by R. J. Blain
Eleven days after I ran out of things to say, Dr. Howards brought two briefcases with him, and he set a two-inch thick stack of forms on the table. “I have a project for you.”
What made him think I actually cared? I should have just stayed curled in the armchair, but I got up, sat at the table, and clenched my teeth so I wouldn’t sigh. I grabbed the stack, pulled it to me, plunked an elbow on the tabletop and propped my chin in my palm before flipping open the top folder.
FBI confidentiality agreements and warnings filled the first ten pages, and I straightened, leaned back in my chair, crossed my arms over my chest, and shook my head.
“This is an excellent opportunity for you to do substantial, meaningful work. You don’t have to pass field evaluations to handle it, and it is well within the scope of your experience and specialties. You will, of course, be paid for your time and effort. Sign the NDA, take some time to review the documents, and think about it.”
He set a pen on the table beside me and waited.
If I didn’t sign, he would hover until I did, so I saved us both the hassle and scribbled my first name on the appropriate lines. Dr. Howards frowned, but he didn’t question the omission.
He’d talk about it to someone, of that I had no doubt. Maybe he’d come back later wanting to know why. Then again, maybe he already understood.
“I’ll leave everything you need here. If you find anything interesting, use the intercom, and someone will come around.”
I glanced in the direction of the door and the stainless steel panel with a single button on it, something I hadn’t bothered to use since I’d been locked in my comfortable little prison. Acknowledging him with a shrug, I closed the folder, picked up the stack, and dumped it on the coffee table to deal with later, if my curiosity resurrected from the dead enough for me to bother.
Day and night meant little to me in a prison without windows, but I got the feeling it was night when Jake came and hovered in the doorway, watching me engage in a staring contest with the closed folders.
“Are you ready to talk?”
Would I ever be? When given the choice of Jake or dealing with FBI bullshit paperwork, I picked up the top folder, plopped it onto my lap, and opened it up. While Dr. Howards had taken the signed copy of the NDA, I had my copy of it, and I read through it.
There was something comforting about the legalese.
“Amelia went to a pack in Florida to search for a mate.”
I understood enough about Fenerec culture to understand what he meant; Fenerec bonded with their mates during sex, and when they failed to form a bond, they moved on. I wondered how many other bitches he had tried to mate with, but then decided I didn’t care what he did.
Closing the folder, I shook my head. “So go find some other bitch to fuck until your precious new mating bond sticks and leave me out of it.”
“I didn’t sleep with her, Karma.”
“Well, you’re not going to have a whole lot of luck finding a proper wolf bitch if you don’t.”
“I was frustrated and said things I shouldn’t have said. Things I didn’t really mean.”
“Don’t bullshit me. I’ve been fed enough bullshit.” I jammed the folder under the entire stack of papers, and with a hard flick of my wrist, sent the whole pile to the floor. The pages scattered. “I knew how I’d spend the rest of my life after our last fight.”
“Oh?”
“Alone.”
My answer startled him, as though it never occurred to him the possibility existed he wasn’t the only one trapped by the vows we had both once wanted. For a long time, he stood in the doorway and stared at me. “It’s not—”
“It’s not what? It’s not the same? Because I’m a fox instead of a wolf? I built a den for children I’ll never have. While I waited in the hospital, you apparently pursued a new mate—one who could be just like you. You couldn’t even give me the time of day. Or be bothered to visit. Then you just had to come hunting for me when I wasn’t bothering anyone. I hid in my den and I hunted. I stayed away from the farms. Yet, you couldn’t even leave me with that, could you? If you wanted a new mate so much, you should have just let me drown. It would have fixed all your problems.”
“Don’t say that.”
“The only thing I regret is that Ma didn’t kill me, too. Leave me alone. Haven’t you done enough?”
Pauline came, but unlike her son, she invaded my prison and made herself at home at the table, watching me. “Every time I start to think we’ve made progress, I realize we’ve actually gone backwards rather than move forward. It’s very frustrating.”
