Page 1 of All Foxed Up

Chapter1

Christmas time. The most wonderful time of the year.

Yeah, right. Not if you worked in retail.

I mean I get it, when I was a kid, that crinkly wrapping paper with all the gold and green and red on it used to be my drug of choice too. I’d be feeling up the presents set under the tree so damn often, to try and work out what was inside, the paper would ‘accidentally’ rip and then Mum would find out and throw her shoe at me, but still. If you’re over eighteen, Christmas fucking sucks.

Which brings me to here.

I’d just spent the days leading up to Christmas working in my cute little bookshop, with my not so cute employee, Nicky, who didn’t so much have resting bitch face as resting bitch everything. Between the two of us, we’d been fielding questions from the dozens of people that come out of the woodwork around this time of year, who walked aimlessly up and down the aisles of every available shop, as if that would resolve the fact they didn’t really know jack about their family member’s gift preferences. I was tired, I didn’t want to hear Mariah Carey warble another thing about wanting Christmas and me, and yet here I was, standing out the front of my bestie’s place, four hours’ drive away from home.

I was the designated support person for Nat to get her through this holiday. She might have a frankly palatial house in the leafy suburbs of Adelaide, and four hunky bear shifter mates, but that kind of awesome came at a cost.

I pressed the button on the door to alert the inhabitants I had arrived.

Apparently it was the means to summon baby dinosaurs, because I heard a couple of high pitched screeches inside, kind of like how I’d imagine young velociraptors sounded, and then thundering steps that made them sound more like tiny T-Rexs. The door was jerked open and two of the cutest kids you’d ever seen appeared.

Kai had a wild halo of dark hair that made me think he’d been avoiding his mum’s attempts at brushing it again. But with all that olive skin and blinding white teeth, the kid could talk his way out of anything. Then there was Sven. The kid was all Lars, a stocky little nugget of a kid with ice blue eyes that look straight through you, and that was the only warning you ever got from him.

“Aunty Holly!”

He launched himself forward like a tiny little torpedo, all that shifter strength used to slam into me.

“Oof!”

Apparently Nat had decided to enrol her pair of three-year-olds into a rugby team because these little bastards drove the wind from my lungs. My arms went around them anyway, if only to prevent further injury, even as I struggled to catch my breath.

“Did you get us presents?” this collective tornado of children asked me. “Lots of presents? The pew pew gun and the fire truck with the siren?”

Goddess help me, I did. Nat was gonna shit when she saw the noisy things the kids had requested but hell, I had to keep my rep as the cool aunty. I’d even included batteries in with their presents, so the whole house could be shaken by the mechanical sounds of the most annoying toys ever.

Yesss…

“You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out,” I told them, ruffling their hair, but that didn’t stop their faces from falling, those beautiful eyes getting bigger and shinier by the second, damn them. “But today, I have these!”

I pulled out two chocolate bars from the bags of stuff I was carrying. Kids were like dogs, as far as I could figure, the little bastards ready to do anything for treats. The sad looks were quickly banished and replaced by this.

Bears love sweet shit, so chocolate always went over well with the boys, but right now? Their little gimme gimme hands were turning into claws. Not actual claws, they wouldn’t shift for some time yet, but still, you could see it. Their eyes shone with an unholy light, small growls forming in their chests, animalistic enough for me to shove a bar into each of their hands and then step the fuck back.

Damn, do not get in between bear cubs and their food, because they turn into little savages. The wrappers were torn off and then each kid took a massive bite of their chocolate bar.

“Who…?”

Nat appeared in the doorway looking red faced and just a little frazzled. Like the muscles around her eyes were so tight, one was twitching involuntarily. That twitch spasmed faster as she took us in. Me, standing there with bags of presents, food, one of my nanna’s fruit cakes and a duffel bag of my own clothes and the boys… Chocolate was now smeared all across their faces, their hands, even their very nice shirts.

Shit…

“Um… hey,” I said, waving my hand. “Merry Christmas and all that bullshit.”

“Bullshit?” Kai’s voice was muffled by a mouthful of chocolate, but he managed to get the swear word out anyway.

“Bulldust,” I corrected hastily. Why anyone let me within ten feet of children, I didn’t know. “Bulldust.”

“Bullshit!” Kai said and then turned to Sven. “Bullshit!”

The two of them started to cackle then as they repeated the word over and over until the real adult stepped in.

“You’re eating chocolate before dinner,” Nat said with a small growl, “and you know you’re not allowed to say that word. The two of you better get upstairs, clean yourselves up and stop swearing, or Santa might be making a detour around this house tonight and go to the houses of some kids who don’t eat chocolate for dinner.”

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