Fox’s Dawn: A Foxy Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (Foxes of the Midnight Sun Book 1)

by K. R. Alexander

  What could be more an exact manifestation of Earth Mother’s blessed messengers?

  All that was left to be seen now was where she would lead them. What would that message contain after pure love and light and the gift of a mate and a future? Would she take them to more foxes? The silver foxes? Would she guide them to a new home? Could they escape this slow death at the hands of trapped lands and dependence on humanity?

  He didn’t know what might happen with her next, how she might surprise him, what joy or wonder she had yet to spring on him. But he was certain that surprises from her had only begun.

  No holding back any more. She’d had to teach him that. She’d showed him last night she knew what she was doing. Although he was terrified for her, afraid of her getting out in the harsh world and throwing herself at other males—his own denmates were bad enough—otherwise he was going to trust her now. He was going to follow where she led. His own doubts, own fears and cynicism, had trapped him at first. If he doubted her, if he questioned Earth Mother, or, by action or thought, blocked powers she put out, he might find himself lost in his own shortcomings when all he needed was blind faith.

  He would do it. He would trust in Earth Mother and the guide she had sent.

  This guide had gazed into the eyes of a stranger and felt nothing but love. So strong she had not even flinched at that monstrosity—the black city of filth and sickness and suffering. So loving she had promised herself to the two males who most needed her in the settlement not only without hesitation, but with pure joy—for no clear reason.

  Was she mortal? Of course. She needed his protection, his devotion, and the whole clan’s support around her. She needed their help as much as they needed hers. But a normal mortal? All of this just happening along? All falling into place without the touch of the Great Spirits behind it? Absolutely not.

  He’d spoken to his sire when he’d fetched their breakfasts that morning. Qualin agreed Earth Mother’s kiss was in every line of this story. That much he agreed upon, as did other elders. When Demik tried briefly to explain his fervor that she was in fact a bit of Earth Mother manifest, a spirit of love to guide them to the clan’s next phase of being, his sire’s smile had become far too understanding.

  “Young love is always a sign of Earth Mother’s touch,” he’d said—so he did not really understand at all.

  Demik would have to keep his extra knowing about this vixen to himself. They could think what they would—including that he was simply besotted, making him think such wild things as she was a wood fairy, one of the ancient kindred spirits of the Mother. Neither were true. Yes, he loved her like he couldn’t believe, not only for the power, but the speed of it. Loved her so her image filled his mind, her voice stayed in his ears like a cherished song, her smile made him lightheaded, her aroma made his heart race. Also yes, he understood about the kindred spirits. He’d seen them before. Skipping lights and strange, friendly creatures that played with their own shadows or rode upon a fox’s brush while he hunted. But they had fled. They always fled around humans. Now Dawson City was a blight to them. They no longer flittered about the Yukon River. Anyway, a kindred could not become a pure physical person like this vixen any more than Demik could become a pine tree.

  No, he knew what he was seeing. She was a direct child of the Mother. A mortal vixen with the spirit of the Creator inside her.

  The elders would see in time. They would all see once she had saved them, delivered them from human pestilence, brought them new kits for a generation of starting over.

  In the meantime, he must keep such knowledge to himself. Least of all could he talk to her about it. Even she did not know.

  Perhaps best that he had no other friends with whom to confide such a thing. His brother-in-law was a devout fox. Demik was fond of Vicos. But even he would side with Qualin. It didn’t cross Demik’s mind to talk to his denmates about it. Komu was hardly a grown yearling—not worth talking to about anything unless it was card games or human social habits. While Komu’s mentor was far worse. Mej had no more use for the lore of their people and tales of Earth Mother than Demik had for human beings.

  To hear Mej mention the name Earth Mother with that gently mocking tone he used turned Demik’s stomach. Another reason he wished the vixen would stay away from Mej. But it wasn’t his choice. Whatever she did, Demik had to trust her. As long as she did not actually throw herself into clear danger, such as something involving a human, he would grant her that trust. He must be her follower, open to her lessons.

