“Curl up and wait if you desire.” Ondrog spoke coolly, indifferent. “However, if she wishes to start back, start. Tread slowly. I’ll catch you up, so little time would be lost even if we doubled back.”
“Ondrog?” I stopped before him. “I’m sorry. I hurt you…”
“No—” Shaking his head, also irritated. “I should not have growled at you. But I will not permit you, or anyone, to chew my hair.”
I stared. So did the three dog-foxes. “I didn’t know.” I reached to stroke his hair below the headband and behind his ear—all damp and muzzy on the right side, many hairs severed. It did not look well… “I’m sorry, Ondrog.” I couldn’t reach his cheek even on my toes so I kissed his chin. I thought a wolf should like that anyway, but Ondrog stepped back, eyes downcast. He was uncomfortable with such a touch. Then I knew he’d been no silver when he’d had a pack of his own.
“It is of no consequence,” he said in his stiff way, still not meeting my eyes. “Please avoid the same in future. That is all.”
I smiled up at him. “I promise.” No matter how delicious.
“Then…” He still retreated, glancing around at the others, newly uncomfortable. “You will keep my belongings?” To Mej: “You can handle a rifle? I will remain well clear from sight of the men and rejoin you this evening. Perhaps the tiny one can put on his fur and keep ears and nose out for you.”
Mej had nodded, but Komu glared at him.
“Yes…” Demik looked around. “Komu, we’ll take the outfit. You change and stay ahead. We’ll make it a slow day. Promising to be hot anyway.”
“Me?” Already angry at Ondrog, Komu rounded on Demik instead of snapping back at the wolf. “I’ve spent half this trip in fur. You go. You haven’t done a day on paws since we set out.”
“I would if Ondrog were staying with us,” Demik said calmly, “and Mej could have my rifle. But you can’t use it. That leaves the two of us—”
“Can’t use it? Since when can’t I use a rifle?” Komu’s voice was loud and fast.
“‘Well,’ that is.” Demik’s was slow and quiet. “You can’t use one well. Either show me you can shoot the yellow leaf off that aspen or change.” Demik pointed to a sunny aspen in the far distance through other trees.
Komu scowled, muttered, kicked a stone, and started to strip, rolling up his clothes as he went.
Chapter 5
Night 6
Ondrog loped quietly along, west and south, the river to his right, ranging from ten to hundreds of feet away. The foxes reeked, especially in fur, so it was that scrawny little yearling, Komu, whom he tracked. They smelled stronger even than the rank, wild mustelids—though it faded to only the faintest foxy taint if Ondrog had on his skin nose, and the fox was also in skin. At its strongest—real wolf nose and fox in fur—Ondrog could track them all day with his mind and attention wandering off for miles in any direction.
All that being the case, a track of many days old should have come through to him. Yet he had circled the logging camp at a great distance, including twice crossing the river, and found no trace of a fox. Total foxes, yes. The odd track or cache of an old dog-fox who claimed the area. But these foxes? Shifters? Nothing.
Yet the silver vixen had been at the logging camp some days back? Before she’d plunged down the river and the fox clan had rescued her? How?
She might have approached the camp in skin, then changed. Yet he should have detected some faint hint even then. Besides, she didn’t seem to have changed for seasons before this. Or she might have been brought in by someone, not on her own paws. Yet, if by a man, why? If he’d seen a silver fox in the forest, why not shoot her? White men loved shooting wild animals almost as much as they loved gold and liquor. Yet she hadn’t been shot.
If she came here of her own free will, why? Had she already been troubled, lacking proper sense or memory, when she arrived in the area?
Had she already been in the river? Had the loggers pulled her out? Perhaps she’d staggered around camp, leaving her scent, then rushed back in, rightfully frightened, and been washed down the falls? It was a wonder she had not drowned if she’d really been in the river for so many miles before the fox clan caught her in a net.
Which still left questions about how and why she was in the river, and where was her clan?
It was such a conundrum, with no way the confused vixen could answer, Ondrog simmered with it while he loped along.
