by Renee Rose
Wolf? Now, how do I know that?
Teeth snap at my heels. My body finds new speed—the energy of the hunted. I surge forward. My four paws strike the ground seamlessly.
Paws? Four? What?
As soon as I think about it, I lose the rhythm.
One leg misfires, and I go flying. I flop on my side, feet waving in the air in a desperate scramble to get back up.
A shadow falls over me, and a growl makes me freeze.
The wolf stands over me, lowers its head, and sniffs along my white belly. My paws shake in the air.
The beast... transforms. Moonlight shimmers as the black fur sucks away, revealing tattooed skin and bulging muscles. Tank stands over me in human form.
“Foxfire?” His voice is growly rough, like a wolf’s. My heart’s gonna explode.
“Change back,” Tank orders.
A sudden pressing urge comes over me, like a sneeze. I succumb to it, and my body takes human shape. I shout, convulsing with surprise.
“Foxfire, it’s okay. You’re okay.” Tank kneels beside me, holding my shoulders, steadying my thrashing body. My limbs tingle like they’ve been asleep, but other than that, it doesn’t hurt. Not like my head, which is spinning. And—oh fuck—I’m naked.
“Wha—” I sputter. “What the hell just happened?”
~.~
Tank
She’s a fox. An actual fox, with white-tufted tail and rust-colored fur. Narrow nose and perky ears. She’s similar enough to a wolf that I caught the scent on her but didn’t know what it was until she shifted. An actual fox shifter. I’ve never seen one before. I didn’t know they existed until she transformed before my eyes and ran away, beautiful and lithe in the moonlight.
This… complicates things.
I scoop her up and carry her back up the wash. She whimpers in my arms. Her body trembles, and tears glint on her lashes. She’s scared as hell. Of me? Or of the shift? I somehow got the feeling this was her first time.
“Breathe, baby, breathe,” I murmur.
We’re both naked, but that’s not why she’s shivering.
“I’m losing my mind. The moonlight, it called to me. And I…” She raises her hands and stares at them in horror. “I had paws!” She turns wide eyes on me. “And you were a wolf!”
Yep. First time.
“Okay, baby. It’s going to be okay.” I kicked the door open. I half-broke it before I decided to just change into a wolf and go through the doggie door. My clothes are in a pile on the old linoleum, but I don’t stop.
“Please tell me this was a bad trip,” she whimpers. “We did mushrooms or acid or something, and it’s just a dream—it’s just a dream.”
“Shhh.” I head to the couch, set her down, and pull a blanket around her. “Stay.” I put alpha compulsion into my voice. It seemed to work before, getting her to shift back. Thank the moon for that. Otherwise, she could be stuck in fox form a long time, trying to figure it out.
Some shifters shift naturally. Others need the supervision of an alpha. Most of us have the benefit of the pack and plenty of experienced shifters to walk us through it. At least wolves do. We’re pack animals.
Foxes—I’m not so sure. As far as I know, the little lady freaking out on the couch is the only one. Of course, small, weaker shifters don’t often make themselves known. If wolf packs are secretive, fox dens, if they exist, probably hide like their lives depend on it.
I grab an energy drink out of my things, and a bag of beef jerky.
“Here. Drink this.” I hold the bottle for her. She’s shaking but reaches for the beef jerky on her own. “You expended a lot of energy, running from me and shifting twice. You always need to eat and drink enough afterward, or it could be dangerous.”
“I-I’ve never done that before.”
“I know, baby.” I tug on a pair of workout shorts, glad I brought a couple of changes of clothes. Of course, I expected to be done with this job in a few hours, tops, and then be on my way to Mexico.
The pale, rainbow-haired beauty trembles on the couch, and my wolf will be damned if he’ll leave her now.
Things just got a lot more complicated.
Chapter Four
Foxfire
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
This is a dream. A really bad dream, like the time Sunny left her mushrooms out and I ate them and thought the walls were melting.
