Vixen (The Fox and Hound Book 1)

by Catherine Labadie

  The scent of him is almost overpoweringly attractive now, which confuses me. Even as a fox, I don’t have any battles to fight with hounds, but it’s not like me to be this attracted to the spicy, homey smell of my friend who is apparently a canine.

  “You're part German Shepherd,” I tell him, watching his chest in the moonlight. Even better than you dreamed, hm? My girly subconscious, enamored of Duncan, purrs in my head; if it was a person instead of a figment of my imagination, I’d smack it into next week. My breath catches in my throat a little, and I’m glad Duncan is occupied with re-clothing himself so he won’t notice me ogling the play of the toned muscles under his smooth, gleaming skin. There may be a thick ridge of hackles on his spine, but his chest isn’t furry at all, except for a little down by the V of his hipbones. The freckles sprinkling his skin are more endearing than off-putting. I clear my throat, more to distract myself than to get his attention.

  “German Shepherd, hm?” He pauses, considering; finally, he removes the beanie and the costume ears off his head, and his messy red hair poofs out. “Not what I expected…it would’ve been cooler and more sensible if I was a wolf. Wolves can have red fur,” he thinks aloud.

  “So do some German Shepherds. I’ve known wolves, and trust me, you don’t have the personality for

  that,” I inform him, shivering as a chill comes from the lake. “German Shepherds are loyal and a lot smarter than people give them credit for. It’s not a bad choice, if you’d had to make one.”

  “I wish I had,” he says. “I’m not saying that I wouldn’t choose this…but if you had the chance to change to a human, would you?”

  “I might have a few years ago…but now I wouldn’t. I like being what I am,” I say, smoothing my skirt over my legs so I won’t have to look at his face after staring so long at his body. “But I don’t blame you for wishing you’d stayed human.”

  Duncan plops back down next to me, leaning forward so his elbows are on his knees as he looks pensively at the lake. We’re both silent for a few minutes, and I’m sure both of our thoughts whirl around chaotically.

  “Thanks for…understanding. I didn’t know what response to expect from you, but I had to—I had to tell someone,” Duncan says, his voice low; there’s a new tone to it now, something deeper, pleasant, and more like a rumbling growl in the chest. I wonder if that’s a product of his new DNA. “I had to tell a half-breed, and I’m glad it was you.”

  Instead of asking how any of this even came to be, or how he’s been hiding all of this from friends and foes alike, I ask: “Did you befriend me just because you thought I’d be sympathetic, or just because I’m a half- breed?” Please be honest, I add in my head. It would hurt me more if he lied than if he told me it was purely selfish motives.

  “Sierra…no, I didn’t. Those motives were in play, but

  they weren’t the main ones. If I had needed a half-breed to tell, it would have been a lot easier to find someone to talk to when all of this started the end of my junior year,” he tells me. He regards me earnestly, his irises back to the pale green I missed. His hand twitches towards where mine are folded on my lap, but then he mirrors my posture, folding his own hands together.

  “Why me?” I ask quietly.

  Duncan still regards me intently. “You showed up to school this week, not hiding a thing like rest of your kind was, and you were kind to me when I expected more of an attitude against humanity than friendliness. I talked to you because you caught my interest, and even though I pursued you for my own reasons, I would still want to be around you even if you had rejected all of this tonight.” I look up at him for a few moments, waiting to catch a lie in his eyes or from his face. But I don’t, and my shoulders relax when I decide to trust him.

  Careful, Sierra, my thoughts remind me yet again, and this time I decide not to listen.

  “Okay,” I say simply.

  “You sure?” he asks.

  I nod this time, still looking into his eyes. I’m not afraid of him being repelled by my animalistic eyes or by my fur or my fox features. We are the same, I think, and I wonder what my scent is like for him. Hope blossoms in my silly heart, and I don’t have the strength to squash it while I’m daydreaming about running my fingers through Duncan’s hair.

