“Don’t,” I said. “Leave him alone. He’s inspired. You didn’t even mention his dancing.”
“I didn’t watch his.” Another kiss, his mouth moving and capturing mine and exploring. “A dance at home is what you need. Tomorrow night. I’ll show you real dancing—all night with a real dog-fox. You don’t need to protect him. Did he touch you like this?” Mej reached into me with a finger, pressing up hard.
I groaned, whimpered, and opened my mouth for his tongue. He kept pushing while I moved back into his hand for more contact, then two fingers, until I crumpled onto the bed below him. Mej followed, close and kissing, always reaching inside me. I shuddered in response, body tingling and straining with the pleasure he gave me, still longing for more. He had me gasping, lifting my hips for that little bit more, when he pulled back. His fingers slipped from me and he moved down my body.
“What would you do without me?” Mej slipped down and ducked his face to me. He explored with his tongue, sucked and stroked until the intensity exploded and I found the rush I couldn’t have from Komu.
I cried out, gasped, lifted my hips to meet Mej’s mouth.
Mej was talking to Komu by the time I relaxed. “You can give her more. Vixens don’t demand a rest after pleasure like we do.” He moved above me while he talked. His curving, rigid organ rubbed between my thighs until he reached to guide the tip to penetrate me.
With a fresh thrill I raised both legs against his hips. I closed my knees on him while Mej buried himself, filling me at a thrust, then pressing in close and fast.
Still riding the last rush, I relaxed around him as he thrust—blending deep contact with outer pressure until another climax took over and I cried out, saying his name. Like Komu, I saw Mej bound to me on the stage, my back on polished wood, bright lights above us, dancing as we merged, my body burning and pulsing with the music as well as his body.
“Summit? Can you feel me?” he asked in gasps as he kept thrusting. “Feel…? I’m giving you… Oh—Earth Mother … God… I’m your mate now, Summit… Feel me?” The way he talked stretched our pleasure, a new beat to follow.
“Yes,” I answered. “I feel you, Mej. I want you…”
He strained, held on, and pushed until he couldn’t keep hard anymore. A trickle of hot liquid followed when he slid out. Komu was hovering, ready to push everything back inside me.
Mej growled at him. “As if you’re worthy—”
“Mej,” I spoke sharply and Mej eased up.
Komu pushed him the rest of the way aside, ignoring Mej and focused on me. Watching us together must have been intense for him. He was scrambling, trying to thrust while he still hadn’t worked himself in—so he kept slipping out.
Mej sneered. “Earth Mother, what are you doing? What’d I just show you?”
I pressed Mej’s arm and he stopped with a sigh. At the same time, I climbed up Komu, out from under him and facing him on my knees instead. I touched him, calmed him, and he slowed, following my lead.
Now Komu took time and brought me there again—tightening, tingling, bursting with the new rush he gave me. I praised him, loving him and eager to show him how he made me feel.
By the time we lay back, Mej returned to kissing my neck and ear, while Komu still seemed anxious for my happiness and I reassured him.
Komu lay against me for so long the sweat was drying, my breathing was long and normal, and Mej finally shoved him away. I shivered, startled to discover too much open air on my bare skin, but Mej climbed over him, pressing in and taking Komu’s place. I curved to my back and opened my legs to feel Mej deftly join his body to mine again.
Slower and slower now, a frantic dance becoming a shifting tide—no rush, only together, touching, dreaming, until we eventually slept.
Chapter 21
Day 10
Demik, warned or otherwise about us possibly being gone overnight, was in a state of some agitation when we returned. Ignoring Mej and Komu, he ran to meet me on the trail, hugged me, asked if I was all right, an rushed me away for breakfast with his sister and her family.
“Couldn’t we have a nap?” I glanced longingly over my shoulder as Mej and Komu slouched off toward the den.
“Tweal came in,” Demik said shortly. “Not fit for anything now. It reeks.”
Mej and Komu turned back.
“The old flea sack showed himself last night?” Mej asked.
