by R. J. Blain
While I expected a pinch when he nipped me, a jolt ran down the entire length of my spine. A yip burst out of me, and my legs gave out beneath me. Jake’s teeth snagged my scruff and kept my head from hitting the floor. Instead of obeying my demands, my body twitched and tingled.
Jake lowered my muzzle to the carpet, stood over me, and bit down on my scruff, tugging enough I had no doubts he controlled the situation. Uncertain of what I was supposed to do, I whimpered and tucked my tail.
A second nip of my neck spread a soothing warmth through me, and when it hit my head, I relaxed beneath him, basking in pleasant lethargy. Releasing me, he gave the tip of my nose the lightest touch of his teeth before nuzzling at the side of my throat. After the first few strokes of his tongue, I regained enough control over my body to stretch out, giving him easier access.
I closed my eyes while he groomed my straggly fur into the semblance of order. With a heavy sigh, he laid down beside me, draped a paw across my back and shoulder, and seized the scruff of my neck again.
He gave a tug with his teeth, hard enough to startle me from my comfortable daze. Something sharp and searing stabbed through my head, and I yelped, whined, and struggled beneath him. He bit harder. Whimpering at the intensifying discomfort, I strained to break free of his hold. Pulling me closer to him with his paw, he trapped me against him.
One final bite stoked the heat into a blazing inferno, and a blend of shock and pain paralyzed me. When it extinguished, the howls of wolves thundered in my ears and drowned me.
Jake wouldn’t stop laughing at me.
According to him, I spent several hours freaking out immediately following him bringing me into the pack. I had no memory of it. The couch bore evidence of my claws tearing at it, the carpet would need to be replaced, and at some point, I had decided the ruins of our coffee table would serve as a chew toy.
What tripped his trigger, however, was my insistence on barking or yipping whenever I picked up anything from the pack. Since Jake hadn’t told anyone he was bringing me into the pack, he assumed the overload of shock, surprise, and interest had overwhelmed me, resulting in what he viewed as the funniest moment of his life.
Disgusted at his mirth, I retreated to the master bathroom, shifted back to human, filled the tub, and considered hiding for the rest of eternity. Unfortunately, the bathroom door’s lock remained broken, so Jake let himself in while I was batting at the bubbles.
“I turned the ringer off the landline and muted the answering machine,” he announced.
At least he wasn’t laughing at me anymore. “I’m one big bruise. I’m going to go into work on Monday, and my boss is going to ask if I’m a domestic violence victim. What do they call it when two adults decide to shift into overgrown canines and romp violently?”
“Foreplay.”
I opened my mouth, thought about it, and closed my mouth.
“The phone has rung forty-seven times since I brought you into the pack. I hid Dean’s car in the garage and turned out the lights downstairs. You don’t need lights to bathe, do you? If I turn the bathroom lights off and use the blackout curtains in our bedroom, no one will know we’re here.”
“Stop whining, Jake. You made the bed, you lie in it. I keep hearing things that aren’t real, and it’s really weird.” I could still hear the faint howl of wolves, but with a little bit of concentration, I could distinguish if I actually heard the sound or if it was just in my head.
“That’s the pack. You’ll get used to it. I hardly notice it anymore unless someone is trying to get my attention. That’s rare, though. It’s a lot of work to figure out which wolf is which in the pack bonds. You’ll be able to pinpoint me with a little practice because of our mating bond.”
“Did I really attack the couch?”
“I think you were trying to find the source of the howls, and for some reason, you decided it had to be coming from under the cushions. I thought about stopping you, but since you seemed to be having a good time, I figured we could use a new couch anyway.”
“And how exactly did you figure I was having a good time?”
“You were wagging your tail so hard I thought you were going to get whiplash. Then you were making those horrible yipping noises you use when you’re excited. Your scent also betrayed you.”
I scowled and sank down to my chin in the water. “Are you sure you’re not making that up?”
He smiled. “I solemnly swear the last time I tore up a couch was shortly after I became a Fenerec. I was new to the pack bonds, too. My freak out, however, was far easier to mitigate, as I weighed a big, bad twenty-five pounds as a wolf puppy, so Mom and Dad took turns carrying me around by my scruff until I calmed down. You weigh a bit more than twenty-five pounds, and you looked like you were having too much fun to disturb.”
“Why do you want to hide, anyway?”
“If they come over, they’re going to skin me. I don’t want to die today, Karma. If you’re going to insist on going to work on Monday morning, I don’t want to waste time getting you into bed.”
“I’m sore, I’m achy, and I’m tired,” I complained.
My stomach chose that moment to gurgle, and I sighed.
“Hungry, too. Fine, you win. I’ll call Mason and coerce him into hunting something down for us to eat. I’ve kept the fridge and freezer at minimums since I haven’t been home all that much. At least I can browbeat him into keeping his mouth shut.”
“We could go out ourselves, too.”
“No. You’re tired, you’re sore, and it’s entirely possible you’ll start freaking out again. If I had my way, I really would keep you locked up for the next week until you’ve had a chance to get used to hearing the pack.”
“I need to go to work, Jake.”
