Chapter Six
The sounds of snarling and snapping drew his attention as they entered the clearing, slicing through his exquisitely pleasurable post-coital warmth and dragging him back to reality.
The reality where that was the only and only time he’d ever get to be with Savannah. The hollowness of loss that wrenched at him when he thought of leaving her behind forever.
A group of foxes had shifted and were circling and snapping at each other. As the moon rose higher in the sky, tempers rose with it. Any second now, blood would start flowing. This wasn’t sparring for fun anymore – it had gone past that and was about to tip into ugliness.
The police chief was shouting at the group, and they were ignoring him. Laurel pushed her way through the gathered crowd, who were starting to separate into two main factions. If someone didn’t do something, it was likely to turn into a giant, bloody free-for-all.
Savannah stifled a cry of dismay. She started to move forward, and all of Austin’s protective instincts surged through him.
Austin stormed into the middle of the group of brawlers. He grabbed two foxes, who easily weighed forty pounds each, and held them high in the air by the scruffs of their necks. He shook them, very lightly, but enough to get their attention. They instantly went limp in submission.
“Stop!” he yelled. He blasted his Dominus energy through the air.“Change back.”Fortunately, foxes were easier to compel than larger shifters. Fifteen foxes let out howls and yips of pain as their bones violently snapped, as their fangs were forced back into their gums, as their claws were painfully rammed into their fingers. Within a minute they were all human again, on their hands and knees in the grass, groaning.
“Listen up!” he yelled. “Next person who tries to ruin Ms. Orman’s party will make me a very nice fox-tail hat! Understand?”
He was rewarded with the sight of a bunch of foxes submissively bowing their heads.
Then he was punished with the sight of a bunch of naked fox shifters in human form climbing to their feet, all flabby middle-aged men with their bits and pieces dangling. They all had fire-red pubic hair. Oh God, why had he noticed that?Delete, delete, delete!
All the shifters started pulling their clothes on. They were lucky. When foxes shifted, they got smaller, which meant they didn’t explode out of their clothing like other species did.
He looked around for Savannah.
She was gone. He was sure she’d hightailed it into the house to shower, in a desperate attempt to wash the smell of sex off her.
Like that would help.
She was in for a major interrogation from her mother later, he was sure.
To kill time while he waited for her, he walked over to one of the grills.
He served himself up a hamburger, rare like most shifters liked it, and bit into it, letting the juices run down his throat. He’d worked up an appetite out there in the woods with Savannah, and he devoured half the burger in one gulp. That only satisfied one kind of hunger. He’d just romped with the little fox shifter and he was already eager to go again. Damn, did he regret having to head out tomorrow.
He felt someone brush up against him. Not Savannah, unfortunately.
It was Jessamine.
“Hello,” she said in what was meant to be a sexy growl.
“Goodbye.” He turned his back on her.
She hurried around to stand in front of him. “I’m the sexier sister,” she informed him.
“Debatable.” He took another bite of hamburger, chewing slowing, savoring the rich meatiness.
“I can show you a really good time. I know tricks.” She ran her tongue along her upper lip. Then she stretched it out to touch the tip of her nose.
“Oh really?” he grunted. “Can you play fetch?”
He grabbed a hamburger bun from the plastic bin on a table and tossed it into the bushes. She just stared after it.
“Guess not,” he said. He turned and walked away. She hurried after him.
“We could go into the woods right now and nobody would ever know. I’d let you do anything you like to me.”
He stopped and looked her up and down.
