Vixen (The Fox and Hound Book 1)

by Catherine Labadie

  “You’re kidnapping me?” I look toward the back seat he gestures to. There’s a shopping bag full of marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers. My

  stomach grumbles, and I realize I’m hungry after all the dancing. Speaking of dancing…

  “I was on a date,” I say, wondering how this curiously assertive version of Duncan will react. He doesn’t disappoint me: there’s no arrogance I have to snap back at.

  “Gosh, I’m sorry…I didn’t know that,” he exclaims with real repentance. “I did see you dancing with the lion kid, but I didn’t put it together. If you want to go back I can turn around—”

  “It’s fine,” I cut him off. “You brought s’mores. I might forgive you if you explain.” I meant to make him feel better—it was important that he not feel bad for some reason—but I might have made him feel more awkward.

  “Was—was your date going well?” He asks after a moment while I try to figure out where we’re going. I realize I need to answer this for myself as well.

  “I guess so. We were flirting, but it didn’t really feel like—” Like when you and I were dancing together. Like when your hands were on me instead of his. I finish the sentence in my head, but not aloud. “I was pretty much over the party,” I admit to him and myself.

  “That’s good, I suppose.” He looks relieved.

  “So where are we going, actually?” I ask again as we exit the large, ordinarily sleepy neighborhood. My eyes pick out random details passing us by now that the elegant antique houses have given way to an un-crowded stretch of highway. I glance at the clock on the dashboard, and it surprises me that I was at the party for at least two hours. All that time dancing with Lyle. I wonder where he thinks I am? At least Shelby will

  cover for me; I’ll have to think up some family emergency worth leaving a party for.

  “I happen to know of a nice lake closer to the mountains that isn’t more than twenty minutes from this area,” Duncan says matter-of-factly. “As far as kidnappings go, this isn’t much: if you demanded I take you back to the Reiss’ place, I would. Plus, this area isn’t really too secluded…I didn’t want to seem like too much of a creeper.”

  “It’s a good plan,” I admit. “You engaged my curiosity, so I can’t leave until I find out what all this is about.”

  Duncan looks over at me with a slightly lopsided grin. “That’s not much incentive to start explaining right away.”

  “Please,” I snort. “I think it’ll take you more than a twenty minute drive to explain this.” I suddenly find the ears perched atop his head more amusing than annoying. I didn’t realize it would be easier to relax away from all those people.

  “How’s this: question for question. You ask me something, I answer, then I get to ask you something,” he proposes as we change lanes and go on one of those circular turns on the road that make me a bit dizzy. So far, we haven’t gone on any back roads yet, but I’m watching. I can’t explain how I trust Duncan, but I am keeping an eye out for my brothers’ sake. Besides, even if Duncan did have bad intentions, I’m stronger than him since I’m half-breed; it wouldn’t be too difficult to fight back or run away.

  “I’m not the one crashing parties and taking risks, so what could you possibly ask me?” I ask.

  “Well if that’s the question you want to ask first, I’ll answer, but—”

  “Hey! No, that’s not my first question!” I exclaim. “Let me think of a good one…” Now that I have the opportunity, my questions avoid my tongue like shy toddlers.

  “Five…Four…Three…” Duncan counts down teasingly.

  “All right! Why do you smell like dog under whatever cologne you’re wearing?” I blurt; turns out my words aren’t shy at all. “I mean this in the least offensive way, of course.”

  “You can smell that?” Duncan asks, sounding interested and surprised. We pass under a streetlight, and I notice he’s wearing a green, three-quarter sleeve t-shirt that looks very, very good on his chest and arms. He’s more muscular than I thought he was now that he’s in something a little more flattering than what he wears to school. Focus.

  “Is that your question?” I ask, turning the tables on him with my own sharp-toothed smile.

  “No, of course not…but I’m surprised you noticed that. Or, I guess I’m not surprised. It makes sense, considering you’re part fox and had your senses cranked up.” He reaches up to absentmindedly rub his

  hand over the dark red stubble covering his jaw, making me realize that perhaps my desire for closeness didn’t fade once I left the party.

