Zero Fox to Give (Misfit Shifters Book 1)

by Rae Foxx

  Sand cats.

  Two of them.

  And they weren't alone either. A bobcat I didn’t know seeped out of the darkness behind them, his lithe figure tip-toeing as though he was a dancer. Beautiful movements accompanied by a snarl and a gnashing of teeth that was horrifying. He wasn't the only one.

  The wolf, my sand cats, the bobcat; they were all snarling, baring their teeth as their hackles lifted in warning.

  Fuck, were they going to eat me?

  No, that couldn’t be possible. Not my twins. Not my mates.

  They all stepped forward, teeth and growls growing closer, and also creeping up behind.

  They weren't alone.

  I spun around, expecting a hyena or something that was ready to pounce. What I got was worse.

  A giant brown bear was braying, lifting onto its hand legs as it chuffed, and roared, and swiped one clawed paw toward my head.

  "Oh shit!"

  The bear roared again. It was so loud that I covered my ears as streaks of white, orange, and black streaked by me, intersecting with the claws that were already heading my way. The claws that were already ripping at my chest, sending pools of blood flooding over my torso.

  I woke up with a gasp, sitting straight up in the giant king-sized bed that we were once again only using a portion of. Settling back down, I forced myself to take long inhales through my nose and low, slow exhales out through my mouth. It wasn't helping, my heart rate was still going a mile a minute, sweat pooling on my brow, helped along by the two naked bodies that were plastered to either side of me.

  Owen and Evan snuggled in closer to me, the twins still asleep and oblivious to the plethora of animals that had invaded my subconscious. Sand cats. A bobcat, and a wolf with an eyepatch...

  Fuck, I needed to stop drinking Poetry’s tea, sniffing her incense, and looking at the twins’ tarot cards because they were making me have some fucked up nightmares.

  I had enough going on in real life. I didn’t need screwed up dreams to add to the mayhem.

  Shimmering shit shingles, that was my third nightmare that night now that I thought about it. My eyes burned with the lack of sleep and I got up, needing water or a good slap upside the head. But first, the bathroom.

  I had only taken a few steps when I froze, my heart pounding before I even had a chance to turn and face the speck of moonlight in the corner of my eye.

  The wolf.

  He stood there, staring up at my window like he was some kind of apparition. An apparition with an eye patch I reminded myself, which only made me seem crazier. Before I could take a step to get a better look, the silver-white wolf turned, long limbs striding as he left the empty lot beside the shop and made his way through the streets. He turned a corner toward the butcher shop.

  And then he was gone.

  I had always heard on those cop shows that a criminal returns to the crime scene. Something about needing to revisit the place where he’d successfully gotten away with a crime.

  Either that, or the wolf was going to wreak some more havoc.

  Not havoc. Hunting.

  He was hunting. He was going to kill again, and no one believed me.

  I wasn't going to let him get away with this. I was going to catch him, I was going to stop him, and prove to them all that I wasn't completely crazy.

  I shifted before I had fully exhaled, my fox darting over the floor and down the stairs without a sound. Not even a whisper. My fox was a stealthy hunter, a ninja in the night, and I guess now a detective.

  All I needed was a sleuth hat.

  18

  My fox and I were pros at being...well, for the lack of a better word, foxy. Sneaky. Stealthy as fuck.

  Ninja Foxes.

  'Ninja Fox, Ninja Fox, here comes Scarlet she's a Ninja Fox.’

  Too bad I was stealthy as a fox, because eye patch wolf was missing one hell of a song. I'll have to share it with him later after I use my sleuth skills to capture him and help throw him in jail.

  My tail switched in delight at the thought, and I jumped lithely atop a dumpster, tiptoeing silently along the ridge as I followed the wolf around yet another corner, the dark eyes of the creature darting behind him as they always did. He looked down the street, missing me altogether from where I sat in his blind spot.

  And on he went. When he ran, I ran. When he stopped, I stopped. I never let my eyes leave him as we moved from street to street, his quick movements always watching. He might have seen something if he wasn’t, you know, battling a super-ninja-sleuth fox.

