Fox Mate (Madison Wolves) (29 page)

My hand still stung. I looked at it. It was better. "I am going to shift once more, then back." I shifted to fox, paused just a moment, then back to human. I looked at my hand, and it was red, but it stopped hurting. I opened the shower door and thrust my arm out, turning aside so Lara couldn't see anything I wasn
't ready for her to see. "Lara you may inspect my hand if you don't believe me."

"Scarlett, look at it," Lara said.

"It's red, but you can barely tell," Scarlett said after taking a peek.

"Satisfied, Lara?"

"No."

I laughed. "I understand."

Then I stepped fully into the water and showered.

I couldn't help it. I had to check the things they had done to me. The nipple piercings were odd. I turned my back on Scarlett and touched one of them. My nipples were very sensitive. The little curved rings had stayed when I had shifted. I wondered if they would get caught if I ran as a fox. If they did, they were coming out. Otherwise I would let Lara decide.

I ran a finger over my nipple and decided I liked the extra sensitivity. I wondered if it would last. I gave one an experimental tug and realized perhaps I was offering a little too much opportunity to control me.

I washed my crotch and checked there. It was still smooth as silk. I didn't know how fast my hair would grow back, especially after having shifted a few times. But so far no fur.

I washed my hair, enjoying the luxury, then finally rinsed off completely and shut off the water. I sluiced off, then Scarlett opened the door and handed me a towel. I wrapped it around my hair and she handed me a second towel.

With my escorts in tow, I returned to the bedroom and got dressed, making Lara continue to face away, even after everything was properly covered. Finally I slinked over to her and wrapped my arms around her. "Lara, I love you. I'm not suicidal. I know you don't believe me."

She turned around. "I do, but we still have to be sure."

"All right," I said. "Let's go downstairs and feed me. Scarlett, you too."

We descended. Downstairs I found Vivian, reading in the living room. Elisabeth was pacing around. And I heard Francesca in the kitchen. I listened, but didn't hear anyone else.

"I don't hear Angel."

"She's not here," Lara said. "We know she's a trigger right now."

"That's going to kill her," Scarlett said.

"It will be okay," I said. I looked around the room. "There are fifteen knives in this room you probably didn't find. The kitchen, of course, is filled with knives, but only one is silver. You are going to have to trust me." Then I crossed to the kitchen and greeted Francesca.

"I'm hungry."

"Good morning to you, too," she said.

"What do we have?"

"Whatever you want. We have enough food for an army."

"Anything warm."

"Chicken and a salad?"

"Fruit salad?"

"We have that, just for you, Benny and Michele Lassiter."

I laughed. The wolves hated fruit for some reason.

"I forgot my lemonade upstairs."

"I'll get it," Scarlett offered.

I sat down at the table. Lara hovered over me. Francesca fed me. Scarlett gave me my lemonade, and I was able to drink it all by myself. What an accomplishment.

I felt better after some food. I refilled the lemonade glass. "All right," I said. "Let's go surprise Vivian."

Again I left my keepers in my wake, and they struggled to catch up.

Elisabeth was leaning by the door when I returned. Vivian looked up from h
er book. I cross the room and sat down next to her.

"Vivian, there are three daggers within range of my hands right now, unless Elisabeth found them. Does that frighten you?"

"Should it?"

"I am not going to need them as long as I don't
see any hypodermic needles, tasers, or unfamiliar wolves."

"Then I am not worried."

Elisabeth swore. "We found one."

"Of course you did. But only one, I bet."
I laughed. "There were four."

"Oh hell," she said. "Damned fox."

I turned to Vivian. "So, I remember."

"What do you remember?" she asked.

I smiled. "I think: everything. Every little thing. Is that good?"

"Oh yes," she said, "It is very good."

"Do you want me to tell you?"

"Do you want to tell me?"

"Damned shrinks," I said. "Questions answered by a question. It is my opinion everyone will feel worse in some ways by my story. It is not a good story. But I think they will feel better, too."

"I think so, too," Vivian replied.

"I think I'm not crazy."

She smiled. "I told you that you weren't."

"I need everyone to be honest. Is the wedding off?"