  Anyway, her interest in Mej could be a touch from the Mother as well. Who, out of every fox in the settlement, needed divine guidance in his life more than Mej?

  Now, on this third day since her arrival, Demik was tuned to her every move and word.

  He walked onto the bridge with her while the river roared below them. He meant to wait, let her look around and think over the place. But her hand rested on a plank for the bridge’s rotting rail and he moved his to cover hers without thinking.

  She looked around at him, her smile like a thousand perfect dreams, sending his pulse quickening, leaving his mouth dry, his eyes hardly able to focus. She flipped her hand to squeeze his, palm to palm. Her eyes on his were radiant.

  “I was born here,” she said, beaming, her voice just audible above the tumbling spray.

  Demik felt an extra chill shoot down his spine. “I know,” he whispered back, unsure she even heard in the noise while she again smiled out over the water.

  Chapter 21

  They walked upriver, picking their ways slowly since there was no real trail, staying in close sight of water. The vixen watched for anything familiar. Demik watched for signs of other foxes.

  Though they spoke little, she was trying new words, often mouthing something, then singing when he taught her a lullaby for kits. Her voice was pretty but very soft.

  Often, she stood still with her nose toward something—a leaf, or spray of water—before she remembered she could reach out and feel with her fingers. Then she would laugh—laugh at things like the fuzz of a caterpillar, or the way sunlight and shade from leaf patterns dappled her fingers. These moments made Demik’s heart soar.

  Following, or observing her off to his left or right while they walked and climbed along the steep bank, Demik weaved through a maze of emotions. One moment a tender protectiveness took him, wherein he wanted only to cradle her and let nothing unpleasant near, oversee her sleep, whisper his love. In another, he fantasized of a dozen ways they could stop and join their bodies again, picturing the scene from the outside: mating with her in every scenario, from breathless seconds, only opening the cord on his trousers, to hours in shade of the aspen trees, both naked in their skin.

  In another step he imagined his future with her. They would meet her clan, strong young foxes somewhere around here, ready to join the Aaqann River Clan, to merge two into one, return to the old ways, striking out with strength of numbers and wisdom of seasoned travelers. They would go west or north or east—as long as it was not south to more humans.

  In spring there would be a kit. Joy of that idea alone drove other fantasies with her from his mind for a time. Yet, was she well enough?

  He studied her as she sank to her hip on a boulder and leaned to whitewater for a drink. She was terribly thin but that would change. She needed good food and a chance to recover. Then? She was still small, a delicate frame that hardly seemed suited to kits. Even so, she was not frail: lithe with muscle despite her thinness. He had to trust.

  She’d eaten well—other than last morning with the wolf—but it was still a diet of fish and vegetables. Red meat was a luxury this time of year. They would hunt in their skin, bring in deer, then a moose for winter. They froze meat in caches while thieving bears went into hibernation.

  Would she want to stop her changes after August anyway? That was up to the mother. A dog-fox had little say in whether he ever had kits.

  The young vixen climbed the rocks to him and offered her tightly
cupped hands.

  Demik drank, finding most of the cool water had slipped through, but he sucked up the rest and licked across her palms and fingers while she giggled.

  Tasting her, running his tongue up the grooves of her skin, sent shivers through his whole body. He breathed with his nose against her cold hand, shutting his eyes while she watched him. His body responded to her far too quickly and powerfully with the heat in his groin while he pictured options from his fantasies.

  Right here seemed best. However, they stood on rocks hovering over a rushing river. Five feet above was a stand of aspens that they’d just been weaving through.

  Demik looked up, breathing too fast. The vixen’s rich skin also appeared flushed, her eyes shining into his as she smiled at him. She was always doing that without knowing how it affected him—so natural, so honest, charms overflowing from her like that laughter.

  He kissed her, pulling her hands against his chest. Her lips were warm and full despite her thinness. The contact seemed to surge straight from his mouth to his groin. Demik pulled away, despite her having parted her lips for him. He caught his breath, stepping back and tugging gently at her hand so she would follow before she might lean into him and feel his penis straining his trousers.