“What do you want?”
“I want my son to be happy.”
Of course she did. “Then shoot me, ditch the body somewhere, and wait until next winter. Then all of your problems will sort themselves out when he can mate with someone of the appropriate species for your needs.”
It didn’t even hurt thinking or saying it anymore.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“Then you encouraging him to file for a divorce was a lie?”
“It wasn’t a lie.”
“And what were you hoping to accomplish?”
“I was hoping he’d mate with her.”
“I heard. She went to Florida. He claims he didn’t sleep with her. I don’t believe him. So, it’s simple. You shoot me, ditch the body somewhere, and your problems will sort themselves out next year.”
“He didn’t sleep with her. She was so offended by my proposal to court my son she immediately filed to transfer to a new pack. I was wrong.”
It annoyed me she chose to ignore a very realistic albeit final solution to all of her problems. “It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t change the fact he was prepared to file the papers, at your encouragement, to get rid of me once and for all.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“I said I’d sign the papers. What else could you possibly want from me?”
“I want you to give him another chance.”
“What, so I can be the leftovers when he couldn’t get the bitch you wanted for him? Sorry, it doesn’t work like that. He made promises he couldn’t keep. He lied to me. When I become inconvenient, at your encouragement, he tossed me to the curb. Then when he can’t get who he wants, he thinks he can just come crawling to me expecting what, exactly? Expecting everything will be okay just because he’s ‘seen the light’ and that he was wrong? That you were wrong? That everyone was wrong?”
Pauline sighed. “You could give him a chance to earn your trust again. No, it won’t erase our mistakes. And we all made them, and you’re the one who suffered the most because of them. I’m not asking you to forget what happened. That’s not fair to you.”
“What part of any of this was fair to me? You’re deluded if you think any part of this has actually been fair to me. Oh, but that’s right. You’re a wolf. I’m a fox. It’s always been what the wolves want, they get, isn’t it? Don’t feed me your bullshit. You think I’m a bottom-feeding scavenger compared to your apex predator. Why the fuck should I give any of you a second chance? What have you fucking done to deserve it? Absolutely fucking nothing.”
“We saved you.”
“You didn’t do that for me. You did it to appease your personal sense of justice so you wouldn’t have to carry around a load of guilt. This charade isn’t for me. It never was. If one of your precious pack wasn’t involved, you wouldn’t give a flying shit what happened to me, and we both know it.”
Ten
What the hell are you two doing?
I had no recollection of which one of us snapped first or what triggered the fight turning from a pair of humans to animals tearing out each other’s fur. She snapped her teeth and growled at me while I chittered. The table broke with a crack and a bang, and we scuffled on its splintered ruins.
While she beat me in weight and height, I had the anger and hatred I’d carried around and six months of hunting in the wild backing me. I s
ank my teeth into her and ripped into her shoulder, tearing out a thick clump of fur with a shake of my head.
She howled. Spitting fur, I hopped out of her reach and tensed. She lunged for me, and we rolled across the carpet. I clawed at her, twisting in my effort to reach her throat.
Closing her teeth around my foreleg, she bit down hard enough I yipped. Infuriated she had taken a chunk out of me, I redoubled my efforts to latch onto her. She brought her paws into play and raked my sides, digging her claws in deep enough to draw blood.
“What the hell are you two doing?” Jake’s father slammed his palm against the wall, the bang so loud and reminiscent of gunfire I released Pauline, scrambled to my paws, and darted across the room, tucking my tail.
Of course her mate and pack had come at her call. The reality of being alone crashed down on me, and I choked out a longing cry for what I couldn’t have.
Jake slid past his father into the room, his cheek twitching as he took in the destruction. When he spotted the blood on the carpet and the broken table, his eyes narrowed and he sighed. “Is there a reason you two are ripping out each other’s fur?”