"No!" said Lara. "Not yet," said Vivian. Elisabeth didn't answer.

"All right. If I can get through the entire telling without, well, losing it?"

"That's not a technical term," Vivian said.

"Then you can perhaps decide?"

"Perhaps," she said.

I took a deep breath and looked around. "Hmm. I don't know what is going to happen. I think perhaps you should step back, Vivian."

She climbed to her feet and moved away from me slowly. Then I began going through the sofa, pulling out the knives I had there. I tossed them onto the floor near Elisabeth's feet.

She'd found the one underneath the coffee table. I went around the room, checking all my places. She had found about half. "You did better than I expected," I said, tossing more knives out. I made a full circuit until I'd gotten all of them. "There are three more, but they are hard to reach. We can leave them."

"Where are they?" Elisabeth asked.

"One is inside the ceiling fan over the table. Another one to the upper left of that cold air return." I pointed. "Small hole again. And the last is..." I walked to the front window, then pointed to the wall below the left corner. "Here."

"How did you get it there?"

"When they were doing the work on the window," I said. "I dropped one down."

"For heaven's sake, why?" Elisabeth asked.

I pointed to the pile of knives on the floor. "Seriously? You're asking me why?"

She chuckled. "I get your point."

"All right," I said. I pointed at the knives. "Get those out of here. And I need a phone."

Scarlett handed me hers. I turned to Vivian. "If I lose it, put me down and the wedding is at best, postponed."

Vivian nodded. Lara looked glum.

I called Angel. It was hard to hear her voice.

"Scarlett," she said. "How is she?"

"Not Scarlett," I said. "Angel, I think you saved my life."

"Michaela?"

"Yeah. I don't know where my phone is. I borrowed Scarlett's. Look, I need you to come over, but if I,
oh, I don't know -- look totally insane, I guess -- you may want to back slowly away, and if I have a knife in my hands, run."

"You wouldn't hurt me."

"I wouldn't want to. Come on over, Angel. Let's see how crazy the fox is." And I hung up.

I looked around. They all were watching me warily. I sighed, then selected an easy chair. "Invite Francesca, too."

Scarlett fetched Francesca from the kitchen. Lara moved to stand behind me, but I told her to go sit down. Vivian took her seat back. Francesca entered the room with Scarlett, and I gestured to seats. The front door opened.

"Rory," said Rory's voice as he stepped inside.

"Thank you, Rory," I said.

"Take those away," Elisabeth said, pointing.

"How many of those does she have?" Rory asked.

I la
ughed. "Three hundred and, hmm... twelve I think."

Rory collected the knives, handling them awkwardly, and then Elisabeth held the door for him. I heard Angel on the other side, and I imagined she was reading the sign. "Angel," she said. She and Rory did a dance in the doorway, getting past each other, and then she stepped in.

I watched her carefully, judging my own reactions. Barely a twinge. She was watching me, too.

"Come here," I told her. She crossed the room cautiously, and I stood up. She stopped three feet away, but I opened my arms, and she practically ran into them.

"Careful," I said, wrapping my arms around her. She held me gingerly. "God, hug properly." And she tightened her hold. I kissed her cheek, and then I began to cry.

She tried to pull away, but I told her, "No, stay." I stood on my tiptoes, trying to put my chin on her shoulder. "Tuck down a little," I said, crying quietly. She did, and I could look over her at Vivian. "This is not losing it," I said. "This is just crying."

Vivian nodded.

I let
the tears cry themselves out, not worried about it. It only took a few minutes. I felt Angel's tears, too.

"It's going to be all right," I told her.

"We heard your screams," she said. "And I knew they were my fault."

"No, Angel, they were not."

"I heard you scream I was breaking your bones. Oh Michaela, we wouldn't have."

"I know, honey."

I pushed her away. "Dry your tears. It's fine. It's going to be fine. We're going to listen to a long, horrible story, and then we're going to decide if there's a wedding."

I looked at Lara. "We need to push the ceremony to this evening at the earliest."

She nodded, and Elisabeth made a quiet phone call to Gia to handle it.

"Go sit down, Angel, between your mother and your lover, if you like."

I looked between all of them.

