Fox in the Water (The Fox Shorts Book 2) Read online

  Fox in the Water

  A Fox Short

  Robin Roseau

  Fox in the Water

  I took my vacations when Lara and Michaela took theirs. It was far more relaxing watching over them on their vacations than trying to take my own.

  I had fun, actually. I loved to run with them, with both of them. We went hiking and climbing in Colorado for their honeymoon. I loved the mountains. By special permission of the New York alpha, we spent a long weekend in New York City, eating amazing food and going to the shows. The human dancers were fun to watch; I would have liked to see Michaela dance. She was so petite and graceful, yet so strong. I wondered whether I could drop the idea in her ear.

  Michaela wanted to learn to scuba dive, so we all learned, and then we tried our new skills on a spring trip to Key West. If I could have relaxed, it would have been fun, but I spent the entire time worried about the added dangers. We'd been there for three days before Michaela called for a second trip for summer, right before school started in the fall.

  Returning from our second Key West trip, Michaela immediately announced a scuba diving trip to Mexico for the following winter. I worried. But Daniel, the Boulder alpha, assured me the Yucatan wolf pack thrived on tourism, charging a stiff fee for travel permits and protecting their reputation fiercely.

  When Michaela learned about the underwater caves, she went on a crusade. It wasn't enough to go diving; no, she wanted to see the caves. Our dozen dives in Key West was hardly sufficient experience to go cave diving.

  During the six months leading up to the Mexico trip, Michaela got us that experience. She upgraded everyone's gear, and we learned technical diving. We went diving in the lakes around Madison and in the cold waters of Lake Superior. She asked Lara to install a deep swimming pool at the compound, so in record time we had a second recreation center built around a specially-designed swimming pool, complete with narrow underwater passages in which we practiced not touching the walls.

  That was easily done by the little fox, but not so easily done by the wolves.

  * * * *

  I climbed out of the pool, not looking at Michaela as she stood with her hands on her wetsuit-clad hips

  "We're all dead, Elisabeth," Michaela told me. "You stirred up the silt and we got separated."

  "There's no silt!" I said.

  "Go easy on her, Michaela," Lara said. "It's not easy."

  "The caves we're diving will have silt," Michaela said. "You were practically kneeling on the floor of the cave."

  "My mask flooded," I complained.

  "I don't care!" She sighed. "Look, none of you have to go with me. I'll be perfectly safe-"

  "No!" Lara, Serena and I said together.

  "Look," she said. "We finally found something I do better than any of you-"

  "No!" I said again.

  "You can watch-"

  "No!" said Lara.

  "From the surface-"

  "No!" said Serena.

  Michaela glared at all of us. "I'm safer without you."

  "No," said Lara gently. "You aren't diving alone."

  "I'll have a dive master-"

  "No!" the three of us told her.

  She glared at all of us, then her features softened. "Maybe we should go to Cayman instead. They have wall diving."

  "But you want to dive the caves," Lara said.

  "Well, as it sits, none of you are going with me, and if you won't let me go without you, there are no caves in our future. If we can't dive the caves, I'd rather go to Cayman."

  She faced Lara. "The walls are huge with plenty of room for an oversized, clumsy-in-the-water wolf. Just don't touch the coral."

  Lara smiled at her mate, pulling the little fox into her arms.

  "Maybe if I adjusted my weights," I said. "I'm floating feet down right now. That's part of my problem."

  "You're going to move all six pounds?" Michaela asked.

  "Give me a couple more weeks, Michaela," I said.

  "Give all of us a couple more weeks," Lara said. "I'd like to see these caves, too."

  Michaela smiled, a smile that lit the room. All her smiles lit the room, as far as I was concerned. "All right," she said. "Do you think we should rescue Michele from the little terrors?"

  Lara laughed. "If you hadn't taught them to shift so young, they would be easier to babysit. If you hadn't taught them to shift instantly, they would just be learning, and it would take them a half hour to shift."

