, Renee Hewett

  Cover Art © 2019 Dreams2Media

  Produced in Canada

  An EveL Worlds Production : www.worlds.EveLanglais.com

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  This story is a work of fiction and the characters, events and dialogue found within the story are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, either living or deceased, is completely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or shared in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to digital copying, file sharing, audio recording, email and printing without permission in writing from the author.

  Contents

  Foreword

  Introduction

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Foreword

  A note from Eve Langlais…

  Renee Hewett, whose secret identity also happens to be my very awesome assistant, is the reason I decided to open up my worlds. She and I had many conversations about how we could handle it. When I expressed doubt about anyone wanting to actually write in my worlds, she smacked me! For real. LOL. Okay, she didn’t slap me, but she did encourage me to not be afraid. To relax, sit back, and see what amazing stories others might have to give. If this whole world thing works, then she deserves most of the credit.

  She is an epic friend, an excellent assistant, and as you’re about to discover, a gifted writer.

  Please show her some love. And no you can’t have her. She’s mine. All mine. Don’t make me lick her, she might quit if I do!

  Happy reading, and giggles,

  ~Eve

  Introduction

  On the run in the jungle, Dedra Wakins is in no mood to listen to the sexy man who’s trying to take her back up to Canada.

  Screw safety. Geese fly south for the winter for a reason!

  But when she learns her gosling might be in danger, no one can stop this momma goose from charging anyone threatening her family.

  Does this premise and world seem familiar? That’s because it is based off the Eve Langlais Furry United Coalition. Eve Langlais has invited her author friends to come and play in her world. To find out more, visit Worlds.EveLanglais.com.

  Acknowledgments

  Eve, I can’t believe this is happening!

  * * *

  I’m not very good at saying this often enough, but I know just how lucky I am to consider you a friend, and to have you in my life. I’ve learned so much from you and you inspire me so damn much (maybe I should say “so fucking much,” that’s probably more appropriate), and I can’t believe that you’re opening your world and letting people like me into it!

  * * *

  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Never doubt that you’re the best.

  * * *

  I also need to thank the other local world authors who were brave enough to do this too! Mandy Rosko, Alexa Gregory, Jenn Burke, Lucy Farago, TB Mann, and Jodi Kendrick: thank you for all the write-ins and brainstorming sessions. Thanks for humoring me while I read you my newest line or acronym that was amusing me.

  * * *

  Rebecca Poole, I love my cover, I can’t believe it’s mine! Thank you for being a fantastic designer to work with, and for also being someone I consider a friend!

  * * *

  Jessica Snyder and Devin Govaere, you two are the best, for real. I couldn’t do this without your help. Thank you for encouraging me and making me a better writer. Thank you Anne Victory and Crystalle Berry for the final eyes.

  * * *

  And finally, thank you to my family and friends for supporting me. I love you all!

  * * *

  ~Renee Hewett

  1

  Andrés Sosa prowled through the dense forest. He was at home leaping gracefully from tree limb to tree limb, despite the tangled vegetation and heavy humidity.

  The tropical climate felt right to him. It was warm and thick, and something others might complain about, but not Andrés. He was a native to Brazil and felt much more comfortable there than in the cold Canadian winters. Hell, if matters weren’t so dire, he might just think about taking his time finding his target so he could escape the frigid north even longer.

  But a good FUC agent didn’t dillydally. Especially knowing the likes of Mason and Viktor were keeping a close eye on the clock. Andrés wouldn’t live it down if he took too long and failed to make the top agent retrieval time.

  So he’d skipped the pool bar and gotten straight to work. Dedra Wakins’ daughter had been plenty cooperative in providing information on where her mother was staying, but when Andrés arrived at the swanky resort, he found that she’d already bolted. Had left on a river cruise with a much younger man.

  The goose was a cougar.

  The boat rental clerk’s tongue didn’t wag until Andrés came up with the right amount of green. When he did, she tucked it away in her shirt and then admitted that they had trackers on their boats, a way to ensure tourists didn’t go missing or try to make off with their assets.

  Andrés used the FUC tablet blessed by Jessie, their very own black swan tech genius, to tap into the tracking system. He saw that Dedra and her boy toy had a bit of a lead on him, so he abandoned the idea of renting a boat and instead headed into the jungle on foot, where, when out of sight from other people, he shifted.

  He’d be able to catch up with them much more quickly as a tree-leaping ocelot.

  Birds flew off in a panic at the sight of the dangerous cat. He was a magnificent golden creature, with solid black spots and stripes covering his body and the softest round ears, which enabled him to look adorable if he needed to. It also helped with the ladies.