  A darting squirrel caught both their attentions, making Demik remember they were supposed to be observing more than one another.

  “Have you seen anything familiar?” he asked as she stepped up among the trees beside him.

  “The river.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, head on his shoulder in trusting contentment.

  Demik kissed her nose, ready to simply hold on, return the embrace for a moment of enjoying one another’s heartbeats before they continued. Instead, she turned her face up, seeking his mouth, and he kissed her again. Too many feelings beyond love for one touch. Lust and longing, compassion and calm, zeal to guard and care for this new, undamaged, wide-eyed soul, mixed with fear that he could never be enough.

  She untwined her arms to hold his face in long hands, still cold with the river’s kiss, but making him shiver for entirely different reasons. Her touches strengthened, leaning in with hands and body as she kissed him. Now she would feel his arousal. He certainly felt her, pressing close with hips and belly, her body along his.

  He mirrored the hold to her face, thinking of where the ties were on her dress. At the sides. But she didn’t need it off anyway.

  He drew his hands down her arms, sides, hips, imagining having her here. Standing against the aspens or lying on the ground, wherever she pulled him, he could already feel the ecstasy, almost a panicky sensation with the urgency that followed.

  His breaths were ragged as he felt her skirt, ducking in to kiss her neck, tongue on her throat, taking in a fresh drag of her scent. His balls felt tight way too soon.

  She reached for his belt, laughing and swaying back as he apparently tickled her neck. He tried to show her by pulling up her skirt. Still, she was opening his belt, letting it fall, then reaching for his trousers below the tunic. Demik prayed she would stop: tend to herself, not him. If she touched him it would be too much. He would push against her hand and lose himself. Yet she clearly had no idea how intense this was for him.

  She kissed his jaw, nibbled his neck, then pulled back slightly, her hands on his waist below the tunic, eyes focusing beyond him, and said, “Who are you?”

  Demik whipped his upper body around to follow her gaze, still holding her against him.

  He blew out a breath. It was only the wolf.

  Ondrog stood a mere twenty steps from them in the sunny grove. Although sure he had not been deliberately spying—a hare dangled from the wolf’s mouth; he’d been out for lunch—Demik felt irritated nonetheless. How was he supposed to look after her, watch over her and help her find her people, if he couldn’t keep his ears open enough to catch a prowling wolf or a rambling bear? This time it was Ondrog. But next time?

  He hadn’t even brought a rifle. Never crossed his mind until this moment when the wolf’s golden eyes met his. Fine for Demik. He never rambled with a rifle on his own unless actually hunting. If he got into a bind with a moose or a bear, he could change into fur. If he got into a bind with humans he couldn’t shoot anyway. Shooting a human, no matter how much they deserved it, could result in all manner of torment rained down upon his people. He couldn’t shoot a human even to save his own life. He’d seen what had happened to a member of the Hän tribe who’d had the nerve to shoot a white for that reason.

  But out with her? For bear or moose, for the million dangers he must respect in this land when he had her to watch over? What sort of fool was he? One who did not deserve her respect. Much less her love and her bed.

  The vixen was oblivious to any danger or concern. She smiled into the huge wolf’s eyes, tipping her head to lean into Demik’s shoulder as she watched the hunter.

  “He’s lovely,” she said softly.

  “That’s Ondrog,” Demik said tersely, mentally kicking himself.

  What must the wolf think? Seeing him out here defenseless? Ondrog was harmless enough, but he knew something about the thousands of circumstances in the north that were not harmless.

  “Is it?” she breathed, her brilliant, heart-melting smile returning. “It’s nice to see you, Ondrog.”

  He cocked his head, the hare flopping dismally in his heavy jaws, its joints loose from recent death.

  “He can’t understand you,” Demik said. “Remember, he speaks Tanana, along with other Na-Dene languages and the wolf tongue, Lucannis.”

