Fox Dish (Madison Wolves #6)

by Robin Roseau

  "I'm sorry," I said again quietly. "I didn't think about any of that." I looked up. "You should have banished me."

  "How could I possibly banish the woman I love? And you aren't getting off that easily."

  I looked back down. "Now what?"

  "You have deceived me, but you have never broken a promise to me," she said.

  "I won't do anything like this again," I said quietly.

  "Oh, you are going to promise me a lot more than that," she said. "In private, you may argue with me all you need. In public, I will even accept a certain amount of dissent. But in the end, in public, we are one voice. I don't care how wrong you think my decisions are; you will support me. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Yes, Lara."

  "Promise."

  "I promise."

  "No rescinding that promise, Michaela."

  "I know."

  She took several deep breaths. "Come here," she ordered.

  "No!" I said firmly. "Get out!"

  "Now what?" she asked tersely.

  "I am the only one responsible for my own safety! I agree I was insubordinate on the other issues, and a two-month sentence is appropriate for those charges, but you charged me with insubordination for exercising my own freedoms!"

  "Daniel went through that with you!" Lara yelled back. "You agreed!"

  "I shut up because I was digging a hole," I said. "I do not agree. You talk about respecting the freedom of the weres living in Wisconsin, but you're a hypocrite."

  "You're the hypocrite," Lara spat back. "Tell me. Are you going to demand Rebecca and Celeste have a security detail?"

  "That's not the same," I said. "I am their mother, am I not?"

  "Yes," she said more softly. "And I am your alpha."

  "I am an adult!" I screamed.

  "So when they're sixteen, you aren't going to want them protected?"

  "Of course I am, but-"

  "But nothing!" Lara said. "It is necessary. Am I wrong?"

  "It is my decision, not yours, and charging me with insubordination over it is going to destroy us, Lara."

  I would have run, but she was between me and the shower door. I was naked and vulnerable, and I didn't want to discuss this in the shower. I turned to face the wall. "Get out."

  "Am I wrong? Is it necessary?" She asked it calmly.

  I spun around. "Yes, it's necessary!" I stepped forward and began banging my fists against her chest. She let me hit her a few times then captured my wrists and pulled me to her.

  "Doesn't Serena make you feel safer, honey?"

  "It's my decision!"

  "Does she make you feel safer?"

  "Yes."

  "Don't you want to feel safe?"

  "That's not the point!"

  "What is?"

  "Charging me with insubordination over it."

  She held me quietly for a minute. I tried pushing away, but she didn't let me go. Finally she said, "You agreed you won't ever again publicly defy me, and you agreed that's not a promise you'll rescind."

  "So you're going to publicly order me to accept the detail and I'm stuck?"

  "No. Let me finish."

  "Fine."

  "If you aren't going to publicly defy me, then you won't need to ditch them again, will you?"

  "What if we have a fight and I want privacy? You know we're going to have fights. And you know I need time alone to calm down."

  "We can work that out," she said. "But that's not why you were charged with insubordination. Are you ever again going to ditch Serena so that you can do something I've ordered you not to do?"

  I thought about it before responding. "No," I said finally.

  "Promise me."

  "No! You can't order me-"

  "I can," she said. "You admit the security is necessary."

  "What's next, Lara?" I asked. "When do you start treating me like Daniel treats Ysabella?"

  "I'm not going to," she said. "Accept Serena's protection. Understand that at isolated times you and the girls will have extra restrictions, but even you will agree that at times, those are necessary. That's all."

  I pushed away a little, and she allowed it. I looked up at her. "Promise."

  "I promise. If you accept the security."

  "And when I need a private walk?"

  "We'll work something out. During high risk times, you may not get it."

  I looked down, and Lara collected me against her again.

  "Promise me, Michaela. Accept the security."

  "No walls," I demanded.

  "No walls."

  "No cages."

  "No cages," she agreed. "Accept the security."

  "You're going to declare every time a high risk time!" I accused.

