Where Foxes Hunt with Wolves - K.A. Merikan Page 0,35
have been. The poor guy had been trying to communicate with him for days!
What. The. Fuck.
“Who are you?” was the first thing that came to his mind, but then he looked at the little animal, at the twigs and snow, and groaned, rubbing his face. “This makes no sense. Okay. Bark for yes and whine for no, okay?”
Bark.
Just when Yev was getting used to the thought of having a cute pet, it was turning out he had a much bigger problem on his hands than how to tell his werewolf family that he had adopted a disabled fox and that they were not to touch or scare him. The stupidest thing was that he felt weirdly disappointed. He liked the fox. He could relate to him in ways he couldn’t to anyone else, and now that went out of the window.
The photos and cutesy videos he’d taken earlier were now hammering at his skull to cause shame.
Idiot. Idiot.
Nothing ever went well for him.
“Can you turn back?”
Whine.
Whine, whine, whine.
Ember rubbed Yev’s leg with his face, and this body language, with hunched shoulders, was so painfully human Yev felt a tug at his heart, even though he’d been annoyed a second ago. He wanted to pick Ember up or pet him, but he froze with hands already reaching out. What the hell was he doing?
“Did… did someone curse you? Was it the witch?”
Silence. Then a huff.
Not a yes, not a no. How old was this guy? What if the fox was still a child? Questions crowded Yev’s head. He was only relieved that he hadn’t shifted in front of the fox, afraid of scaring him. Now he was glad for so many other reasons.
“Do you know there’s a witch around?”
No.
“Are you over eighteen?”
Yes. Yes. Yes. And several little spins. Yes.
“That was… enthusiastic. But you’re still a little fox, so I’m not sharing my mulled wine,” Yev said in an attempt at joking.
Ember let out a cackle and rubbed his muzzle with the stump. He was probably relieved to be understood at last, even though there would be a lot of probably and maybe in Yev’s future if he was to interpret the fox’s body language. He couldn’t help getting hot under his clothes when he remembered cuddling the fox in bed last night. Not because he’d done something inappropriate with a fox, which he hadn’t, but because he now knew Ember wasn’t an animal in the first place.
“Are you from around here?”
Ember opened his jaws but then shut them. What kind of non-answer was that?
“You don’t know? Have you lost your memory?” Yev asked, slowly sitting on the wooden bench in front of the house.
Ember followed him there and jumped up to sit alongside him. He stared up at Yev with those big golden eyes but wouldn’t answer. It was now hard to comprehend that they’d almost made the decision to put him down at the vets. The poor thing had understood everything. No wonder he’d licked Yev’s hands like he had, too weak to fight, and begging for mercy.
“Yes or no? Do you know who you are?” Yev asked, lifting his hand to pet the soft little head, but he remembered halfway that Ember wasn’t really a fox and froze.
Ember crossed the distance himself and rubbed against Yev’s palm anyway.
Yes.
“Is this okay?” Yev asked, suddenly hot all over despite the frosty weather. “I don’t want to… you know, treat you like a pet.”
The fox sighed but then barked and rubbed against Yev’s hand again, seeking affection, so who was Yev to deny it? If this was a cursed man, then he was frightened, especially after losing a limb in snares and escaping death a second time that same night. Then again, if a grown man, like say, Yev’s brother, got changed into a fox, he wouldn’t have rubbed himself against another man for comfort. Ember was not a woman, not a child, and yet, here they were, with the fox climbing into Yev’s lap.
“Are you gay?” he asked, since he’d already disclosed that much about himself when he’d babbled to the animal far too much in the past few days. It had felt good to say it after many years of silence. An animal wouldn’t judge him, since it didn’t follow any explicit rules and did whatever its own instincts told him. People, especially werewolves, did not have that luxury. But Ember had understood him that whole time.
Yev peeked at the little ginger thing, only to hear a loud bark of