Fox’s Dawn: A Foxy Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (Foxes of the Midnight Sun Book 1)

by K. R. Alexander

  Besides the pain of the change, it was dangerous to do it repeatedly in a short time. Our bodies had to adjust to great stress placed on them from each one. The change healed wounds, closing over small hurts, doing us good, regenerating. But it was also a huge effort, a hardship, and not all wounds could be healed. Very serious injuries, broken bones, gaping wounds, and we couldn’t change at all. We could be trapped one way or another like a pregnant vixen. Even I knew that. Changing could be a dangerous business.

  Demik hesitated, watching me.

  Komu frisked over, flashing his long brush.

  Mej threw himself at the smaller fox, screaming and snapping at Komu, driving him away. Startled, Komu ran like a shot and Mej chased him into spruces.

  I thought of fur.

  Ondrog stood off to my right and behind, speaking quietly. “Remember the feel of it, the way you’re meant to be. That’s how one must approach the change. How you are meant to be. Find the fur within you, take your mind to that place, climb inside, grow into your own body. It’s there right now, only waiting on you to call it forth.”

  He went on talking softly and I reached. Searching … groping forward… I willed my hands into paws, my spine into a brush, my ears to the top of my head.

  A minute, two, then … a rush. Ripping, bursting, breaking apart. Earth pitched me forward, trees crashed, I screamed, fell. Pain shot across my head. It seared down my limbs, hammered along my back and twisted me into fragments. Spots of color turned to black. I whirled, tumbled through fire, staggered, and looked up.

  I lay on my chest. No … I stood on my paws. Only … I was so short it seemed I must be lying down. I panted, trembling, sinking to my stomach. The pain remained shocking, still breaking me. More than that, the change in my senses left me reeling. Colors changed. Sounds changed. I no longer felt the breeze on my skin because a carpet of fur shrouded me like a second, better skin. Only my whiskers told me of the breeze. And smells…

  I smelled Demik’s concern and Mej’s irritation. I smelled fish stock that Komu had drunk that morning. I smelled droppings of a mouse in the mulch below my paws from a week ago. I smelled warmth of sunlight and the color brown in bark of the tree. I smelled a thousand wild creatures, a million soft steps, a lifetime of things yet to be smelled, only hinted at through the breeze and river.

  Demik lay down to face me. He licked my sharp, black nose ever so gently. His smell excited me, made me squirm inside my own skin as I panted.

  Mej had returned and Komu was in sight in the trees, both watching me, uncertain.

  Everyone paused, the forest still.

  I clambered to my paws, shook, staggered. My chest heaved and I took in mouthfuls of smell that tickled my tongue and left the roof of my mouth vibrating like a ringing bell.

  This was it. This was me again. This was memory, finding self, uncovering what I was all about. This was what I’d come out here to find. A silver fox. Here she was.

  I looked at Demik.

  He cocked his head, still uncertain, the others tentative behind him. So beautiful. I could hardly believe how enchanting, how flawless, each was in his body and scent.

  Why were they just standing about when we had … everything? Fur and paws and noses and life? Why not … go?

  I sprang forward to hit Demik with both forepaws, sending him toppling into Mej, then tore off, dodging and swerving as the spruce forest made a maze: a wilderness of wild turns and daring straightaways.

  The three dog-foxes, after a second of a squawking tangle, sped after me—in, out, weave, duck, turn, crash into each other.

  I dodged Mej, shot past Demik on a turn, leapt over Komu, and raced back through the forest the way I’d come.

  There was Ondrog, standing where he’d been, only watching us.

  This is me! I shouted at him with my happy eyes and wide mouth and swinging brush. I found me! Thank you!

  Right as I took off again, meeting his eyes in that moment, I saw the tiniest smile flicker on his lips, the hint of it with the light in his eyes. He smiled at me! I’d found his smile.

  With a final flash of my moon-tipped brush, soul overflowing with joy, I sped up the trail like black lightening—trailed by three red shooting stars.

  Chapter 32

  Chase and catch, tumble and dodge: wait, listen, pounce, then snap, gulp, run.