“I’m sure there’s a reason for it, son. Will that reason make sense to us? Now that I doubt.”
Pauline flattened her ears and growled.
While Sebastian Thomas showed his throat and submitted to his mate often enough, he stood his ground, stuffed his hands in his pants pockets, and glared. “The last time I checked, you were supposed to be trying to convince her to talk to us, not start a brawl. This is not talking. This is destroying our holding suite. The goal wasn’t to piss her off even more. She’s plenty pissed off, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Jake approached me, and I crammed into the corner, twisting my ears back. When he crouched in front of me, he penned me in. I panted and shook. “Where’d she bite you?”
All things considered, his question fell into safe territory, and I lifted my bleeding leg.
He took hold of my paw, examining where his mother had gotten a hold of me. “Right to the bone. Why am I not surprised? I don’t think it’s broken, at least.”
“Small wonders. Pauline, please go upstairs and shift. Then maybe you can explain what happened here.”
While she cooperated, she bit her mate on her way out the door, and Jake’s father grimaced.
“All right. This room’s been trashed, so I’m taking you upstairs,” Jake said, releasing my paw. Looking me over, he grabbed me under my forelegs and hauled me over his shoulder. I whined at the distance from his shoulder to the floor. Without hands, I couldn’t even grab hold of his shirt so he wouldn’t drop me. “While I deserve it, please don’t bite the shit out of me.”
“Are you sure that’s a wise idea, son?”
“Your wise idea was to send Mom down here to start a brawl with her. Locking her down here was bad enough. She’s not staying here, not when it’s trashed like this. Forget it. You’ll just have to convince her to stay in the house. Since this is your fault, salvage her papers.”
“I asked her to talk, not to brawl.”
“Just get her papers, Dad.”
“Fine.”
I whined, and my shaking strengthened to full-body shudders. Jake pinned me to him with one arm and grabbed hold of my scruff with the other. “If you want to trash every room in the house, Karma, go for it. Maybe if they’re busy replacing their furniture, they’ll stop making everything even worse.”
I refused to believe in the almost playful tone of his voice and his words, which reminded me too much of the partner I had had so long ago.
When Jake headed for the door, his father ruffled the fur between my ears. “Who’s a good little fox?”
“Little?” Jake blurted.
Maybe biting Jake’s father was rude, but I did it anyway.
Instead of picking up the papers, Jake’s father kept poking at my muzzle and rubbing my ears. I chittered and snapped my teeth at him, landing several bites. The last time I got a hold of him, I held on, lifting my paws to claw at his arm. The movement hurt, but I tore his shirt while digging my teeth into him.
“I don’t know what you are doing, Dad, but stop it.”
“I’m playing with her. Who’s a cute little fox?”
“If I drop her because you keep making her wiggle, I’m going to be pissed.”
“Hold onto her tighter, then.”
I bit down hard enough Jake’s father grimaced.
“Whatever you’re doing, stop it.”
“I was just trying to pet her ears.”
“She obviously doesn’t like it.”
“I think she’s hungry.”
“She’s biting you, isn’t she?”
“A love nip.”
“It’s not a love nip if she’s making you bleed, Dad.”
“It’s just a scratch. It’ll be gone by morning.”
“Bite him harder, Karma. If you don’t hit the bone, you’re not biting hard enough.” Jake shook his head and carried me up the stairs.
I released Jake’s father and displayed my fangs in a promise I’d do just that if he kept bothering me. Instead of leaving me alone, he grabbed my ear.
Since chittering wasn’t dissuading him, I unleashed my shrillest scream.
“Damn it, Dad!”
“Oh, stop your fussing. I’m not hurting her.”
I snapped my teeth and missed. With a smug smile, Jake’s father clamped his hand around my muzzle and held my jaws closed. Pulling away didn’t buy me my freedom.