  "Angel and Scarlett don't have any trouble with them," Michaela pointed out.

  "Angel and Scarlett encourage their antics," Lara said.

  "Scarlett has been helping them find tiny places they can hide," Serena said. "She feeds them if they are able to hide from Angel."

  "Angel feeds them if they attack Scarlett's ankles," Michaela said. "So I suppose that's fair."

  "Whose idea was it to let the fox be a mother?" I asked. "She's the worst offender."

  Michaela offered a hurt look. "Elisabeth, how can you say that?"

  "I know who encouraged them to chew up my shoes!" I told her.

  "Those shoes were ugly," Michaela said in response. "You should thank them. I think it was Celeste, by the way. Rebecca is afraid of you. You weren't supposed to show favoritism!"

  "I do not have a favorite, and Rebecca is not afraid of me!" I denied.

  "I don't recall any of my children ever chewing shoes," Serena said. "Are you sure you didn't get your donor DNA from a dog, Alpha?"

  Lara growled. "Your children weren't shifting on their own by three months old." She glared at Michaela.

  "Hey!" Michaela said. "I seem to recall you were pretty darned excited the first time Celeste shifted with you. I recall getting pulled out of school to hear about it. And then you spent the next week trying to convince Rebecca to do it, too."

  "I believe you are misremembering," Lara said. "I believe I was terrified when they shifted, and you just laughed at me."

  Michaela laughed. She turned to me. "And all of you were full of nothing but, 'oh they are so cute' every time I shifted them into their fur. You all got exactly what you asked for. And besides, they are always perfect darlings for me."

  "They are," Lara said. She narrowed her eyes at her mate. "Why is that, Little Fox?"

  "It's because I don't growl at them like their other mother does," she said with a flip of her wet hair.

  "That's not it at all," Lara said. "And you know it."

  "I suppose it might have something to do with," said Michaela, but she muttered the rest too low to understand.

  "What was that?" Lara asked her.

  "Nothing," Michaela said. "Just a bad hypothesis."

  "Perhaps you should share this bad hypothesis," Lara suggested.

  "Oh, I don't think so," she said.

  "Enforcers," Lara said.

  Serena and I grinned at each other and grabbed Michaela before she could scramble away, each taking one arm firmly. Lara stepped closer and stared down into Michaela's eyes. "Share," she ordered.

  "Or what?"

  "Enforcers, pick her up and throw her into the pool."

  "No!" Michaela said. Serena and I picked Michaela up, first by an arm each so she dangled with her toes pointed to the floor, then each of us nodded and grabbed a squirming leg.

  "No!" Michaela said again. "Put me down. Right now!"

  "You heard her," Lara said, pointing to the pool.

  With the fox continuing to struggle, Serena and I stepped up to the edge of the pool and began swinging her. "One," I said.

  "Two..." said Serena.

  "Wait!" I said. "Is it one, two, three, then throw her. Or throw her on three?"

  "P
ut me down!" Michaela ordered.

  "I don't know," said Serena. "Let's practice first." We began swinging Michaela again. "One..."

  "Two..."

  "Three..." said Serena. But we didn't let go.

  "I don't know," I said. "Maybe we should throw her on three."

  "I wonder how much air we can get," Serena replied.

  "I bet a lot," I replied.

  "Lara!" Michaela said.

  "One!" said Serena, swinging Michaela.

  "Wait," I said. "We need to make sure she doesn't bounce off the ceiling."

  "Oh please!" said Michaela. "It's sixteen feet."

  "I bet we can bounce her off the ceiling," Serena said.

  "Let's try," I said. "One..."

  "Two..." said Serena.

  "Stop this!" Michaela said. "Paybacks are a bitch!"

  "You know," I contemplated. "She got a lot of climbing experience a few years ago."

  "Your point?" Serena asked.

  I looked up at the ceiling. "She might hang on up there."

  "Then how would we get her down?" Serena asked.

  "Piñata?" I suggested.

  "If we crack her open," Serena asked, "does she spill candy?"

