He looked at me when I sat beside him, nearly touching.
“Wait … come back with us…” Demik’s lovely voice faltered. “We’ll leave Ondrog alone. You need breakfast…”
Breakfast. I smiled up at Demik and he paused, gazing back. It was something in my face that touched him, taken aback.
Mej and Komu peered from a distance.
I looked to Ondrog, resting a hand on his arm. My fingers looked like twigs on his buckskin sleeve. I tapped my mouth, mimed lifting food to my face, and gestured to the mats.
“You want breakfast here?” Ondrog asked flatly.
I nodded, then opened my arms to take in Demik, Mej, and Komu.
Demik still protested, touching my shoulder.
Ondrog glanced at them and back to me. “I have nothing. I’ll hunt this evening.”
I flung out my hand to Mej, then drew it in.
Mej frowned. “We could … bring breakfast here?”
I beamed at him, then around to Demik and Ondrog.
Ondrog blinked at Mej, looked at me, then back to his stitching. Again, he mumbled, “At your discretion.”
After a long hesitation, Demik sat down on the other mat near me. Mej and Komu walked quickly away to the settlement.
I caught Demik’s eye, looked to Ondrog, back to Demik, and cocked my head.
“He… His family … his pack, is … gone. Our elders invited him to stay since he couldn’t find other wolves in the region.”
I opened my arms, taking in the world.
Demik shook his head. “No … no wolves, no foxes, not in a hundred miles. Not that we know of. But we’re going to find your family. I told you.”
“No notion where she sprang from?” Ondrog did not look up.
“No,” Demik said. “The Aaqann. She’d have drowned if my niece hadn’t snagged her in a fishing net.”
For the first time, Ondrog’s somber expression softened. “How is Tem?”
“Oh … well. Loves to fish, you know. Getting to be a hand at it now.”
Ondrog nodded. He stitched.
I wanted to ask more. Had he had pups of his own? Or hoping to? Did he visit with the settlement’s kits? Was he their friend?
I worked my lips but not into anything resembling a word.
We sat. Summer songbirds called, jumped, twittered. The sun warmed our backs. The river rushed and tumbled off to the north. No one spoke.
Mej and Komu brought baskets of smoked salmon, roasted duck eggs, and salads of roots and herbs with wild strawberries and orange salmon eggs.
The smell of the baskets, even without my nose, was so delightful I had to bounce up and join in liberating my meal. I bit into a duck egg before discovering it still had the shell on. I crunched up the shell too, took two more from Mej, a birch dish of salad from Komu, and stepped back to Ondrog.
He hadn’t even looked up, stitching his tunic sleeve.
I’d meant to give him an egg and start on the salad myself. Seeing he took no initiative, and none of the others were offering him anything, I set the eggs in the salad and held the whole thing out to Ondrog.
His gaze darted to it—beautiful, vivid green, bright orange, fresh red berries, smoke-darkened eggs—and leaned away. He averted his face and kept on working.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “You will enjoy that.”
I hesitated, lowering the plate.
“He’s a Moon-worshiper.” Mej told me, his tone amused. “Didn’t you hear him? He’s going hunting later. He doesn’t share our cache.”
I studied the rainbow plate. I set it in my own lap, mouthwatering for the smell of strawberries and salty salmon, and offered Ondrog only an egg. He wouldn’t take it.
I grabbed the basket from Demik to offer strips of smoked fish. Wolves ate salmon. He might rather a caribou or elk, or even a hare. But … surely.
Ondrog shook his head, never meeting my eyes.
The dog-foxes were gulping their breakfasts, Mej and Komu smirking at us. I thought Demik rolled his eyes. They’d known. They only brought the food for us. They hadn’t even allowed for him in their portions.
Feeling tight in my chest, thinking of Ondrog sitting here alone, morning, noon, all through the midnight sun, with never a visitor to his mats, no mate, no pack, and no one who would even share an egg with him, I lost my appetite even for strawberries.
Komu peeled and swallowed a whole egg. Mej rolled up a strip of salmon and swallowed in two bites. Demik gulped salad and fish eggs that popped in his teeth.
