by Jameson, P.
“Whatever, Alpha,” he grumbled and pushed through the door and into the muggy night.
Chapter Seven
The fox was quick. When Aaron found Lexington, she’d already made it down DTD’s driveway and onto the main highway. The headlights of his truck danced along her fine as fuck backside as he pulled up beside her. Stretching across the seat, he cranked the handle on the door to roll the ancient window down.
“Hey!” he called, but she didn’t slow. In fact, she walked faster. “Woman, stop, will ya?”
She didn’t acknowledge him in any way as her short legs ate up the pavement. So it was official, she was ignoring him now.
He rolled along beside her, weighing his options. It wasn’t a good idea for her to walk this road at night.
It was too dark.
Cars wouldn’t see her.
It was dangerous.
Or what if some asshole stopped for her. She was a shifter sure, but she could still be hurt, and he’d never forgive himself.
He needed to get her in his truck and back to her friends.
“You gonna walk all the way back to Red Cap when I could just drive you?”
She was walking so fast she was all but running. Her hand flicked across her cheek quickly, and Aaron thought he saw… wetness?
Aw, shit. Was his fox crying?
Like a lake frosting over on a frozen night, his entire body went cold. From his fingertips to his toes, the chill made him physically ache as his gaze narrowed in on her face and he watched a tear track down her cheek.
Aaron struggled to swallow.
“Lexington, get in this truck.” His voice was riddled with holes and came out all strange, but he needed her to listen. Needed her closer so he could learn why she was crying and fucking fix it before his insides burned him up.
“Or what?” her voice whipped out. “You gonna make me? You seem to know your way around a shifter. I’m sure you’ve got some ways to make them bend to your will, right? Some hunter tricks up your sleeve?”
“Is that what this is about? My past? Because I can explain that. You only got part of the picture in there—”
She rounded on him, throwing her hands in the air, and he hit the brakes. “It’s not about your past. It’s about what your past just did to my skulk!”
“Your what?”
She rolled her eyes, and even in the dark he could see they were still swimming. “My skulk. It’s a group of foxes, okay?” She shook her head, frustrated and started walking again.
Aaron let off the brake. “Wait, damn it. Please.” The words came through gritted teeth, but he couldn’t let this go. The urge to fix her problems started deep in his chest and bloomed like a fucking rose until it filled him up with this… need.
Goddamn it, what was happening to him?
“You have no idea what you’ve done,” she murmured, dashing more of those fucking tears from her cheek.
“Then tell me.”
“Just go away, Aaron!” Her voice hit some level between angry and panicked. But he’d be a pig with wings if the first time he heard his name from her lips was to send him packing.
Nuh uh. Helllll naw.
He sped up until she was in his rearview mirror, and then cut the wheel hard to the right, angling his truck so she couldn’t keep walking along the side of the road. Jerking his door open, he stomped over to the fox.
“Listen here, baby girl. I’m not going anywhere without you.”
He was shaking all to hell, more rattled than he’d been since his parents’ death. He wanted to just pull her into his arms and pretend they were some sort of fix-all, but feeling like that made no sense. Feeling so responsible for a woman he’d met only hours ago left his head spinning. And it had nothing to do with getting slammed by the alpha’s fist.
This was something else. This was…
Was this…?
It couldn’t be.
There had to be some other excuse.
Too many beers, the moon playing tricks with him, or maybe just feeling sentimental over being home. Because those things made sense. Bonding with a shifter he’d just met… didn’t.
Lexington crossed her arms over her middle and lowered her head. She could have fought. Could have walked another direction, shifted to her animal, anything. But she just stood there. Which told him whatever was wrong left her feeling more defeated than angry.
His fox was sad. Hopeless.
“Tell me what has you hating me,” he said roughly.
“I… I don’t hate you.”
Aaron’s relieved sigh was heavy. And probably entirely revealing, but he didn’t care right then.
“Good to know,” he managed, softer this time. “But what have I done to make you cry?”
“I’m not crying,” she snapped, fitting a glare over her face, and pretending the liquid streaks weren’t there.
“Of course not.” He reached forward to wipe at the tears, brushing his hands on his jeans when he’d gotten them all. He’d dispose of the evidence for her. “I don’t see any tears. I must’ve been mistaken.”
Her frown softened, and another ounce of relief hit him square in the chest.
“It’s just…” she began. “We need their protection. And now they think I associate with a hunter. I walked in there with someone they hate, someone who obviously did them wrong. And they won’t understand that my girls are hardworking females that just need a family and stability. I had…” She drew in a jerky breath. “I had one chance to make a first impression. One chance to convince DTD to bring us into their pack so we’d be safe, and could have a future. And… I blew it.”
Her words tumbled out so fast, Aaron had a hard time keeping up. But one thing stood out among them all.
Protection.
Safe.
His fox needed protection.
“Protection from what?” he demanded.
She looked away, into the blackness of the summer night.
“Our people,” she said on an exhale. “The clan we came from. They’ve been looking for us for years now, and one day they’ll find us. When that happens, we need to be claimed already. Otherwise they’ll…”
Aaron frowned. “They’ll what?”