  “We’ve known each other hardly a week, I drop a

  bombshell on you like ‘Hey Vixen, just so you know, I’m secretly a half-breed too! Even though I was born human with no history of animal in my bloodline, and I just stole you away from a party to take my shirt off and show you the new German Shepherd fur I grew over the summer,’ and you just say ‘okay’? That’s it?” He rattles off the naked details, crazy as they sound, just to contest my simplistic response.

  “It does sound nuts when you say it like that. But…you showed me kindness too, Duncan, in a place and in a time where my kind is almost worth nothing. You might have had a few selfish motives, but somehow…it’s not in your nature to be cruel, and that makes me trust you,” I say, to myself as much as to him; a sideways smile edges the corner of my mouth. “Must be that fox DNA kicking in, responding to human—well, semi-human—kindness. One week or not, if you were a different sort of person, I think you would have manifested a different kind of DNA. I know there’s no science to back that particular statement up, but we half-breeds do know that the animal DNA does often depend on personality.” I take a deep breath, hoping I didn’t say too much and scare him off. He gapes at me incredulously, almost in shock that it would be so easy

  to persuade me that’s he’s telling the truth and means well.

  “I…now I’m the one who doesn’t know what to say,” Duncan says in that low tone of voice again. I inhale his scent through my nose as surreptitiously as possible.

  “Well, you just explained why you had so many questions about half-breeds while we were at Omnium

  Beanery,” I say. “I guess this time it’s my turn to ask all the questions, about your speculations and what you plan to do about your increasingly dominant half-breed DNA.” Duncan grimaces, opening his mouth to reply, but I cut him off.

  “Really, do you have any idea at all how this happened? How have you been hiding it, since normal half-breeds can’t hide their scents from other half- breeds?” I ask, curious and fascinated now that my instincts stopped telling me to run away. I wonder if Duncan will suddenly grow ears and a tail, or maybe fur on his hands; I wonder if he’ll be as animalistic as Wade.

  “I think it’s because I started out human. The part of DNA that keeps me human—in spite of however the serum in that damn mandatory vaccine failed—helps me seem human if I want, at least when it comes to having a human scent,” Duncan explains rationally. I kind of expect him to elaborate further, but he falls silent. I think he’s lost in thought, but the way he’s looking at my face draws heat to my cheeks and keeps me from speaking for a moment.

  “Duncan, what—” I begin, but he shakes his head.

  “Would you be horribly upset if I asked for your other questions to wait for when we meet tomorrow?” he asks. “That is, if you still want to.”

  “I’ll wait, if you want…but you don’t have to keep me curious to keep me around,” I say; the high-pitched quality of my voice makes me wonder if I sound desperate, so I modify. “We’re friends. I’ll keep your secret, and I’ll still be around.”

  Duncan nods, self-conscious as he runs a hand

  through his hair. “I know…but it is getting pretty late, and I don’t want your brothers to attack me if I drop you off past midnight.”

  “Really? It’s almost midnight?” At this I go to reach for my SMARTcall, but I remember I left it in Duncan’s car, so I pause. It’s almost like time doesn’t matter after a night of discovery like this…but I know if I push the limit and show up late, Harold might actually cut my curfew to what Wade and Eisen had during their high school years.

  “We both lost track of time, I think,” Duncan says, stating the obvious.

  “After what happened to
night…first that whirlwind party, then this,” I marvel at how I expected this night to go and what actually happened.

  “Do you regret it?” Duncan asks. “Me telling you any of this, I mean?” I shake my head in a negative.

  “No. I don’t regret leaving the party, and I don’t regret you trusting me enough to share this impossible information with me,” I reply. To avoid sounding too sappy, I stand and turn to the table to gather up the torch and marshmallow skewers. “I don’t have a clue how to help or what to do about it, but I’m glad you’re not dealing with this on your own.”

  “Me too,” Duncan says, and then I freeze as his hand gently rests on top of mine, his palm on my fur as I clutch the coarse handle of the cookout skewer a little too tightly. “I have one more question.”

