Page 11 of All Foxed Up

Koda had Kai with him at the ‘stumps’. We’d repurposed a park wheelie bin for that honour. His hands were over his son’s and he was bent down low to make sure the kid could hold the bat correctly. Kai didn’t care that he wasn’t doing it all on his own. The fact he was being helped to play a part he’d watched all the men in his family do was enough for him. His eye was on one of his grandfathers, who was trotting up slowly towards the ‘pitch’. Meryl called out support from the sidelines, Anne holding up her wine glass in recognition. Ingrid, Lars’ mum, was suggesting some very violent tactics, not befitting the sport of gentleman, but sometimes she seemed more bear than the men.

And then the ball was tossed down the pitch.

“Koda!”

Nat was moving forward, not to catch the ball, but to protect her boy. Kai’s eyes were wide open, not from fear but anticipation. Koda and the bear cub moved as one, smoothly sweeping forward and then crack! The ball hit the plastic bat and went sailing through the air.

Towards me.

“Fuck!” I yelped, tossing my plastic wine glass into the grass. That was a waste of a good mimosa, but because Kai had hit the ball, I had to make a show of catching it. I jogged lazily backwards, back, back. Holy crap, this kid could play for Australia when he was older, and even I could get behind the idea of handing the Poms their arses in the world cup. I moved and kept on moving and that’s when I heard the sounds.

We weren’t the only family to lose all grip on sanity. Others were doing the exact same thing, conducting their Christmas celebrations in the park by the beach. The public BBQs and picnic tables were all quite far apart, so we remained quarantined away from each other, though Lars growled and muttered something when he saw the family that set up next to us.

Make that tribe.

There were adults, so many adults, young, old and in between and heaps of screaming kids, which drew our boys closer like a moth to a flame. But the guys were very definite about not letting them get any closer.

“We don’t want the boys mixing with them,” Lars had growled.

“What, other children?” I’d asked, incredulous.

“They’re shifters,” Anne had replied with a tight smile.

“Like wolves?” I was moving closer without thought.

“Not wolves.”

That was the only explanation I got from Lars before I got distracted by the kids flinging potato salad at each other. Nat was already swooping in but shit, I’d spent half the night cutting spuds up. It went in their stomach or stayed in the bowl. But whatever shifters these people were, they were about to get a rude surprise, because the damn ball was zeroing in on their party.

I didn’t run ever. Nicky, my shop bitch, liked to joke the only cardio I did was climb the stairs to my apartment above my shop. I burned incense and sipped nice herbal teas and found mummy porn for old ladies, that’s what I did. So when I was forced to sprint, my muscles whinged, complained and then outright protested as I was forced to move faster and faster. People were clustered around the table, their backs facing me. They were singing Christmas carols about snow and shit, which surely was a symptom of heat stroke. They were pulling Christmas crackers and pawing through the shitty contents, putting the tissue paper hats on their heads, unaware that a child prodigy hadn’t hit a six in backyard cricket, but a twenty.

“Hey!” I shouted or at least tried to, my breath coming in hard and fast. “Hey!” But my voice was little other than a croak. Cricket balls are hard, round, missiles of self destruction and it was about to explode.

People turned around when I came bolting into their area, some staring in shock, others turning around with sloppy smiles on their face that came from beer and good cheer. But I busted through all of them, backing up, my eye on the ball and that was my fatal mistake. My hands went up. I could see the ball coming arrowing down, aiming straight at me. I was going to catch it, I felt it in my bones. But while my eye was on the ball, they weren’t on the party, its inhabitants and the esky that just so happened to be in my path. So right when I went to catch the ball, something caught at the back of my legs, sending me arse over tit, instead of saving the day.

I fell in slow motion, it felt, the corner of the concrete slab the BBQ was installed upon rising up to meet the back of my head. The ball saw I had an exposed belly and aimed for it. But I couldn’t do anything. My hands flailed around, completely helpless, not grabbing onto anything, because there wasn’t anything to save me. A small scream formed in my throat. I knew what was going to happen, and that it was going to hurt, and I didn’t want to go to hospital on Christmas Day, but to be frank, that was the best possible scenario here.

Or this.

A hand shot out, snatching the ball from the air, joined to a very muscular arm. How did I have the time to notice that? Because other hands jerked out and grabbed me, stopping me from dashing my brains out on the concrete, then holding me close. Big, strong, muscly and smelling kind of spicy, that was what I got before I looked up.

“You all right, little fox?”

I stared up at him, unable to believe my eyes, because my rescuer should’ve been a complete stranger.

But he wasn’t.

That crooked smile, I’d seen it in my dreams, along with those sharp, sharp cheekbones. A damn dimple popped up as I stared and then I squinted. He had bright green eyes, which was enough to get anyone’s attention, but in particular, mine. Because I’d seen similar coloured eyes every time I looked in the mirror.

I was staring like a damn idiot and his smile spread wider, revealing a set of very sharp canines. I needed to look away, but I couldn’t. My cheeks were burning hot from exertion and embarrassment, but it wasn’t the only thing searing my skin. The pendant Nat had given me grew hot, hot, hot so my hand slapped down around it to jerk it away from my neck.

And that’s all it took.

Moldavite, the crystal for self discovery and finding your true path, it did its magic right now, because the body I’d taken for granted all my life melted away and left this.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” Several other men clustered closer, looking like giants now.

Because they were.

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