  And yes, for the record, I wasn’t nuts. This motherfucker had an eyepatch and a leather cuff.

  Maybe that's where he kept his knife, seeing as most of his teeth were broken. I mean, he had to have some way of killing his next victim, whoever that was. He sniffed at windows and stood on his hind legs to look into windows, but even he didn't seem to know what he was looking for. Fuck, was this pirate-looking motherfucker just going to go door to door until he found his next victim?

  Another street, another window, and I stifled a yawn. We were getting close to dawn, he had to be doing something.

  Sticking my snout around the corner of the next block, I checked blind spots before streaking across the street while he was looking into the smoothie shop, spending a little more time at the carrot-smelling place than he had anywhere else. Was the bunny next? I wouldn't blame him, he seemed feral enough, and bunnies were delicious. As if he had read my mind, he lifted his nose in the air and took in a long pull of air before shaking his fur and huffing out a breath of white fog into the chilly night.

  The cold breeze rustled over me as I inched forward, waiting for him to break in and kill the rabbit. I didn't want him to get too far ahead. If he did, I wouldn’t be able to stop him. Something in my gut told me that when this wolf decided to kill, nothing short of a demon would be able to stop him.

  He chuffed again, sending more white fog into the air as he paused at the back door to the butcher shop, taking extra time to smell things out. I was about to follow when he suddenly jumped and took off, turning into a streak of white in the dark.

  Fuck! He had clearly been holding back, dude was fast.

  My fox tittered as I chased him, doing my best to stay silent, although he was moving fast enough now that I was having trouble staying quiet. My claws clicked against the asphalt, tail swishing as I turned one corner, then another.

  Damn it, I lost him.

  Nose to the air, I sniffed, trying to find the scent of him. It was a leather and dust smell that I had been trailing behind for almost an hour.

  'Got him!’ He wasn't far. I took off, making sure to step only on the pads of my paws, careful not to let my nails click on the ragged sidewalk, giving me away.

  The puff of his white tail appeared again, darting down an alley. Well, that was easy. I found him faster than I expected. Knew I was a stealth—

  I had barely turned the corner after him when a human hand wrapped around my neck. A strong thumb and forefinger dug into my scruff, palm pressing against the muscles and making me gasp and kick my legs. In my fox form, however, it did little good. No thumbs to stop him, and even my razor-sharp teeth couldn't reach. I had been caught. A whine broke free from my throat before I hissed and bared my teeth at my captor.

  The scraggly man who had so easily caught me chuckled darkly, silver-grey hair falling over his face as he lifted me to eye height and the scent of him hit me full in the face. Leather and dust.

  The wolf.

  Oh god, this man was the wolf. He laughed deeper, shaking his head and throwing the hair away from his face, revealing the dark line of an eyepatch that covered a spider web of scars.

  I choked and coughed while he held on tighter, pulling me to him, only inches from his face. How he got that goddamned eyepatch to stay on through a shift was something I would have to ask him. You know, once he stopped choking me and trying to kill everyone in town.

  “Why the fuck are you following me?" He grunted as he shook
me. The way he spoke sounded like someone had taken a chainsaw to his throat, making the words raspy and grumbly.

  "Answer me!" He snapped, as if he expected me to be able to answer in my fox form. All he got were bared teeth and a snarled snap. I probably used up too much oxygen doing that, but I didn't care. He was pissing me off. "Now."

  Rolling my fox eyes at him, I fazed back into my human form. If he wanted an answer he was going to get that plus a swift kick to his exposed balls. I assumed that the change would cause him to drop me or at least temporarily drop me so that I could take a breath and send him writhing and clutching his cock.

  Shifting back only took me seconds, but my hopes of him dropping his grip disappeared. He grinned as I shifted, his hand not so much as moving as he held me against the wall, feet still dangling a few inches above the trash strewn asphalt of the alley.

  Damn it.