  "No, I don't think so," I replied. "But she might spill secrets."

  "You are both taking a cayenne pepper bath!" Michaela yelled at us.

  Serena chuckled. "How many times do you think we have to throw her in before she'll answer Lara's innocent question?"

  "I don't know," I replied. "She can be awfully stubborn."

  Michaela was still yelling at us, but it was mostly on principle.

  "I guess we should start with one," Serena said. "Ready?"

  "As ever," I said. "One..." We swung her.

  "Two..."

  "I'll tell!" Michaela said.

  We stopped swinging her. "Do you believe her?" Serena asked.

  "No," I said.

  Lara stepped up. "Let me see her face," she said. Michaela was currently facing the pool. Serena and I exchanged a look then tipped Michaela up so her feet were in the air, her head at about our chest level, facing Lara.

  "You three are so childish," Michaela said. "Set me down properly. Right now."

  Lara studied her face then nodded. Serena and I immediately set Michaela gently on her feet. Then we turned her around so she was facing Lara, but we kept hold of an arm each.

  "Maybe you just need to use the proper motivation," Michaela suggested to Lara. "They are both absolute darlings, after all."

  "Little hellions," I said quietly.

  They weren't, actually, but they were being deeply spoiled by everyone in the pack. Somehow in spite of that, they really were quite angelic for Michaela. One would have expected them to have been sweet darlings for their birth mother, their sole supply of food for the first months of their lives, but even before they were weaned from breast milk, they had behaved far better for Michaela than anyone else.

  "What motivation?" Lara asked.

  Michaela mumbled something.

  "Throw her in," Lara said.

  Serena and I immediately picked her up and swung her twice.

  "Their wolves!" Michaela yelled. "Access to their wolves!"

  She wasn't telling us because we were threatening to throw her in the pool. It was a playful threat only. Michaela loved swimming, and this wasn't the first time we'd threatened to throw her in. I had asked her about it once, and she admitted she was playing as much as we were. I think she liked the amount of air we could give her, but she wasn't willing to actually ask us to do it.

  Serena and I froze with Michaela suspended between us.

  "Access to their wolves?" Lara asked.

  "Um," the fox said. "Yes."

  "Explain," Lara demanded. "No more threats," she added to Serena and me. "Next time you pick her up, she goes in. Try not to give her a concussion on the ceiling."

  "Um." Michaela said. "They haven't put me down yet."

  "Well," Lara said. "You should put her down so she knows when you pick her up next you mean business."

  I chuckled, and we set Michaela onto her feet again.

  "Explain," Lara said again.

  "Well, you know how breast feeding gave you a bond with them?" she said. "Or so I imagine, anyway."

  "Yes," Lara replied.

  "Imagine the bond that formed when I would find their wolves and pull them out."

  That was how she taught them to shift. It was how she had taught Serena, me, Angel, Scarlett and Francesca the instant shift from human to wolf as well. It was a skill only Michaela seemed to understand; the rest of us had tried, but we hadn't been able to pull anyone else through a shift. Lara and Michaela's babies had shown their wolf when they were less than a week old, thanks to Michaela's gift. A normal wolf child might not shift until two or three years old.

  Lara stared at her mate. "They behave for you because you taught them to shift?"

  "Well. Um. No. They behave for me because I can force them to shift."

  "They like when you pull them through a shift."

  "Yes, but I can lock them that way."

  "What?" Lara said sharply.

  "I can lock them into their human or wolf shape," she said. "They love being wolves, so that isn't punishment. But I can ground them from shifting to wolf, and they don't like that. It's, well, it's not comfortable. Mom used to do that to me for punishment. I would be begging forgiveness after no more than fifteen or twenty minutes, no matter how unjustified I thought she was being."

  "You go days without shifting," Lara said.

  "Yes, but the fox is always there, under the skin. You can feel your wolf, can't you?"

  "So?" Lara said.

  "So, I hide their wolf. They can't feel her."

