Page 5 of Purrfectly Outfoxed

I settle into my best I’ve-been-napping-here-all-afternoon pose, tail curled around my paws, eyes half-closed. Just a normal cat. Nothing to see here. Definitely didn’t just sprint through the house after shifting from my human form.

Bea bustles in with shopping bags, humming that song she always hums. She spots me and her face lights up.

“There’s my girl! Did you miss me?”

I meow—the universal cat greeting that means everything from “yes” to “feed me” to “I’m secretly a person and I almost got caught.”

She sets her bags on the kitchen counter, and I hear the rustle of cans being unpacked. My ears perk.Please be that fancy salmon pâté she bought last week.

“I got you the turkey this time,” she says, and I decide that’s fine because I do enjoy variety. “And a new collar. The old one is looking a bit worn.”

I don’t need a new collar, but I purr anyway because it makes her happy.

I’m just starting to relax—crisis averted, secret identity intact—when something prickles my senses and I hear something at the back door.

A scratch.

Then a whimper.

My ears swivel toward the sound, every hair on my body standing on end.

What the hell?

“Oh my,” Bea says, moving toward the back door. “What’s that sound?”

Don’t open it. Don’t you dare open that door.

She opens the door.

And there, on the back porch, is a fox.

A russet-red, fluffy-tailed, amber-eyed fox, doing his best impression of a sad, injured animal.

But I know better.

Because underneath the wild scent, underneath the performance of poor lost creature, I smell human. Male.

Shifter.

My claws extend involuntarily, digging into the sofa cushion.

Oh, you have got to be kidding me.

Bea is already cooing at him. “Oh my goodness, you poor thing! What are you doing here, sweetheart?”

The rodent—because I’m going to call him that until I figure out his game—whimpers pathetically and takes a limping step forward.

Oh, he’s good. That’s a solid limp. Really selling it.

Fury rises in me, hot and sharp. This is my house. My Bea. My comfortable life that I’ve built over two years of trust and companionship.

And this asshole thinks he can just show up and?—

“You look so thin. Are you hungry?”

Don’t you dare.

But she’s already heading inside, already pulling out the fresh chicken from the fridge, already falling for his act.