The clarity of the moonlight, the scents that surrounded me, they were beautiful, but it’s way worse than a bad trip.
“Here.” Tank sits down next to me, holding out a power bar.
“No more jerky?” I ask hopefully.
“Carnivore?”
“I tried to be vegetarian like so many times. I would have these cravings where I almost ate raw meat.”
“She wouldn’t let you.”
“Who?”
“Your fox. She’s pretty, by the way.”
“My…”
“Your fox. That’s who came out to play just now. She’s gorgeous.”
I stare at him, remembering the harmony in my limbs, when I didn’t think about it, the freedom, the whole new world of scents, beautiful and profane.
“What am I?”
“You really don’t know?”
“Um, no. One minute I’m… on two legs and then, the next I’m…” My breath gets stuck in my throat. “I’m—”
“Okay, okay, relax.” He rubs my back. “Just breathe. It’ll be okay. You’re a shifter, like me. Most of us have the benefit of growing up in a house surrounded by shifters. My dad coached me through my first change. I was early. Some kids don’t shift until their teens, and then wake in bed all furry. It usually happens in adolescence, if not before.”
“It’s never happened to me.”
“Yes, well, if I had to guess, I’d say your fox is shy. And she’s on her own, without family or protection.”
I lean into him. My heart isn’t pounding as hard, but Tank is the only one keeping me on Earth.
Foxes. I’m a fox.
“You’re a shifter,” I state.
“Yeah, baby. I’m a wolf.”
I let out a noise, half laugh, half gurgle. “I noticed.”
He rubs my back some more.
“So that’s why Garrett sent you. You’re not part of a gang called the Werewolves. You are a werewolf.”
“A pack.” He says after a long silence. “I’m part of a pack.”
“With Garrett?”
“Yeah.”
No wonder they’re secretive. I’d be less surprised if I found the path to another world in my closet, but it actually reassures me. At least Garrett and Tank’s behavior makes more sense now.
I open my hands, close them. Hands, not paws. No claws. Not right now.
“Are there others, like me?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Oh.” Again, the world tilts under my feet.
“Foxfire… is there anyone… Do you know anyone in your family who might… have a secret?”
“What, like my great aunt Agatha’s chili recipe? Oh, and she turns into a Saint Bernard during the full moon?”
Tank just looks at me, forehead wrinkled. He must think I’m really losing it.
“No.” My breath shudders out of me. “Nothing like that. I don’t really have a family—only my mom. And I don’t think she’d hide something like this from me.” I rub my hands. Hands. Not paws. No fur. “I’m cold.”
He grabs the blanket and tucks it tight around me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and giving me a side hug. “It’s the shift. It takes energy. And you’re skin and bones.”
“I am not.” I frown at him.
“You are, baby.” He squeezes me tight, pulling me closer. “Petite.”
“Yes, well, I was born this way. Not all of us can be freakishly tall and built like a truck.”
“A tank.”
“Yeah.” Something he said unravels. “Wait, so you think someone else in my family is a shifter?”
&nbs
p; “Shifters breed shifters. It’s genetic.”
“So my mom or dad…”
“One of them carries the gene. Most likely they can shift. It’d be almost impossible for two non-shifters with the dormant gene to bear one who can shift.”
“My mom.” I shake my head. “I don’t think she’s a shifter. I lived with her. I’ve known her all my life.”
“She never snuck off into the wilderness for hours at a time?”
“No. She does a lot of pot, but that’s about it.”
Another long silence. “What about your dad?”
“I don’t know him.”
Tank nods.
I swallow. I never met my dad. Around first grade, I decided I wanted to, but that was only because we were doing a class project on our parents. Mom helped me do half the project on her, and half on the host of my favorite show, Reading Rainbow. My entire class ending up thinking I was LeVar Burton’s daughter. My popularity went way up, and I haven’t given a thought to my mystery sperm donor since.
Except, now. Because of him, I turn into a fox. The thing that will most impact my life, given by a man I’ve never met.