  "Have you had to do this often?" Lara asked.

  "No," Michaela said. "Only once so far with Rebecca." She looked at me. "Celeste has been more stubborn. She needs more frequent reminders."

  Celeste's full name was Celeste Elisabeth Burns, my namesake. I loved them both.

  Lara stared into Michaela's eyes. "I gather this is a trick I am unlikely to learn."

  "I would teach you if I could, Lara," Michaela replied.

  "So," Lara said. "While what you have told me is certainly interesting, it isn't actually of much direct use to me in managing my children."

  "Probably not," Michaela said in a small voice. "But that's not my fault."

  "Throw her in," Lara said immediately.

  We didn't wait. We immediately picked her up, swung her twice, and on the third, let her go. We gave it as much air as we could, and Michaela lofted into the air, arched her back, and entered the water cleanly. She dived to the bottom and stayed there for a while.

  "How long do you think she'll stay down there?" Serena asked.

  "She has been hyperventilating since this started," Lara said. "I imagine her blood is thoroughly oxygenated and she'll stay down there for a minute or two."

  "She did four minutes the other day," Serena said. "Scared the shit out of me. I finally dived down to see if she was okay, and she was grinning at me. I think she was particularly amused I went in fully dressed."

  "Your last three written reports don't include the times she got away from you, Serena," Lara said. "Have you stopped reporting them?"

  "No," Serena said. "She stopped sneaking away. She was good for a long time after the Carissa thing, but then you and she had that-" Serena closed her mouth.

  "Yes, that fight," Lara said. "Go on."

  "You had that fight, and she stormed off, ordering us to leave her alone. We didn't, so she ditched us. That's when it started up again."

  "She was unprotected for six hours that time," Lara said.

  "Yes," Serena said. "When she got back, she told me that when she tells us to leave her alone, she's serious."

  "She started testing us," Elisabeth said. "I had to assign two extra enforcers on loose watch, two she didn't know about. It took three days before she cayenne peppered th
e lot of us."

  "That's the time she took the plane to Bayfield?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "So what changed?" Lara asked.

  "That went on for most of last winter," Serena said. "She was ditching us two or three times a week. She would leave a little jar of cayenne pepper somewhere for us to find, letting us know what would happen if we pursued her too closely."

  "So?" Lara asked.

  "Remember how she used to stash silver weapons?" I asked. Lara nodded. "She has little jars of pepper all over the place, too.

  "All right," Lara said. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. But you said she stopped?"

  "Yes," Serena said. "We, um. Sat down with her. It was after we got back from Key West."

  "Who is 'we' and what does 'sat down with her' mean?"

  "We," I said, "was every enforcer in the pack."

  "And 'sat down with her' means 'tendered our resignations'." Serena added.

  "What?" Lara burst. "That damned well better have been a bluff! She needs protection."

  "Lara," I said. "We weren't resigning from her protection detail. We were resigning from the pack. Every single one of us."

  "She's willing to go unprotected," Serena said. "With you no longer pregnant, she is willing for you to protect yourself, too."

  "But the pups," Lara said.

  "Yes. The pups," I agreed.

  "But it was a bluff," Lara said.

  "No," I said. "It was not. She was running all of us ragged. We knew you wouldn't let us leave her unprotected, so that wasn't an option. We were being forced to play her game. And that's fine, except eventually she would have taught it to Celeste and Rebecca. One of you running us in circles would be bad. At least the fox has skills. But if the kids learned it was okay to go off in a huff? Lara, if anything happened, you would kill their security detail."

  "So we told her all that and then we all handed her our resignations. She sat there stoically when we did it."

  "But Angel went last," I said. "And she was crying when she did it."

  "Then, in front of her, we called Greg Freund and asked him when and where he wanted us. We told her we had jobs lined up."

  "Did you?" Lara asked.

  "No," I told her. "We asked Greg, and he said the only way he could hire us was with your blessing, and we weren't going to ask you. But Michaela didn't know that."