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

by K. R. Alexander

  Perhaps it had touched the typically emotionless wolf as well. He stood in silence for some time while Demik caught his breath and the vixen gazed back, smiling her exquisite smile into his fixed golden eyes.

  Ondrog had been heading west, back the way they’d come and presumably making for the footbridge to get home and eat his lunch, either as he was, or changing to skin; cooking it so he could preserve the fur and offer scraps to his abundant raven friends.

  Instead, the gray wolf stared at them for a long time. Though Demik felt uneasy, old tensions mounting as he watched the huge carnivore, the vixen only leaned in, holding Demik’s hand—totally relaxed and happy to stop in their business and gaze admiringly at a wolf.

  Demik thought again of having warned her about humans. She hadn’t seemed to take in anything he’d said. If only she could grasp how any human in that city would shoot this “man-eating devil” on sight—not bothering about the pelt. Shoot or poison or trap it just for the sake of its death, hoping it suffered along the way. But he could never tell her something like that. It was the sort of thing Demik didn’t want her to have to know.

  After a long, quiet moment, Ondrog paced forward. The soft grays and whites of his coat rippled with his long strides. Sleek guard hairs glinted in sun and shade patches below the leaves.

  He walked up to them, lowered his head, and gently rested the brown snowshoe hare by the vixen’s moccasins.

  “For us?” She beamed at him, kneeling.

  While Demik’s heart beat quicker in alarm at the sight, she wrapped her arms around the massive mane of pale fur, her touch gentle, not squeezing like a clueless kit. She kissed his nose as she drew back.

  “Thank you,” she said in Tanana. “We’ll come to supper with you.”

  Both males stared at her.

  Ondrog hesitated, backed a couple of steps, then looked around to the kneeling, smiling vixen. He appeared bewildered. Or else Demik was projecting. Certainly the wolf had never been treated like that by a fox before.

  This time, looking at her, the wolf wagged his tail—only a few inches side to side. He walked away.

  She popped back up into Demik’s bemused face like a toy on a string. “Look at this.” Brandishing the dead hare at him, dangling by long hind feet. She spoke in Vulpen. “Wasn’t that a noble gift?”

  Noble? Perhaps getting confused with her words, going back and forth.

  “Oh…”

  “May we take it home? Can we share? I’ll cook it for … no … I can’t remember how…” A frown creased her brows.

  “Let’s cut our walk short and have a cooking lesson.” Demik’s smile brought hers leaping back, giving him a simple thrill that he found intoxicating.

  “You don’t mind if we stop looking?” she asked. “I haven’t seen anything familiar.”

  “We’ll keep up the search later. May I?” He took the hare and gave her his free arm, which she held with both hands, listing cooking instruments she could remember by name.

  Demik encouraged her to talk while they went. Mostly, though, he meditated on this lesson. Whatever she did, wherever she led him, it came from Earth Mother. So this thing with the wolf must have a reason, a place in the scheme of things. Could Ondrog help them? Or was it bigger than that? About different shifter species working together? The foxes needed to find another clan. Ondrog had lost his pack. The vixen was searching for her family.

  Earth Mother had plans for them. Demik only wished he could see a bit farther ahead rather than following those plans so blindly.

  Chapter 22

  Gutting, skinning, and cooking that hare with the vixen for their lunch made this one of the best days of Demik’s life.

  She was right with him, helping and touching, saying the blessing of bounty and thanks to Earth Mother over the body held between them, then listening intently while he talked to her about hunting and cooking.

  Kits raced past. Adults gutted the morning’s catch around communal fires. The vixen gave Tem her three spinning tops, then she and Demik joined in their game with the fourth.

  He was supposed to be working on boat repairs. Instead, the whole afternoon was spent in closeness, laughter, food, and a happiness he had seldom known. Happiness fueled on her endless smiles, her ideas for games with the tops, her help and nearness, her voice and the way she touched him—as if they’d been holding hands all their lives.

  Her speech was still careful, though already transformed from the evening before. Now she sounded only as if she were thinking about what she said—rather than that she was struggling with the sounds themselves.

