Fox Play (27 page)

"Thank you, Hadley," I said, then handed the phone to Ava. "Your mother wants to talk to you."

I heard Hadley tell Ava to grab Sophia and go upstairs, she wanted to talk to both of them. The two disappeared from the kitchen, and I started poking through supplies. We were well-stocked. I sent a text to Lara asking how soon she would like dinner, then started pulling things out.

Several minutes later, I heard a shriek. "What? Who would want to do that?" There was more yelling and some crying, and then it grew quiet again.

Lara texted back. "Wrapping up now, hungry, run later. Need to hear you screaming for me, too."

I replied. "As if. Starting dinner now."

Several minutes later, the two girls were back in the kitchen. From their eyes, they had both been crying. "I'm sorry," I said in a small voice.

Ava stomped straight to me and pulled me into a hug, Sophia joining in. "You are our fox!" Sophia said. "No one is touching you!"

"What she said," Ava added. The two of them let me go and walked over to Wendy. "We're now part of her security detail. Tell us what to do."

Wendy smiled. "You will need to talk to Elisabeth. And now you know why if an enforcer tells you to do something, you will do it."

Sophia turned back to face me. "No one is touching you. No one!"

"Thanks, girls." It was nice to be pack. "For now, please help me with dinner. Wendy, I don't know what I'm supposed to do about feeding you and Karen."

"If you could, make enough for all of us, but expect us to eat in shifts," she said.

The girls helped me make dinner. When Lara arrived, they both immediately peeled off, even before she could greet me properly.

"Alpha," said Ava. "When are we killing him?" She made it a demand for information, and Lara was somewhat taken aback.

"Killing who?" she asked.

"The brutish asshole who wants to hunt Michaela," Sophia explained. "When? Why isn't he already dead?"

"Girls," I said. "That's the alpha you are talking to."

"The alpha is very pleased to see the members of her pack fiercely defending a pack member," Lara said. "Girls, are you willing to believe I will do everything necessary to protect Michaela?"

"We're helping," Ava said. "We're pack, too."

Elisabeth stepped into the room, having heard the last exchange. She growled. "Do not take that tone with the alpha," she said.

Both girls looked at the floor, but they didn't back down. "We're helping," Sophia said quietly.

"They asked to be on the security detail," Wendy said to Elisabeth for clarification.

Lara sighed. "Girls, I am handling the threat. You will not be privy to the details unless there is some reason you need to be. Do not ask about this again."

"We are helping to protect Michaela," Sophia said but the tone was polite and she kept her eyes to the floor.

Lara turned to Elisabeth.

"Girls," Elisabeth said. "You are untrained, but you are fierce. If there is any sort of attack, I want you to flank Michaela immediately. Whatever orders she gets you will follow as well."

"We want to help."

"You will. If anyone gets past the enforcers, then she'll need your help as the last line of defense. But you are untrained, and I cannot put you on the front lines. Now, this is where you tell me you will follow my orders and that of any enforcer. If you can not follow orders, you will go home."

"We will follow orders," Ava said. "Promise."

"Do you understand your orders?"

"Yes. Protect Michaela and don't let anyone touch her."

"Good," said Lara. "Now, what's for dinner?"

"Dinner in fifteen minutes," I told her. "Lara, there is a set of rules for the girls. I need you to review the list, please."

"I'll get it," said Sophia. She disappeared and returned in a moment with the list, handing it to Lara. Lara scanned it and seemed satisfied.

"Someone come stir this," I said. "I left a mess in the other room I need to clean up."

* * * *

Later, we went for a run, complete with our escorts. It was nice to be in fur. I left the rabbits alone. Back in our room, I told Lara, "Do you think you could possibly take me without shocking the girls?"

She grinned. "Wolves are not easily shocked by matters of sex." She began prowling towards me. "They might worry if they didn't know we had a happy sex life."

"Lara," I said, backing away from her. "I'm serious. I want slow, gentle, QUIET lovemaking tonight."