  His kind wasn’t as large as the other wild “big cats,” but he challenged anyone who dared call him small. He preferred the term “compact” and would prove that his kind could measure up to any “big cat,” like lions and tigers. Most often, though, he was compared to a cheetah because of the similar coloring. Cheetahs were bigger and could beat an ocelot in a race over open savannah, but they’d be left in his dust here in the jungle.

  Birds squawked and chirped and flew away from him. Snakes and other reptiles clung to branches and glared. The creatures could thank Lady Luck today, though, because this kitty wasn’t there to play. He was on a FUC mission, with one specific fowl in his sights.

  FUC was the Furry United Coalition, the shifter agency that guarded and protected their own, and their secrets, from threats from the outside world. This was Andrés’ first field assignment in a while since he’d taken a teaching position at the new FUC newbie academy, that was FUCN’A for the uninitiated. He’d taken this job because it was a mission that required his very specific set of skills.

  Or just because he wanted the excuse to vacation to South America.

  Who could say?

  He was the top agent most comfortable in South America, who could fly a plane, and who could also sweet-talk the goose if she refused to cooperate.

  Andrés Sosa fit the bill. He was the best. Sure, they might all say that, but put any bear, bunny, or croc in this jungle with him and he’d find their prey and lap them over a few times before they inevitably crawled to him asking for help.

  Because this was Andrés’ turf.

  And he proved it by finding h
is target even quicker than he’d estimated he could. It was simple, really. He’d followed the river and made easy use of the tallest trees to move much faster than their boat. It was the first and only one he saw, and he knew it was the correct one because he immediately recognized Dedra on board.

  Platinum blonde, clad in only a bikini and netted covering—that really barely covered anything—and exuding the kind of confidence that only a mob princess and corporate heiress could, Dedra Wakins was the kind of woman Andrés usually didn’t bother with.

  Typically, that kind of woman eschewed adventure and preferred to enjoy a more sterile life. But he had to wonder if his assumptions were wrong, because here Dedra had chosen to leave home and vacation at a resort by a jungle and gone out on a cruise with what appeared to be no wait staff.

  Bold! Who would prepare lunch?

  The boat was moving at a languid pace, which gave Andrés some time to mull over what he should do. Take a flying leap onto the boat, shift, introduce himself, and then politely tell Dedra that he was there to return her to her home country?

  He didn’t like the idea of his stick and balls waving freely in the wind as he stood nude and unarmed between the goose and her paramour.

  So then, should he stick to the shore? Shift and shout that she needed to go with him if she wanted to live?

  Nah, they’d just ignore the ramblings of a random naked jungle man.

  And forget trying to get his message across to her in shifter form. It didn’t matter how precise his signing was. People never looked past the fur to understand his message. Or so he told himself. Clarice simply said it was that sign language didn’t work without opposable thumbs.

  As he was trying to develop a plan, he noticed something odd about the lovebirds. They didn’t seem as cozy as he would have expected.

  Dedra didn't lounge back in the bow cockpit, with one arm resting on the side while the other held on to a martini. She wasn’t enjoying a tanning oil massage from her young companion—something Andrés rather enjoyed imagining, but only if he were the one with the oil. No, she was sitting quite stiffly with her arms behind her—likely tied—while the man paced in front of her, gesturing wildly and seeming to be ranting.

  Andrés made his way closer, prowling on the sturdiest of branches, the ones that wouldn’t bend too much under his weight. Was this some kind of kinky game they were playing? If so, maybe he could get a jump on them both while they were distracted.

  The man inside the beast growled at that. Something was wrong here, and it wasn’t just some macho jealousy at not wanting that runt’s hands on a woman like Dedra. Sure, only one look was enough to tell him that she was one hell of a tasty goose. Enough that Andrés wanted to hop into that boat and offer to show her how a man her age could rock her world in a way that the inexperienced youngster couldn’t dream of.

  But he was pretty sure they weren’t playing. He wasn’t reading distress from Dedra’s body language, but she also didn’t look like she was enjoying herself.

  Had his target been captured by someone else?

  Even better! He’d spring down, shift, take out peewee—the other man—and then let Dedra beg to have her way with Andrés’ peewee—better known as Maximus. He’d have to turn her down, of course. He adhered to a strict rule of needing to finish the mission before there could be any celebration. Once they were back in Canada, and he was released from FUC duty, then all bets were off.

  And then he saw that the man held a gun.

  Fuck. Things had just gotten serious.

  The little shit who had her wasn’t one of the ones profiled in the mission files. Was it possible that his goose had more enemies?

  Sure, it was possible. She was a mob princess, after all. She probably lived her life in danger of one sort or another. This was just the first time FUC had gotten involved.