I sigh.
“It’s okay, Foxfire,” Tank says again, and squeezes me tight. He may be a giant grouchy lump most of the time, but he’s pretty good at reassuring me. I feel a lot better in his arms, anyway. If he wasn’t here, I’d be a complete mess. Probably ready to commit myself to the loony bin. “It’s going to be all right.”
“How is it all right? I turn into an animal during the full moon.”
“Not just then. With practice, you’ll be able to shift at will.”
“Oh, goody. I can wow them at dinner parties.”
A sound rumbles in his chest—a half growl. “No. No dinner parties. You have to keep this a secret.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
He catches my chin lightly. “Okay, baby. First rule of any pack. You give animals bigger and deadlier than you your respect. I’m telling you now so you don’t get it beaten into you by someone less sympathetic than I am.”
I try to think of something snarky as his dominant gaze bores into me. “Fine,” I mumble, dropping my eyes.
“Good girl.” He tucks me closer. I’m practically on his lap. He nuzzles my hair. He’s sniffing me again. This time, I don’t mind. Must be a wolf thing.
“So, does this mean I’m one of your pack?”
“No,” he says quickly.
I hide my flinch. This creature, this animal inside me, she wants her kind.
“Most shifters keep to their own. But I’ve never heard of a pack of fox shifters. You’re the first one I’ve seen.”
Great. I’m still a freak, no matter what species. Whatever.
I sit up and scoot away from him to shake out my hair. It’s a mess, full of sticks and grass. I comb my fingers through it.
“Let me,” Tank murmurs, and picks out the rest. When he’s done, he keeps his arm around me.
“Thanks.” Slowly, I let myself relax. “What now?”
“Now, we wait. You need rest. In the morning, I feed you.”
“You’re staying?”
“You’re still my prisoner. And we both know I can catch you, no matter how far you run.”
I nod. I’m too tired to argue. He’s been here only a few hours, and he’s already a fixture in my life. But I’m glad. I feel safer with him, somehow.
I’m a fox. Fuck. I tuck my face into his shoulder. He’s so big and so strong. And when I… my fox came out, he knew just what to do. I’m too tired to think about what that means, but maybe, for just tonight, I don’t have to.
“I always knew I was different,” I mumble.
“What’s that, baby?”
“My mom. She’s weird. And she raised me.”
“Did she ever leave for periods of time, or act strange around the full moon?”
“She’s my mom. She was always strange.” I remember kids pointing at us. Laughing. My name, my petite body, my hippie mom, smelling of patchouli oil and dressing us in clothes from Goodwill. Weird.
I realize I said all this out loud when Tank tightens his hold on me.
“It’s going to be okay.”
I wrap my arms around him and bury my face in his chest. He cups the back of my head as he murmurs, “We’ll figure it out, together.”
Chapter Five
Foxfire
I dream of my paws scrabbling in the rocky earth. A sunset blazes in the distance, fiery red and orange. My broken cell phone crackles with my mother’s voice telling me I should dye my hair those colors. Then Tank looms over me, shaking his head…
I wake with a start, the smell of bacon so intense, I can taste it.
My stomach rumbles as I pad to the kitchen. Tank stands at the stove, his broad back hunched and shaved head bowed over a skillet.
“OMG,” I say. “Are you making breakfast?” A folded paper bag soaks up grease under a stack of bacon. “Is some of this for me?”
He flashes me a grin, jerks his head at the table. My little card table is covered with dishes of meat. Sausage, hamburger patties, more bacon.
“Oh my god, Tank. Did you kill every pig and cow in the world?”
“Just for you, baby. Eat up.”
Baby. I like that.
Bad Foxfire!
“I’m such a bad vegan,” I mumble as I sit down.
“Seriously?” Tank raises a brow.
“What? I thought it’d be healthy.”
“You can’t be vegan.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause you’re a carnivore.” Tank puts a plate of bacon right in front of me.
