Fox Revenge (Madison Wolves #5) (8 page)

She chuffed, over and over.

"Can you do it?"

There was a pause, and she whined.

"All right. I want you to relax. Just go with the flow."

I shifted to fox, then I thought about bringing my babies through my shift with me. I thought of Scarlett as one of my babies. And then I did a long, slow shift to human, trying to pull her with me.

I finished my shift, and a very human Scarlett lay underneath me.

"You did it!" she yelled. "Michaela! You did it! Can you bring me back?"

I did a slow shift to fox, and I had a wolf underneath me. I brought her back to human, faster this time.

"Oh my god. Faster!" she said.

I shifted back and forth a dozen times, the last few at my fastest rate, and Scarlett shifted with me through every one.

I left her as wolf, pulling away from her, then shifted human. She stayed wolf. I pulled the blanket around me and said, "Try it yourself."

It took her a minute, but suddenly, from one breath to a next, Scarlett shifted from wolf to human.

"I did it!" she yelled. She jumped to her feet and bounced around the room yelling, "I did it! I did it!"

"Do it back and forth a few times," I said.

"Yes!" she said. She knelt on the floor, scrunched up her face, and shifted to wolf. She howled in victory. She shifted back and forth after that, faster and faster, and finishing as wolf. She ran over to me, chuffing and chuffing, then began licking my face.

"You did it, Scarlett," I said. "You did it. Turn around, I'm going to get dressed."

I pulled my clothes on quickly, then looked at her. "Shift human." She did it instantly, and I threw the blanket at her. "Wrap up."

She pulled the blanket into place.

"Sit over there," I said, pointing at another chair.

She sat down, but was bouncing with glee. "I did it," she said. "I'm just as fast as you and Lara now."

"Yes, honey, you are. Now we have to decide what we're going to do. We have four choices. Tell no one and you ne
ver let anyone see. Tell Lara. Tell Elisabeth and ask her advice. Or use it for wagers."

She laughed. "The last sounds like the most fun."

"Yeah, but it's probably not the right choice."

"Lara will kill me."

"Not literally," I said. "But she's going to need to do more to me of what she did last night."

"Was it horrible?"

"Are you kidding? I loved every second."

She laughed. "So that's not a problem."

"No, but it's stress the babies don't need."

"We should show Elisabeth," she said.

"Are you willing?"

She nodded.

I thought about it then pulled my phone out. I called Elisabeth. "You are needed downstairs. Just you. Everything is fine. We need your advice."

"Is she pregnant?"

"No. How would that have happened? This is much, much better than that."

"On
my way."

Scarlett was still bouncing in her chair. "We need to find out whether you can teach other people," I said. "But this is now a pack secret. I am your alpha, Scarlett. You may not tell anyone how you learned this without permission from me or Lara. Not even Angel. Furthermore you may not shift with anyone touching you that closely until Lara gives permission. Do you understand?"

"Yes. But please let me teach Angel."

"This
decision is going to go to Lara," I said. "It's too big for me to decide. But we are not teaching the entire pack. I can promise you that."

"Brooke knows how," Scarlett pointed out.

"Yes, but she may not know how to teach it," I replied. "We'll have to ask her, somehow, without being obvious we're asking."

I heard Elisabeth descending the stairs, then she stepped into the room, closing the door. "Everything all right?" she asked.

"Take a seat, Elisabeth," I said. "Scarlett learned a new trick she wants to show you." Elisabeth sat down.

Scarlett stood up and said, "Don't blink," and shifted to wolf.

"Holy shit!" Elisabeth said. She jumped from her chair and started swearing. "I've been trying to learn how to do that for two years!"

I chuckled. Scarlett shifted back and wrapped up in the blanket again.

"You understand why she wanted privacy?"

"Not this much privacy," Elisabeth said. "Lara needs to see this."

"I agree," I said. "But I'm not sure Lara needs to see how I taught her."

Elisabeth sniffed the air suspiciously, then looked relieved.

"No, not through sex!" I said. "Get your mind out of the gutter."

She looked back and forth between us. "This has something to do with last night," she said.

"Yes."

She turned to Scarlett. "Did you learn last night?"

"No, but I felt it," she said. "Each time she shifted from fox to human, I felt it. I didn't feel it the other way."

Elisabeth looked at me. "So how did you teach her?"

"The same way I would have taught my babies to shift," I said. "I pulled her back and forth with me while cuddling her. It turns out it requires a significant amount of skin contact, and it took a while."

"Oh," she said. "Lara isn't going to like that."

"I know. What do we do?"

"You're asking me?"

"I know you're dying for me to teach you, Elisabeth."

"Dying might be the operative word," she retorted. "Damn." She turned to Scarlett. "Angel couldn't kill me. You teach me."

Scarlett looked at her dubiously. "Not without Angel's permission."

"Lara needs to decide if we teach Angel," I said. I pulled my phone out again and called my wife. "Lara, find somewhere very private."

"What's wrong?" she said, alarmed.

"Nothing. I promise. Nothing is wrong. Everything is absolutely fine. I promise. You t
wo, tell her I'm not lying."

"She's not lying!" they both yelled.

"All right," she said. I listened as she climbed the stairs. I could tell when she reached the bedroom and closed the door.

"Sit down. I need to ask you permission to do something without telling you what it is."

She laughed. "That's going to be tricky."

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes."