  We played, hunted, feasted on frogs, voles, and wood mice. The three dog-foxes brought everything they caught to me. I quickly grew leery of being full and weighed down so I cached the prizes. Dig, dig, dig with forepaws, careful to mound earth at the edge, no scattering. Place warm mouthful inside. Then push, push, push to nose earth over the spot.

  They watched, dug up the little body once I’d moved on, snapped, darted, and one or other managed to gulp it down in the fight. Then someone soon brought me more.

  I’d surely never known such kind and delightful foxes.

  We chased and hunted, feasted and waded hot paws in cool water of streams running down slopes to join the river, until the midnight sun had long vanished through the forest, leaving purple shadow settling among trees.

  I tried to curl up, distracted by reveling in my own senses and powerful, compact, exquisite body as I basked in the dusk. Dusk and dawn: hours of the fox. Even I knew that. What I had forgotten was how exquisite it was to roll on my back down a hill. How thrilling to plunge my muzzle into decomposing mulch and sniff and sniff. How delightful to chase my own brush in dizzying circles until rewarded with a mouthful of fluff.

  These distractions were not the only reasons it was difficult to curl up in this dusk. The other three kept on their feet, sniffing me over, flashing their brushes back and forth as they flattened their ears each time I sniffed their ways. Naturally, I had to chase their brushes instead of my own, rub along them instead of the ground, and splash water on them at every opportunity.

  When I did lie quietly, sure this time I must sleep, eyes half-closed to let the rest of my senses take in the night, I grew distracted by my own paws. Furry, soft, strong, captivating paws. I nibbled grit from each one, right to left, front to back.

  Looking up revealed a veritable forest of shapely, dark paws all about me. I licked them as well. They tasted of the forest and each dog-fox: all of his best qualities that he might wish to leave behind through scents strong on his toes. His musky individual aroma with his strength and self-assuredness and maturity, ready for a mate.

  Why were there so many strays in their clan? Why were there no other fox clans nearby?

  Or was mine nearby?

  I hoped so. Until then … I was their mate, right? Yet … after we found other foxes…? They would move to other vixens if they could. At least two. Only … they didn’t smell like that. Even Komu didn’t smell that way—just as focused as the other two on me.

  They had such delicious feet. Each one, though Demik’s were the best. He had a fullness to him that Komu lacked and a sweetness that Mej could not match due to the tobacco aroma that clung to his fur even after the fingers that held a cigarette had melted away.

  I nibbled around Demik’s toes, rolled and rubbed my back on the ground, crooned and gurgled at him, snapped playfully at his limbs, and kicked him several times without meaning to as I rolled and flopped. He hovered over me, wagging a little, licking my face.

  I ran. He chased. The others followed.

  Pausing, I flashed my brush aside for Demik and he mounted me for a mere second. Mej, then Komu, plowed into him, mouths gaping, fur on end, gekkering and screaming.

  I trotted on.

  Through navy light we gambled down to the river and up through streams. They chased and I invited, though they never got anywhere. Again and again they ended up in tangles, shrieking and biting, rearing on their hind legs, forepaws on the other male’s sturdy shoulders, mouths open as wide as yawns, whiskers bristling—yet failing to intimidate.

  Komu had a slippery way of dodging these battles the moment they broke out. He would give one or two quick screams t
o keep up appearances, then bound to my side.

  He didn’t understand, though. Komu thought he could prance up and mount me while the other two were busy, no matter my activity—such as drinking or frog-stalking. Many times I had to explain: a quick spin, wild cry in his face, bite to his cheek or ear, and drive him into the ground. Then, while he coward and crooned, flashing his brush wildly so the dancing white tip drew my eye irresistibly and I forgot to snap, I shook, fluffing my black coat and settling my hackles, before moving on. But he did it again. And again.

  A dozen times I must have driven him to the forest floor, turning him to a slack, quivering pile of limbs and fur. And, a dozen times, he slipped up on me while the others battled.

  Through fleeting darkness the forest rang with our screams and gekkers—and Komu’s appeasing chortles.