I took all the fish and eggs I could reach in the basket and laid them on my dish. I held it out to Ondrog.
After a few more stitches, and the gulps slowing beside and across the cold fire from me, Ondrog paused. He flapped one great, strong hand at me.
“Go, eat. It’s yours. I would not be eating breakfast even if I had it. One meal a day is adequate. You, contrarily, look as though you need it.” He finally glanced up, his brown eyes flicking from my thin fingers on the wood dish to my face. He sat back, frowning. “What?” He glanced past me to Demik, apparently angry. “What ails her?”
I didn’t hear an answer from Demik. Nor was I sure what in my face troubled Ondrog. Perhaps my wet eyes, yet I didn’t mean to bother him. I couldn’t help that, picturing him alone, grieving for his pack, winter after winter, thaw after thaw. Existing on his one meat meal each day—should he be so lucky—but never actually living.
Why didn’t it bother them? Why didn’t the clan tell him to stay in with them?
These three lived in stray quarters for four, yet no one extended invitations.
“All right.” Stiffly, as if he thought it may bite him, Ondrog took a single strip of smoked salmon. “Thank you for offering.” He shifted away, avoiding looking at me as he sniffed, then bit at the fish and swallowed.
I inched closer until our knees touched, holding the dish above them.
The dog-foxes had finished, or else paused.
Ondrog tried to take up his work, hesitated. Again he didn’t look up as he asked, “What is it you want from me? I said I would hunt later. I’m not perishing. I don’t need your charity. You, however, have hunted across sharp ice, I gather.” His eyes flicking to me again. “Eat your breakfast and go on your way. There’s no more I can say of your kin.”
I touched his sleeve, but his muscles were tight, sitting rigid with his face turned down to his work. I was hurting him. Like it had hurt Demik that I kept returning to his den.
I eased away, setting down the dish on the mat beside him.
Demik started to say something behind me, hesitated, then said in Vulpen, “That’s yours. You’re the one needing to eat, like he said. Wolves don’t care for greens and strawberries.”
I looked into the basket. Duck eggs were gone but there were more strips of salmon. I added them to the wooden dish for Ondrog, feeling something hard in my throat so I couldn’t eat anyway. I scrambled up.
Demik followed. “Don’t leave your whole breakfast. You’re starved—” He took my hand.
I pulled away.
Mej stood with the other empty basket, uncertain, glancing between us and the wolf.
Komu got up slowly. He’d kept one of his own duck eggs back, having watched me gulp one. I thought he was going to try to give it to me. Instead, he glanced at me, bit his lip, and stepped past the fire pit to set it on the mat by Ondrog’s knee.
“She just wanted you to have something,” Komu said quietly in the new tongue. “We don’t all have to get our hackles up about it.”
Ondrog stared at the egg.
Through swimming eyes, I smiled at Komu as he backed away. He caught and returned it.
I started for the settlement, mouth desperate for a strawberry, yet throat still too closed and stomach too knotted to swallow.
Demik rushed after, reaching to rest a hand at my back. “Wait … what is it? Ondrog is fine. He looks after himself.”
Mej and Komu followed.
“Have you tried sin
ging?”
We turned. Ondrog had called to us.
“Eh?” Mej cocked his head.
“To help her find proper speech if she’s been living in fur for winters? Have you tried singing? Sounds? The vocalizations of a song are closer to canine throat patterns than words. If you start with sounds and melodies, it may all come back. Charging in with words right off is a fraught proposition.”
Demik nodded.
“Right…” Mej said. “We’ll try it. Thanks.”
Ondrog also nodded. He returned to working while we walked away.
Chapter 13
“Ah, A, ah, A,” I said after Mej, who sat facing me across the small table at Skeen’s den. “Bh-B, bh … B.”
It had started with musical ooos and ahhs and rrrrs. Mej had taken charge of the lesson after Demik started me imitating crooning and chortling. Ondrog had been right. A shriek or ooooo noise came easily. So easily, I could forget my upset about him sitting alone in the forest and enjoy the sounds from my own throat.
