Page 22 of All Foxed Up

The shouting, so much shouting, it hurt her ears and I wasn’t protecting her, so she needed to do it herself. The fox swum up and out of me, forcing me back and in the same cage she’d been locked in for so long. My dress and underwear fell to the floor and Foxy stood in the midst of it.

“She…” Dad said, wide eyed.

“Yep.” Mum’s reply was much more grim.

“That’s—”

“Our daughter, Fergus.” Mum turned to face him, then pulled a necklace out from under her dress. I’d asked about it more than once, but she’d always redirected my attention away.

“Nothing good will come of this,” Nanna said in the dire tone of an ancient seeress. “I’ve told you that more than once.”

“Sometimes there isn’t a choice between right or wrong,” Mum told her, gripping the fine chain hard, then giving it a yank. “Sometimes there is only what is.”

The pendant she’d pulled free fell to the floor with a clatter, but my mother wasn’t there to pick it up. Instead, in the space she had occupied, was a big red fox. She let out a little whine, yawned dramatically and then stepped forward, before giving my face a lick. Foxy submitted to that with all of the docility of a newborn kit. Then my mother yipped, turning tail and trotting out of the kitchen, turning to look over her shoulder at us, the invitation clear. Our paws moved and we loped after her, out of the house, out of the yard and into the forest beyond.

The world tries to make Christmas about things: snow, pine trees, food, the piles of presents you must offer your family like sacrificial offerings, but underneath it all was this. Christmas is about family and right now I was finding out the true nature of mine. Our bodies moved in perfect unison as we ran and ran, that feeling swelling in my furry little chest. Home, that’s what I felt pulsing in my blood, I was home.

Epilogue

Todd

“This is the place?”

It was a typical, cute country town in Australia. Lots of leafy trees and houses that looked like they’d been built back in the 1950s, and somehow remained perfectly preserved that way. There was nothing wrong with it, but it just felt… small.

She wasn’t.

Holly had come busting into our Christmas celebration, creating chaos wherever she went, but the minute I caught that cricket ball? It felt like I caught something else too. Plenty of girls in my past had labelled me a fuckboy, even though I was always straight up about my intentions. Here for a good time, not a long time, until… Those wide green eyes, that strawberry blonde hair, and that expression, of horror and fear and helplessness, that in any other woman would’ve had me turning tail and running, had me moving forward. Rye caught her. Of course, he did. Always had an eye on the prize, that guy, but I… For the first time ever I felt a savage wrench of jealousy.

He rescued our mate. He was holding her close. I watched his nose work, sucking in her scent, something I caught the moment I got closer. He talked to her, reassured she was OK, right before she… My fox went rigid when hers appeared, making clear my days of fucking around were done. He’d never liked that I messed around with girls before this, but it would never happen again. I’d always expected to miss that, to feel hemmed in, constrained, but not now. I’d listened to her try and reject us back at the bear shifter’s place, and knew that was never going to fly.

No woman had ever gotten my full attention before this, but Holly had mine entirely now.

“This has gotta be her shop,” Wyatt said.

Sure enough, painted on the glass front of the place were the words ‘Holly’s Books and Brews.’

“So we go in?” I was trying to be cool and failing utterly, the others staring at me for just a second. “What? It’s what we’re here for, right?”

But before they could respond, I saw a guy walk up to the front door and unlock it.

Who. The fuck. Was that.

I jerked open the car door and was out before anyone could say anything further, striding over to the door to accost this stranger who thought he could walk into our mate’s territory like he had a right to.

“Hey!” I said as soon as I got close.

“Calm your fucking tits…” The guy’s belligerent tone dropped away as he spun around and saw me. “Oh.”

His eyes went wide and a pink flush bloomed across the tops of his cheekbones as he stared straight at me.

“I’m here for my fated mate,” I growled, making clear he needed to get the fuck out of my way.

“What?” The flush deepened. “Me? Oh my god, finally! When that bitch Natalie ended up with those four hunks of bear hotness, I was like what the actual fuck? How the hell does she deserve dudes that profess undying love to her and not me?” His eyes grew heavily lidded. “I mean, I wasn’t expecting a ranga, but…” His hand smoothed over my chest. “The rest I can work with.”

I batted his hand away with a frown.

“Not you. Holly. Where is she?”

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