Demik gave an irritable jerk of his shoulder, never looking around. “Still in there now.”
“Is he…?” A sinister smile twisted Mej’s lips.
Demik, tense as a board, steered me to Skeen’s den while I kept trying to look around. I heard one explosive yell as, apparently, Tweal was awakened.
Tem bounded to greet us. Even Demik relaxed with the sight of his niece and family.
We ate, Demik calmed with Tem climbing on him, and everyone wanted to know what I thought of apple pie. Everyone other than Demik. I kept any mention of humans brief around him.
Instead, while everyone tidied up and the dog-foxes were talking over their day’s work of fishing, preserving for winter, and Demik’s chores with refinishing the boats, I approached Qualin.
“I regret you didn’t find your clan,” Qualin told me when I stepped over to him at the door. Skeen’s den was one of the few human-style structures in the settlement, though more were being built. I could hear hammering even now as several foxes rushed to finish cabins before the first frost of October.
“Qualin? May I think of the Aaqann River Clan as my family too?” I bit my lip and hesitated, sure my etiquette was wrong. A fox did not invite herself to be part of another fox’s skulk. It was the other way around, if ever.
But Qualin squeezed my shoulder. “We’re proud to have you, young one. We’re all still hoping you find your family, though. You know that? We’d like to meet them ourselves.”
“Thank you. I’ll do my share. I can help prepare for winter, fish and mend. I only can’t watch kits, perhaps… Mej says I’m the one who needs watching.”
He chuckled. “Surely not. You just take your time; think about what you remember and where was the last place you saw anyone familiar. We’ll look after you. Or talk to Skeen or Neeve about how you can help if you want a job. But, if you want an old fox’s advice, you’d be doing us the biggest favor by finding your family.”
Qualin left to start the day’s fishing. While I … didn’t know what to do.
What was official sanction by an elder if it came with a request to keep seeking my own clan? Of course, I should find them. Only…
“Why?” I asked Demik while we walked through the settlement a short time later, several dogs at our heels. “I know you’re not many here, but why do you all want to find my family more than I do?”
“Not more,” Demik said, holding my hand, his face turned beside my hair as we walked so he could take in my scent. “Just as much as you. Don’t you miss them, Summit?”
“How can I miss them? I don’t even remember their smells.”
“You remember something. You had a mate. You remember love.”
“Love… Not him. Not who he is, or anyone else. I know I ate fish and spoke Vulpen. Those aren’t memories of a life. Only of … existing. You miss them more than I do. You long for them while I only wonder.”
We stopped in the gray light, clouds low, a breeze driving away mosquitoes. Ahead and below ran the busy, fluttering Yukon River, so wide that 100 caribou abreast would not form a bridge across it.
“I’ve told you, Summit, we’re fading. There used to be thousands who spoke our language, living at the mouth of rivers or traveling with the seasons, following the caribou and salmon. Meeting here could mean the collective gatherings of dozens of human and shifter clans along these banks. Fox, wolf, wolverine, lynx, bear—we would come together and build our clans strong for winter. We never used to live in one place like this indefinitely—” shaking his head. “Cabins like white men… Our people were free, living in unity with Earth Moth
er and our seasons. Until we were almost gone. Until we had to take to dens…”
He regarded his own moccasins. “This scrap of land is one thing we have left from ancient traditions. Only … if we stay, and we don’t find more foxes to expand our blood … we will die here. Soon.” He met my eyes, his so sad I felt a lump in my throat as I looked back. “We have you, Summit. Reminding us of better places and better tomorrows. Maybe Earth Mother sends you with the promise of more silver foxes on our horizons.”
I leaned into his shoulder. “We’ll keep searching.”
“Only if you want to. And only with a path.” Demik kissed my hair. “There’s no point in hunting without a trail. Do you have any ideas?”
“No…” I sighed, pulled back. “But I know someone to ask.”
