Chapter Six

The sounds of snarling and snapping drew his attention as they entered the clearing, slicing through his exquisitely pleasurable post-coital warmth and dragging him back to reality.

The reality where that was the only and only time he’d ever get to be with Savannah. The hollowness of loss that wrenched at him when he thought of leaving her behind forever.

A group of foxes had shifted and were circling and snapping at each other. As the moon rose higher in the sky, tempers rose with it. Any second now, blood would start flowing. This wasn’t sparring for fun anymore – it had gone past that and was about to tip into ugliness.

The police chief was shouting at the group, and they were ignoring him. Laurel pushed her way through the gathered crowd, who were starting to separate into two main factions. If someone didn’t do something, it was likely to turn into a giant, bloody free-for-all.

Savannah stifled a cry of dismay. She started to move forward, and all of Austin’s protective instincts surged through him.

Austin stormed into the middle of the group of brawlers. He grabbed two foxes, who easily weighed forty pounds each, and held them high in the air by the scruffs of their necks. He shook them, very lightly, but enough to get their attention. They instantly went limp in submission.

“Stop!” he yelled. He blasted his Dominus energy through the air. “Change back.” Fortunately, foxes were easier to compel than larger shifters. Fifteen foxes let out howls and yips of pain as their bones violently snapped, as their fangs were forced back into their gums, as their claws were painfully rammed into their fingers. Within a minute they were all human again, on their hands and knees in the grass, groaning.

“Listen up!” he yelled. “Next person who tries to ruin Ms. Orman’s party will make me a very nice fox-tail hat! Understand?”

He was rewarded with the sight of a bunch of foxes submissively bowing their heads.

Then he was punished with the sight of a bunch of naked fox shifters in human form climbing to their feet, all flabby middle-aged men with their bits and pieces dangling. They all had fire-red pubic hair. Oh God, why had he noticed that? Delete, delete, delete!

All the shifters started pulling their clothes on. They were lucky. When foxes shifted, they got smaller, which meant they didn’t explode out of their clothing like other species did.

He looked around for Savannah.

She was gone. He was sure she’d hightailed it into the house to shower, in a desperate attempt to wash the smell of sex off her.

Like that would help.

She was in for a major interrogation from her mother later, he was sure.

To kill time while he waited for her, he walked over to one of the grills.

He served himself up a hamburger, rare like most shifters liked it, and bit into it, letting the juices run down his throat. He’d worked up an appetite out there in the woods with Savannah, and he devoured half the burger in one gulp. That only satisfied one kind of hunger. He’d just romped with the little fox shifter and he was already eager to go again. Damn, did he regret having to head out tomorrow.

He felt someone brush up against him. Not Savannah, unfortunately.

It was Jessamine.

“Hello,” she said in what was meant to be a sexy growl.

“Goodbye.” He turned his back on her.

She hurried around to stand in front of him. “I’m the sexier sister,” she informed him.

“Debatable.” He took another bite of hamburger, chewing slowing, savoring the rich meatiness.

“I can show you a really good time. I know tricks.” She ran her tongue along her upper lip. Then she stretched it out to touch the tip of her nose.

“Oh really?” he grunted. “Can you play fetch?”

He grabbed a hamburger bun from the plastic bin on a table and tossed it into the bushes. She just stared after it.

“Guess not,” he said. He turned and walked away. She hurried after him.

“We could go into the woods right now and nobody would ever know. I’d let you do anything you like to me.”

He stopped and looked her up and down.

“You know what I want to do with you? What I really, really want?” He leaned in and brushed his lips against her ear. She gasped. “I want to take you into the woods, tie you hand and foot…” Her lips parted eagerly, and she nodded.

“Yes?” she breathed huskily.

He straightened up and took a step back. “And leave you there, so I can get back to eating without you annoying the shit out of me. Run along now, flea circus.”

Instead of looking offended, she turned and yelled out to her mother, who was at the burger grill, frying up meat patties, “Hey, Mom, he passed the first test!”

And her mother looked across the yard at them and gave a big thumbs-up.

Great.

Savannah came barreling across the yard towards them. She was wearing a T-shirt and jeans now, and her hair was wet from her quick shower. Her eye makeup was smeary. She couldn’t be any more obvious about what they’d just done if her T-shirt had said, “I just got sexed by Austin Bronson!”

Come to think of it, he’d love it if she wore a T-shirt like that.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Savannah demanded of her sister, panting for breath as she skidded to a stop.

“Relax,” Jessamine told her. “Mom sent me to do the fidelity check. He turned me down. Honestly, if he’d said yes, I wouldn’t have done it anyway. He’s not my type. I don’t think he’s pierced anywhere.” She started to walk away, then she stopped, flicked a glance at Austin’s crotch area, and looked questioningly at her sister. “Is he?”

Savannah’s face was so red it almost matched her hair. “I know where you sleep. I will get revenge on you, in horrible and humiliating ways.” She ground out the words as if spitting out glass shards.

Jessamine tossed her head coquettishly. “Yeah, the problem with that is, I can’t be humiliated, because I have no sense of shame.”

She turned and walked off.