  They chased me up long slopes, into the river valley, then back around toward our camp and off again along stream beds.

  It was a glorious night.

  We’d run many crisscrossed miles and the dog-foxes were gasping, their skirmishes shortened to a few seconds apiece, before Komu either caught on, remembered his manners, or gave up trying to overthrow the system. I wasn’t sure which it was. One way or another, he and I were far more fresh, myself only having been dashing about and Komu usually dodging fights, when we loped again up a stream to a clear place of moonlight and I paused to look up.

  How seldom one saw the moon in a place of perpetual light. I clicked my teeth as I gazed after the silver glitter, not sure what I wanted from it. Maybe a dance? Yet this was a dance. We’d been dancing for hours, ever since we’d changed.

  Komu stood beside me, panting softly, his eyes reflecting moonlight.

  When I glanced at him, he touched noses with me. His ears, which dwarfed his lean head, lay back. He crouched, swishing his long brush. No more crowding. He’d learned.

  I darted around him, sniffing while Komu quivered with excitement, licking me or his own nose. I flirted my brush to one side. Komu’s ears sprang forward.

  The others had finished another squabble and came slowly up the path of the silver stream only after Komu had already tied to me. He still had his long forelimbs clasped to my hocks, his chest on my back, but there was nothing they could do about it now. A few sharp sounds of reprimand, yet perhaps they were glad for the game to be up.

  Demik maintained his dignity, standing away with his paws in the stream, lapping, then panting so hard his tongue curled around. After grumbling at Komu, Mej collapsed, sprawled on his side, mouth wide as his ribs heaved.

  They waited with us, catching their breaths, while Komu, awkward in his movements, turned and we stood quietly in moonlight. We could listen anew to forest sounds of owls and small, darting creatures with our own silence.

  Feelings had been intense at first, a mixed rush, both exciting and frightening to be joined to him. That fear vanished amidst reassuring company. I felt relaxed, even beginning to doze on my paws, adjusted now to our connection, before we finally separated.

  Demik and Mej approached, heads low, licking my face, nuzzling. Exhausted, I rolled on my back when Demik pawed me. They retreated, accepting refusal with no more squabbles.

  There was perhaps another hour of semi-darkness remaining, at most, when we made our way back to the spruce trees and our skin possessions. We had no trouble finding the place, not even needing to follow our own trails. We were guided by the song of a wolf.

  With the newly still night, the moon reaching her peak in the sky, and a sparse forest with a clear view, Ondrog sat on his haunches and sang to his goddess. Long, with few notes, an endless, mourning cry, it was the saddest song I ever heard.

  We stopped within the spruce smell, waiting for the gray wolf to finish without intruding.

  He sang, or cried, for things lost, things missing, things forgotten. Yet not forgotten by him. I could only speculate as to my loss. Ondrog knew his loss and it tore at him, leaving him alone and grieving. Leaving him a lone wolf in a world of families, clans, and packs.

  Looking white by moonlight, a snowy mountain of a creature, ten times my size, his sound matched his bulk. It filled my chest with deep vibrations and rolled away for miles across the night that held its breath in sympathy.

  A long note held, faded, and gradually sank down, down, down to silence.

  Two or three miles away, from the north, a couple of voices answered. The song was short and the call a boundary, not an invitation. Total wolves announcing their stake in the land north of the river.

  Ondrog sat still, gazing to the silver moon. He lowered his chin to the heavy mane of white fur at his chest.

  His prayer finished, he stood, turned a circle, and scraped with his forepaws to find space he wanted to settle for the night.

  He looked around, having smelled us. He gazed, then returned to his work.

  The dog-foxes prepared their own scrapes in soft mulch below aromatic trees. Demik nosed my cheeks and chin, trying to invite me.

  I wished I could sing for him, but foxes do not have the voices of wolves. I wished I could embrace him, but it was too cold to put my skin on. So I went to him as I was, silent, a new weight in my chest despite the splendid night.

  Ondrog flopped into his scrape, his enormous paws, each the size of my head, all bunched together, his bushy but short tail curled around where he could put his nose in it. Rather than this, he lifted his head to watch me.