He didn’t know how foxes did things. He only knew big cat and wolf shifter customs because those were the shifters that inhabited his territory during his time with the hunters.
“They’ll claim us and we won’t be our own anymore. We’ll be given to the males to fight over until there’s a winner, and then we’ll be bred.”
“Bred?” he rumbled, everything inside him jacking up at her words.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, his mind screamed. They were people, not animals. They shared space with their animals, but they were flesh and blood human. You couldn’t look at the dogs and not realize that. You couldn’t see little Gracie and Artie and not know deep down, shifters were human just like the rest of them, with feelings and choices and opinions and god-given free will.
It was the entire reason he’d left his job with the hunters in the first place. How many times had his commander spouted off, they’re animals, they need to be put down.
Shiiiit.
“This is what all fox clans do?” he asked in horror. He wanted to hunt them down and wipe them out like he’d done with so many other shifters.
“No. Fox clans aren’t exactly common. Foxes stay in pairs or alone. There are maybe two or three shifter groups I know of, and we were one. And this… this is how we—they—remained a group. Strength in numbers. So… the strongest breed.”
No. No, no, and hell naw.
He clenched his jaw so hard it cracked. He was sure he was throwing off murderous vibes, but Lexington only straightened her shoulders. Like his anger was only fortifying her backbone. Making her stronger.
That’s right, baby girl. No asshole foxes are making you breed nothing as long as I’m around. He made the pledge silently in his heart.
Goddamn it, there he was feeling all res
ponsible for her again. But fuck it. It was the best feeling he’d had in years, even if it made him want to bathe in the blood of her enemies.
“But me and the girls want better,” she said carefully, like she was spilling a secret only the five of them had shared until now. “We want a future of our choosing. We want to fall in love and have families. Kids running around the track like those ones back there. Hide and seek, and nicknames, and barnacle hugs. The whole shebang. And if we can’t have that, then at least we want it to be our choice. That’s the real reason we’re here, in this small town that calls to something deep inside us. To find our future, our place, with people who are good to the bone. You know?”
Her voice was full of passion, and her pretty eyes glowed, begging him to understand. But who wouldn’t understand that urge to have a piece of life to call your own. He got it. He did.
Before things had gotten so fucked up after his parents passed, he’d secretly been the one anxious to settle down and marry. He’d wanted what his parents had. The type of passion that created a love so deep they were still holding hands twenty years later. Still pinching asses and making the kids cringe. That’s what Aaron Redman had wanted.
Maybe it was still what he wanted.
He managed to swallow down his rage enough to answer. “I do know.”
He was trying to find himself again, and she was trying to find her place. They were both on an epic quest that could take an entire lifetime. Why did the idea of doing it together feel so right?
“Come on,” he said, taking her hand. She didn’t pull away, and he liked the way she felt in his grip. Soft, but substantial.
Aaron hauled her back to his truck and helped her into the passenger seat, taking care to buckle her in before walking around the front to his side.
The ride back to Red Cap was silent while he worked through everything Lexington had revealed. And when they parked near the door, she let out a nervous sigh.
“Don’t know what I’m going to tell my girls,” she mumbled, staring down at her hands.
“You say you need to be claimed. You mean you need to be under an alpha, yeah? I mean, not physically, but—”
She cut him off with a loud burst of laughter. “There are many ways to be claimed. Physically is definitely not the way I meant.”
Aaron smirked, turning away to look out the window. “Right. I knew that. So, you need to be part of a pack. Under a pack, the alpha has authority over you, and you want Drake because he’s fair, that right? Because he’d never make you do anything you don’t want to.”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “That’s right.”
He turned back to her. “Why not be the alpha yourself?”
Lexington’s brow crinkled in a curious frown.
“You’re tough shit, I can tell. And I’m guessing the other vixens are too. You’re what I call forged in fire. Like me,” he said carefully. “The burns come but they only make scars. And scars are hard to cut through. Life armor is what they are. And you got ‘em.”
Her mouth hung open, on the edge of some kind of denial, but she paused, thinking.
“Our people wouldn’t recognize me as alpha. They’d never take me seriously.”
Aaron rested his fist on top of the steering wheel and stared out the windshield, his mind racing to find a solution.
Racing to find a solution.
Racing to find a solution.
“I have an idea,” he said.
It could work, and if he was right, it could actually heal an entire host of problems. The vixens’. His own. Hell, maybe it’d even give his boys something to take their minds off whatever trouble Annie spoke about.
He twisted in his seat to face Lexington, and that beautiful hope he’d seen earlier spread over her face again. Damn, he liked the way that looked.
“What is it?” she asked warily, and he realized that hope was robin-egg fragile.
“Give me a day. Can you do that? One day to work things out.” He hoped it was enough.
She nodded. “It’s six days ‘til race day. I can give you six.”
Her faith in him, when so much was on the line for her and her crew, left him staggering. Made him feel ten feet tall and bullet proof.