He was patient by nature. A wolf did not dictate the movements of the caribou, tell the ice to break up, or choose the night for Moon’s fullness in the sky—the sacred time of Lunaenott. A wolf followed, waited, sang, and blessed Moon, pack, and caribou for the life each offered.
This mystery, however, frustrated him until he felt an angry prickle to his hackles with it.
Why now? He, a wolf who could stalk a herd across fifty miles without flagging or losing faith? He, who spent months over the skinning, tanning, softening, and making of his own clothing in skin, thinking nothing of the passage of time? Now a few days, one lost hunt, and he was growling to Moon over it?
Not just any lost hunt, a faint voice told him. He should have done better for her. He should be able to offer Summit answers—help her find her family. Instead, he was failing her. Much worse, she would be inexplicably delighted to see him—as if he bore gifts and insights, all the answers she could hope for. Walking away from a lost hunt to curl up, and try again with the next Moon was one thing. To fail while being treated like a hero was humiliating.
And why? Why had she offered herself and her three new mates to be a “pack” for him? As if she even understood the word. Why had she tried to feed him like he was a pup? Why did she want to be near him when other foxes flinched away as if he might bite? Why did she hold his hand even when she was smitten with all three of the dog-foxes already? And why, why, did he care so much? That one really made his fur prickle.
Why did he keep thinking of her? Not her mystery, but her grace? Why did he keep returning to her trail instead of the strong odor of the furred fox, Komu? Instead deliberately hunting her scent from the brush, warm and cloudy in the hot evening Sun and breathless day? Why did he wish he could be the one to take her hand, have someone in his life again? Someone like he hadn’t had in three winters. Like family. Like … love.
He didn’t love her. She was a fox. And he’d only just met her. She might form attachments as quick as a sniff, but he was a wolf—never flippant in his relationships.
No matter if they were for a sibling, a parent, a friend, a pup, or a mate, a wolf’s loyalty was a deep, longstanding thing like the river running to the sea. It did not come and go. It did not rise and set. It did not explode out of nothing like a blizzard. It grew, strengthened, and settled like the whole winter.
So if he was thinking of her an awful lot it was only because he felt sorry for her. She needed help. She’d been kind to him. He would do whatever he could to help her. And follow her and…
It didn’t matter how he felt. Or how much he’d enjoyed her curling up to sleep on his chest in the sunlight the day before. Or how he’d felt watching her swim naked in her skin. That was another Moon. She was a fox. She may accept him, but her clan would not.
Anyway, she didn’t need him. If she had showed up at his den, half-drowned, ribs sticking out, and curled up with him, that might have been another matter. Instead, she had found her way, apparently the moment she’d arrived, to the male strays’ den and moved in with the local strays—how the foxes referred to bachelors. Then she’d invited him along because … why? She felt sorry for him? It couldn’t be that she wanted protection from bears or humans on the trail. She did not seem to be afraid of anything—including all the normal, rational things she should be afraid of, such as men or lynx.
That lynx … again he felt angry. They shouldn’t have caved to Summit’s dread at the animal’s trapped condition. The creature was now off suffering, dying a slow death. They should have shot it and been on their way. Demi
k, the closest thing they had to a silver out here—since foxes had undefined leaders and only even followed their parents and elders in a vague fashion that boiled down to anarchy in a pinch—had given into her much too easily. Aside from his tucking his tail to her, Ondrog had nothing against Demik. A sensible fox, as sensible as any, who would look after her as she deserved. But he shouldn’t have let that lynx limp away to suffer.
Demik would probably have let the vixen chew his hair right off his head while she was in fur if she so desired. But why had she desired? And how had she managed to turn that particular hunt on him? Making him feel as if he were being cruel to her when she’d flopped on her back, squealing? What frustrated him was that she never had seemed to grasp why he might dislike having his hair chewed through by gnashing scissor jaws. She’d been genuinely surprised by him dropping her.