"Would you trust that I would never, ever cheat on you?"

"Of course. Michaela, what is going on?"

"Would you trust Elisabeth?"

"What the fuck? Michaela?"

"We're not having a sex romp, Lara."

"It sounds like you're asking permission for one."

"No, I'm asking you if you trust us."

"Of course I trust you, but now I wonder if I should."

"You're just teasing," I told her.

"I guess."

"I want to teach Elisabeth something, and you aren't going to like the method. But you are going to be ecstatic with the results. Will you trust me?"

She didn't say anything for a while. "Am I going to smell sex on any of you?"

"No."

"Will you still smell like the same soap you used this morning?" She was asking if I would require another shower.

"Yes, but I am going to have a little of Scarlett's and Elisabeth's scent on me, just as if we'd been hugging a lot."

"All right," she said cautiously. "There is no way the three of you would concoct something this ridiculous without a good reason."

"Thank you Lara. We'll be another hour or two."

"I love you, Little Fox."

"Maybe later you can show me again." She laughed before hanging up.

We stared at each other after I set the phone aside. "All right then."

I had Elisabeth shift into fur, then I slipped out of my clothes, cuddling in behind her. I shifted quickly back and forth several times.

"Feel anything?"

She chuffed.

It took a half hour, but eventually Elisabeth was shifting with me, and then she was shifting instantly, the same way Scarlett had learned. When finally we were all dressed again, she was grinning broadly.

I called Lara. "You may come here and we'll show you what we've done, then we can all go to lunch, or we'll come there."

"On my way," she said. "If I smell air freshener or sex, there will be hell to pay."

We exchanged endearments before hanging up.
I turned to Elisabeth. "The enforcers may come inside for a while, if you prefer, but they need to go back outside for this conversation."

"Agreed," she said. "Let's wait upstairs. I could use a drink."

We waited patiently for Lara. Elisabeth asked Serena to play hostess, so Serena passed out soft drinks then recruited Rory to help her make up a small snack for everyone. Karen asked, "What's going on?"

"Lara is on her way," I said. "We're going to talk to her, then we're going to lunch."

We made small talk until Lara arrived. She pulled up with Emanuel and Eric as her escorts. Elisabeth sent all the enforcers outside, then we headed downstairs again.

"Sniff away," I told Lara. I held my arms away from my sides.

"I trust you," she said.

"Do it anyway," I told her. "That way if you are tempted later, I won't be offended. This way you're doing it because I told you to. Sniff all of us."

So she did, starting with me. I knew I still smelled faintly of her, perhaps even slightly of our lovemaking from the early morning. I would have smelled of soap and shampoo, my own scent, of course, then Scarlett and Elisabeth. I would also smell faintly of the foods I had eaten. Lara sniffed carefully then sniffed Elisabeth and Scarlett.

I didn't even ask her if she was satisfied. I took her hand and pulled her to the sofa. She tried to curl me into her arms, but I said, "Maybe you want to watch the demonstration first."

"All right."

Elisabeth and Scarlett pulled off their clothes, then Elisabeth said, "Three."

Scarlett said, "Two."

Elisabeth said, "One."

And Scarlett said, "Go."

And then both dropped into their wolf forms.

Lara's jaw dropped, then she began howling with glee. She hugged me. She bounced over and hugged Elisabeth and Scarlett. Then she pulled me into another hug with the four of us.

"How?" she asked finally.

"Let's shift back," I suggested. "We'll explain."

Lara sat quietly and listened. I let Scarlett do a lot of the explanation, although I explained what it felt like to teach them.

"This is a pack secret," she said as soon as we were done.

"Yes, we discussed that. Scarlett wants to teach Angel. I don't see how we can prevent it."

"We'll need to talk to her first."

"I want to teach Serena, Karen and Emanuel," Elisabeth said.

"Not Rory, Eric, June, or Gia?" I asked.

"I want to teach Serena and Karen," she said. "And Serena will want to teach Emanuel."

"There are things we don't know," I pointed out. "We don't know if anyone can teach other than me. And we don't know if the person you teach must be particularly close, emotionally. The four of us are emotionally very close. That might matter. Or it might not make any difference at all."

"I bet it matters," Lara said. "I bet you need some connection."

"If so, then I bet I could teach Angel and maybe Francesca, but that's about it."

"I think you've 'taught' enough," Lara said. "My tolerance for this
will have limits."

I laughed and snuggled into her. "Yours," I told her. "Whatever you say on this, Lara."

Elisabeth smiled at me. She had told me that turning submissive would help Lara with her jealousy, and so far she had been right.

Lara turned my chin to face her. "You shift under me all the time and have never forced me to shift."

"I've never tried."

"Then that's what I want to try first," she said. "Strip."

I laughed. "So romantic." But I slipped out of my clothes. So did Lara.

"Shift," she ordered. I did, then she grabbed me and rolled me onto my back, lowering her weight over me. I shifted back to human.

"We didn't have to do it this way," I said.

"You and I are doing it this way," she said. "Do not argue with me. We are shifting to fur, then you will try to shift us to human. If it doesn't work, then I will try to shift you."

I nodded and shifted back to fox. Lara shifted to wolf, settled herself over me, and I concentrated on drawing her back to human.

I shifted slowly, and when I was done, Lara was human, stretched out on top of me.

"Oh that was weird," she said. "Try to pull me into an instant shift back to wolf."