Ostrich and the 'Roo: Furry United Coalition, #6
By Eve Langlais
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About this ebook
FUC is going down under, so prepare for a wild ride with a ‘roo and the chick he rescues.
Something strange is happening to Mari. She’s not the same since her rescue from a mad scientist’s lab. Still, her blackouts aren’t reason enough to put her in a cage.
Yet, what else is Jax to do when confronted with a giant ostrich terrorizing suburbia?
Wait. Wait. Think of it.
Snicker. Yeah, he had a laugh, too, when he heard the news, especially since he found Mari fast asleep, head buried in a bush. Such a menace to society.
Not.
Mari knows he’s wrong. This laid-back kangaroo can’t see the darkness inside her. However, someone else can and wants that darkness for themselves, and they will do anything to get their paws on it.
Muahahahaha.
Eve Langlais
New York Times and USA Today bestseller, Eve Langlais, is a Canadian romance author who is known for stories that combine quirky storylines, humor and passion.
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Related to Ostrich and the 'Roo
Titles in the series (7)
Bunny and the Bear: Furry United Coalition, #1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Swan And The Bear: Furry United Coalition, #2 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Croc And The Fox: Furry United Coalition, #3 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Doe and the Wolf: Furry United Coalition, #5 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ostrich and the 'Roo: Furry United Coalition, #6 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5'Roo and the Angel: Furry United Coalition, #7 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Panda and the Kitty: Furry United Coalition, #8 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
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Ostrich and the 'Roo - Eve Langlais
Introduction
FUC is going down under, so prepare for a wild ride with a ‘roo and the chick he rescues.
Something strange is happening to Mari. She’s not the same since her rescue from a mad scientist’s lab. Still, her blackouts aren’t reason enough to put her in a cage.
Yet, what else is Jax to do when confronted with a giant ostrich terrorizing suburbia?
Wait. Wait. Think of it.
Snicker. Yeah, he had a laugh, too, when he heard the news, especially since he found Mari fast asleep, head buried in a bush. Such a menace to society.
Not.
Mari knows he’s wrong. This laid-back kangaroo can’t see the darkness inside her. However, someone else can and wants that darkness for themselves, and they will do anything to get their paws on it.
Muahahahaha.
F.U.C1
Look at the size of that ass!
Better not be talking about my ass. While a little fluffy, she thought it just the right size for her frame. She chose to ignore the comment.
Ooh, baby, imagine it all buttered up and stuffed.
Ew! People really should keep their dirty talk private.
Heaving a sigh, she kept her eyes closed and turned her head, wishing whomever it was yacking at this hour would keep the noise down.
You know, it’s on our property, Marta, which means it’s ours according to the law.
Said with a lovely twang. If you want it, just say so.
Want it? ’Course I want it, Bert. Get the gun. Mama’s got a recipe.
The gun, eh? Are you sure about that? It’s the middle of the night.
Yeah, the middle of the night. And some people were trying to sleep. She tossed her head again, trying to find a sweet spot in the rustling leaves with their soft, musty scent.
Leaves?
Damn, she’d forgotten she slept outside. Again. And, yes, it was easier to forget than you’d expect.
Years of sleeping on a mattress kind of had a girl used to privacy and a bed. Used to being a key distinction here.
When was the last time she’d enjoyed those things? What she wouldn’t give for her old apartment right now. Heck, at this low point in her life, she’d kill for a fresh refrigerator box to nest in for the night.
Yanking her head out of the bushes, Marybelle—who used Mari for short—gave her long neck a toss, doing her best to dislodge the foliage sticking to her fluffy mop top.
I have got to find a better place to nest next time. A more private location at least, given she caused quite an excited stir with her appearance.
Dear God, Bert, it’s at least twelve feet tall!
Excuse me, but I’m a rather petite seven feet. The runt of any flock, according to Wikipedia.
With that much meat on her bones, we can have the whole family over for Thanksgiving this year.
Dreadful holiday, that Thanksgiving. Condoning the slaughter of lovely birds.
