Worth Fighting For

Chapter 4

Misty didn’t see what the big deal was. The crate wasn’t too small for the baby fox. And she’d bought a soft pad for the bottom and a fox stuffed animal to put in there with him, so he could curl up and everything. But when she’d tried to usher the animal inside, Cody had acted like she committed a sacrilege.

Walking outside after changing into yoga pants and a tank top, Misty saw Cody putting the finishing touches on his makeshift fence. After seeing the crate, he had shooed her off to change, telling her he’d figure something out for her new pet. She glanced at the area he’d blocked off in the back yard by tipping her porch furniture on its side. The space in the middle wasn’t much larger than the area in the crate.

“How is that any better?”

Sweat dripped down his forehead as he glared at her where she stood by the back door.

“Because ‘crate’ is just a fancy way of saying ‘metal cage’. This way, he’ll be outside with grass beneath his feet and sky above his head. A fox needs to be free, to be one with nature.”

One with nature? She pursed her lips to hold back the giggles. He was so cute when he got all worked up. Whenever he was adamant about something, he’d emphasize his point by gesturing while he spoke. The dramatic hand movements were such a contrast from his normal personality, she always had to stifle the urge to laugh.

Years ago, she’d burst into a fit of giggles whenever he broke out in gestures. Then, one day, the laughter had pushed him over the edge. It had been one of the few times she’d seen him truly angry. The memory still made her uncomfortable. But it had taught her not to laugh at people when they were serious. Since then, she’d learned how to giggle on the inside. Now, she could tease him all she wanted just to see him get all intense. Which she did. At least once every other week. After all, someone had to keep the Premier sharp. Wouldn’t do the skulk any good to have a weak leader.

Walking over, Misty looked down at the enclosed area. The empty area.

“Where’s Oscar?” she asked, glancing around the yard before turning back to Cody.

“Oscar?” he asked.

“Small, black and red fur, baby fox.”

“He’s right…” Cody broke off as he stared at the ground behind him with a “huh.”

Panic set in. “You lost my fox?” Her voice rose to a shout, her eyes searching the small backyard. Oscar was nowhere in sight. “He’s still a baby, Cody. He can’t survive on his own, yet.” Not to mention the attachment she already felt, even though it had only been a couple hours.

A sense of failure assailed her. Oscar was hers to take care of. She hadn’t even lasted one day.

“Oscar,” she called, knowing how futile it was. She hadn’t owned him long enough for him to learn his name. But her brain refused to come up with a better option. How would she find him? All she could think to do was stand by the woods and call his name. But what if he’d gone in the other direction? He would run into the road and get hit by a car. Oh God.

“Calm down, we’ll find him,” Cody said beside her.

“But what if we don’t? What if we never know what happens to him? I brought him here to try and protect him and now–”

“Wait, there he is.” Cody cut into her rant, pointing under a bush in her garden where Oscar slept. With his black fur, he blended into the dark soil underneath.

Misty ran over, picked up the fluff ball and cuddled him against her cheek, the soft fur reassuring her he was safe. Oscar let out a small squeak, and tried to wiggle out of her arms. Reluctantly, she set him down in the makeshift playpen. She watched as he circled first one way, then the other, before finally curling up and going back to sleep.

Staring at Misty as she gazed at Oscar with such love, Cody felt…jealous. Which was ridiculous. Misty was his friend but nothing more. He’d never wanted anything more. But lately, for some reason, he’d started questioning their relationship. Whenever he looked at her, he felt a strange heat, almost like desire.

It was crazy. He didn’t desire Misty. He didn’t. But deep down, he knew it was a lie. His eyes lowered to her butt as she leaned down to place a stuffed animal in the pen with her fox. The yoga pants clung to her curves worse than the jeans had, leaving everything and nothing to the imagination at the same time.

A flash of Misty, her eyes sparkling down at him as she leaned in for a kiss, ran through his mind. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear it was a memory. But he’d never kissed her. Not even during a childhood game of Spin the Bottle.

He needed to get a grip. Even if she would be open to something more than friendship with him, he would never do it. There weren’t many girls he considered friends. Acquaintances maybe, but not friends. What they had was too special to ruin just to scratch an itch, which was all they would ever have.

If she was a potential mate, things would be different, but she wasn’t. With all the time they’d spent together over the years, he would have sensed the connection a long time ago. Best for everyone to ignore these sudden urges and keep things light. Which would be a lot easier if she’d put on sweats instead of the clingy…

Cody jerked his gaze away from her butt. Clearing his throat, he tried to concentrate on the task at hand. Self-defense lessons.

