What a fantastic story! My enthusiasm is partly due to the somewhat unusual combination of shifters – an alpha stag and a beta dog shifter, and partly based on how strong and adorable both of them were. Yes, even the big, bad alpha deer has his moments! The plot may look simple and straightforward - strong guy rescues weaker guy – but it does have a nice little twist. For me the charm of the story came from the characters themselves, their somewhat animal-like mannerisms even in human form, and the measured development of their romance despite the shortness of the story. Wonderful!

Henry is a deer shifter, but he is no weak prey animal. He is a stag and knows how to defend himself. Faced with a large pack of dog shifters invading his land, he’d much rather shift into his human shape so he can try to reason with them, but the dogs will not have it. All except for one, the smallest of the pack. Of all the pack members to come to Henry’s rescue, it is Davey who mans up when he sees a wrong being done. He pays for it with some horrible wounds, but Henry is there to take care of him. They slowly develop feelings for each other as Davey heals, but they still have to face the pack of dogs and their irrational alpha…

If you like shifter stories with a twist, if a playful puppy falling for a magnificent stag sounds interesting, and if you’re looking for a read that is as cute and sweet as it is hot, then you will probably like this short story as much as I did. It reads like a shifter fairy tale!


NOTE: The anthology this short story was published in has been provided by Torquere Press for the purpose of a review on Rainbow Book Reviews.
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