Why eat fowl when you could have a tasty ham? Or roast beef dripping in juices. A staked hunk of snake roasted over a slow-burning fire. Mmmmm…
The thought of hot juices exploding in her mouth sent a gurgle of discontent to her tummy. Nice time to think about food when she hadn’t enjoyed a real meal in a while.
Grass and bugs and veggies from the gardens. That was what she’d survived on since she’d escaped from that awful hospital. And she meant awful with its limp salad and tiny gelatin cups. Utter cruelty to those with a healthy appetite. When was the last time the ethical treatment for shifters went through there? Because it wasn’t just the food that sucked.
Surely there existed some laws about locking folks inside a dormitory against their will? Not exactly her idea of a good time. Especially not once she realized who was locked in there with her.
They never realized Mastermind was in there with us. The FUC agents proved so blind. Then again, so did Mari. She and the other rescued patients never knew who hid amongst them.
Taken into protective custody for my own good, and yet I still got jabbed with a needle by that mad scientist. As if she’d not already played pincushion enough at that point. Alas, even when she was supposed to be safe, Mari wasn’t. A final dose of medicine saw her break out of her shell—enjoy her first blackout—and escape the protective custody she was in.
She’d been running ever since. Napping when she wasn’t—usually in other people’s gardens. They smelled pretty. However, they proved hazardous to her health, given how often people took issue with her hanging out in them.
Some of the folks who spotted her liked to sneak up and literally scare an egg out of her.
Always embarrassing.
The screen door behind Mari creaked as Bert lumbered onto the back deck of his place. She craned her head for a peek and was treated to Bert’s excellent fashion sense—dark blue and white striped linen boxers and a sagging, bleached tank top that had seen much better days. He also toted a shotgun.
Eep! Never a good thing during the wee hours of the morning while standing around in someone’s back yard. How exactly did she get out of here?
Click. Bert did something to the gun before he raised it, taking aim.
He’s gonna shoot! She practically screamed the words.
Good thing she knew how to yell back at herself. Move, you ninny.
Stretching her long legs, Mari sprinted across the yard, head bobbing in time to her bouncing stride, her stubby wings flapping at her sides.
Useless things. Real birds could fly.
Bang.
The bullet whizzed past and seared a line of fire across her feathery shoulder, scoring a thin groove.
I’m hit! And it smarted. It also let her know Bert and his wife were serious about making her their next big family meal. She picked up the pace, weaving and flailing as she aimed for the hedge at the back of the yard.
Bang.
The second shot took some feathers with it, narrowly missing her wing. The fright of it, though, brought forth a mighty squawk.
He’s going to kill me and eat me. She wasn’t sure which was the worst part.
She also couldn’t help but wonder, Would I taste like chicken?
Then it occurred to her what meal these people planned, which brought on an even more evil realization. They’re going to shove their hand up my butt and fill me with stuffing.
Squawk. Able to handle a lot, even the thought of this utterly wrong act proved a little more than Mari could manage. She started to hyperventilate as fear iced through her veins. Her heart pounded, threatening to burst from her breast. Her vision blurred.
Oh no. Not again. She could feel it creeping in, that blanketing presence, the one that soothed as it said, Let go for a little while. I’ll take care of things.
It just never explained how—or where—the blood came from. But she couldn’t stop it from taking over, not when the next gunshot sliced between her legs.
Plop. The egg dropped a moment before the neighbor inside her head shoved Mari out.
Between one blink and the next, she faded, crammed into a dreamless sleep, waking a while later…
…inside a cage.
2
Gnghgh. Whooo.
The steady snoring sounds came from the cage at the end of the dock. Jax leaned against the bars and stared at the one causing so such trouble.
She, because there was no doubting the feminine lines, slept, her long, gangly legs folded under a curved body, head tucked in her feathers.
Not the biggest ostrich he’d ever seen, but after reading the reports on the Internet, he’d gotten the impression she was some rampaging beast with red eyes and scales instead of feathers. Someone even claimed she flew.