“Come on, let’s go over here to get some room.” He put his hand on her elbow and led her away from the makeshift pen. The longing sigh she made as she cast one last look at Oscar sounded almost like a sigh of pleasure. He gritted his teeth and ruthlessly pushed down the images threatening to rise.

“What’s first, chief? Karate, Jujitsu, maybe a little Tai Kwon Do?” Misty jumped away from him and started hopping back and forth like a boxer, reminding him of a little bunny. The image made him smile.

“Easy tiger. Why don’t you show me what you’ve got, first, so I know where to start.”

The hopping stopped. She stared at him with a blank look on her face.

“Come on, you can fight me.” He raised his hands and assumed a fighting stance, having no doubt he could block whatever she threw at him.

“Um…what I’ve got. Okay.” She pulled up her pants and shrugged her shoulders a couple times. Then she did something–he didn’t think he could describe it if he tried–a drawn out “Wwaaa” escaped as her hands circled wildly around her head. Every now and then, one of her legs would lift up in what he had to assume was supposed to be a kick.

Without a word, he gaped at her display for a minute, dropping his hands from their defensive position around his face. It had to be a joke. But even as the thought came to him, he knew without a doubt, she wasn’t kidding. This was Misty’s interpretation of a badass fighter.

His lips twitched as she spun, her hands still chopping through the air in wide, erratic circles. Before she’d gotten her balance back, one foot rose into the air in an imitation kick. She stumbled, catching herself before she fell. Barely.

He tried to contain the laughter. He really did. But a snort slipped past his guard, and that was all it took. Laughter rolled through him, bursting out in a long bellow. Clutching his stomach, he doubled over, unable to stop.

“Hey!” Misty complained, shoving him to the ground. The impact did nothing to stop the roars of laughter. Before long, his stomach and sides ached. He pulled air into his lungs, struggling for control. He blew out a breath, as his chuckles tapered off.

Glancing up, he took one look at Misty, arms crossed and toe tapping as she glared down at him with a furious expression, and burst into renewed cackles. It was as if she’d learned her moves from old Bruce Lee movies. Which, considering who he was thinking about, she probably did.

Once he’d regained control, he sat up, wiping the tears from his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed that hard. Actually, he could. No surprise, it had been with Misty.

Almost scared to discover her reaction, he stood and turned to her. She certainly looked angry, but the laughter shining out of her eyes told a different story. One of the things he loved about Misty was her ability to laugh at herself. He grinned and gave her a helpless shrug. No one would have resisted laughing at her display, not even a saint, and the twitch of her lips told him she understood.

“I know, I know. Hopeless, right?” she asked.

“Not hopeless.” He weighed his words carefully. “But I don’t think we’ll be able to cover everything in one or two or twenty lessons. Let’s just start at the beginning.”

“Okay.” She dropped her hands to her side. “Teach me, sensei.”

He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “The first thing you need to learn is to stay–” He broke off and stared at her, remembering her ‘moves’ from before. “Actually, in your case, the first thing you have to learn is to never do what you just did. Unless you intend to crack them up and run away while they’re on the ground laughing.”

The glare she threw him told him she didn’t appreciate his humor. “Ha ha ha. Can you quit joking around and get serious?”

“You think I’m kidding, but I’m not. Seriously, the first thing you need to learn is nothing fancy. I’m not going to teach you how to be Jet Li. I’m going to teach you how to defend yourself. No judo chops or breaking cement blocks. Your objective is not to win, it’s to get away.” Disappointment shone from her eyes as her lip poked out in a pout. A pout that made her lips look far too enticing. He found himself unconsciously leaning forward for a kiss, and tightened his resolve. What was wrong with him?

“But I want to be like Laurie.” One of the wolves in Jason’s pack. Not only was Laurie an alpha wolf, she was a superb fighter both with fur and without.

“Honey, no matter how much training we do, you’re never gonna be like Laurie.”

Her sigh was so exaggerated, he had to wonder whether she tried to egg him on. Although he never understood why, he knew she occasionally tried to get under his skin.

“I know,” she said, reminding him of a petulant child.

“All right then, moving on. For the next lesson, I want you to follow my lead, okay?” He waited for her nod before continuing, “Breathe in.” With his hands toward him, he raised them to chest level as he took a deep breath, then lowered them as he breathed out. “Breathe out.”

Wait, what? Misty stared as Cody lowered his hands to his side and then repeated the breathing exercise. When he’d had her breathe in and raise her hands, she’d expected him to show her some super move to knock down her opponent. But breathing? She knew how to breathe. She was a yoga instructor, for crying out loud.

“Is this like the ‘wax on, wax off’ approach to self-defense?” she joked.

