Fox Play (8 page)

I schooled my features and waited to learn more. Then I would decide how far I would need to run.

"Spy may not be the right word," Lara said. "And we would not send you into a dangerous setting. Surely you know I could never do that to you. Everything I have ever done has been to keep you from danger."

Perhaps it had all been part of the recruitment plan. I wondered how naive I had been all this time.

"No, certainly, but I don't understand."

"Initially, tonight, we have guests," Lara said. "From Chicago. Relationships with Chicago have been stressed for a very long time. There have been overtures from them lately, but we do not fully trust them."

"They are coming to your poker game."

"Yes," said Lara.

"What do you want from me?"

"Simply learn whatever you can. Watch them and decide if you feel they are being deceitful."

"So a fox lie detector."

She smiled. "Yes."

"I can do that," I said. "I don't promise accuracy. What else?"

"For now, that is all. In the future, we don't know." Lara's body language still had me puzzled.

"All right," I said. "May I ask a question?"

"Of course."

"Why is this a council issue? Why didn't you just ask me quietly yourself?"

Vivian answered, "Because we know you have questions you are not asking, questions that should be asked of the council, not only of the alpha."

"All right," I said. "What questions am I not asking?"

"You are wondering when we knew we would need these services from you. You are wondering how long we have been discussing your status. And I think perhaps, based on how you closed off your features, that you wonder if Lara has been deceitful with you."

Lara looked at Vivian, then at me, and horror crawled into her face.

"Does your lover's expression answer the last question, fox?" Vivian asked.

"I would never doubt Lara's love for me," I replied. I smiled at Lara. "I love you, too."

But somehow I wasn't convincing. Perhaps it was the stiff way I was sitting.

"You doubt me. Michaela, how can you doubt me?"

"I never said I doubted you," I pointed out. "Vivian did."

"She isn't going to admit it, Alpha," Vivian said. "But if you push her, she will be forced to lie to you. Right now she wonders what game we are playing with her, and I don't blame her one bit."

"How can you doubt me, Michaela?"

I opened my mouth to deny it. "Ms. Redfur, perhaps I can explain," Vivian offered.

"Oh certainly," I said. "Be my guest." It was said somewhat sarcastically, and I regretted my tone. I was starting to slip.

"Lara, she doubts you because she doubts herself. She believes, deep, deep down, that the only thing a wolf can see when looking at her is prey. At her core, she can not believe you love her, or at least it is so much easier for her to believe you will hurt her than love her."

My control wavered even further. I felt the tears crawling into my eyes. I tried to push them away.

"Don't listen to her, Lara," I said. "We're fine. What do you need me to do?"

"Lara," Vivian said gently. "She loves you from the bottom of her heart. Michaela, Lara loves you equally as much."

I turned to look at her. "You have raised interesting questions and suggested these are my questions. Would you care to answer the questions you think I have raised?"

She laughed. "Carefully said. All right. Clearly the timing of yesterday's events was not remotely coincidental. They are definitely related to tonight's. The council could not bring in anyone from outside the pack on this issue, and we believe we need you."

"Thank you for being honest," I replied.

"It is clearly obvious," she said. "And thus not evidence of a lack of duplicity. However, you fear yesterday was a sham. It was not. The council has been discussing your status since the unpleasantness in September. The alpha has not been the only one arguing for inviting you into the pack. And I know she has been working on you to accept the idea as well."

"I take it there were issues that complicated yesterday's offer?"

"Yes," she said. "It is unprecedented to invite a non-wolf into a wolf pack. We had to decide if we were willing to set a new precedent, one that could prove difficult for us in the future."

"Because now you've let in the riff raff and might be forced to let in more?"

"Lara," Vivian said. "That's how she thinks we see her. As riff raff. And worse." She turned back to me. "And no. It's because the other packs will cause difficulty for us. That's a guarantee."

"But you offered anyway."

"Yes, and even without the pressures tonight, we would have gotten past that issue, but it would have taken time. The other issues were about your place in the dominance structure."