If she’d been simple that would have been one thing. But, in spite of everything, the memory and speech troubles, and silly sentimentality over wounded animals, Ondrog was quite sure she was as bright a fox as any. The vulpine race, total fox or shifter, may not be his own top choice for running mates, but they were clever: resourceful, quick, adept with languages and usually graceful at getting along with humans as well as other shifters, elegant movers and dancers—even if most could not sing worth a dead clam. Besides, they doted on their pups—or kits—when they were young, even if family ties were weak compared to wolves.
Ondrog was not above appreciating their good qualities, even if they reeked and screamed like night terrors. Summit was no different: a clever, quick, screaming vixen. Who just happened to have forgotten so much of the world that she saw it in a very different way from the rest of them—leading her into dead ends such as being unable to comprehend why she couldn’t chew up his hair.
No explaining to her. Like a toddling pup, it seemed they simply had to wait for her to grow—in this case, her memory to return. At the same time, she possessed certain habits that seemed plenty grown up; quick understanding and observing, both sharp and sexy. How could one creature be so enchanting and confusing? Innocent and worldly? Seeming to love deeply, yet so fast and so many? How could such a love also be a pure truth?
Ondrog’s paws flashed through the brush. His lope was long, smooth, tireless as he covered mile after mile. The tiny fox’s musky scent was close when something flashed by: two animals flying from cover in a rush, straight across his path.
Ondrog never hesitated or checked his stride. With the blaze of motion came the drive to chase, to catch—eat, survive. With a twist and dash to his right, he sprang after the two spindle-legged creatures, tall as himself, but all leg like that tiny fox. Their motions were lightning, their panic strong in his nose and ears, their stick legs mere blurs of light.
He preferred to take the old rather than young. Yet, if young offered itself, he would not turn down Moon’s blessing.
A burst of speed, a sprint to the river, a splash, a turn, and the wolf’s jaws closed around the short, rough coat, straining muscles and hot flesh, while its twin rocketed off up the river.
Chapter 6
He did not eat. He should have. He was famished. While the foxes had feasted on voles, deer mice, and frogs while they’d spent hours in fur over the past few days and nights, snacking on everything they could grab and eat on the trail even in skin—from thimbleberries to fungi and grass—Ondrog had not eaten since their first trail day. He thought little of going a day or two without food. Something would come along. It was just now July, the Yukon’s short but overflowing season of abundance. Hardly as if he would starve.
Then he had the hot, kicking meat in his mouth, his supper served, blood pooling gently in his mouth where his fangs sank into the pulsing neck. All of a sudden, he was frantic, all but crazed with his own hunger. Starvation now seemed at hand.
Yet he did not eat.
With his jaws clamped around the base and front of the neck, above the chest, he dragged the mule deer fawn all the way back to the fox track he’d followed. Then continued with the dead weight making his jaw and neck ache, the sticks of limbs banging off his own forelegs, dragging and crashing in the brush, the sharp little hooves gouging him. Breathing hard through his nose, puffing and heaving, with his pads sweating and saliva running down his white chin and the fawn’s neck, he emerged among a clear, sunny bend in the river dotted with only a few alpine firs and bustling with evening songs of birds—which took their cues from the low angle of Sun rather than darkness in this season of midnight Sun.
The foxes seemed to be settling for an evening of putting on their fur and gambling about the sparse brush, playing at the river’s edge. Ondrog almost winced with the thought of it. The screaming they got up to when all four were in fur at once was unspeakable—an ear-bleeding din to rouse burial grounds.
Ondrog hesitated as he walked out to them, Komu having looked up from his drink and tilting his tiny head and massive ears to focus in on him while the water rushed below his black paws. Mej, wearing only woolen trousers from a human tailor, barefoot and bent for a drink beside the skinny one, followed his gaze.
Demik, looking in his bag for something and Summit, beside him, also turned.
Ondrog ignored the rest, eyes and ears for her alone, watching with a quick new pounding of his pulse as her face lit up at sight of him.
This, then, was why he hadn’t eaten? To bring food back to the pups? No. He could not even pretend to think of her like that. A feeling like bringing the meal to his mate.