“You watch too many movies.”

“Well, I thought you were going to teach me some fancy moves.”

His eyes narrowed and he glared at her through lowered brows. “Didn’t I just get through telling you not to do anything fancy? Not five seconds ago. Are you even listening to me?”

“Fine, nothing fancy.” Misty held up her hands in defeat. “You don’t have to get so cranky about it,” she muttered under her breath.

“I heard that.”

“I knew you would,” she shot back. And because she knew it would aggravate him even more, she smiled, enjoying the way his forehead crinkled in a frown.

This was probably the reason they’d never dated. In fact, it kind of amazed her they were still friends. Whenever she was near him, she felt compelled to tease. Almost as if the devil possessed her. She simply couldn’t help herself. If she wanted their relationship to grow into more, she needed to find a way to curb the impulse. He would never fall for her if she kept acting like such a brat.

New plan. She would throw herself into her lessons. She’d impress him by paying attention, listening closely, and picking everything up super-fast.

“Did you hear what I said?” Cody asked.

It wasn’t until he asked the question that she realized he’d been speaking the whole time her mind had been wandering. So much for the listen closely plan. With reluctance, Misty murmured an apology.

“I said, the reason you need to concentrate on your breathing is because it will help you remain calm during any intense encounter. Remembering to keep your cool is more important than any move I might show you. I know how panicked you get when something goes wrong.”

Misty reared back. She wasn’t a panicker. When things went wrong, she went with the flow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I always keep a cool head.”

No response.

Probably trying to wrack his brain to come up with an example of her panicking and couldn’t, she thought with just a touch of smugness. Blatantly she stared back at him until his gaze darted past her shoulder in surprise.

“Oh no, Oscar broke loose!” he exclaimed.

Misty’s heart sped up, the breath freezing in her throat, as she spun around and ran to the pen. Oscar lay curled in a ball with his stuffed animal.

Knowing what was coming, she straightened slowly. The slight curl at the corners of his lips and raised eyebrow said it all.

“Touche,” she conceded.

“We’ll work on it. For now, let’s learn some of the most common ways a bad guy could grab you, and what you can do to get away. We’ll do human skills first and then learn to fight while shifted. Whenever you’re attacked from behind, I want you to squat down. It might seem strange, especially if he has ahold of your hair, but it’s the best way to break an attacker’s grip. Okay, turn around and let’s give it a try.”

Give it a try? Did that mean Cody would grip her from behind? Just the thought had her muscles tightening in anticipation. With a deep breath, Misty turned around. She held her breath, her eyes closing as she waited for the moment he’d touch her.

His touch had never failed to fire her blood. And her imagination. Often, she’d dream of Cody’s arms encircling her from behind. Granted, those fantasies had been romantic, not because he wanted her to fight him. Splitting hairs.

Any moment, Cody would take her into his arms. Maybe even sweep her off her feet. Her hands clenched as she pictured it. The smile on his face as he held her, those happy lips coming closer and closer until finally he closed the distance and kissed her… The breath she’d been holding came out on a sigh.

All of a sudden, Cody’s arms circled her, tightening just short of painful. Misty’s brain emptied. All she could think about was how incredible the man smelled. The spicy scent of his cologne was faint but still present, probably left over from that morning. But underneath, pure man bled through–a scent purely Cody. As the aroma surrounded her, she took a deep breath, pulling it into her lungs.

“You’re remembering to breathe. Good,” he said quietly. The heat of his breath caressed her ear, causing a shiver to snake down her spine.

She was supposed to be doing something, but her entire world began and ended with the fact that Cody Mattherson had his arms around her. Even though it wasn’t romantic, it made her stomach clench with need.

Sadness swamped her. If only he felt the same way…

This was a mistake. The moment he put his arms around her, he realized it. Now here he was, Misty’s backside flush against him, trying desperately to control his wayward thoughts.

Over the past couple months, ever since he’d started having vivid dreams of taking Misty to bed, he’d been careful not to get too close. But now, he was trapped, his face pressed so close to her hair he smelled her shampoo with every breath he took.

Maintaining his distance emotionally proved impossible when he had her in his arms. Every time she breathed, her breasts rose perilously close to his hands. Over her shoulder, he stared at the peaks. Two perfect handfuls. Her nipples peaked under his stare, mesmerizing him. What would they feel like in his palms? And would they taste as good as they did in his dreams?

No. Thinking about that was dangerous. He needed to focus on the task at hand. She was taking deep breaths, which meant she’d not only listened to him but followed directions.