  He pressed more and more of the hare on her, overjoyed by her enthusiasm as she devoured the meal. Demik only wished he’d actually been the provider. Next time.

  Then she asked about his canoes, apparently forgetting they should be concerned with matters of her name and her past, not his life. Even so, Demik did not hesitate to show her.

  She eagerly joined in his work—sanding and sealing cracks, patching old hulls. Until she got pitch on the end of her long braid that had fallen forward over her shoulder.

  Demik started to lead her to the riverbank, where they could rub gravel through it. Instead, the vixen, untroubled, took stock of the sticky mess, grabbed the wonderfully sharp hatchet that was used for scraping down splintery edges, and, with her braid on a discarded board, chopped off the end.

  Too late, Demik ran forward, protesting in horror that she mustn’t cut her hair. It was her crowning beauty, a sign of her people and her history. She couldn’t go around chopping her hair like some common human. He just stopped himself making reference to Mej and Komu’s shameful short hair that looked like many white men.

  She laughed him off, holding up the tail of tarry hair. “Only a hand-length.” Then, seeing how upset he was, she dropped hair and hatchet and embraced him, kissing his jaw.

  “It didn’t harm me,” she assured him. “Only hair. It grows. But I’m sorry I hurt you.”

  “No, I…” Demik felt stupid, his neck hot. “You’re right. I should have warned you about the pitch. It was my fault.”

  Then, of course, she had to chop off the other side to match, no matter her apologies or his having to turn away from the sight.

  Before they could move on, Mej and Komu walked up the bank from an afternoon’s fishing. Both were in high spirits, recovered from their hangovers, showing off their catches to the vixen—who reacted with entirely too much delight and praise, as if they’d brought down a charging bear with their fists.

  “We have something for you,” Mej told her, jerking his head for them to follow to the dens.

  Her eyes sparkled as she did so, like a kit promised a surprise.

  Komu tried to give her his string of grayling. She kissed his cheek, making even his ears darken, and said she couldn’t.

  “We’re having supper with Ondrog later. Would you come?” Her speech accelerated with her excitement. “Would you bring the fish? We could all be there.” Clasping her hands together with joy for this overwhelming idea.

  Mej and Komu stopped to stare at her. They looked at each other, then Demik—who regarded the treeline—then back to the vixen.

  “Huh?” Mej said after a resounding silence.

  “Demik and I are having supper with Ondrog. Would you come? With fish?”

  Komu, no doubt remembering that kiss on his cheek, was the first to recover. “We’d love to. I’ll bring my whole string for you.”

  “Thank you.” She took his free hand in both of hers—as she had an endearing habit of doing especially for Demik, he’d thought—and walked on with him toward their den.

  The other two trailed. Demik didn’t often agree with Mej. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time it had happened. Now, though, he saw they were in agreement. Demik valued how sweet and kind she was. He only wished she were more selective about it.

  “He’s so lonely,” the vixen continued to Komu, who was nodding along, a dazed look on his guileless face. Demik
would have liked Komu if not for Komu’s worshipful following of Mej. And this.

  “Besides angry and keeps to himself,” Mej added to her. “I shouldn’t like to spoil the fun, beautiful, but you might want to leave that wolf to his own hunts.”

  “He’s not angry.” She turned, pulling Komu to a stop. “He’s sad. Can’t you see that? If he is angry, it’s only sadness, which is loneliness. Sometimes sadness looks like anger from outside.”

  They watched her in silence, Demik wishing she would hold his hand instead.

  “All right…” Mej said slowly.

  “He only needs a pack of his own and you won’t let him have one,” she said.

  “Let him?” Mej sputtered on his own tongue. “He’s a wolf!” He nearly shouted. “We’re not wolves and we’re not his pack. We don’t mind him hanging about, and we don’t mind our own skulks of two or three, but if he wants a pack why doesn’t he go off and find one?”

  A crease came to her smooth brows, thinking that over. She looked to Demik. “Alone? He would die, wandering alone, wouldn’t he?”