  I’m still frozen, hardly able to think with Duncan’s hand on mine. Part of me, the most inconsequential part I’m not listening to, tells me just how ridiculous I am for being so enthralled when a boy touches my hand;

  but the rest of me is absolutely thrilled, and I have to work to keep my expression from showing my inner turmoil. The fact that he’s willingly touching me is captivating, and I kind of wish he’d hold my hand a little tighter.

  “Ask away,” I say, pleased my voice doesn’t crack.

  “This was what I didn’t know how to ask without sounding like an idiot...but…Sierra,” Duncan says, his voice a little lower. “Is there…is there any tendency in the M-DNA strain that makes us bond to one person very quickly?”

  I tear my gaze away from our linked hands to look at his face, my heart thumping erratically. “Not…not scientifically,” I say, too quietly; I clear my throat and try to explain. “There are theories, of course, and varying degrees of proof…but how would you know about that? I didn’t tell you.” Duncan nods like I confirmed something, his eyes closed as he thinks.

  What…? He opens his eyes and they’re that canine dark brown again, too deep for me to read. Then he smiles, a genuine smile that makes the fur on my spine stand up pleasantly.

  “Looks like it won’t be so bad to be a half-breed after all,” he says cryptically. I’d chastise him for his

  vagueness, but he runs the pad of his thumb over the auburn fur covering my knuckles and I struggle to remember what I was going to say. He’s looking up at me with something like wonder coloring his expression, and heat rushes to my cheeks from the pounding of my bewildered heart. I want to lean forward, close enough to…

  “We should go,” I say instead, not knowing how

  else to respond. I remove my hand—reluctantly—from under Duncan’s and finish gathering the stuff. He helps, and we walk back to the car in silence. I sense that weird confidence from him again, and I sigh, glad at least that I’ll have more information tomorrow. I’m also glad that I see him so soon, more than I’d admit to anyone else, even Hayley.

  We’re silent on the way back, except for me giving Duncan directions to my house. That silly hope blossoms within me again, and I hope that my determined silence will keep me from making any mistakes tomorrow.

  z

  I don’t check my phone until I’m back inside my house. Upon my request, Duncan dropped me off half a block down the road; I didn’t want him seen by my family, in case someone was waiting up for me. Eisen

  was waiting for me in the living room, his long legs sprawled out across our somewhat battered brown corduroy sofa. I’d decided not to wake him, but right when I finish removing my dusty black pumps and head for the stairs, his eyes snap open.

  “You almost missed curfew, little sister,” Eisen says in a drowsy voice filled with gravel. I glance at the digital clock built into the wall above our chipped green front

  door.

  “It’s only just now 12:45, Eisen,” I say. “You should go to bed.” I turn to go up the stairs again, glad I don’t have to flick any lights on to see in the dark, but he stops me again.

  “Who dropped you off? I thought you were going to text when you needed to come home,” Eisen asks casually; I hear him stretching as he stands and grabs his blanket for his bed off the couch to drag back upstairs. I bite my lip, not wanting to lie, but knowing that I might be in big trouble if I don’t. I decide to fudge some details.

  “Some guy from the party I met, one of Issachar Reis’s college buddies…he’s of driving age, and he knew some of us in this area needed rides home, so he took us,” I say. It sounds like a lousy plan, and I’m not one to willingly carpool, but it’s the best excuse I have for right now. I can tell the truth once I know more about Duncan and what’s going with that, I think to appease the acid feeling of guilt slithering into my stomach.

  “There were college guys there? Damn, S, that might not have been the best plan to take a ride from one. Plus, since when do high school parties end

  before five a.m., and since when would a college guy—a friend of that dick Issachar Reis, no less—leave a party early?” Eisen questions, sounding a little irritated now he’s thinking through my plan. I shrug innocently, secretly longing for my shower so I can climb into bed and digest all the information I learned before I sleep.

  “A lot of high school students have curfews, Eisen. Just because you constantly broke yours and worried

  Harold to death doesn’t mean everyone else follows the same pattern,” I say, knowing full well that the party is still probably going strong and will for a couple more hours. “How do you know Issachar Reis?”