“Now—”
“Wooooooo—”
“What about—?”
“Crreeeeeeeeee—”
“You might—”
“Aaaarrooo—” I laughed. Another real sound this time; a noise from my throat, not simply a breath.
We’d been walking around, joined by interested dogs and kits, but Demik decided we needed to focus. We needed discipline.
I dearly loved Demik. I didn’t care that we hadn’t passed a winter together. I felt it in the way my skin tingled when we touched, how my breath quickened when he met my eyes. I would have followed him through a wall of fire without his needing to ask. But I could see now that knowing someone through a winter might help clarify certain matters. He was taking this speaking thing far, far too seriously. We must get inside, we must sit down, we must focus. With no trouble at all he turned my fun into a chore.
Without a table or sitting space in the strays’ den, Demik sat me down in his sister’s empty den. He gave me grayling, which I gulped, then started on about turning those sounds into words.
Mej bumped him aside, hitting Demik with his hip and taking the chair out from under him before Demik could sit.
Mej sat, leaned his arms onto the table, focused on my eyes, and said, “Ignore him. If you can say the sounds, you can speak. It’ll come back like that.” He snapped his fingers.
Komu took a chair on the end.
Demik scowled, muttered, and brought me more fish.
“Kh, kh… Lll, L… Mm, mm…”
“Beautiful. Who says you can’t talk?” Mej laughed this off, waving a hand.
I finished the sounds with him in Vulpen.
Demik couldn’t settle, but paced. I kept feeling as if he might say something to Mej, maybe hustle him from the room. He held his peace as I practiced.
As soon as I’d finished one round at the table, Komu sat forward. “Try my name. It rolls off your tongue. You already did it all.”
Again, I thought Demik started to speak. Again, he held back.
I watched Komu’s lips intently as he sounded out his own name.
“Ko,” I said.
“Yes!” Komu clapped his hands.
“Moo…”
“Right, perfect. Prettier than birdsong.” He was up from his chair, leaning onto the table so our faces were close. I loved his beaming expression, the wide-eyed enthusiasm of him, the way he made me feel like I couldn’t fail. “All at once now…”
“Ko … moo… Komu.”
“Yes!” he shouted again and leaned in for a hug.
With both of us laughing, Mej joining in, even Demik smiling, I returned it, kissing his cheek, almost knocking him over as we both tumbled off balance. I sprang up to Demik, grabbing his hands, facing him close and staring at his lips.
Carefully, he said his own name so I could follow. It took a couple of sounds and I fumbled it a bit, but soon said it back to him.
Demik also embraced me.
I spun back to the table and Mej.
That J was a tricky sound. It kept flattening and coming out more like “Mez.” But I got it with his help.
“That’s it,” Mej said, throwing up his hands when I released him from an embrace. “You can speak. You have every sound. You can say anything you like again. It’s just stringing them together now.” He rocked his chair back on two legs, smiling, confident.
I felt my own courage waver. Was it? Could I just … jump in?
I must have talked before. Years of talking. I couldn’t exactly remember, yet it had to be true. Like arms around me, knowing about things like summer light, winter dark, and wolves living in packs. I had talked. I might need to stretch out my lips, but … other than that…
Mej grinned, relaxed. He wasn’t bothered that I struggled. Not worried about having to teach a grown fox to talk. Nothing troubled him. I saw it in the lean of the two legs, that smile with his white teeth, even his clothes: human-made shirt and vest, wool trousers and black boots that looked expensive and sounded different in their step, sharp and firm, as opposed to the soft tread of most of the other foxes. Mej knew things. He knew I could speak.
I embraced him again, startling him so much I knocked over his leaning chair and he crashed onto his back on the wood floor. Komu howled with laughter. Mej tumbled and got up so I wasn’t worried.
I whirled back to Demik, remembering all the things I’d needed to say to him yesterday, so much it tripped my tongue on a mess of words and at first I only made a humming sound.
My laughter made Demik smile. I could do better. It was only the excitement and … even nerves? What I had to say to Demik was so important, after all.