“That’s not something to brag about!” Savannah yelled after her.

Then she shoved her hands in her pockets and stared at the ground, biting her lip. She looked like she was almost about to cry from embarrassment, so Austin threw his arm around her shoulders.

“Your family seems…what’s the word that I’m looking for? Weird as fuck. But, you know, a good kind of weird. Unlike my family’s kind of weird; they’re a bunch of platinum-plated assholes. So, it’s like a full moon here twenty-four seven, I gather?”

“You have no idea what I go through on a daily basis,” Savannah groaned, leaning her head against his shoulder.

Then she quickly stepped away from him, shrugging his arm off and glancing around nervously.

He smirked down at her. “Embarrassed to be seen with me?”

“Hell, yes.” But a grin tugged at her lips. “Wolf cooties. Gross.”

“Fox cooties.” He ran his tongue over his lips in response. “Tasty. I’d like a second helping.”

She bit back a laugh, hiding it behind her hand. “Can you please stop being so— damn it to hell!” She finished that last bit on an angry snarl.

“Can I please stop being so damn it to hell?” Austin repeated, confused.

His little fox shifter was so wonderfully weird.

But she wasn’t his. Not after tonight.

That thought made him incredibly sad.

Then he followed her gaze. She was glaring across the parking lot. A fox shifter who looked like an aging gigolo, wearing a pin-striped suit and with his hair slicked back like a wannabe gangster, was marching across the lawn, with a gang of men behind him. At least twenty of them. They were shoving foxes out of their way left and right, and they headed straight for the cash box, which was being manned by Niall.

The gigolo fox violently elbowed a woman in the head, wrenching a cry of pain from her, and knocked her out of the way.

Her mate started forward, and a big bruiser of a fox shifter snarled at him.

The crowd was murmuring in fear and dismay. Austin glanced at the police chief, who was huddled in on himself, shoulders drooping, head down.

Seriously?

The gigolo reached down, grabbed the cash box off the table, and started to walk away.

“Hey!” Niall screamed, running after him. Austin rushed forward. Laurel and Savannah and Jessamine all went barreling towards the fancy fox.

One of the gang raised his fist, about to deliver a punch to Niall’s head.

Austin beat him to it, punching the man so hard that his jaw shattered and bloody teeth went flying.

Immediately, the other men began closing around the overdressed jerk, growling protectively.

Austin bowled through them, sending them staggering, and grabbed the cash box back from the man in the suit. He handed the box to Laurel, who had come running up behind him.

“That is our money!” Laurel cried out, her voice choked with fury. “What do you mean coming here and stealing our money?”

“Stealing? You owe me, bitch! You’re still sixty thousand dollars short!” He snarled at her.

“That’s not how it works,” Savannah yelled at him, balling her fists. “We have a contract. We have made all our payments on time. If we can’t make the balloon payment in a month, then you get to take the property. You can’t come steal our money on top of that! And we told you to stay off our property until then!”

“I’ll come on my property any damn time I want,” Fancy Fox spat at her. “I’m going to start coming here morning, noon and night, and I’m going to take whatever cash you’ve got sitting in your register, and whatever you have in your safe. And there’s not a thing you can do to stop me.” He looked up at Austin. “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll hand me my money back, leave, and never come back. Oh, you may think you’re big and bad, but I have some very powerful connections, and you do not want to piss me off, Mr…” He let the last part trail off questioningly.

Austin towered over Mr. Fancy Fox, glaring down at him. “I’m Austin Bronson. And who the fuck are you?”

“I’m your worst fucking nightmare.” He grinned, letting his little fangs descend in an attempt to intimidate.

Austin threw his head back and howled with laughter.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. You did not just say that. No, really, who are you?” he gasped, wiping tears from his cheeks.

“I don’t answer to the likes of you,” Fancy Fox snarled, shaking with fury. He glanced around at his men for support, only to realize that they were all casually, slowly, sliding back away from him and avoiding his gaze.

“He’s Algernon, Lord of All Foxes,” Savannah said quietly.

“What? No. That’s not what he calls himself,” Austin said in astonishment. He stared at her grim expression. “You’re serious. Lord of All Fuck-faces? Really?” He laughed so hard that he doubled over. He clutched at his stomach. “Ow. Whoooo. I think I strained something.”

“Algernon, Lord of all Foxes!” Algernon screamed.

“Algernon, Lord of all Fart-boxes? Holy crap.” Everyone in the crowd was joining Austin in his laughter now.

One of Algernon’s men smacked a woman who was laughing at his boss, and Austin instantly stopped laughing.

“Change,” he roared at the top of his lungs, and blasted every single one of them so hard that they changed in less than a minute, howling and screaming without words.

He held them there, frozen in place. That was harder to do then just forcing them to change, and it set up a dull ache in his temples, but he was really pissed. He didn’t like men who hit women.

They writhed, they whimpered, they squealed.

The whole crowd stared, fascinated. He held them, and he held them, and Algernon and his men whined in pain, their eyes huge with panic.

Finally he released them.