"There's a song about that, little fox," Lara said. "Two out of three ain't bad."

I jumped over the bed to get away from her. "Lara-"

"I love when you play hard to get," she said, coming around the bed after me. "It makes it so much more fun to make you scream."

"I am serious, Lara!" I said, jumping back over the bed. She made a lunge for me but missed. I think it was intentional. "There will be no screaming tonight."

She grinned. "Then there won't be any orgasming, either," she said.

"You made that word up. Stop it. If you can't do it quietly, we aren't doing it at all."

"All right," she said. "If that's what you want." She stopped chasing me around the room and turned to the closet.

"Where are you going?"

"You said you weren't interested. You don't think I'd force you, do you?" She stepped into the closet, and when she returned, she was wearing the most hideous pair of pajamas I had ever seen.

I sat on the bed and sulked.

"I'm horny," I said.

Lara shrugged and walked across to the bathroom. When she returned, I was naked and under the covers. She turned off the lights and joined me, still wearing the hideous pajamas. When she found out I was naked, she said, "Oh ho, what is this?"

"I'm pretty sure you won't be able to keep your hands off me," I told her.

"Oh good, lots of screaming coming right up," she said, reaching for me.

"No! Lara!"

She sighed. "All right. I won't force you." And she rolled over, ignoring me.

I rolled onto my side to face her, staring at her back. "Don't you want me?" I asked into her back.

She didn't answer me.

"Lara, I don't understand."

"I know you don't."

"So explain it to me."

"I'm sorry, Michaela, but I need you to figure this one out on your own."

I moved closer to her and snuggled into her back. She let me. But when my hand move down to cup her ass, she growled, and it was a serious growl, not at all playful. I snatched my hand back and lay quietly.

"Are you mad at me?" I asked.

"No, honey."

"Your growl sounded like it."

"Don't start something I'm not allowed to finish any way I choose."

"You're mad because I put one tiny, almost inconsequential restriction on our lovemaking?"

"I'm not mad. But we will not be making love with that particular restriction."

I lay next to her for a full two minutes. Then, as quickly as I could, I shifted to fox, grabbed the neck of her horrible pajamas in my teeth, and used my sharp little teeth to ravage the hem, puncturing holes in it. I instantly shifted back, grabbed the neck of her pajamas in my hands, and ripped them wide open right down her back.

I managed to do all that before Lara could react, but once she did, it was done as least as rapidly as what I had just done.

She rolled over, shoved me onto my back, and had her mouth on my throat.

"Restriction rescinded," I told her. "I need to know I'm yours, Lara."

She pulled her mouth from my throat, panting slightly and with a wild look in her eyes. She focused on my face, then smiled. "Thank you, little fox," she said before she began kissing me.

We made slow, quiet, passionate, and very, very quiet love. I fell asleep in her arms, missing my home but very satisfied to be in Lara's arms.

Next Steps

We woke together in the morning; it was early, and we made love again, quicker than last night but just as quiet. We showered together and were actually businesslike about it, then dressed and headed downstairs for breakfast.

Ava and Sophia had breakfast ready for us by the time we descended. "I could get used to having minion teenagers if this is what they do every day," I told Lara in front of them.

"Michaela, there is a full briefing at three this afternoon. I need you there."

"All right," I said. "Alpha, I need an office. May I have one at the school?"

"Yes. I think Francesca is already working on that." She checked the time. "I have a meeting. I'll see you at three." She kissed me with the girls watching and headed out, collecting her security detail on the way.

I sent the girls ahead to school, grabbed my things, and headed there myself, Wendy and Rory acting as my security. I found Francesca and asked for an office. "How about the one next to mine?" she said. She showed me the way to my new office, then said, "I'll be right back." She headed to her office then returned after a few minutes, closing the door behind her. Wendy and Rory waited in the hall.

"This," she said, placing a book on my new desk, "Is a study guide for the GED. Do you know what that is?" I nodded. "I suspect you can skim it just to verify there aren't any unexpected holes."