“I…” I struggled to get shapes clear in my head before they moved to my mouth and his ears, determined this should come out right. Demik smiled back into my eyes, nodding encouragement. It was exactly what I needed to rush on: “I love you.”
Demik blinked. His smile vanished.
The room went silent.
“Oh…” He rubbed his palms together as if to get something off them. “We just met. You can’t be sure of something like that yet.”
My own smile faded. But … how could I be mistaken in my own feelings?
Demik paused, his hands coming up to touch my chin instead, push back my hair, still gazing into my eyes. He continued: “Which doesn’t explain how I feel the same way, does it?”
I twined my fingers together at the back of his neck when he finally did kiss me. I’d been waiting for this for hours, yet it felt like winters. I’d been waiting all my life. A life started when Qualin had lifted me from the river and I’d been born into his arms. So … it was true. I’d known Demik my whole life. Surely that was long enough to know love, to end a wait, to experience euphoria in another’s voice and touch and lips.
A honeybee’s life may seem short, yet to the bee, it’s all she has. And all she needs.
Chapter 14
Night 2
“Beautiful. If only we had your name we could present you at any king’s palace.” Mej stepped away from tightening laces on Skeen’s dress.
The human-made dress was too big on me. More important, what was a king? What was a palace? According to Demik, Mej was always teasing, so maybe they weren’t so important.
Mej addressed Skeen in the loft upstairs. “Have a looking glass, Skeen?”
“On the back wall.”
Mej took it down. He held it out so I could see myself. It was about six inches across, an oval of glass on a chain, reflecting back my image more clearly than even the stillest forest pool. I stared.
“It shines,” I struggled with the word, sounding more like “sheens.”
“Never seen a looking glass? That’s you.” He grinned. “Pretty as a sunrise.”
I smiled, trying to see while he moved the glass up and down. My face further startled me—so bony, so flat and … skin. No muzzle, no whiskers, no fur. Far from black coat flecked in white, the dress was yellow and white, sof
t, almost fitting after Mej had laced it in.
One hand on the mirror, Mej reached with his other to catch my hair across my shoulder and smooth it back.
“You must have been growing that hair all your life.” His tone had changed, musing, as if lost in thought while he watched my hair instead of my eyes. “Striking as any fur—even of a silver fox.” He twined his fingers into it. “What about a braid? We could make you a crown befitting your presence in our midst.”
“Crown?” Again, I faltered with my sounds.
But Skeen was calling to him. “Leave her be, Mej. She has her eye on Demik.”
Mej still smiled, drawing his fingers down my hair. “Don’t trouble about us. She’s already said yes to me.”
“She’s what?” Skeen’s head appeared at the top of the little ladder.
I held up my hands to her. “Thank … you … Skeen.”
“You’re very welcome, kit. What did you say, Mej?”
“Well, she nodded.” Mej released my hair. I wished he wouldn’t. “Didn’t say yes. We really should braid that hair before we set out. Or it’ll be all over the place.”
“Mej, you’re not serious.” Skeen’s tone remained sharp.
Mej didn’t seem to notice her. He hung up the looking glass, then found a brush.
I waited impatiently, hands clasped together, eager to go meet Demik at his den and join all three for the walk into town.
“That question is for you, isn’t it?” Mej asked me, his voice quiet as he spoke near my ear, standing behind me. Gently, he gathered and brushed out my hair, starting from the ends and working up, the way Skeen had showed me the day before. “Now that you can say yes or no, I should ask again. Want to be my mate? Have a real den for kits and winter?” He slid bunches of hair over and around one another at my shoulder. “I’ll build you a cabin. Anything you want. Demik’s a decent fox. You won’t catch me saying he’s not. He’s also broke as the Ten Commandments. Probably not changing. Not the way he spends his time building boats and gutting fish. I can get you anything you want. Not only get: it would be my pleasure to provide for you and our kits. Something to consider before a yes or no for anyone, beautiful.” He paused. “What is it we’re calling you until we have a name? Hmm?”
Fox’s Dawn: A Foxy Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (Foxes of the Midnight Sun Book 1) Page 6