“I could eat tofu and stuff,” I argue, as if I’m not about to swallow a pound of delicious pig.
“You can’t cut meat out. Your fox won’t let you.”
Right.
That.
My stomach twists.
“Eat, baby.” Tank gets more bacon going then comes to the table. “You had a long run last night. Your fox needs this.” His hand settles on the back of my neck, calming the storm in my stomach. I nod and pick up a strip of bacon. In no time, I’ve demolished half the plate, and a third of the sausages. Just enough to take the edge off my hunger. I’ve always had a great metabolism. Guess now I know why.
Tank moves around my kitchen as if he owns it. He’s so big, but somehow he fits.
“I had a dream about my mom last night,” I announce. Tank doesn’t look up from the stove, but I know he’s listening. “Do you think she knew?”
“She did name you Foxfire.”
“That could just be her. Trippy hippy. She smoked pot all through her pregnancy.”
“That explains a lot,” Tank mutters.
“Hey!” I pout in his general direction.
He comes with a fresh round of meat, and spills half of it on my plate before bumping my foot with his in a silent order. We chew for a while.
“Do you remember ever shifting before?”
I put down my fork and think. “I once ate some mushrooms and felt like I had fur. You didn’t happen to give me any mushrooms last night…?”
He shakes his head as he goes back to the skillet.
“Didn’t think so.” Too much to hope for.
~.~
Tank
She’s stewing again, frowning at the window. I dreamed of her last night, running and catching her and pulling her into position under me. I shift in my seat, glad the table doesn’t have a glass top. I’ve got to get myself under control.
I clear my throat. “There are benefits to being a shifter.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Being able to eat this much, for one. You’ll need to bring extra food with you when you go to shift.”
“Where would I go? Wouldn’t I just run out here?” She nods to the wash.
“In an pinch, yes. But be careful. People around here like to shoot coyotes, even though it’s illegal. In the dark, your fox could be mistaken for a small one.”
“All right.” Her forehead wrinkles.
“You have to let your fox out once in a while. Once a month at least. Otherwise… well, it might be different than for wolves. But it helps you maintain balance.” My voice holds an echo of my father’s words, teaching me our way of life at the kitchen table. “It’s important to take care of your animal. Feed her meat, let her out to run.”
“It’s like I’m a dog.”
“You are. A wild dog.”
“So you… run regularly? Where?”
“The Catalina mountains. But also A Mountain, in a pinch.” A Mountain is the small peak near downtown painted with a large letter A for the University of Arizona. It’s where Garrett shifted and ran off on his date with Amber the day before yesterday.
I bite back my offer to have her come on a moon run with the pack. “You might be able to get away with some midnight runs out along this wash. But a better choice is a wildlife preserve, somewhere that bans hunters. Even then, you have to be careful.” I cut myself off before I scare her. But I’m worried. Poachers, other animals, shifters, anyone who sees a pretty fox and decides they want her. Especially another wolf. My wolf is rabid at the thought of another male sniffing around her.
I stand and clear the breakfast dishes. Foxfire stays zoned out. Maybe she’s in a meat coma. She’s never sat so still for so long.
My wolf insists we go and comfort her. But it’s better she doesn’t come to rely on me too much. She needs her own kind. A fox den, maybe a mate.
My fingers curl into the countertop. I release it before I leave an imprint.
Not a mate, my wolf growls. Not anyone but me.
I check my phone. No messages. Something’s wrong. But Garrett told me to watch Foxfire, so that’s what I’m going to do. Even if I now have my own reasons.
My dad wouldn’t approve. But who else is going to take care of her?
I approach the table, and Foxfire startles. Her big eyes snap to mine. Wide, dreamy. Sweet face, Loony Tunes hair. She’s so small and, deep down, submissive. No wonder her fox stayed dormant for so many years.
“Come on,” I rap the table in front of her. She jumps but doesn’t move. “Time to get up. Face the day.”