  Eisen grimaces. “We’d be the same year in college, if I’d been able to go. He’s one of those privileged rich kid brats, and I was glad to see the back of him after graduation…but still. You shouldn’t be taking rides from college boys, Sierra.”

  “It wasn’t exactly a dangerous situation, Eisen, there were more people than me in the car,” I say, brushing off his concern in spite of knowing he’s right. All I want to do is escape before Eisen smells the marshmallow smoke and the lake breeze coming off me along with lingering party sweat and my own scent.

  “Okay, goodnight then,” Eisen capitulates to my reason easily, probably because he’s half asleep. I reply with my own goodnight and escape to my room to prepare for my shower.

  My phone feels like it’s burning a hole in my wristlet, and I just know there will be frantic texts piled up for me to read and respond to before I can sleep. The mirror in my room catches my attention, however, and I take one last look at my appearance before responding to

  the summons emanating from my SMARTcall. My hair isn’t as curly anymore, and I look like I danced a lot, but my clothes don’t look any worse for the wear. Maybe I expected that after all of the information Duncan gave me I’d look more exhausted, but I look much the same as I did when I left the house with Harold.

  My latest text message reads:

  DUNCAN LEDFORD: Thanks for tonight. I really appreciated your cooperation with the whole kidnapping gig. See you tomorrow!

  I smile before I can help it. Why is it so easy to like this boy? I think. My other notes don’t look like they’ll be as pleasant.

  SHELBY JEAN: I found Lyle and explained what’s going on. Let me know how things are with your family!

  MORGAN CHEPI: Lyle is looking for you! I thought you were having a good time??

  FEMI REIS: Hey Maurell. Are you in the bathroom with a drink or did you leave with a boy? I get it, just please say you’re fine, or tell your friends you’re okay.

  I can’t believe I forgot to tell my host I was abandoning her party, but I quickly text everyone back to let them know I’m fine. I embellish a little story about how Harold was having a bad time with a case and wanted me home safe, knowing that they won’t ask a lot of details about lawyer business.

  Finished, I look up into the mirror and grimace; I’m not used to having my whereabouts questioned so thoroughly, and I know that sometime I’ll have to get back to Lyle and let him know we’re not going to work out after all. Shelby and Morgan will want to know why, but female confidentiality isn’t really my thing. A
t the most, I’ll confide in Hayley, or even in her mother if I really need advice.

  This is going to be one hell of a weekend, I think, excited but nervous about tomorrow.

  20

  Sleeping didn’t seem within reach when I finally climbed into bed, but my slumber refreshed me after all. I awoke this Saturday with the sun shining in through the grey and white curtains on my window, and it seemed like it was going to be a very good day. I hummed and took my time brushing the waves of my hair and my fur, and selecting what clothes to wear—jeans as dark as Duncan’s were last night and a purple shirt with flounces at the collar—came easily to me. I purposefully ignored my phone: I checked only for my new half-breed friend’s name before closing all the text windows.

  Now, eating breakfast with Eisen and Harold is relaxing, except for the need to fudge some of the details of the party last night. I answer their questions absentmindedly as I eat some scrambled eggs sandwiched between two pieces of perfectly browned toast, wondering when Duncan will contact me again today. Wade is still snoozing, we assume.

  “You know, it’s really lucky all three of you have Saturday off,” I say as I grab a sausage link off the platter Harold set on the table. It occurs to me that I haven’t cooked as much as usual lately, and I bless my

  brothers for being so willing to help me out on top of their own obligations.

  “A rare but welcome occurrence,” Harold says, everything about him proper except for the messy black fur on his ears and tail. “The office didn’t need me this morning.”

  “For once the boss didn’t spend his Friday night drinking…I heard his wife was having an anniversary party and he was dreading the arrival of his sister-in-law….so I get this fine day off as well,” Eisen leans back on his favorite kitchen chair, and he stifles a yawn as he speaks. He finished eating first, of course, and I notice that he doesn’t have any spilled food on his bare, lean chest. Good to know he’s not a messy eater anymore, I think with a nostalgic smile.