  "No," she said. "We may not always agree with the risk assessment, and you may argue with me about it, but I am not trying to trick you into accepting more than you admit is necessary."

  "If I don't agree with your assessment, I am not accepting tightened restrictions."

  She kissed the top of my head. "I tell you what. I won't ask for tightened restrictions for you any more often than you ask for them for Celeste and Rebecca."

  "God damn it, Lara!" I tried to push away. She didn't release me.

  "Don't be a hypocrite, Michaela," she said. "We're both going to be protective of those two. They're both going to grow up with a lot more restrictions than you'll ever have. But if there's a reason to tighten their restrictions, that same reason is almost certainly going to apply to you as well, isn't it?"

  I pushed away, but I did it gently, and Lara let me look up at her again. "Do you want more children?"

  She smiled. "Maybe. Do you remember how protective you were?"

  "Whatever rules I am about to agree to apply to you whenever you are pregnant or in some other way not at your best."

  She smiled. "Agreed. Accept Serena's protection."

  "And if I ditch them for privacy, are you going to charge me with more counts of insubordination?"

  "I hold that right," she said. "I will apply it if your rebellion is egregious."

  "What does that mean? Last fall in Bayfield when I peppered Karen-"

  "Do you intend to teach Celeste and Rebecca about cayenne pepper?" Lara asked. "Do you intend to serve as a poor example to them? How do you think they'll respond at fourteen if they see you routinely getting away with ditching your security but we punish them for the same thing?"

  "I'm not a child!" I said firmly.

  "No, but the necessity is no less, regardless of your extreme capabilities."

  I closed the distance and wrapped my arms around her. "If this becomes more heavy-handed than it has been, we will be discussing this again."

  "Promise me, Michaela."

  "All right. I promise if this becomes more heavy-handed, we'll be discussing it again."

  She didn't laugh, but the tension between us relaxed. "You know what I need to hear, Little Fox."

  "I'll accept Serena's protection," I said quietly.

  "And you'll accept I have the right to protect you how I see fit."

  "No walls!"

  "I have the right to erect walls," she said. "But I am not going to."

  I sighed. "Yes, Alpha, you have the right to protect me how you see fit."

  She leaned back and used two fingers to lift my face then bent her neck and captured my mouth with hers. It was a short kiss, and we were both still tense, but I accepted her kiss.

  "Thank you," she said. "Still angry?"

  "We're not done." I paused. "You could have added a month for my conversation with Serena. I shouldn't have to watch everything I say that closely, especially as this is already going to be a difficult time for me."

  "If you don't go looking for the forbidden conversations, and any transgressions are isolated, I will not add to your sentence. I may add to your pack service hours. But if you push this, I will be terribly angry."

  "I don't want to break this rule, Lara," I said. "If I do, it won't be intentional."
r />   "Then we're agreed. What else?"

  "You will answer my questions!" I told her firmly.

  Lara reached past me to grab the shampoo. She began washing my hair. I think we both found it calming.

  "I can not have you acting like you are publicly submissive to me then go off and do whatever the hell you want anyway."

  "I know. I thought you would have to punish me for it. It didn't occur to me there were political ramifications just getting that far."

  "Well, there were. More than you can imagine."

  "I'm sorry." I was. I should have thought about that, but I hadn't, not once.

  "Talk to me about your sentencing," she said after a while.

  "The house arrest is a light punishment. I'm not upset about that."

  "It's offering your throat that is a problem."

  "Yes. If they do that again, I am going to freak out."

  "Well, you're right. Two months is light. Daniel realized as soon as he said it I wasn't happy, and that's when he added the rest."

  "How long did you want?"

  "Six months. And fifty hours of pack service is hopelessly inadequate. I would have given you four times that. You easily do twenty-five hours of pack service a month already, so all we gained from this is the inconvenience of having to record it."

  "If you don't agree, why don't you add to it?"