Nope. Not this feathery lady. Just like there was nothing monstrous or bizarre about her and her behavior. Just a scared bird, caught in a residential neighborhood, running amok with yokels taking potshots at her.
Poor thing. He couldn’t help but drop to his haunches and pat her silky head. She’d been through a lot.
The reports that had first come over the Internet proved highly entertaining to this Aussie native.
Lock up your pets and children. Giant wild chicken on a murderous rampage.
Not a chicken.
Nor a turkey.
And most definitely not a mutant ostrich.
Really. The things people claimed.
But now, he was taking her home with the help of a few pulled strings—and lots of sedatives. He’d more or less kept her doped up over the past day while he and his employer greased a few palms to get him on his way.
For once, his brothers proved right about one of their philosophies—green really did ease the way. Of course, Jaxon used green paper bills while his brothers tended toward a version that was usually smoked like a cigarette, or from a bong. Personally, he thought it really worked best when baked into brownies.
He could use a brownie right now. A whole tray of them so he could make sense of the crazy FUC agent who kept meddling in his business, such as now.
Once again, she’d shown up on the scene, special agent Miranda, with a pert nose, tight-fitting jeans, a loose blouse, and baby spit on her shoulder.
The agent’s blonde hair stuck out erratically from her sloppy ponytail, and she smelled of spoiled milk. Are you entirely sure, Mr. Jones, that this is a mundane ostrich and not a…
Miranda dropped her voice. Shifter.
Her nose twitched.
Very sure. You can tell by the scent, and even if her odor was off, I know a cryptid when I meet one. I’ve worked with enough of these birds to know when I’m looking a sentient one in the eye.
If there was one thing Jax knew because of his job back home, it was how to spot his kind and anything that didn’t belong to the human genome.
Yet Miranda didn’t seem won over by his assertion. Sorry for all the questions, but I have to be sure. I don’t know if you heard, but we, ah, had some problems last year with a certain criminal calling herself Mastermind.
Ah, yes, the supposed lunatic experimentations by some kind of mouse-sized squirrel. Down Under
—he tipped his hat and grinned—we eat those for breakfast.
Not entirely accurate since Jax didn’t eat meat of any kind being a bit of a vegetarian, but he knew his aunts had recipe books dedicated to small rodents, and the rest of his family went completely bonkers for them.
I wish someone had eaten Mastermind. It would have made our job a lot easier.
A fairly bloodthirsty remark from a supposed bunny. Then again, apparently Miranda wasn’t a regular-size garden muncher. Agent Miranda was supposedly a saber-toothed bunny, or so the rumors claimed. Jax wondered if they called her that to stroke her ego so she wouldn’t hop away in a huff.
Some might say she was too cute to be dangerous, but then again, so were koalas. Jax’s brother Jack once tangled with one. He proudly bore the scars to this day.
In spite of her serious mien, he wasn’t falling for her supposed claims about a mastermind. He might be from the big island, but he wasn’t a complete boob. This Miranda would probably go back to her FUC office and laugh about the one she tried to pull over on the ‘roo. But he’d get the last laugh because he didn’t believe a word.
Mad scientist making mutants. Snort. As if.
Are we done now, Agent Brownsmith?
I guess so. But only if you say hello to me again.
G’day.
She giggled. Love the accent. Goo-day.
A smile lit her expression, so cute. He might have asked her for a coffee before he left, but given a really big dude in a suit glared at him as he jiggled a chest sling with a baby, he thought it best to abstain. Her partner didn’t seem like the type to share. Then again, neither was Jax. Still, he’d never let a little danger get in the way before.
Who’s the bloke?
My husband. I take it you noticed the lovely scowl. He does that anytime someone talks to me. Isn’t it adorable?
She beamed and waved.
Do you always bring your husband and joey to work?
he asked, jerking a thumb at the odd sight.
That’s my baby, Kelly. Joey is my mechanic.
He might have corrected her about the whole joey thing, but it would just mean more time talking, and he worried about the loss of brain function if he had to suffer any more of her inane replies. I didn’t realize FUC ran a family business.
She laughed. "They don’t. I bring them along on