  She paused, then tried with Tanana, speaking carefully. “It’s nice to see you,” she repeated

  Perhaps he was also startled she was speaking at all. He’d met her only yesterday morning and she’d been mute.

  Uncomfortable, Demik mumbled, “She’s … relearning to talk. Quite well.”

  “Singing got me started,” the vixen told Ondrog. “Thank you for your wisdom.”

  He still stared.

  Demik also glanced at her, then back to the wolf. This was becoming more awkward than it should have been. The situation and lack of rifle was embarrassing enough. Now the wolf also had to make a big deal of everything.

  Ondrog studied them for another moment. He was as large as the most massive Mackenzie River wolf, his coat gray on top, flowing into white. His luxurious pelt, even in summertime when total wolves’ coats shed out and they seemed to have lost half their bulk, was thick and full. His nose was jet black, eyes bright gold, intense and fixed as a hawk’s.

  Demik could almost see what the vixen meant—that he was “lovely” in his own way. But there was nothing more than a grudging respect. Demik marveled that the lumbering beast had ever managed to catch a hare. It must have been a particularly stupid or slow specimen.

  He had nothing against wolves as long as they stayed away from him and his people. Close proximity only brought home differences between their species.

  Wolves couldn’t seem to do anything unless bunched in packs, the most needy, excessively sociable predators in the country. All this close bonding resulted in large hunts, tearing around the north upsetting herds of deer, elk, caribou—even stirring up killer moose like the thick-heads they were.

  If that wasn’t enough noise and mess, they ate like sinkholes, fought over their share, allowed their pups to run all over the place, making all the noise they liked, and—just when everything settled down—they sang. Oh, Earth Mother, the singing. Dawn and dusk, night and noon—if you were a wolf, every time was a good time for a song. They sang to keep in touch, sang when they got together, sang for hunts, mates, and elders, and sang prayers to their goddess, Moon.

  Demik also had nothing against music. His family liked a good dance, a drumbeat, a flute or a singalong now and then as much as the next. But throwing an occasional party or celebrating the breakup of the ice and Earth Mother’s return to green with an evening’s dance was not the same as getting together for a group song every few hours.

 
Besides that, when the wolves were in skin, they made him uncomfortable. They were so damn big. The males between six feet tall and six-six, sometimes taller, the females not much slighter. Even Demik was taller than many of the feeble human miners who came clawing their ways down the Yukon. Ondrog, though, was something else. Perhaps six-four in skin, always wearing a headband with raven feathers jutting from it and walking with great, authoritative strides, claiming everything around him at a glance, his presence was the size of a mountain.

  Demik and his people might be muscly as well, besides lighter, faster, smarter, more independent, more cunning, less tethered to movements of the caribou or elk. But none of that kept Demik from feeling, in the deepest hidden places of his heart, intimidated by the wolf. Even now, when there was no pack and Ondrog was the only one left of his people.

  Not that Ondrog had ever challenged him. Far from it, he was of some use watching kits when called on, and hunting with them in the autumn. Demik had seen Tem ride on his back in fur while she squealed with delight and twisted her tiny fists into his gray coat. Wolves adored kits—pups to them—and Ondrog had his uses living on the verge of the settlement for the past two winters.

  No, he was all right. It was simply the unease of his presence, lurking out there with his great span of shoulders in skin, or two-inch fangs in fur. It wasn’t natural that they should be putting up with a wolf at their door. While it was Demik’s own shame that the impassive wolf made him nervous. Unfortunately for all, Ondrog, like the Aaqann River Clan, had nowhere else to go.

  Even the least wolf-loving foxes in the clan still did not wish the fate of the lone, roaming wolf on Ondrog. They might prefer him gone, but wouldn’t actually drive him out.

  So, while Earth Mother’s spirit vixen smiled upon him and his loveliness, Demik internally flinched, wishing he were a better and braver person himself. Her kindness and sweet spirit were things to be admired. Her insisting they leave the wolf breakfast yesterday had been misguided but the soul of her gesture still touched him.