  “Let’s just say that question will have to wait until I can show you in a few minutes…you wouldn’t believe me if I just told you,” he continues. “But so you can’t say I evaded answering…it’s the same reason I chose

  this particular costume to wear.” He gestures to the fake wolf ears on his head.

  I blink, confused; the only thing I can think of is that he let his pet dog sleep on the clothes before wearing them to get the scent. Perhaps he notices this, because he sighs in frustration.

  “Sorry…I’m being cryptic and annoying. Let’s move on, and I promise, all will be revealed soon,” he says.

  “Your turn then,” I say, relenting.

  “Okay, I’ll start with something easy: do half-breeds have to be vegetarians? Or, are most of them vegetarians?”

  I can’t help it; I laugh. “That depends on whether or not the DNA they share is of a prey or predatory nature. My friend Morgan has deer DNA, so she mostly sticks to salads and fruit. My other friends and I don’t have problems with eating meat because it’s part of our nature to need and desire meat,” I say. “I don’t know if there are lions and bears who confine themselves to bunny-food out there, but I would say it’s a rarity, and they’d be healthier if they just ate some chicken or beef now and then.”

  “That’s a relief,” Duncan mutters, probably thinking I won’t hear. “Your turn!”

  His questions are maddeningly interesting, but I know how the game works now, so I don’t dig into why he asked what.

  For the rest of the drive, we warm up by each asking a few silly questions—things like “why are you so tall?” and “how often do you give in to the urge to hunt squirrels?”—but then we fall into a rapid-fire pattern of question-answer to get the most relevant

  information across.

  “Why did you come with me tonight instead of just making me leave the party?” he asks when it’s his turn.

  “I wanted to make sure you actually got away, and it seemed like you would need my help,” I reply. In hindsight, he probably would’ve been okay on his own if he managed to get in there without setting off any alarms, but I don’t regret leaving. I keep telling myself it’s not the same, but this feels more like a date than the whole arrangement with Lyle.

  “Why did your friends act like they knew me already when we met earlier today?” I ask.

  Even though it’s dark, I see Duncan’s ears go pink. “I told them about you…I kind of had to, since

  I blew off some after-school plans with Aaden and Bari when I went to Omnium Beanery with you. Are you and Lyle going to start dating soon?”

  “What? No!” I say; if Lyle was in hearing range, I’d be embarrassed. “Why would you think that?”

  “It…it seemed like you two were having lot of fun dancing,” he says quietly.

  If I’m willing to admit I’m starting to really like Duncan in spite of nothing being able to come of it—nothing productive and nothing he would want to work for—then I understand why it’s important to me that he

  knows I’m not interested in anyone else.

  Especially Lyle, I decide in a flash. There’s no point trying to force something that won’t work.

  “How long were you at the party before you ran into me?” I ask for my next question.

  “Only a couple songs before I found you…I kind of stood to the side, looking around and taking everything

  in before I got up the nerve
to try dancing,” he confesses. “I did…I did watch you and lion boy for a little while, but that was because I was trying to figure out how to get near you without hurting anyone by trying to dance.”

  “You’re a good dancer, let me tell you,” I say, thinking back to when I grabbed Duncan’s hand and how his skin felt. It’s flattering that Duncan did watch me dance for a little. Was he jealous?

  “How—”

  “You might want to hold that thought, since we’re rapidly approaching our destination,” Duncan interrupts me as we pull into a small parking lot.

  The scent of the lake breeze drifts under my nose as we park. We’re several feet away from the gleaming, crystal clear lake reflecting the slanted moon dangling in the atmosphere. There are wooden picnic tables closer to the lake set up with grey plastic solar lanterns already charged and lit from being in the sun all day. My night vision already makes my eyes glow an ethereal green, which I can see in the rearview mirror of the car.

  “Wow,” I say as Duncan comes and opens my door, letting me out of the car like a gentleman. “I’m impressed. We don’t have a lot of areas like this near

  our half-breed neighborhood.”