She was not his anymore than he was hers. She had all these others around her. She was a fox. She was insufferable. She was a figure to be pitied, not courted.
She was … walking over to him, up on her feet and coming to meet him, her face radiant, alight with a glowing smile that showed her fine white teeth, creases at her eyes, pure open adoration. Her voice shaping his name was sweet and light and musical as a wolf’s. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen on two feet.
“Ondrog… For us? Oh, Ondrog, you’re glorious.” She used Tanana instead of her own fox speech for him without missing a word. “All on your own? You are so strong.”
Her boney fingers were soft on his cheek as she stroked his face. He held the fawn up to her. Like holding up an anvil, and only then, in the strain of pride that led him to the offering, did he become aware that his tail wagged.
Wagging his tail at her like a yearling? Bringing her supper like a denning mate? What ailed him?
She already had her own kind. He needed his. Yet he did not have his own kind. Which, perhaps, was why he could not resist her. At any other time he surely would have been immune to her whimsical charms and breathtaking smile and gentle touch. That touch—leaning into her, finally resting the young mule deer at her feet, then gazing up at her—should not have felt so overwhelming. Only he could not remember the last time anyone had touched him, skin or fur, for any reason.
Summit, with her sweepingly long hair at her back in a fresh braid that one of the dog-foxes must have made for her, bent over him with hands running along each side of his face and into his ruff. She kissed his head between his brows, soft and sweet, and pressed her forehead to his.
“Thank you, Ondrog. You’re very brave. We’re proud you allowed us into your pack.”
Brave? The fawn, even a growing July fawn, was one third of his size. It had taken no courage to catch the beast, only fast instincts and faster paws. As to her pride, he had not “allowed” anything one way or another. They were simply traveling together to aid her. And that bit about “we” also made him wonder. By the looks on the faces of the three dog-foxes they were not of one mind with the vixen.
He only noticed when she stepped back and opened her hands on a deep breath that his Moon-cursed tail was still wagging as he gazed at her face.
“We’ll have a fire. It will clear the mosquitoes. There’s wood and open ground here at the river. We’ll roast the meat and eat in skin and then we can talk and enjoy.” She beamed aroun
d at all four—as if proclaiming her discovery for all their benefit of the Lake of Ever-Life. “Can’t we have a fire, Demik?” Turning, clasping her hands together. “Komu? Would you like to change and join us? Or stay? You might want to go back later?”
Demik was nodding.
“I’ll get us some wood,” Mej said in Tanana. “These fir branches will burn up like paper. Do you have a hatchet?”
Demik passed him a hatchet with a leather hood from his bag. Of course, self-absorbed Mej wouldn’t want to get blood all over his handsome human-made trousers. He was off to gather the wood in a flash, leaving the preparation of the fawn for the fire to Demik.
“Do you want to eat?” Summit asked Ondrog. “We’ll have to get everything ready and it will be a dull wait. When did you eat?” She stroked his head. “You go on, here by the river and help break it up for us. Have all you want. There’s plenty for us no matter what. Then you can change when you like and sit with us.”
It was true, it seemed. Foxes didn’t eat much, snacking on anything they could find rather than one big feast when they could manage a kill.
The odors would attract bears to the carcass so Ondrog dragged the body twenty more paces to the river bank, right into the edge of the current so they could clean up, before he tore back the flesh of a haunch to begin. It was still hot, the taste of blood bursting on his tongue, the flesh tender as salmon—opposite to the elderly, stringy doe or lame, tough buck he would usually have brought down.
He tore and gulped a dozen pounds of meat, until his muzzle was wet to the eyes and he remembered his “pack.” Really, he only remembered her.
Ondrog stepped back, regarding the fawn. Had he left her enough? Slowing his pace, he gobbled another couple of pounds of meat, leaving the nourishing liver and heart for her, then retreated with a severed hind leg to chew the bones and the tiny hoof.
Stomach bulging, he looked up with the limb in his jaws.
Fox's Quest: A Foxy Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (Foxes of the Midnight Sun Book 2) Page 3