"I didn't pay much attention to human history or social sciences," I said.

"All right," she said. "Use your judgment. The easiest route for you is to take the GED exam." Then she set a small stack of papers on the desk. "This is the complete curriculum of the school and represents your other choice. You may earn your high school diploma by satisfying those requirements."

"Four years of school?"

"I've indicated the completion requirements for each class. Attendance at classes is not listed. Most of it is taking exams and writing papers."

I picked up the list and scanned through it.

"The list includes all the textbooks that are used for the classes, and there are copies of those books in the library. Michaela, you may take the easy approach." She pointed to the GED study guide. "If you take the hard approach, you will have at the very least a passing knowledge of the entire curriculum taught at this school."

"You want me to do it that way?"

"I think you would feel more confident if you did."

"I'd do all the work for all the classes?"

"You could, but that would be overkill. There are a lot of electives. The first page lists the graduation requirements. You will see that I teach more math than is required."

I skimmed it again. "So I would test out of, say, the math classes. Labs and exams for the science classes. Papers for the English classes."

"Right. And Michaela, even for the material you think you know very well, you need to skim the textbooks. There is probably material you don't know."

"This would take, what? Months?"

"If I were doing it, and I know all the material, yes, probably about two months or so. It may take you longer because you will undoubtedly need to spend more time at some of it."

"I think Lara wants me to teach right away."

"She does. You would be teaching under my direct supervision until you have satisfactorily completed the requirements of a full teacher at this school. I would want you to do the math and science classes in grade order, starting with freshman classes. Go back and do the other subjects once you were done through senior year classes."

"This is the better way," I said with conviction. Francesca didn't say anything, making it my decision. "I'm going to earn a real high school degree? Not a fake degree?"

"A GED is perfectly legitimate," Francesca said. "But if you do it this way, it will not be fake. You will have earned it, completing the same requirements any other student must complete. You'll just have done it in far less time."

"This is more work for you."

"Yes. I don't mind."

"I want to do it this way, Francesca."

She smiled and said, "I thought you would. Now, I need to say a few things, and please don't take offense. But I don't know that you know these things, so I am going to tell you. Exams are supervised. I know you wouldn't cheat, but it's a requirement of the school."

I laughed. "Of course."

"And when you write a paper, it has to be your work."

"I don't understand."

"It hasn't been a problem in this school, but students from time to time manage to find work on the Internet to turn in."

I smiled "I will write every word myself."

"I will be grading all your work very critically, Michaela. I expect only your best work. If you feel you do not understand a subject well enough to give me your best, you will learn the material. You will earn straight A's. Do I make myself clear?" She stressed the word "earn".

I laughed. "Yes."

"All right. I have a class to teach. You have one more week of work as a government employee."

"I need to start interviewing the kids though," I said. "Did you want to be involved?"

"Not unless you need me. Let me show you how to use the computer to review their transcripts." She set me down at the desk and we fired up the computer waiting for me. I had a network login, and she ran me through the transcript system. "I can show you the rest sometime, but this should be enough for today."

"All right. Send them to me. Expect me to spend about two hours each. And I need to be done before 3:00. I'll do the rest tomorrow or later in the week. We'll need to spend a lot of time together after that."

"Perfect. Anyone you want to start with?"

"Angel. After that, whoever is free."

Francesca stepped out, and I began setting up my office. We were on the first floor of the school near the front doors, and I had a beautiful view out my window. It was a generously-sized office with a nice, wooden desk, two bookcases, and a small table that I could work at or use during conferences with my students. There was a filing cabinet and enough space to move around without bumping into everything.

Angel knocked at my door a few minutes later. "Mom said you wanted to see me. Oh, nice office."

"Good morning, Angel. Sit down. I wanted to ask you something." I waited until she had settled. "I realize I have been assuming, so now I'm going to ask. Is it your intention to be one of my students?"