"You know," I said. "I think we're going to need alcohol for this. Even Scarlett and Angel. Doctor," I looked at Vivian. "May I have a beer?"

She smiled and nodded.

Scarlett and Angel jumped up, taking orders. They ran from the room and returned shortly with the drinks everyone asked for. I accepted mine and said, "Someone take this from me at the halfway point, or I'll go back to sleep." There were forced chuckles.

Once we were all settled again, a beer in everyone's hands, I said. "Well, I bet you are all wondering what's going on. You all think I killed my first wolf when I was fourteen."

Everyone nodded except Vivian.

"Well, I was younger, much younger."

I was six when I killed my first wolf.

My older brother and I were in the woods. I had been naughty, and I followed him. Yes, my older brother. It was Tyler, then Jean, then me. Tyler was ten years older than I was, so he was fifteen or sixteen or seventeen. Funny, I don't remember when his birthday was.

I had followed him into the woods. I didn't know how bad an idea it was at the time. I thought it was a great lark, to see if I could follow my brother when he went into the woods. I worshipped him, as you might imagine. So for me to be able to follow him without him knowing, well, you know how proud I am. Imagine how that made me feel.

But I was six. I didn't know the real dangers. Oh, I knew about wolves. We'd hidden from them before, and we practiced hiding from wolves every day.  But I didn't realize what Tyler was doing in the woods.

He was scouting for them. I know that now, but I didn't then. I just knew he was trying to be quiet, but I was quieter.

We knew wolves hunted by smell, of course we did.

It is my fault Tyler is dead.

No! This is crying. This is grief. Sit down. I am not losing it.

I shouldn't have been out there. It's my fault Tyler is dead. He could have lost those wolves. There were two of them. They didn't find his track; they found mine. I had focused on following Tyler, not hiding my own trail, and I left a track as clear as day.

I was following him by sound. He was quiet, very quiet, and I couldn't hear him from further than about three hundred yards.

I don't know which of us heard the wolves first. They weren't quiet. I immediately knew they were on my back trail, and as soon as I heard them, I ran.

Tyler didn't know I was there, but he would have recognized the sound of a fox breaking cover, and he would have heard the wolves, and he would have added two plus two. Tyler immediately tried to save me. I was his little sister, after all. He ran for my back trail, and then he followed after me, trying to obscure my trail for me as I ran, doing nothing, not a single thing to hide my own trail. I was in a blind panic.

We had hidden from wolves, but I had never had one actually chasing me, and there were two.

The reality is, as soon as they found my trail I should have been dead. Even if I had practiced every trick I knew, I was six. You think I am small now, imagine me at six.

Twice Tyler confused them enough to draw them away from me, but he also had to save himself, and I was slowing down. He turned towards me, one wolf following him, and one following me, and he caught me with the wolves only seconds behind both of us. He shifted to human and scooped me up, and Tyler as a human was faster than I was in fur. He ran under a tree and gave me a big toss, straight up, as hard as he could, and I grabbed onto a tree branch and climbed into the branches, quivering in fur. Tyler shifted back to fox and ran.

Both wolves ran right underneath my tree. They never saw me. On
ce they were further away, I climbed higher, trembling and trembling, trying to be quiet.

On his own, without me to worry about, Tyler actually had a chance. Lara, you know how hard it can be to chase me, how
good I can hide. Tyler was sixteen, he probably wasn't as good as I am now, but he was good, and these weren't alpha wolves.

This was our territory, too, and we had traps for them. Tyler ran them through a pepper trap. That's where he ran past and pulled a string, and a whole bunch of pepper gets thrown over his back trail, a whole big cloud of it. The wolves tend to run into it and it completely destroys their noses. Depending on how it works, sometimes they're out of it for hours.

Well, the lead wolf ran right into it and got a huge sniff of pepper into his nose. I could tell when it happened because he began howling and howling in pain.

The second one figured it out and went around all the pepper, but it took him some time, and Tyler gained some distance. The wolf with the pepper
up his nose then used sight and sound to follow his buddy, and the two continued to chase my big brother.

I had to piece together what happened after that. I could hear that the wolves were very close to Tyler. He was using all his tricks, and he wasn't just trying to lose them, he was trying to lure them through the traps.