  Demik hesitated. “It’s not easy for a lone wolf. He wouldn’t know where to go and, if he went in fur, which would be the only way to travel long distances efficiently, he’d risk being shot or trapped by any man along the way.”

  She squeezed Komu’s hand, dropping her troubled gaze. “Anyway, he shouldn’t wander. He’s already so terribly lonely.”

  “How do you know?” Mej, it seemed, was just refraining from rolling his eyes. “You just sniffed the wolf.”

  “Can’t you see it? He had sitting mats all around his fire. Not only for him. All around. Enough for a group. But no one ever comes. You didn’t even mean to have breakfast with him.”

  The three dog-foxes hesitated, no one looking at each other. Komu bit his lip. Mej kicked a stone.

  Demik had never thought of it. All summer the wolf had those mats out for a phantom pack to join him. All winter, even in the deepest snow, he kept a full circle cleared around his fire. Demik had paused at his fire himself on winter nights when he needed to catch his breath on snowshoes or warm his ears after a night’s tracking in fur. They were not social visits, but he did stop once or twice. He’d never thought much of it. Never thought that impassive Ondrog was deliberately waiting, hoping a fox, of all people, would stop and sit with him. It was other wolves Ondrog needed, but there was no point in leaving out the mats for them.

  After a painful pause, Mej shrugged.

  “We’ll meet him tonight. Before we go into town,” Komu said, offering the vixen a tentative smile. “Maybe he’ll like that?”

  “He will.” Her own smile returned. “We can be his pack.”

  “What did you say?” Mej rubbed his hair back and forth.

  Komu mouthed soundlessly.

  “We’ll be his pack,” the vixen repeated, her sunny smile spreading once more. “That’s what he needs. And we need.”

  “We do?” Mej’s mouth remained limp after the two syllables.

  Demik simply stood there, caught up in that one image last winter:

  The wolf’s fire blazing in the darkness of a late afternoon, new snow without crust making Demik flounder, exhausted, from the drifts. Ondrog, looking like a bear in his own skin and wrapped in those of other animals to stay warm by his fire while he cooked frozen moose meat, had nodded to him. Demik sprawled, panting, with his beautiful brush trailing behind and his ears numb. Ondrog had pulled a wolverine skin from his own back and wrapped it over Demik’s whole body while Demik struggled to curl his brush to his nose. He’d fallen asleep, waking perhaps hours later—it was dark before and dark after—to find himself curled beside the giant, who was carving a moose bone, able to work with his hands in the intense cold only as long as he kept them close to the fire. Demik had stretched, shook, and soon gone on. He’d thought no more of it. Now, though, he wondered how the wolf had felt about him stopping by.

  Komu was taking the initiative for once, leading them on, changing the subject from the lone wolf to a gift he’d bought her from town last night.

  Reaching their den, Komu ran to the back flap. He returned clutching a paper sack that he presented to the vixen with an abashed grin that made him look more like a kit than ever.

  She inhaled, opened it, stuck her nose in, sucking down another deep breath, and gave a little hop of delight. She kissed his cheek once more, then eagerly shared around the sweets. Licorice and nougat, horehound and cinnamon, hard cherry candy and sticky caramels in wax paper. But her favorite—when Komu proudly explained he’d picked out an assortment just so she could ascertain—were the pink strawberry bonbons covered in powdered sugar.

  “It’s a wonderful place,” she told Komu after savoring various odors and flavors, “where one can find such things.” Beaming into the bag, then catching herself and looking around at Demik. Her smile faltered. “Nothing is all bad, surely? Not even humans.”

  Demik shrugged and looked away.

  She had been sent to teach them that not only were wolves good “packmates,” but that humans were all right as well? That was it?

  Demik would just as soon believe she’d been sent to turn them all into muskrats.

  Still, she was the guide. Doubt was not trust. Questioning was not following. And this path, it seemed, was not going to be an easy one.

  After the candies, they had to pay a call to the stray vixens, who were already finishing up pieces of traditional summer attire for their newcomer. Seeing her try on tunic and skirt over the top of her dress there in the sun before the vixens’ den, Demik forgot about humans in a fresh wave of admiration for her. She was so beautiful, and these were the clothes that complemented her, adding rather than detracting from that image.

