Page 13 of All Foxed Up

Chapter7

“What?”

I saw every freckle on Nat’s face because she stared at me blankly, but I put my hand out.

“Gimme the keys, Nat.”

“What?”

“Focus.” I put out two fingers and pointed them at my eyes, then hers. “Eyes on me. Ignore what I just said—”

“You turned into a fox?”

“Not important. Keys, Nat, keys.”

“No, no, no, no…” She poked a finger in my face and some part of me wanted to snap at that.

Foxy, if that’s you, do the smart thing and stay down!I thought furiously.

“No?”

It felt like Nat was going through all the stages of grieving in real time, but I didn’t have time for that. I shot a look over my shoulder, and saw I did indeed have the attention of what I assumed was a sleuth of fox shifters. Sleuth? What did you call a pack of foxes? A pain in my arse. Yeah, that was it. Whatever the hell they were called, they were coming closer, ambling slowly towards us.

“You’re a fox shifter.”

Cool, we’d rushed past shock to denial and now we were at acceptance.

“Yes and this foxy lady needs to get home right fucking now, Nat.”

She pulled her car keys from her pocket and slapped them into my hand.

“You can’t run away from this.” Then her head swung around and her eyes went wide as she looked at the three men getting nearer by the second. “You can’t run away from them.”

Now here’s the fucking thing. Nothing, I mean nothing, makes me dig my heels in harder than when someone says I can’t do something. I stared back at those guys, somehow hoping that the power of my glare would communicate what I felt.

Keep the fuck away from me, I thought. Hey, if I could suddenly turn into a fox, maybe I could start to communicate psychically as well.I don’t need fated mates. I definitely don’t need to be turning furry at random moments. Forget you even saw me.

“The hell I can’t,” I said, then jingled the keys in my hands. “If I take the car, will you guys be able to get home?”

“Alaric will just ring one of the other guys from his team to pick us up. Someone’s always on call, just in case, so…” She fucking smiled then, a slow, mischievous thing that had my back stiffening. “You’re gonna fight this? Oh, this is gonna be good, so damn good.”

No, it wasn’t, but I didn’t bother arguing with her. I gave her the world’s shortest hug, there and gone again. I knew she wanted to talk about the situation, but this wasn’t like high school. We couldn’t sit there and analyse every single thing that Danny Harris did, wondering if there was any evidence to be found that he liked me. My body felt weird, swollen, sore and also kinda numb, like it wasn’t mine anymore. I sucked in a breath, forced myself to smile and then looked at her.

“I’ll see you when you get home.”

“You better be there.” She shot me a sympathetic look. “I know this is tough—”

“Not yet, Nat,” I said, the keys digging into my palm. “Not yet.”

I felt like I was carrying around a brimming cup of fear, anger and disbelief, but it was all kept down by a thick layer of pure shock. But that would wear off soon. I needed to get back to Nat’s place, hunker up.

In my den?

Fuck.

I shook my head and then unlocked the car, climbing in, not able to let out a full breath until I was behind the wheel. I felt bad leaving Nat with the clean up, having to wrangle the kids at the same time, but if she stopped trying to be super mum and let her phalanx of grandparents help, she’d be fine. Maybe this whole thing would be a learning experience for her. But as I felt the blast of the air conditioning on my face, my hands clung to the wheel. Home, my instincts or Foxy’s, I didn’t know, but the impulse to drive and keep on driving until I saw my shop burned hot and hard in my chest, right up until I put the car into reverse.

Going to make us chase you, little vixen?a now familiar voice said inside my head.Bring it on.

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