  “I asked you a fucking question, female.” His hand pressed harder, fingers digging into the flesh of my neck as his breath washed over me. It was all blood and sweetness like the meat he’d eaten had been covered with sugar.

  “I... can’t…” I rasped out, clawing at his hand with fingers and thumb now. Kicking with my human legs did about as much damage as my fox legs.. I was still dangling in his hold.

  "Try."

  I couldn't even get a gasp out that time, I was sure my lips were turning blue.

  "Pathetic female." He jutted me forward before dropping me to the asphalt where I crumpled into a mess of human limbs and skin, hacking and gagging while my fist pressed against my sternum.

  “Now answer, female.” He crouched before me, knees bent and exposing him before he leaned over me, nudging the side of my face with his nose the way a wolf would—the way a fox would.

  I jerked away from the touch, scuttling over the ground before plastering myself against the wall. However, he moved so fast he was still right before me, leaving no room for escape.

  “Female, answer,” he continued to growl as he prowled toward me, hunching down as though he was still in his wolf form, even though he was all long muscle and olive-toned flesh.

  “Female?” I answered, rubbing my throat to soothe the burn of oxygen entering my throat after being choked. “Don’t call me that.”

  “Why not? It’s what you are.” His nostrils flared as though he was scenting me to make sure, his wide hand pawing at my legs as if to open them up and check. I kicked at him, aiming my foot at his hand, or his jaw. I would have taken either, but he moved so fast that I missed.

  “Why are you following me?” He repeated the question, although thankfully he didn’t call me female that time.

  My fox still chittered in warning.

  “Could ask you the same thing. Or maybe, why are you stalking me?”

  “I’m not stalking you,” he snarled, flashing perfect teeth as he leaned in. He was clearly warning me before he backed up, just enough so that I could move. Well, enough to stand anyway. I stood against the slimy bricks of the alley, the old, worn things cutting into my bare skin as he stepped back up to me. I watched his hands, not interested in being choked and levitated again.

  “Oh yeah?” I tried to snap at him, but it came out as more of a squeak. You try to stare down a snarling, scarred wolf who looked even more badass in his human form. “I saw you at the airport. Then you howled outside my window the other day. The dumpster—”

  “Yet you are the one following me.” He was still snarling, yet somehow his lips pulled into a dangerous grin, his eyes flashing just as much.

  "You killed the butcher. I'm going to stop you from killing again,” I breathed out. There was no point in trying to hide what I was doing. We were both naked, in the middle of the night, standing in a goddamned alley. No point in dancing around the fact.

  "Killed the butcher?" he asked, clearly confused. His face screwed up for a moment, eyes narrowing as his lips pulled into a frown. "You mean that crazy old man who yells at his meat? The hyena?"

  I hadn't known he was a hyena, but it seemed to fit after I saw him apologize to a mailbox. I nodded once.

  “It was you,” I repeated in case my point hadn’t been made already. "I saw the same green stuff on your paws."

  He chuckled and stepped up to me again, his moves more canine that human as his face spread into a feral grin.

  “Stupid fucking cops. They can’t see past their own noses. They take everything at face value, never reading between the lines.” There was a self-confidence in his cadence, something powerful and rock-steady about the way he spoke, that had my lower stomach pulling taut while my heart beat overtime.

  I plastered myself harder against the wall, trying to create space between us that he seemed just as interested in closing up. The chill breeze from minutes before seemed hot now, hot and dense against my skin as it pulled us together.

  “They don't think you’re the killer,” I said, shoving out my chest stubbornly and realizing a second too late what I had done. His eyes dropped to my breasts, to the nipples that were the only sign that the air was still cold, and then to my belly. Lower.

  "I do," I tacked on, pulling his focus back to my face. I expected a snarl, or an attack. I was ready to shift back into my fox and streak out of here.

  Instead he gave one heartless laugh and leaned forward, hands against the bricks on either side of my head. His nose, teeth, and one deep-blue eye growing closer until he was just inches away. All of him was just inches away. Sparks of fire ran through my limbs and I froze.

  That was not the reaction I had expected. From fear to arousal within seconds. Because that was normal.