  I put back my ears, head low.

  Ondrog did not move. That seemed invitation enough. He needed me, after all.

  I climbed in with him, curling myself tightly into the nice space he had made with his folded forelimbs and chest. Here, surrounded on three sides by his warmth, I fit the space, smiled up at him in the dark, and rested my nose to cover with my brush.

  Ondrog lay stiffly. At length, gently, he rested his head alongside and past me, further tucking me into his bearish warmth.

  Bit by bit, one at a time, I heard soft steps as the three dog-foxes drifted to join us, each curling in a different spot around the wolf.

  Chapter 33

  Day 5

  Mej was in fur, doing his job ahead on the trail with the sun at its peak, when it finally paid off.

  Demik walked with Summit fifty yards behind, through a birch forest, sweaty and wanting a break, while she floated along beside him in her new sleeveless tunic over a skirt. Hair loose, soaking in the sun, smiling, Summit was so joyous out here he couldn’t bring himself to send her away by pointing out that she should be paying more attention to details around them, probably even be in fur.

  He’d thought last night she would scent along the river. No, she’d only wanted to play and flirt. No use to anyone. So why had Demik been the first to join in?

  Then Mej alerted. He trotted back down the trail to them, stopped, and faced away, ears forward.

  Demik held up his hand.

  Behind him, Ondrog and Komu stopped on the trail. Beside him, however, Summit went skipping along, steps graceful, slipping almost noiselessly through the forest, looking right and left to the birch bark patterns with that glow about her face and sparkle in her eyes.

  Demik had to catch her hand. This was exactly the trouble with her. Not just around humans, but around anything that might be dangerous. And everything out here might be dangerous.

  He longed to shelter her, but she didn’t want shelter. She just wanted to enjoy the view.

  He squeezed. She looked around, radiant, eyes full of expectant light to see what he wanted. Even in the five days since she’d come to them her hollow cheeks had started to fill out, her face losing that gaunt look. Although thin, she looked healthy and vivid as the day. She’d eaten on the trail yesterday, then swallowed half a dozen small rodents and frogs in fur before she’d started caching the next offerings and Demik and the others had a snack as well.

  Demik lifted a finger to his lips, wondering if she would understand such signs in skin. She was a creature of fur.

  Summit
nodded, agreeing to silence. He moved forward, one foot in front of the other, easing the rifle off his shoulder and into both hands as he left her. He saw nothing special ahead, but watched Mej, who remained alert.

  Mej caught his eye, then turned, diverting their path away to the right.

  Demik indicated to the others to follow. They had hardly started—Ondrog also sliding his hunting rifle from his shoulder—when Demik heard shuffling and grunting in the deer path ahead.

  Even in skin, the hairs at the back of his neck prickled. He knew that sound.

  He glanced to Ondrog, who’d heard it too. They couldn’t smell it but Mej had.

  He led them in an arc around the spot. Demik tried to move out even farther, looked around, and discovered Summit had veered off to get a sniff of the unseen creature, moving on her own among trees.

  It was only curiosity. Demik understood that as well as any fox. Yet his heart leapt into his throat. How was it she knew some things as common sense, and some she did not? Why did she remember that salmon were good to eat but not that large, snuffling forest creatures were a good way to die?

  He couldn’t call out, nor was he close enough to catch her.

  Ondrog moved fast, grabbing Summit’s elbow before she’d gone ten paces. He scowled, shaking his head.

  Komu, who trailed, gasped and hissed at her, “What are you doing?”

  Ondrog whipped around. Demik’s pulse pounded even faster.

  Komu had also realized his mistake even as he spoke. His eyes were huge, mortified, while he waved at them to go on, rushing silently to catch up.

  Noises stopped. The unseen beast oriented to the faint sound of a voice.

  Ondrog encircled Summit with an arm, herding her toward Demik. One hand gripped his heavy rifle. Summit relented, knowing some of their fear now, moving back toward Demik.

  He caught the smell only once the male grizzly was in sight, shuffling up the dip in the deer path, emerging among the white birch trees like a shaggy mountain.