“Change back,” he shouted, and the sound of snapping bones and screams of agony filled the air. He could have just let them change back naturally, on their own, and spared them the pain, but where was the fun in that?

Within a minute, he was faced with a crowd of naked, panting, groaning men, who all looked as if they were about to vomit. Algernon, Lord of All Fuck-turds, was sweating like a pig, and his gelled hair was a mess, sticking up in random spikes.

They stumbled in place, gasping for breath.

The crowd attending the barbecue started clapping and cheering. Austin made a mock bow to the crowd, and they cheered even louder.

Algernon and his men glared at him with utter hatred, and started to bend down and reach for their clothes.

“Nope,” Austin yelled. “You forfeited your clothing when you hit innocent females, you little bitches. Now you’re going to leave, or I swear to God I will stand here and make you change back and forth until you pass out, and then I’ll keep doing it until your hearts burst. You aren’t going to set paw on this property again unless you get to claim it. And if you have a problem with that, they’re now under the protection of the Pebble Creek Pack. And me.”

Unless every last one of us gets murdered.

They turned and hurried off, muttering under their breath, and scrambled into their cars, naked. They screeched out of the parking lot, howling threats out of the windows as they sped away.

There was a long moment of stunned silence.

“Thank you,” Laurel said to him, looking shaken. “He has no right to treat people the way he does. Thanks for putting him in his place. Someone had to.”

Then she turned to the assembled crowd. The music had stopped. “What are you waiting for? Let’s party!” she cried.

Niall hurried to turn the music back on. Within a couple of minutes, people were back to dancing and drinking.

“Dance with me?” Austin asked Savannah.

“Oh, I’m terrible at it,” Savannah protested, looking truly alarmed.

“Me too. It’s just an excuse for me to put my arms around you and move slowly around while swaying in time to the music.”

She managed a little smile. “That doesn’t sound too awful.”

Austin circled his arms around her and pulled her close to him. They began moving, ever so slowly, swaying back and forth. She moved in perfect rhythm with him, resting her head on his shoulder, and he slowly stroked her lower back.

The entire world fell away. It was just the two of them, in their own, perfect little universe. She was his, and he was hers, and he could pretend it would be like that forever.

Waking up in bed next to her… Carrying their cubs in his arms…

She smelled heavenly and felt as soft as clouds. He kept playing the memory of their lovemaking back through his head, smiling to himself. She was so relaxed, she was melting into him.

And then she tensed up and stepped back.

He looked around.

Nobody else was dancing anymore. Everybody was staring at them. The wolf and the fox. He’d all but staked a claim on Savannah right there. Practically announced that she was his mate.

As soon as he looked up, though, everybody looked away quickly and became very interested in anything else but him.

He knew how small towns were – gossip was their meat and drink. And he’d already told Savannah that he would be gone for good after tonight, so he was leaving her to deal with this on her own. Here he’d made this big show of publicly courting her right in front of her family, and then he was going to pull a disappearing act.

“Oh God,” Savannah groaned. “Oh crud. I will never, never, never live this down. After I’m dead, they’ll still be talking about it.”

“Welp, maybe I should run along home now,” he said uncomfortably. He desperately didn’t want to leave her, but he also didn’t want to cause any more trouble for her.

“Maybe you should.”

Disappointment stung him at her muttered words. Even though he knew this magical night had to end sometime, he wished it hadn’t had to happen so abruptly.

Savannah flashed a last, wincing look at the crowd, ducked her head, and scampered off into the woods. His last glimpse was of her shifting into fox form and disappearing. The place was riddled with fox holes. Handy, when you wanted to literally disappear into a hole in the ground. He wished he had that ability.

His mood deflated like a balloon leaking helium as he headed towards his truck.

“Wait up!” Laurel hurried up to him as he was about to open the door.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, uneasily.

She had a bright smile pasted on her face. He didn’t trust that smile. “Thanks again for helping out with Algernon earlier.”

He nodded politely. “My pleasure.”

She didn’t move. “Going somewhere?” She arched her eyebrows.

He managed a polite smile. “Yep. Long day ahead of me. I have a big bounty I’m going after tomorrow morning.”

She leaned against his truck door, blocking his escape. “My daughter is very precious to me. And she likes you very much. If you take advantage of her, if you hurt her, you will be on my bad side. You will find out how much of a fucking crazy bitch I can be.”

He stared at her in shock.

“Miss Laurel?” he choked out.

Her smile tightened a notch. “And if you ever tell anyone I used those particular words, I will of course deny it, and people will think you’re insane.”

She moved away from the car door. “And it’s not just me you’d be up against. Every single fox shifter in the continental United States would be gunning for you. We may seem like little, cute, cuddly things, but when you push us too far, we’re not. We’re really, really not.”

He stared down at the short, chubby woman wearing the frilly apron. He was staring way, way down, because her head barely came up to his chest.

“Yes, ma’am,” Austin said.

And she turned and walked away.

He climbed into his truck, shaking his head in bemusement.

If it weren’t for the fact that he was already a dead wolf walking, he’d be genuinely rattled by her threat. He’d learned something new about foxes tonight.

You don’t mess with a mama fox’s kits and walk away unscathed.