  "If I do, then I am telling everyone Daniel let you off lightly, and they'll wonder whether you should have been judged guilty on more of the charges. I would undermine the entire process, which would add to the political difficulties."

  "Do you hope I slip to give you an excuse?"

  "Hope? No. But I will not be lenient, either. If you give me the slightest excuse, I am adding to your sentence."

  She was still washing my hair. It felt nice. "Why are we having this conversation in the shower?"

  "For one thing, no one else can hear us," she explained. "For another, I need to touch you, and you need to be touched. But the conversation can't wait. We can't afford for you to get your back up. I know you're upset, and I don't blame you."

  "Can you explain the subterfuge?"

  "No, but can't you figure it out for yourself?"

  "I know there are politics involved. I don't know why Christopher West is still alive."

  She stopped washing my hair.

  "Did you leave him for me to deal with, Lara?"

  She began washing again.

  "You can't kill him the fox way, Michaela," she said quietly.

  "You won't stop me if I do it the wolf way?"

  "No, I won't."

  I brushed the soap from my eyes then opened them and looked at her. "Was David the first wolf you killed?"

  "No."

  "Why are you letting me do this instead of doing it yourself?"

  "Hmm." She paused, but her hands continued to shampoo my hair. It felt nice, and I closed my eyes again. "If you want me to do it, I will," she said. "If you think it is better for me to do it than you, I will."

  "But as protective of me that you are, you're letting me do it?" I opened my eyes. "Aren't you feeling well?"

  "Physically?" she asked. "Never better." She smiled. "Close your eyes."

  I closed them and moaned as her hands massaged my scalp.

  "You trust me to do it. You trust me that much. He's on the council. He must be fierce."

  "Don't you think you can handle him?"

  "I kicked the ass of Greg's best wolf," I said. "Damned right I can handle him!"

  "Do you need help with the politics involved?"

  "No." I paused "And Albert Stein?"

  "No, not him."

  "Anyone else?"

  "No. Move on."

  "The charges." I thought about it. "You needed to throw the book at me, and you trusted me to fox my way out of the worst of it. And then you had to add more to give Daniel plenty to convict me of while letting me talk my way out of the worst."

  She didn't answer.

  "Did he find me innocent of charges he shouldn't have?"

  "At least the lesser charges of dereliction of duty," Lara said. "I would have convicted you of those. I can't be detached enough to decide how many charges or whether any of them would have been aggravated dereliction."

  "Are you upset he declared me innocent of those?"

  "No. I think if he couldn't convict you of the worst charge, he felt he had to let you out of all of them."

  "The subterfuge." I moved closer to her. "That hurt."

  "I know."

  "That almost ruined it."

  "You were supposed to trust us."

  "I would have if I hadn't been blind-sided like that. I don't understand."

  "Figure it out."

  "Politics."

  "Do you need more explanation than that?"

  I thought about it. "I don't know."

  "Do you believe any of us wanted to do it that way?"

  "I thought you all wanted me dead."

  "You should have trusted us."

  "You heard what I told Serena. I knew I was going to go too far. I believed I had."

  "I know. And now?"

  I pressed against her and wrapped my arms around her.

  "I am going to say one more thing, Michaela," Lara told me. "You are going to accept your punishment stoically and with a great deal of humility. If the enforcers issue an order, you will do it. If they demand your throat, you will give it meekly, and you will remain meek. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, Alpha."

  "Do you understand why?"

  "Politics."

  "I need you back on the council. I need the majority of the council to agree you have served your sentence and learned your lesson. I need to go in there and confidently say, 'She'll never do it again' and have most of them believe me."

  "Yes, Alpha," I said. I buried my face in her neck. "Will I be alpha again?"

  "Yes. We're clear? Never again, and you will accept every bit of your punishment without complaint. If Gia or Rory take your throat and then order you to abase yourself, you will do it."

  "Yes, Lara," I said humbly.

  She'd been washing my hair for a long time.