“You’re remembering to breathe. Good,” he murmured, closing his eyes to breath in her scent. Any moment now, she would squat down, like he’d instructed, breaking his grip. For now, he savored the feel of her in his arms.

When she shivered, he almost lost it. Undoubtedly, she was cold in only a tank top as the day cooled into night, but in his mind, he pictured her in bed, shivering under him in pure desire. The image punched him in the gut.

Misty was a friend. A good friend, but nothing more. There was no way he would ruin what they had because his libido all of a sudden realized she was also a woman. As if oblivious to his inner struggle, Misty turned in his arms to face him.

In a haze, his gaze dropped to her lips. They parted and the urge to close the distance between them almost overwhelmed him. He needed to find out if Misty tasted as good as she smelled. If she would sink into his embrace or push him away. He needed to know if the emotions rioting inside him were one sided, or if perhaps she was feeling the same undeniable pull.

A few inches would close the distance. Although he tried to resist, Cody found himself moving closer. He looked up into Misty’s hazel eyes, saw the naked desire inside before she closed her lids, shielding her emotions from him. He’d always been able to read her by gazing into her eyes.

The thought made him freeze. Always could mean a lot of things, but for Misty and him it meant over a decade. Fifteen years of friendship. Way back when he still believed in Santa Claus and The Easter Bunny, they’d baked gingerbread cookies and colored eggs at his parents’ house.

This was wrong. It didn’t matter if she felt the same way–which she appeared to. Throwing all that history away wasn’t the right move.

Clearing his throat, Cody released her and took a step back. A retreat, plain and simple. He was man enough to admit it. Even as every instinct urged him to plow forward, or maybe because they did, he took another step away.

One minute longer and he would have pulled her tight and ravished her, here on the grass with little Oscar sleeping not ten feet away. He looked into sparkling hazel eyes as they opened.

“Attackers usually don’t let someone go and back away on their own,” she joked.

Under normal circumstances, her humor attracted him, making him a part of the joke. One of the things he loved most about her. But tonight, he didn’t want to be pulled in. He needed to get away from her and the temptation she’d become. Once he’d regrouped and regained his equilibrium, they could continue training. But not until then.

“It’s getting late. Why don’t we try again in a couple days?” Cody continued to back up. He saw the question in her eyes, but didn’t bother trying to explain. Nothing he said would justify his squirrely behavior. “I’ll call you.”

Without another word, he turned and ran.

Finding other hybrid shifters had been easier than she’d anticipated. And once she’d found them, it hadn’t taken Stella long to earn their sympathy. A few fake tears, the story of her brave brother persecuted by the evil pure breeds and their pure breed council, and they’d been eating out of her hands.

“Those wolves would have killed him right there, but the fox Premier showed up. I thought it would be okay.” Stella sniveled for effect, soaking in the furious expressions around her. Perfect. “But he said they should send my brother to the council. That the council would surely kill him. They said he didn’t have a chance because he wasn’t a ‘pure breed.’”

A fist slammed down on the table. A large beefy hand. Stella’s gaze traveled up the arm, pausing at the wide shoulders. This one would do nicely as her new muscle man.

“We have as many rights as pure breeds. They’re supposed to be for all of us,” the man said, looking at the crowd of hybrids around them. Easily manipulated, and he roused the crowd for her. Yes, he would do nicely.

“But they don’t work for us. My brother was guilty of nothing more than living too close to the wolves’ territory. It wasn’t even across their boundaries. He died protecting me.” She practically felt the outrage building. These people weren’t even questioning her story.

“But didn’t the wolf Premier just marry an arctic fox? I hear she’s pregnant, too. You’d think a potential father of hybrids would be more understanding toward us.”

Stella glared at the woman who’d spoken out, before composing herself. She’d planned for this moment, but she’d hoped it wouldn’t come until later. After she’d already gathered enough support to squash such questions with no more than a look.

“I don’t understand it, either. You should have seen the look on his face.” She closed her eyes and shuddered. “I think the foxes are to blame. Why else would they have shown up?”

The rumble of the crowd began again, louder than before. She heard the anger in the whispers. Having spent time listening to the local gossip, Stella knew the foxes were known for keeping to themselves. They were the perfect scapegoat to rouse the indignation of the oppressed hybrids.

As the anger around her grew, Stella implemented phase two of her plan. “What we should do, is start our own group, a union of sorts. For the rights of hybrids everywhere. But first, we have to show them we mean business and aren’t going to back down.”

The avid gazes of the crowd told her she had everyone’s attention. Before long, she’d be their leader, and then she’d take over the council. After she did, her brother’s killers would pay. Along with everyone who’d turned their backs on her and Jay. They would all pay.