Mr. Berg spoke up. "I already told you how I had felt."

I nodded to him.

Vivian continued. "Lara has been trying to push the council into making an offer you could accept. On Monday, things came to a head. We were discussing tonight's events, and Lara said casually, If only Michaela were a member, we could lean on her expertise. It's too bad we can't invite her into the pack in a fashion she could possibly accept."

I looked at Lara. She was nodding.

"We would have come to the offer we gave you yesterday," Vivian. "If more of us had taken time to get to know you like some of us finally did yesterday, perhaps it would have happened sooner rather than later. But, bluntly, most of us were rather dismissive of you. A fox? What could Lara possibly see in you?"

"I think I understand."

"Deep down, most of us will always have a hard time understanding you, Michaela," Vivian said. "May I ask some very personal questions?"

"I guess," I said.

"Are you afraid all the time?"

"No," I said. "Not all the time. I'm not afraid when Lara is holding me. Sometimes when I'm out on the lake in my kayak, I'm not afraid."

"Lara, I believe your fox needs you," Vivian said.

Lara got up and was immediately at my side, pulling me into her arms. I clung to her, breathing deeply, and trying very hard not to cry.

"Michaela," Vivian said. "I know you still are wondering if Lara is just an exceptionally good actress and has been leading you on for months. Maybe it is just a small part of you that wonders this. But I want you to look around this room. Everyone in here is asking for your help. We're asking because we trust your judgment. Would we trust your judgment if we knew it was flawed?"

I buried my face in Lara's chest, sucking in wracking sobs. Lara held me tightly, clutching at me as hard as I was clutching at her.

No one said anything for a while. I couldn't believe all these people were sitting here watching me cry. Finally I settled down, and someone had slid a box of tissues to my place at the table. I wondered why wolves needed tissues. I glanced at the box while taking several to deal with my disorder.

"I think for future meetings of the council, the little fox should sit next to the alpha," Vivian said. "We may be able to keep things moving more smoothly that way."

"I am so sorry," I said.

Vivian looked around the room. "We have thrown a lot at you in a short time, and you have a great deal of cause to distrust wolves."

I looked around the room and found Violet. "I am sorry for what I said yesterday at dinner."

"About putting a bell on me?" She asked. I nodded. "Don't apologize. I was put out at the time, but Vivian pointed out you were making a reasonable attempt to cope with a deeply difficult situation, and that it was a mistake to think of you as wolf. In fact," she said. And then shifted and I heard a bell. I stared at her.

Then Vivian shifted, and there was a bell. Then one by one, the other members shifted, and there was the sound of a little jingle bell.

I couldn't help it. I began laughing. They had done something silly just to make me feel better.

"Don't expect us to wear them in public," Mr. Berg said. "But we wanted you to know we have a sense of humor. And to make sure you understand. You are one of us now."

I breathed in Lara's scent again and looked up into her face. I was about to apologize.

"No, little fox," Vivian said. "You had every right to question things. Do not apologize for doing so."

Lara kissed me quickly, then whispered in my ear. "We're fine. More than fine. All right?" I nodded.

"All right," I said. "What do you need me to do?"

"Just pay attention tonight," said Lara. "And lose."

"What?"

"We're playing a long game," she said.

"You're making me lose my own money? I'm not rich like everyone else in here."

"We'll let you win it back," Vivian said. "But there needs to be a paper trail showing you pulled the money out of your own account, and we can't turn around and replace it next week. It needs to look like you lost, and it needs to stand up to a pretty solid investigation."

"Besides," said Elizabeth. "Most of it is Janice's money anyway."

I laughed. "And some of yours, and quite a bit of Malcolm's, and not a small amount of the alpha's. But still, I worked hard for that money!"

"Especially the alpha's," Elisabeth said. "You definitely worked hard for her money."

"Elisabeth!" I said.

She looked at me smugly.

"All right," I said. "Was there more?"