  The dogs had been fed and kits called in before the four of them, with a string of gutted grayling, a salad bowl, and a paper bag with several candies remaining, walked from the settlement to join the wolf for supper.

  Chapter 23

  Night 3

  Ondrog fixed us supper: venison cooked on a blackened ribcage in the open fire. Hot and dark on the outside, pink and sweet and bloody on the inside. They were so delicious I ate two steaks. I shouldn’t, should I…? A vixen had to move, dart and hunt, chase and dodge. One did not simply eat like … a wolf. I couldn’t help myself. Here with my friends, safe with my mates, how could I worry about hunting and dodging?

  Surely I’d had more rich and filling meals today than ever before in my life. Surely I’d never had such wonderful company to share those meals. Time to indulge.

  Komu brought Ondrog his fish catch. I shared candy from Dawson City. Demik brought a salad with salmonberries and white and golden mushrooms, flavored with salmon oil. Speaking little, they seldom looked right at each other—regarding the horizon or their meals.

  My mouth watered while we waited for venison to cool enough to pick up. Smells of the wood fire and roast meat took me to somewhere before, another fire with another fox, meat and hot blood trickling down my chin. We had talked so much. What had we said? What had he called me?

  I savored and tried to remember until I discovered only Ondrog and I were eating.

  “We’re all here for supper,” I explained since they seemed confused, thinking they’d come to watch me eat. I offered around more steaks, burning my fingers on grease.

  Ondrog had already put extra on the black ribcage. There was plenty. That was why I decided I could have a second when they were ready, even though my stomach had to stretch.

  “Your hare was the nicest I ever ate,” I told Ondrog while we waited on the next batch, the dog-foxes just starting theirs.

  “How do you know it was?” Ondrog frowned. He was in his skin again, with buckskin tunic and trousers over. I loved his headband—the way black feathers caught sunlight and gleamed, the way it suited his strong face and big, powerful form.

  “It must have been,” I told him. “It couldn’t have been any nicer.”

  Glaring into the fire,
Ondrog opened his mouth. After a pause, he shut it.

  Demik passed me the birch salad bowl. I ate berries and a mushroom. They didn’t taste sweet after the candies from Komu. I passed it back.

  Ondrog said, “Did you … uncover any trace regarding your clan?”

  “Not yet. We’ll hunt tomorrow.” I smiled up at him.

  Ondrog nodded very slowly, as if he had to think about this for a long time. Had I remembered to speak Tanana? Yes. Had I made my sounds properly? Yes. I was pretty sure.

  We sat. Ondrog turned steaks with an iron fork.

  We sat more.

  I sank into peace with Earth below me and evening bird calls while the evening remained warm: bright sun, smells from the fire, these four around me. I sighed, shutting my eyes with the smoke, tired with the food and long day, still eager for more of both.

  I inhaled them, listened, taking them in as well as I could with weak ears and nose. Demik, my salvation, close on my right. Ondrog, on my left, also near and needing me. Mej, my helper, teacher of words, lacer of dresses, ready to be more. Komu, giver of gifts, bringer of sweets and fish and eggs. He had promised more: a whole bag of bonbons next time. I must give him something in return. Since I had nothing material besides a few articles of clothing and a spinning top, perhaps I could fix him a meal, or help with a task.

  “We…” Demik cleared his throat. “We’ll go tomorrow, follow the river upstream. She was battered and half-drowned by this point. So … if we follow it…” He cleared his throat again.

  I watched, unable to think why he was uncomfortable.

  Ondrog nodded, still slow. “You’ll want several Moons to make an adequate search of it. There’s the logging camp two or three Suns out. A Tutchone Tribe much farther east.”

  “Oh … I suppose?” Demik said. “We haven’t been very focused yet.”

  Ondrog studied the steaks.

  Komu looked into the fire. Mej rubbed his hair backward and looked up at the raven on a tepee pole. Demik picked out the remaining berries from the salad to give to me.

  We sat.