  “You don’t?” He asks incredulously as he shuts my door and opens the back so he can get the s’mores materials. “That’s a shame…I think your kind might appreciate views like this more than humans.”

  “Maybe,” I hedge. The last thing I want to do is whine about how few breaks my kind gets when it

  comes to living space. “My family is lucky; we have a decent sized townhouse instead of the apartments and houses scattered around less savory neighborhoods. Comes of having a lawyer for a guardian, I guess.”

  Duncan and I discuss more trivial things as we walk towards one of the tables closest to the lake and farthest from the parking lot. I’m sensing his nervous confidence again, but I don’t comment on it. He promised to communicate, so I’ll wait until we’re set up and he feels more comfortable.

  Still, I’m so curious I could burst, and anxious as well. What could be so important that he’d risk and plan all of this?

  “So I bet you’re wondering why I summoned you,” Duncan says after skewering three marshmallows on a poker and holding a torch lighter to each one.

  “I’m madly curious,” I say as I watch blue-tongued flames lick at the dusty surface of each marshmallow. “If those are for me, I prefer charred rather than brown.”

  “So you like the taste of ashes in your mouth?” he asks with a laugh only a little flavored with nerves.

  “I suppose I’m used to it since that’s what I taste whenever I walk into school,” I quip, sniffing the heavenly smell of smoke on the air and cooking marshmallow. Duncan hands me the skewer and I sit on the bench of the table facing the lake, blowing out the flames when my treats attain the blackened appearance marshmallows need for perfection. I’m so hungry I don’t wait to eat as Duncan takes his time browning his own marshmallows.

  “Do you think of yourself as gullible, Sierra?” he asks

  once we both sit down to eat; none of us bothered with the chocolate or the graham crackers. I shake my head, knowing that if I speak he’ll only hear the sound of marshmallow gooeyness muffling my speech. “Good…if you believe me, that means I’m not crazy after all.”

  I swallow my second marshmallow with a gulp. “Seriously Duncan, what’s this about?”

  He takes a deep breath, blowing on his marshmallows to cool them. “I have a couple things to tell you and ask you, and it took me a while to figure out in which order to present the material.”

  “You sound like a student teacher,” I say, stress responding. Blessedly he ignores my word vomit, and I listen as I brush the ash out of the fur on my hands.

  “Okay…so…right. Sierra, have you ever heard of someone human developing half-breed traits?”

  “Yes, we all have. Didn’t the entire war start once enough humans began developing animal traits that the humans felt threatened?” I say, remembering the pictures in every single history class I ever took.

  Duncan nods, also wincing: the last war was the worst because it was more like an attempted extermination. For once, all the humans were allies in what they perceived was a global pest control situation.

  “Yes. And as we know, didn’t they find a scientific reason for why humans would stay human and why M-DNA people would always produce half-breed offspring?” he says, still speaking like he’s teaching a lesson. He eats one of his marshmallows whole, chewing while I think. In the back of my mind, I worry if I

  have marshmallow goo or ash stuck to my nose, and I casually brush off any residue that might be on my face. My senses are all human now as I try to think.

  “Yeah. The scientists managed to modify the contaminated DNA so we half-breeds would stay mostly human except for our senses and certain physical mutations, but you have to have a specific genetic code for the animal DNA to latch on to,” I say. “No human can just develop animal DNA out of the blue, not anymore, not if they were already born human.” A canine scent drifts right under my nose as I finish speaking: familiar, emanating from Duncan’s direction. It’s not unpleasant, and it actually overwhelms the cologne that had me so distracted at the party.

  Suddenly…

  No, I think. There’s no possible way…

  “Well, this is me breaking the mold,” Duncan says dryly, looking right into my eyes as he blinks and the unmistakable glow of night-vision gleams in his eyes that have turned tawny brown.