  "I really need you on the council, Michaela," she said quietly.

  "I'll be a model prisoner, Lara, but you know that many wolves at my throat-"

  "I know. They won't do that again, not all at once. But-"

  "I know," I said.

  "Even Gia and Angel," Lara said.

  "Angel won't push it. And Gia was gentle."

  "I'll be ordering Angel to push it, Michaela."

  "Not all of them at once, Lara," I said. "Please. You can't make me terrified of them then tell me I must accept their protection. I will run, and it will be your fault."

  "You're right. It won't be like that again."

  "I'll be meek." Lara kissed my forehead and continued to massage my scalp for a few minutes. "Lara, I will not accept any orders to remain a victim."

  "I know," she said. "But you need to come to me, Michaela."

  "Like I did last fall?"

  She sighed. "We both have things to learn from this."

  "Am I clear?" I asked.

  "You will come to me. You must not publicly defy me."

  "And when I do?"

  "We'll figure it out together."

  I leaned against her. "Okay. May I see our babies, Lara?"

  "Let's get you rinsed off."

  "I still stink."

  "No, honey, you don't. You smell fine." But she pulled me into her arms, and I went willingly.

  We held each other for a while. I tried not to cry. Lara rinsed us both and turned off the water. It felt nice to let her dry me. She had pajamas and a robe waiting for me in the bedroom, and I let her dress me. I sat on the bed and watched her dress. Lara held her hand out to me, and I rose from the bed and took it. She led me downstairs.

  I heard Francesca in the kitchen. Serena and Elisabeth were in the living room, waiting for us. "Call Angel," Lara
said before we were even at the bottom of the stairs. Elisabeth pulled out her phone and said only, "Bring them."

  "Michaela," Lara said. "Come sit on the sofa." She pulled me after her, and we sat down, Lara on the end, me in the middle. I leaned against her but watched the door anxiously. Elisabeth stepped outside, and it was only a minute later before the door opened again.

  Lara held me to the sofa, and so I was still sitting when Scarlett stood in front of me, holding Rebecca so she could see me.

  "There's Mommy Fox, Rebecca," Scarlett told her. "Do you want to go to Mommy Fox?"

  Rebecca squealed and held out her hands for me. Scarlett twirled my baby around like a little baby airplane, landing her right into my arms.

  I started crying immediately. "Oh baby," I said. "Oh honey." I pulled her to me, crying.

  Rebecca gurgled happily, wrapping her fingers in my wet hair and tugging on it.

  Angel was holding Celeste, and then I had one baby in one arm, one baby in the other.

  "I missed you both so much," I told them. "Mommy Fox had to make you safe, but I'm home now." I cuddled, kissed and caressed them both for a long time, oblivious to everything else going on around me.

  They started to fuss, but I wasn't ready to give them to Lara yet for feeding.

  But then Angel was there. "Michaela, if you give one to Lara, I have a bottle for the other one."

  "Bottle?" I asked. "No, Lara feeds them."

  "We transitioned them to formula," Lara said gently. "That was the delay. That's why Greg gave you that job." We had planned to breast feed them until six months, and they weren't six months yet.

  I looked over at Lara. "Oh honey," I said. "I'm so sorry."

  "Shhh," she said. She was holding a bottle. "Give me one and you can feed the other one."

  My arms were full, but I nodded, and she reached forward, taking Rebecca from me. I adjusted Celeste, and then Angel was holding a bottle out for me.

  "I already checked the temperature," she said.

  I offered Celeste the nipple, and she immediately latched onto it. Her eyes stayed on mine as she began to suck from the bottle.

  I was filled with a sense of wonder and joy, staring into my little baby's eyes. Finally I tore my eyes away and looked over at Rebecca. Lara had positioned her so I could see her face. She was staring at Lara, slurping away at her bottle.

  I looked up. "Serena!"

  "Do not take that tone with me, Michaela," she replied immediately, stepping around the couch to look down at me.