And he did. He got the lead wolf, the one with a working nose. Go, Tyler!

Stop worrying! This is crying. I haven't cried for my brother. I am fine. Go back to your seats. Lara, take this beer with you; I'd like more lemonade. Thank you, Scarlett.

Tyler got one of the wolves, but the other chased him out into a field. If the wolf had been scent tracking, Tyler would have gotten him, too. We had a couple of deadfalls on the edge of that field. Tyler could have run right over the top of one without disturbing it, but the wolf would have fallen in. But the wolf was sight tracking instead, so he cut the corner and missed the trap.

And caught my brother.

I heard him scream. I heard my brother scream. I heard the bones break, as the wolf crushed his leg. I-

Back off! I can cry for my brother. He died that day, and it's all my fault. It's my fault he's dead. It's my fault.

I'm sorry I yelled. I love you too, Lara.

The wolf followed his own trail backwards, eventually.

I stayed in my tree, but I gnawed at a branch until I chewed off most of it, and I gnawed more until what was left was sharp, nice and sharp. Then I chewed that part off the tree. And I waited, that stick in my mouth. When I got tired of holding it, I shifted to human, and imagine this little six-year-old girl, twenty-five feet up the tree, naked as a jaybird, holding onto her sharpened stick.

Ye
ah, it's a cute image, isn't it? I didn't have this lovely tattoo yet. Oh, Vivian, you haven't seen it yet. Yeah, I like it. Scarlett did it. Thank you again Scarlett. Vivian, order the alpha to show you hers, it's really good. Lara, don't be a spoilsport, I showed her mine, now it's your turn, or you won't see what else I let them do to me.

No! Angel! Do not rat me out. That's better.

All right. So the wolf was following his trail back. He managed to go around the pepper this time, and his nose was starting to work, but I imagine not very well yet. And he passed right below my tree, dragging my brother's body with him.

Oh god, he
was dragging my brother's body.

The wolf got to the base of my tree, a
nd he started sniffing. He could smell me. His nose was working.

I waited way up in the tree.

He dropped Tyler's body, right at the bottom of the tree. I could see it as I peered down through the branches, and I gasped.

The wolf heard me. He stopped, listened, and then, slowly, his nose going like crazy, he lifted his nose into the sky, and he was staring right at me.

He began to growl immediately. I began to tremble. I was only twenty-five feet away from a wolf, a verified killer, and I knew he was going to eat me.

Trees are easy to climb, you know. I dig my claws in, and up I go. Now all of you know my best trick. I hope you promise never to share. Lara already knows it. Most foxes don't climb trees, and even Tyler didn't, but he used to toss me into the trees all the time, and once I was in the branches, I would climb right
up.

But, it turns out, this particular wolf sucked at climbing trees. Oh, he tried. He fell out of it three times before he gave up. He growled at me again, and then he did the only thing he could do.

He lay down and began to shift.

What could I do? I was one frightened fox
kit, and as small as I was, he probably thought I was just a baby.

You know how some wolves shift fairly fast and are aware of what is going on while doing it, can even react if needed, defend themselves perhaps. Others, well, not so well. This guy was an extreme case of the latter.

He lay down on his side, and he began to shift. I knew he was going to climb up after me and kill me. What I didn't understand was how it could take so long for him to shift. It was like ultra, ultra, ultra slow motion of my dad. Dad was a slow shifter, taking maybe thirty seconds and a fair amount of whimpering to shift. Not like me. Even as a kit, I could shift as fast as you have all seen me.

But this wolf? He lay there, on his side, and when he was half wolf and half human, I starte
d climbing back down. I couldn't climb down the tree as a fox very gracefully, but as a little girl in human form, I was a little monkey. It took me a few seconds to get down to a branch about eight feet over the wolf. Then I took my stick, and I dropped.

I got him right in his human throat. And then I immediately shifted to fox and began ripping and ripping at him.

He killed my brother; I am not going to apologize, not to him, not to his family, not to anyone.

Once he was thoroughly dead, I crawled over to Tyler's body, and I pulled him into my arms, and I tried to wake him up. I tried for hours to wake him up.

That's how our parents found us.