“I have some thoughts on that. You also need to prepare your resignation so you can file for active status in the FBI. We can find someone to replace you who can also advise your boss so he isn’t left adrift from your departure.”
I scowled. He kept on smiling.
The standoff lasted less than ten minutes. “Fine.”
“I’ll even try to convince the FBI you should work alongside CARD until you’re able to return to the field. If you can get authorized to work as an anchor, we can possibly join a team. Mom and Dad are itching for more field work, but we only get to slum it with three when there are no other available teams. I wouldn’t expect you to want to partner up with them, so we can move to another area if that would make you happier.”
“Have you forgotten what happened the last time I anchored?”
“You asked me to marry you.”
“Don’t push your luck, Jake.”
“Had to try.”
“No, you didn’t.”
He sighed. “I’ll just go give Mason a call before you decide I’m edible.”
I spent so long debating if I should face Mason as a woman or a fox I lost my opportunity to shift. The slam of several car doors warned me the Fenerec hadn’t come alone. Staying in the tub seemed like my best choice, if only I could figure out how to blockade the door so no one could bother me.
Fixing the lock rose to a high priority, although I expected Jake would end up breaking it again being an idiot and forgetting the door could lock.
The subject of my thoughts cracked open the door and poked his head inside the bathroom. “I swear he didn’t tell anyone.”
“I am not here.”
“I think it’s too late for that, Karma. I’m not taking a bath and they can hear the jets rumbling downstairs. That, plus you shredded our couch. Add in your fresh scent all over the house, and I’m pretty sure that isn’t going to work at all.”
“Who is here?”
More car doors slammed outside, and Jake winced. “If you weren’t afraid of heights, I’d suggest we leave out the window.”
“Who is here, Jake?”
“When I called Mason and asked him if he could play fetch and bring over something for us to eat, he asked who the ‘us’
was, and I tried to dodge the question, and he implied I had some hussy over here to piss me off.”
I sighed. “What did you say?”
“That I wouldn’t bring some hussy over to our house.”
“You said our house?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“He asked if my parents were over.”
I started counting the ways Jake could screw up answering that question. “Over my dead body?”
“Close. Over theirs. Mason then blurted something about a kidnapping, a potential murder, jumped to some sort of conclusion I’d grabbed some hussy off the street and coerced her into living with me, and it became nonsense really fast.”
“What did he really say?”
“He asked how many bodies I needed to hide. I said none. I may have mentioned the couch had been attacked by the cutest little psychopath on the east coast. Then he squealed in my ear and hung up on me.”
“You did not say that, and Mason doesn’t squeal.”
Someone snorted behind Jake, and I recognized Mason’s distinctive tenor. “No, he actually said, ‘I will kill you if you make her cry, and then there really will be bodies I need to hide.’ Is he bothering you, Karma? I’ll remove him.”
“He’s mostly fine, except I’m a living bruise, and it’s his fault. He’s blaming me for destroying the couch, too. It’s his fault.”
“Freaked out when he brought you into the pack? To say the least, I wasn’t expecting that. Good job, Jake. I give it four hours, max, before the Alphas show up and kill us all.”
“I lost. He was going to work as a desk jockey for a whole year if I won, too.” I batted at the water, sighed, and waved my hand in the direction of the tub’s control panel. “You may as well turn it off so I can crawl out of here eventually.”
Jake reached into the bathroom and turned off the jets. “I tried to be gentle. It’s not my fault you refused to give up without putting up a fight. I think the bruises happened when I bucked you off my back. I thought you weighed more than you did. I’m sorry.”
“How bruised are we talking about here?” Mason asked.
“They’re already showing, and it’s pretty much head to toe. I’d make a perfect model for a domestic violence victim.” I sighed. “Clothes?”
“I’ll get you some.” Jake closed the door behind him, and he growled, which was followed by several yips, warning me there’d been a crowd of curious Fenerec loitering in our bedroom.
Damned nosy wolves.
The bruises, which mottled me far too much for my comfort, had already started to ache and turned black and blue. When Jake returned with clothes, I refused to unwrap from the biggest towel we owned.
“It’s not that bad, Karma.”
“I’m black and blue,” I wailed.
“And tomorrow you’ll be green and yellow, and they’ll be gone by Wednesday at the absolute latest. You may not heal Fenerec fast, but you’ll be back to a perfect porcelain doll within a week. Normal humans wouldn’t show most of their bruises until tomorrow. We’ll tell everyone we had an accident, and to make sure we match, I’ll get the pack to beat me black and blue, too. You can help.”
I frowned. “I’m pretty sure I don’t want to beat you black and blue.”
“That’s promising.” Jake set my clothes on the vanity and peeled me out of the towel while I attempted to keep my hold on it. “You’re going to eat dinner, and then you’re going to bed. There’s no way I should have been able to take that from you that easily.”
“Don’t be an asshole,” I whispered, biting my lip.
He kissed my forehead. “I just don’t want you to get sick again. Let me take care of you for a while. I’ll bring in the pack’s doctor tomorrow, she’ll have a look over you, and we’ll figure out how best to approach your work for the near future, okay? No one here is going to hurt you. They just want to say hello.”