Chapter 22
I gave a quick wave to Demik to show I was all right, and knew my way. I had to go alone, yet Demik was hardly willing to let me. Bag of bonbons in hand, I trotted on light feet to the lone den in the clearing near the Aaqann River.
A raven on the point of a tepee pole croaked upon my appearance, passing the word along to the pack.
There was no pack, of course. Was there at least one?
“Ondrog?” I hesitated, having expected him to be out.
There, stepping from the den as he slipped his headband into place. Finishing getting dressed.
“Did you just come in from fur?” I smiled. “Good morning.”
He grunted. “What are you doing here?”
“I brought you bonbons. Only if you would care for one. And I wanted to ask about something.”
Ondrog made a quick growling sound at the huge bird, but it went right on with its loud, wild cry at me. Ravens help wolves hunt and wolves, in return, share with them. This idea left me trying to remember who might have told me. Could it have been a wolf like Ondrog? Or my own family?
“Ondrog?” I tried again.
“I’m busy.” He didn’t look at me, gathering loops of freshly dried deerskin thong which he’d had spread around his den. Now he had to walk around the hide walls to unravel it and make neat coils in his great hands.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
“Why?”
“We could share a meal.”
He ignored me.
“Are you mad at me?”
“Of course not,” he snapped.
“Then what are you mad at?”
Muscles in his jaw worked and he said nothing.
“Is it because you’re missing your family?”
“I know where my family is.” He went on gathering cords. “The burial grounds north of here.” With a quick gesture toward the river. He paused, bowed his head that way, and performed a solemn gesture I had seen him do on the trail. He touched his head, then chest with his left hand, then nodded to the sky. It was a sacred sign, a mark of respect to his people and his goddess, Moon.
Last time I’d seen him in skin, Ondrog had kissed me. Yet … now I began to wonder if my memory played tricks on me.
He had gathered all his cords and was tying off neat bundles before I said softly, “I’m sorry, Ondrog.”
“You should go,” he said.
“You said you weren’t mad at me.”
“I did.”
“We want to help you.”
“We who?”
“We … your pack…”
Ondrog looked up sharply, for the first time meeting my eyes. “You are no one’s pack.” Hands tight on the thongs. “You are a gathering of foxes, a skulk, when you get together at all. You do not sing, do not follow Moon, do not live or think the same way. I’m gratified I could be of some small service to the clan with an occasional deer, and joining you while you looked for your family, but that is all. Now it is time for you to settle with your new mates and me to journey on. I just did my last patrol. I won’t trouble them further.”
“I … what?” I shivered. “I don’t understand.”
“I knew this day would come. It’s been a matter of phases all along. Humans want the land. One more refuge they must take over and tear apart. The clan should leave. But that is their affair. I’ll move on before the weather turns, while there remains time to cross into the west and follow distant hunt songs.”
“No one’s taking anything. You can’t leave us, Ondrog.” My throat was crushed, painful.
He looked at me, now just across his mats and the fire pit, clutching my paper bag against my chest.
“Why not?” He frowned, though without anger in his eyes after all. He looked like he was in pain. “You are not my kin. At least you found something with them. Your dog-foxes will watch over you. I face no such luxuries. I … regret this time coming just now…” Staring into my eyes, a breath, heartbeats between us, and he quickly looked away, squaring his shoulders. “Still, there is nothing to be done.”
“You can’t, Ondrog. On foot in skin? Alone with no hunt to follow? A wolf is meant to have a pack.”
“Perhaps I will find one. The general idea…”
“But you have us right here—”
“You are not my pack! How often must you hear it?”
“Please don’t leave us. Please. You’ll die out there alone. No one is meant to be alone on a journey like that. Why did we travel upriver together? To be safe. To look out for each other. Even foxes know that. You need companions.”
“This is not your hunt—”
“What is it you’re angry at—?”
“Nor your place to tell me what to do.”
“Just a little more time?” Desperate, breaths trembling, I moved closer. “If you won’t stay to save your own life, what about our search together? Won’t you stay for that?”