"We're meeting them for dinner," Lara said. "We'll leave in an hour. You'll need to get ready right away. I'll be over in a bit."

"All right," I said. I breathed her in once more then stepped away.

* * * *

An hour later, I was dressed and waiting for Lara. There was a knock on the door.

"Come in," I said.

Vivian stood in the door. I was surprised to see her. "I wanted to talk to you alone," she said. She crossed the room and stood in front of me, studying me. I looked up at her.

"You are remarkable," she said finally. Then she reached out a hand offering me a business card. Vivian was a psychologist. "I can help. If you do not call me, I will approach the alpha. But I think perhaps you would prefer we keep this between ourselves."

I stared at the card, then looked up at her.

"From time to time, when it's especially bad, I wonder what it would be like to visit some sort of counselor. I can imagine the reaction a human would have when I said, I am a were fox, and when I was fourteen, a pack of wolves killed everyone in my family but me. They chased me down, but I killed them, one by one. After that, I found and buried my family before running, running for years."

"They would lock you up."

"I could prove the were fox part, but I can just imagine the cover up that would cause."

She laughed. "Quite. Will you promise to call me, or do I need to ask Lara to make you call me?"

"I will call, but give me time to get used to the idea."

"A few days," she said. "We can do telephone calls when you are in Bayfield, but we need to start in my office or here."

"Everyone will know," I said. "If we do it here."

"Lara will know, but do you intend to hide it from her?"

"No."

"Call me. Soon."

"I will. Thank you."

Vivian left and Lara came upstairs a few minutes later. I had known she was in the house, of course. Lara entered our bedroom and looked at me.

"I am sorry I doubted you," I told her immediately.

"It looked suspicious," she said. "It was suspicious." She crossed the room and stood in front of me, her presence offering me her body and comfort, but not assuming I would accept it. I moved closer, not quite touching, waiting for her to take the last bit. She did, stepping closer, but her arms didn't wrap around me until I pressed myself fully against her. And then we held each other.

I looked up, seeing her jaw more than her eyes. "I need to know. Are we all right?" I asked her.

She looked down into my eyes. "Yes, little fox. We are perfect. Was what you told Vivian true? This is when you feel safe?"

"It's when I don't fear," I said. "Hold me tighter." She squeezed just a little more firmly, always careful with me. "Lara, there used to be only one thing I feared: wolves."

"Do you still fear wolves?"

"Yes, just not every wolf. But now there is something I fear more than that."

"Oh honey."

"I fear you won't love me."

"You can banish that fear. It won't happen." I didn't say anything. "Honey, you know that, don't you?"

"Sometimes I do. Not often, Lara."

"How can you doubt?"

"Vivian already told you."

I felt Lara smile in victory. "Everything Vivian said was right, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"Even the part where she told you that I loved you as much as you love me."

I pulled away slightly so I could actually see her face. "You keep forgetting how much I hate losing arguments."

"It's a good thing this wasn't an argument then."

She pulled me to her again, and I felt better, almost as if this might last. Even as I recognized the feelings, I knew they were fleeting. The doubts would return, but for now I was safe and I was loved.

I wriggled against her, settling in a little more, but my confidence returning and, along with it, an unhealthy amount of playfulness. Lara sensed the change but couldn't know what it may portend. I raised my mouth to the underside of her jaw and kissed her. Then I lowered my lips to her throat and kissed.

She stiffened slightly. "If I feel teeth, little fox-" she began to warn.

I nipped her throat.

She knew I was going to do it, and the reaction, as always, was instant. She bore me to the floor, swiftly, firmly, but with a great deal of care. She pressed me against the floor with her body and then her mouth was over my throat.

"Oh, my strong wolf," I said, clutching at her. I don't know when in our relationship I had begun craving it when she did this. I didn't like offering the submission, but when she took it like this, it filled me with happiness.

She held me like that, waiting for the whimper, the whimper I hadn't offered yet. She tightened her mouth slightly, reminding me she could crush my throat even as a human.