Page 12 of All Foxed Up

I scuttled back, not on two feet, but four. Actually make that paws. I looked down incredulously to see four brown socked paws where my feet in the cute little sandals with the beading should’ve been. I shifted, whined… Hang on, when the fuck did I start making sounds like a damn dog? Was that what I was? A dog shifter!? I pawed at my face, trying to get a feel for it, but I now understood how useful opposable thumbs were. All I knew was I had a long muzzle and fangs.

“She’s one of us?” a young woman said, clustering closer.

“A Riley by the smell of her,” an older woman said, staring down at me. “They’re bad news, that lot, every single one of them.”

“None of that matters,” my rescuer said, shuffling closer. “Not now—”

“No, Rye,” the older woman growled, the sound sending my fur on end. I crouched down low, my tail swishing back and forth as I let out a weird little chittering sound. “No, you—”

“You belong to us, don’t you, little vixen?”

He crooned the words out like I was some kind of simple creature, which irritated me, but it had the fox stopping still. Our body was locked tight with tension, ready to dart away in any second, but… The scent of him. That spiciness seemed to grow by the second, becoming sweeter and more and more intoxicating. I loved a good aftershave or even the scent of freshly washed men could be enticing, but not like this. Foxy was running the show and she couldn’t even conceive of the possibility of not getting closer to him. Our nose worked, and we sucked in great big lungfuls of him as we dropped down low and creeped closer. I did belong to him, I felt that deep in my furry little heart.

And them.

“This is her?” This guy shoved a long lock of reddish brown hair behind his ear and he peered at me. His brows creased, but those keen green eyes seemed to take every part of me in. “She’s—”

“Ours.” He had similar coloured hair, but it was much shorter, forming lazy spikes all over his head as he smirked down at me. His body was the biggest, most powerful. Good for protecting our kits, the fox’s instincts informed me.

Insert record scratch noise right here.

No, no, no, no, I tried to reason with the fox, but they aren’t creatures of reason. She was ruled by her instincts, growing all wiggly as she made these high pitched keening noises, wriggling on her stomach, then rolling over to reveal it. Strong fingers buried themselves in my fur, sending ripples of pleasure through me with every scratch.

“Holly?” My ears pricked at that, but I didn’t roll away from that hand. “Holly, are you…?” I opened one eye to see Nat coming blundering in, flushing and then smiling. “I’m sorry, but my friend came running through here to catch our cricket ball and—”

“This cricket ball?” Spiky head passed it to her and she took it, staring at the rough red surface before nodding.

“Right, so my friend…”

“Time to come back to yourself, little vixen,” the guy scratching my belly said and it was then it felt like the consciousness that was me was torn from the fox’s body and returned here.

“Fuck!” I said. Actual words not whines or chitters, because I’d come back to skin abruptly, and was wearing nothing other than the pendant Nat had given me.

“It’s all right,” my rescuer started to say, but I grabbed my cover up and jerked it over my naked body, then snatched up my bikini.

“It’s not all right,” I said, shaking the bathing suit in the air. “I’m not all right. I’m—”

“A fox shifter,” my rescuer said, getting to his feet. “A beautiful one too and our—”

“Don’t say it,” I growled. “Don’t you dare.”

“Rye, think this through,” the older woman said.

“That’s right, listen to Baba Yaga over there,” I snapped, which had her hissing. “Thanks for… whatever the fuck that was but—”

“Our fated mate.”

This Rye, he looked just like in my dream, smiling with this kind of intense energy, all coiled power and intent. The look would be damn sexy on a wolf shifter, specifically Jacob Black, but that was on the big screen or in the pages of a book, not my damn life.

“No, I’m not.” I stabbed the air with a finger for emphasis. “I’m not. I’m...”

Words failed me, because I could still feel the fox inside me, and that was disconcerting as hell. I’d spent over thirty years on this earth not feeling a bloody wild animal inside me, until now. I didn’t wait for Nat, for their response, anything, as I strode away, but she caught me up.

“What the hell happened?” she asked me. “I saw you running for the ball, which was a shock in itself and then—”

I tore the necklace from my neck, wincing at the brutal treatment of such a beautiful pendant, but my nanna had been the one to teach me the wisdom of the crystals. Moldavite was a powerful transformer and I’d just discovered how much.

“And then I turned into a fox,” I announced, right as we came to a stop by the cars.

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