  He observed her now, captivated. She never showed she was ruffled, no matter how spitting mad the young man got—literally. Andrés could see the droplets from where he crouched. She didn’t fight back or try to escape but made sure to be continually facing him, rotating any time he paced from one side to the other of the pontoon boat. Andrés hoped that meant that this guy wasn’t the sort who would shoot someone who was looking right at him, but the kind of chicken who could only shoot someone in the back.

  Because that meant that Dedra was keeping herself safe.

  As Andrés followed the riverboat, he was able to catch bits of the conversation. It seemed like his speculation that this had something to do with Dedra’s late father’s mob practices was not it at all. This wasn’t about something Dedra’s daddy had done.

  It was something Dedra had done to this guy’s daddy.

  Andrés’ goose was already cooked. Or at least, halfway cooked. Tied, anyway.

  At this point, Dedra was starting to get bored. She’d thought the faux-kidnapping might be an exciting diversion from her otherwise mundane travels, but the longer Creed Maassen droned on about how Big Daddy Rod had left him no inheritance, the more annoyed Dedra got.

  When he’d first approached her, pretending to be a stranger, Dedra had played along, curious to see what he was up to. She was only a few weeks into her southern migration, and she was already finding it dull. There was little to do, and few people who offered company she enjoyed, but she certainly wasn’t going to cut it short and go back home, not so long as lady winter was keeping the place on ice. She’d long since outgrown her willingness to shovel snow and scrape ice from her windshield, but unfortunately, she’d also outgrown the appeal of partying into the wee hours of the night with random strangers. She was too old for that shit.

  What she really wanted was her family to be there with her. How much fun it would be to lounge with Kailee on the beach or race her brother in laps around the pool. What she wouldn’t give for her mother and father to be back among the living so they could indulge in extravagant meals and nighttime shows.

  But her kid was off doing her own thing, too busy for a winter vacation. Her brother and his kid didn’t migrate anymore. And her parents had passed on this past year, just as her husband had ten years ago.

  She envied the goose families that had flocks of family to turn to.

  Hers had always been, unfortunately, small, without a brood of aunts, uncles, and cousins. It was likely because her father kept most people away. The better to make sure family secrets never got out.

  Which meant that now Dedra wintered alone and found that solo vacations were kind of a bummer.

  So she’d followed Creed to the boat and acted surprised when he “revealed” who he was. He’d thought that a flimsy attempt at a disguise and the fact that she’d never met him in person before would be enough to hide who he was. But he hadn’t known that Dedra happened to be great at seeing through disguises, and Creed had an unmistakable resemblance to his progenitor.

  She’d gone along with letting him zip-tie her hands behind her back and acted passively as the boat floated through the jungle. She allowed herself to enjoy the scenery and even thought back to the few times she’d been actually kidnapped as a child.

  The code meant kids were supposed to be left alone, but sometimes people got desperate. At least they’d always been kind to her and her brother. She rather liked the time they were held in a warehouse and allowed to eat all the candy they wanted while watching Gilligan’s Island.

  It all amounted to Dedra having a—probably unhealthy—lack of fear in dire situations.

  Because things always worked out.

  She gazed into the water while Creed busied himself for a moment with the boat’s controls. She wondered what kind of goose-eating monsters might be in the river, because it was looking to be the perfect time to go for a swim.

  Dedra’s tolerance for this little shit’s whining was depleted.

  “Mine! It was all mine!” He came back toward her, voice shrill, still waving the gun around. “And then he dies, and I come to find out he was broke? Do you have nothing to say for
yourself?”

  Dedra shook her head. She wouldn’t bother trying to rationally explain to the nitwit that he should have taken a closer look into Big Daddy Rod’s past before jumping to the stupid conclusion that Daddy’s most recent ex was the problem. Sure, she understood how it seemed like the most reasonable explanation, that the best person to blame for the lack of fortune was some gold-digging slut—his words, not hers. Dedra enjoyed sex just fine and would never try to label or shame someone for it.

  Dedra thought it was a shame that a son couldn’t imagine any other reason why a hot number like Dedra would have been with Rod. Didn’t he hear the way women purred when they said his name? Big Daddy Roddd…

  But all of that was beside the point. There were two enormous reasons that Dedra would never worry about Creed’s accusations.

  First, Dedra was rich as hell. Monstrously rich. Billionaire rich. The Masseen’s fortune would be less than a drop in the bucket for her—not worth the time and energy it would take to funnel it into her bank accounts. She’d dated Rod because they had fun together—in and out of the sheets.

  The second reason was the same reason why Dedra had broken off her relationship with Big Daddy Rod: because he was a gambling addict.

  When it became clear that he was ready to flush everything away, Dedra walked. She had more to think about than herself. Because, unlike Big Daddy Rod, Dedra loved her kid and was invested in keeping a future and legacy for her.