It took me several long minutes to swallow down the lump in my throat, and even then, I nodded my agreement, unwilling to trust my voice.
Our house was too small for thirty-five people, most of whom were involved in law enforcement in some capacity. Our driveway looked like a cop car convention with several FBI SUVs parked on the grass. Jake didn’t even need to ask for a beating; the visiting Fenerec took one look at me and my mottling of bruises and swarmed him.
Mason doubled over and howled his laughter while I retreated to the kitchen.
“It’s okay, Karma. You don’t have to hide in there. They’re only going to beat him a little bit,” the submissive wolf murmured, following me as far as the threshold separating the kitchen from the dining room. “We sent a spy upstairs to listen in, and we heard Jake’s idea. As we agreed with it, we’re helping.”
Jake yelped in the other room.
“Violently helping,” Mason added with a smile.
“Is there a reason you’re violently helping?”
“You’re joking, right? This is the one time we’ll ever get to beat the little snot without consequence. I’m sure our Alphas will thank us when we’re finished.”
“Little?” I peeked in the pantry, discovered it was devoid of anything edible, which left plenty of room on the lowest shelf for me to squeeze into. “Do me a favor?”
“What?”
“I’m not here.” I crawled inside the pantry and eased the door closed so the sound wouldn’t betray my presence.
“I read that foxes liked to den in enclosed spaces, but that’s ridiculous. They’re not actually beating your mate. They’re romping. Playing. Adding someone new to the pack is a bit like a good caffeine buzz; it makes us all a bit energetic and playful. Normally, we’d go on a pack hunt, but you look scrawny enough you’d last maybe ten minutes, and you’re not small enough to carry around by the nape of your neck anymore.”
Some of the Fenerec had done just that after I had returned to the United States. “If they kill him, there’s a good spot out back for hiding the body. I can show it to you.”
“Still mad at him, huh?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s a lot better than I expected, truth be told. Don’t be too hard on him. Our species can be unforgivable idiots of the worst sort, and we really should have known better. We have a puppy phase, too, and it’s often a hormonal battlefield. We treated you like we would a stabilized adult of our species, according to our customs and our instincts, not realizing you were just a puppy. We even knew it had been your first shift, so we should have known better. I’m sorry—everyone is. We’re not just idiots, we’re ignorant asses. Being frank, what we did to you was inexcusable. We never would have done it to a Fenerec puppy. We never should have done it to you.”
If I had been a better, more polite person, I would have brushed it off. Tears burned my eyes. “I just don’t understand why.”
Mason cracked open the pantry door and sat on the floor. “We were stupid. I wish we had some mind-blowing and good excuse, but we don’t. Not only did we hurt you, we hurt Jake, too. You’ll find out soon enough, but when a member of the pack is truly distressed, it affects us all. You two fighting was bad enough, but when you were gone? It was so much worse. We made a lot of mistakes. We can’t change what happened, but we can change. It won’t happen again. Our Alphas might end up cranky at Jake for going behind their backs, but it’s a problem he’s relieved to have.”
“How do you know?”
Mason tapped his temple. “The pack bonds. When he’s not pretending he’s bulletproof, Jake’s actually pretty sensitive. He’s been stressed enough he hasn’t been buffering the rest of us from his emotions. I don’t think he realizes it, since all of his attention has been focused on you. Usually, the Alphas buffer us from him when he forgets, but since intense relief doesn’t actually hurt anyone, I think they’re leaving it be. I expect they’ll remind him to pay closer attention once he’s had a chance to settle down.”
Not sure of what to think about that, I closed the pantry door again. “I’m not here,�
� I hissed.
“I’ll bring you a plate of food before the scavengers eat it all—or remember you’re here. It’d be more comfortable if you came out of there, though.”
“I’ll manage just fine in here.”
“Suit yourself.”
Tacos made everything better, and while even the dead could probably hear me munching away in the pantry, I didn’t care. If anyone thought I was going to come out with so many people in the house, they were nuts.
I stopped counting how many times the doorbell rang after ten. Maybe the ruckus in the living room, ranging from yelps, growls, the occasional curse, and the crack of something breaking, kept people from noticing my love affair with hard shell tacos.
At least I didn’t have to emerge from my impromptu den to replenish my taco supply. All I needed to do was open the pantry door and slide the empty paper plate onto the floor. In less than five minutes, Mason offered me a new plate filled with tacos, which I claimed to resume my feeding frenzy. At the rate I devoured them, there’d be a beef shortage in Baltimore, but I didn’t care. Tacos made everything better.
“Hey, Mason. Have you seen Karma?” Jake asked, so close to my hiding place I bared my teeth and pulled my plate a little closer.
“She’s still in the house. I think she wants to eat her tacos in peace.”
“She’s had something for dinner?”
“I underestimated her appetite. I’m almost out of tacos. Take a plate before you starve to death. If the others want something to eat, they’ll just have to go home.”
“I’m not going to starve to death.”
“Just eat, please.”
Jake sighed. “I need to check on Karma.”
“She’s having her dinner. She doesn’t need us wolves hovering and threatening her food. Let the poor woman eat in peace.”
Jake growled.