Ondrog scowled at his knots, then glanced at me. “You scarcely seemed interested in maintaining any search.”
“We are interested. I am. I … need to hunt in fur. That’s why I came to see you. We’ll go in fur and cast out farther. Maybe we won’t find where I came from, but we must find shifters if we travel far enough. It’s what you need also. Before you take off blind into the west. I came to ask what you thought of seeking foxes and wolves, and any others in fur. What you knew from your own travels and past, ideas and old trails to follow? We went upriver because I came from up the river, but our path was narrow. We can do more, quest with strong noses, if we help each other.”
He frowned down at me, stepping back against the edge of the tepee, his big arms crossed. “You intent to scout in fur? For how long? You would have to travel four or five Moons just to reach new ground.”
“Then that’s how far we’ll go.”
“Is this Demik’s idea?” Still glaring, watching me closely.
I swallowed. “Demik has wanted to find more foxes all along.”
“This is no plan at all…” Ondrog’s eyes narrowed even more. “You are desperate. You just invented the idea.”
“We will, though. Demik wants it. I’ll have to hunt if I’m to find my family. And you, if you came, I know we’d succeed.”
“Forgive me.” Slowly shaking his head, he was back to not looking at me. “I’ve been with foxes long enough. They’ll look after you. The humans will be back. It’s time I depart before the season grows any later. I would help you if I could, but I need a family again. I need…” He stopped, shut his eyes a minute, and finished softly, “I need a mate again. You don’t know what it is … out here alone… My regrets…”
I stepped even closer, wanting to reach out but still with steps separating us. “You have those things, Ondrog. At least a little. I’ll be your mate. I’ll be proud to be. I thought—”
“No.” Looking up sharply. “Mates are pure. One with one. For a lifetime. They do not change. Nor multiply. For me, choosing a mate is not an extension of pack life.”
I took a step back, eyes burning more than my throat now. “That’s how you see me? Random? You don’t think I love them? I would die for them—for Demik and Mej and Komu. And for you. I love you. How could having mo
re loves mean loving less?”
“I did not mean to suggest you don’t care for them just because you surround yourself. My apologies … I… It’s only … we’re not like that. We have one mate for life.”
“Many foxes do also. But what’s wrong with more? If you met a wolf pair, the only wolves around, and they invited you into their relationship … and if you all loved each other … if you could make that pair stronger with three … would you still say no?”
Ondrog shook his head, mouthing, casting about. “How do you know what ‘many’ foxes are like at all? Do you remember?”
“I just know. Is this why you’re angry? Because you don’t have a pack or a mate, and if you were different and your people were different you’d have been able to allow yourself to feel differently about me? But you’re not?”
Ondrog looked at the tepee. “I must make ready to leave.”
“You don’t want to go, do you?”
“Of course not,” he snapped, feeling the stability of the poles and not looking at me.
“Then why? Why not stay with us? We don’t even know what the men will do yet. They’re not here now. Why would you leave and strike out alone?”
“Why this?” With a shout he whirled to face me, throwing out his hands, dropping his bundles. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Doing what?” I gulped, stepping back more.
“Hunting me. Worrying me like a sick beast cut from a herd. What am I to you? Why will you not leave me in peace?”
I hesitated, this time because what was clear in my own mind might not be clear if stated out loud. “I climbed from the river … needing a family.” I swallowed again, meeting his eyes as Ondrog breathed hard. “Earth Mother guided my path to the people who most needed me in return. You’re right that I … was ready to end the hunt. Demik is the one who wants to find my people. I … I already have. I found him—and Mej and Komu. And … you. You’re all I need.
“I know we’re different, Ondrog, but that doesn’t have to mean we’re separate. It doesn’t mean we can’t love. I’m sorry you’re lonely. I’m sorry about your family. I’m sorry … we’re not enough … that I can’t help you.” I shook my head, backing slowly away, a heavy pain like stones lodged in my chest.
Fox's Quest: A Foxy Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (Foxes of the Midnight Sun Book 2) Page 11