Aaron swallowed hard, a premonition hitting him like a two-ton in the chest. Eventually, he was going to want her to give him all of her days.
He pushed the realization down, down, down until he could speak again. There’d be time to sort out messy irrational feelings later. For now, he had work to do.
“Perfect,” he rasped. “Now, you’d better get in there and tell your vixens you’ve got this under control before they drink the bar down.”
She nodded looking at the door of Red Cap as it swung open and a burly man stumbled out. She squinted, peering inside.
“You’re right. I think I see Sally twerking on the pool table.”
“Don’t want her doing anything she’d regret.”
Lexington reached for the handle, a smirk playing at her lips. “Oh, she doesn’t have regrets. They’re a waste of time, she says.”
She stepped out and the door shut with a heavy click. But she turned back to talk to him through the open window. She took a breath, but then didn’t say anything. Glanced at the bar and then back, meeting his eyes.
“Why are you helping me?” she whispered, as if she didn’t even want the stars to hear her.
His gut told him only honesty would do for his fox, so that’s what he gave her.
“Because it feels good. And because I like you.”
Her pretty eyes fluttered away and a tiny secret smile twisted her lips. And aw damn, that was it. He was done for. His heart pounded loud enough to wake the dead as he wondered how he could make her do that again and again.
“Alright, cowboy. Six days.” She turned to walk away. “See ya around,” she tossed over her shoulder.
He watched until she was safe inside Red Cap. As he threw his truck in reverse, his phone buzzed in his pocket with a text. Digging for it, he opened the screen and read.
You took off again, asshole.
It was Rider. Damn, he’d have more explaining to do. At this point, maybe his friends would never forgive him. Maybe he’d spend the rest of his days groveling, but whatever. He’d do it. He had a lot to atone for.
Another text buzzed. Still Rider.
Key’s under the mat. Help yourself. I won’t be home tonight.
A slow smile crept up Aaron’s face. His friends might be mad at him, but they were glad he was back.
And for the first time since pulling in to town, he felt good about being home. He felt more right than wrong. Life was going to change for him. For the better.
Starting now.
Chapter Eight
Five hours into his day and Aaron already had a job. Sure, it paid shit, but it came with room and board until he could get a place of his own. Starting over was supposed to suck, but right now he only felt… liberated.
Rider had an opening for an extra mechanic in his shop, and the gig was right up Aaron’s alley. His specialty was cars of course, but he knew his way around a bike too. And since Rider spent so little time in his apartment above the shop, he’d offered to let Aaron crash there, even hinting that Waldo might have extra work for him around the track.
He’d kept busy all morning, but it wasn’t enough to keep his mind off of Lexington and her crew of vixens. The urge to help them rode Aaron as hard as his revenge had. Maybe he’d only switched vices. Instead of being obsessed with killing the Junkyard Dogs in Memphis, he was now obsessed with saving a fox at home.
He fumbled his wrench and bent to retrieve it from the oil stained concrete.
It was more than that though. More than just switching gears. Whatever had happened last night between him and Lexington was… weighty. It felt heavy even though it made him lighter.
“Nothing even happened,” he muttered to himself.
Not true. She’d confided in him, a perfect stranger. About her
fox and her people’s ways, and believed he would help her. And he’d… well, he’d just been himself. She’d seen his fight with Drake, she knew his history as a shifter hunter, and she’d been witness to all those rough-around-the-edges moments, yet she hadn’t flinched at his dirty looks. She didn’t shy away from his harsh tone.
Barky, the blond one had called him. The potty girl.
So, yeah. He was going to help them. And maybe this was the first step to atoning for the wrongs he’d done. For blindly following the hunters. For allowing Mina to get hurt. And for his part in the war between him and the man who’d hurt her. Because there was no denying his part anymore.
Maybe this was his redemption. Maybe this was the beginning of something great.
Except…
His solution for the vixens had holes, and he’d been mulling them over while he worked.
Racing was the way to the dogs’ hearts. And those foxes wouldn’t get into their pack without getting into their hearts. End of story.
The wolves weren’t motivated by money or greed like the Memphis clans. They weren’t influenced by the prospect of growing their numbers like the werecats were. Drake wasn’t a typical alpha on a power trip, so making the females submit to his authority wasn’t a bargaining chip either. And even if it was, Aaron wasn’t sure how submissive the vixens really were.
So even though he had a direction to head in, there didn’t seem to be a road to take him there.
“Gonna hafta hike that motherfucker,” he said under his breath as he tightened a gasket he’d just replaced.
“You always did that when you were thinking hard.” The voice of his sister came from over his shoulder and he twisted around to find her smiling wide in the opening of the garage.
“What’s that?” He chucked the wrench into the tool chest and wiped his grimy hands on a rag.
“Talking to yourself,” she said, strolling over. In her hand was a large paper sack, and judging from the smell, it contained her homemade chili and biscuits. “You always did that. Like you needed to hear yourself think out loud in order to sort things out. So I guess the question is, what are you trying to sort out?”
Aaron eyed her.