  "You killed him," I said again, trying to expel the rising heat in my body. But it only grew.

  “Says the pretty little fox. The fox who should know better. Stop thinking like a fucking human and use that gorgeous creature to your advantage. She has a nose and sharp beady eyes. Those aren’t just for hunting rabbits, little one. You aren’t seeing everything you should.”

  "I saw the goo—"

  "You saw remains from the trash. I have killed no one." My breath hitched as he spoke and I tried like hell to stop my senses from absolutely bowing to everything this man was. Everything he smelled like. Everything he was making me feel. He reached out and slid his finger down the side of my body, grazing past my breast and down my waist, stopping at the outward curvature of my hip. He tapped on the skin there like he was knocking on the door, asking to come in. I leaned my head against the stone, pressing my lips together as I desperately tried to control my breathing. To control myself.

  It was no use, my hips tilted forward anyway.

  'Come in.' The words were stuck in my throat, trapped behind a moan that came out on its own.

  He smiled, inhaling the aroma that I’m sure was drifting off of me like a plague. Drifting like his fingers were as they left my hip and tapped over my pelvis, over the arch of the hair there.

  I shivered as his fingers twisted in the tuft of red, burrowing their way closer to the button that was throbbing, begging for his touch. I didn’t understand the pull to this man but my fox preened inside me as he explored. She wasn’t a bit afraid of this man who my human mind called a killer.

  He smiled, a small whine coming from his throat as he pulled his hand back. He wrapped his fingers around my hips as he held me in place, and as he pushed his slightly swollen member against me, our hips touching.

  “I didn’t even know him, the hyena. I haven’t even stepped into this town other than this past week. Never been here before in my life.” He turned his focus back to mine, his voice strained as his fingers finally left my hip, although nothing else moved. “Yet you think wolves just come in and slaughter everyone. We aren’t always the bad omen people think we are.”

  Bad omen. Where had I heard that before?

  "I had no reason to kill that man."

  "Then you are a Bountier." I repeated the word that the postman had, expecting some glorious 'I've been caught' moment, but he just
grinned and let out one heartless laugh. He leaned into me and placed the warm weight of his abdomen against mine. I shivered and he chuckled again.

  "If that were true, then I would have left. A hunter takes his kill and leaves, but I have a feeling you don’t know that, because you don’t know what a Bountier is. If you did, you wouldn’t have come after me.”

  He pressed himself against me, flattening my body against the brick wall until the pointed stones dug into my ass and the backs of my calves. His large hand made its way to my throat again. His naked hips pressed against mine as he leaned closer, his nose burrowing into the crevice between my neck and shoulder. He inhaled deeply, a throaty growl reverberating between our melded chests and sending all those lines of heat dancing through my veins again. “Have you even thought about that, little one? Have you thought about the motivation for such a crime? The history? A Bountier would have left too. A murder hidden. A hunter... devoured."

  I shivered at that last word, at the way it ripped through his chest and growled into a low moan.

  "Use your head, little fox." He pushed away a bit, just enough to fix me with the one bright eye. The intensity of his gaze was sending more shockwaves through me. I was turning into a motherfucking earthquake under him.

  “Scarlet,” I corrected him automatically and then cursed under my breath. I shouldn’t have told him my name. We were not supposed to give murderers our names. At least that’s what I should have been taught as a child. Yet here I was, giving a murderer my name like it was today’s date.

  He laughed again, this time turning up his head like a wolf does when he howls. “I already knew that, fox. I’ve heard your name being called out by your mates on several occasions through that open window.”

  His voice had dropped an octave or two, the rumble so low I was sure I felt it more than heard it. Felt it as he leaned into me again, as that finger tapped against my hip, against my navel. “Is that why you keep it open, little one?” Another tap, this one even lower. “To tempt me?” His palm flattened against my belly, his fingers burrowing in my hair as they sunk down, and as I tilted to him again. He leaned in; his warm breath soft against my lips as he spoke. “To hear them saying your name as they take you?”