At the top of the steps, I recognized the hallway. The only thing worse than being locked in a prison was being locked in a prison in the Thomas’s basement. Whining, I lifted my paws and wrapped them around my unwanted father-in-law’s arm.
“Now, while I have no objections to you biting the shit out of me, don’t bite anyone else in the pack. If you go for my mate’s ankles, I’ll look the other way once, since I’m sure she instigated the brawl in some fashion or another.”
“Sebastian!” Jake’s mother snarled.
Jake’s father released me and stepped out of my biting range. “If you hadn’t helped her trash the suite, I wouldn’t be having this conversation with her right now. Put her down and let the puppy run around and stretch her legs, James.”
The instant Jake crouched, I scrambled over his shoulder. Jake’s father blocked the way downstairs, and his mother was in the kitchen, so I turned tail and ran for the living room.
The presence of six FBI agents brought my escape to a halt. They stared at me, and I flattened my ears and hunkered on my belly, tail tucked. I recognized Mason, who was on the couch with two men who worked out of the Washington headquarters.
“She’s going to be bigger than you are at the rate she’s growing out, Jake,” Mason commented, stretching out and propping his feet up on the coffee table. “What do you figure she weighs in at?”
“One-fifty, give or take a few pounds.” Jake strolled into the room and nudged my side with his toe. “She’s leggy even for a fox.”
“So, in Fenerec terms, she’s still a puppy.”
“Seems that way.”
“Great.” Mason sighed. “Can I be the one to tell them they’ve been basically kicking a puppy?”
I slinked in the direction of the staircase, my only viable route of escape without having to get near anyone. Keeping my head low and tail tucked, I backed away, half watching the hallway while keeping an eye on the wolves in the living room.
“A terrified one who views us as arch enemies preparing to eat her? Sure. It’s not like anything else can go wrong at this point.” Jake followed me to the bottom of the stairwell and shook his head. “The main suite downstairs is a disaster, so she’ll be staying upstairs. If you’re going to be telling the others they’ve been kicking a puppy, you may as well tell them to keep their distance unless she goes to them. She’s been bullied enough.”
I scrambled up the stairs and kept my tail tucked until I reached the top. I limped down the long
hallway to the guest bathroom so when I bled, at least I’d contain the worst of the mess to the tiles. After a long moment of thought, I nosed aside the shower curtain and jumped in the bathtub, curling in a tight ball while pretending if I stayed still and quiet enough, no one would find me.
“Hiding in the bathtub only works when you don’t leave a blood trail all over the house, Karma.” Jake opened the curtain and sat on the edge of the tub, sighing as he looked me over. “Your fur’s going to mat.”
At least the bleeding had mostly stopped. I regarded the injury with my ears turned back and licked my paw in a half-hearted effort to prevent the inevitable.
“Let me help you get cleaned up. Then, if you’re feeling up for it, you can shift and we can try to talk. I’ve fucked up a lot of stuff, through no fault of yours. I understand you may never trust me again, but at least let me try. Please.”
I staggered upright, shuffled to the faucet, and pawed it on, flinching at the cold water that washed over my paws. Exaggerating a sigh, I stuck my head under the stream.
Shaking his head, Jake reached up, grabbed the shower on its extendible hose, and adjusted the faucet to turn on the spray. At the same time, he raised the temperature from the freezing point to a pleasant, steaming warmth. “Back up a bit, or you’re going to end up clogging the drain or getting stuck.”
I obeyed and held my head low, drooping my ears.
Grabbing one of the shampoo bottles, Jake dumped a bunch on my back and went to work soaping down my fur, spraying me enough to work the bubbles into my coat. “I’m sorry. I was frustrated because I couldn’t give you what you needed, I didn’t understand why it was so important to you, and I was being pressured. Us Fenerec think with our noses, and because your scent has never been very strong on me, and mine has never been very strong on you, the pack believed we weren’t a legitimate pairing. When we started fighting, I allowed those doubts to influence me.”