  19

  I don’t know how to respond. I sit frozen like a rabbit, my tail and ears quivering as I stare into Duncan’s sepia eyes; they’re brown, but tawny gold rings the outer circle of the iris. Irrelevant to the moment, I wonder if he has fur like any other half-breed.

  He’s silent, but he’s trying to show me further proof: his scent is stronger now, like he whipped a covering off a food dish—unfortunately it's equally appetizing—and I think if I tried hard enough I could determine what breed of canine DNA he has. Ridiculously, I focus again on the ears on top of his head. He can’t be a wolf, I confirm, he doesn’t have the personality.

  “Please say something,” he pleads. A dozen responses flood my mouth, rushing towards the front,

  but the weirdest one makes it through.

  “You have marshmallow on your chin,” I say woodenly. “You should probably get it before it sticks in your fur…I mean, your beard.”

  Duncan blinks, and now that my eyes have adjusted to the dim lighting of the lantern on the table and to the moonlight, I miss the peridot green I’d learned to enjoy.

  “That’s not quite the something I meant,” he says, brushing the marshmallow away with his fingertips. I self-consciously brush at my nose again, hoping there’s nothing on my face.

  “You’re right…I don’t believe you,” I say. “But then…I do. You wouldn’t risk sharing this knowledge with someone you’ve only known a week unless you had proof.” I don’t want to be the silly girl who goes into denial with all the proof right in front of her.

  “You’re right,” he says. “I do. I…Sierra, you’re the only half-breed I can trust right now. I’ve been going out of my mind since this began months ago, wondering if I’ve gone crazy, or what all this will lead to. But…never mind that. I have more proof.”

  I nod. “So far, I can see your eyes have turned, and you reek of dog,” I don’t mention how much I actually like his smell. “I don’t know how you mask your scent against half-breeds, but any proof you can give me that your DNA spontaneously mutated would be helpful.” I’m proud of myself for not shouting or bolting away from this strange boy with his strange mixed scents and the voice that makes me want to nuzzle against his neck and trust more than I should.

  “Okay,” Duncan says. “I should thank you for your

  open mind, but I know your instincts are going absolutely crazy right now. If it’s any consolation, mine are too. I’ve never told anyone else about this.”

  �
��Just…explain. I believe you, I can’t deny it, but…” I squeeze out the words haltingly.

  “Okay,” Duncan says, and then he smiles. It’s not the real smile I like, but it serves a purpose: I see how sharp his canines are now, how they’re a little bigger

  than even my slightly pointy teeth. He stands up suddenly—well, suddenly to me—watching me very carefully, and moving slower than usual to make sure I don’t startle.

  “This part is a little weird…but bear with me,” he says with a strained chuckle.

  I haven’t moved, and I clutch my tail tightly as it rests in my lap, my eyes probably gleaming green in the dark. Duncan doesn’t take his eyes off my face as he slowly grabs the bottom of his t-shirt and pulls it up and over his head. Ordinarily, two reactions to this would be my excitement that I get to see the bare chest of the boy I reluctantly have a crush on, or complete confusion over why this boy I hardly know is stripping his shirt off purely for my benefit. However, the situation being what it is, I can guess why he’s doing this.

  Sure enough, once his shirt is off, he tosses it on the table beside the s’mores supplies and turns around to show me his back. I see what I expect: a ridge of sable and chestnut fur, thick and raised like hackles. It goes all the way from the middle of his neck, down his spine to below his belt where I can’t see it anymore. I take another sniff of the breeze carrying his scent, slowly

  opening myself back up to my fox senses.

  Not Rhodesian ridgeback, despite the huge hands…not wolf either, I think, puzzling over what breed of canine Duncan’s genes melded with.

  “Do you know what kind of animal you are?” I ask him as he slowly turns back around. I’ve seen the brown and black tones of the fur, and also by the scent, I think I know for sure what he is.

  “Obviously I know I’m a dog of some kind, although it’s hard to tell for sure without animal ears and a tail,” he confesses, walking back over to grab his shirt. “I don’t know if those will magically grow in as my DNA continues changing, honestly.”