The Fox’s Tale

I could hear her sobbing as we entered the locker room and it felt like I was being stabbed. I wanted to run to her, but Coach Murphy wouldn’t let me. Lee and the coaches had put her in the showers fully clothed and she was sitting on the floor, with three shower heads going full pressure on her.

Her head jerked up as we approached but instead of directing her fury at me she glared at Coach Murphy instead. Her beautiful face was red from crying and streaked with eye makeup.

“Did you call him?” she asked through clenched teeth.

“I had to, El.”

Her face crumpled again, but before she could say anything he continued. “I. Had. To. You know he’d feel your distress and come running. Hell, I’m surprised your entire family isn’t here already. I bought you some time by having him stop and get you dry clothes.”

Ellery gulped and turned her face away from him. “Thank you. But I still don’t want to see his lying face. He promised me it would be better when we met. He promised me that he’d know me. He promised and he lied.”

Coach Murphy turned the showers off before speaking to her again. “I know he did, and he shouldn’t have promised that, not when everything is so different for you. In his defense he was trying to comfort you. We all were.”

“Fat fucking lot of good it did. I’d rather have been told the truth.”

Coach Murphy sighed and then looked up. “Hey Lee? Are you still here?” he called.

Lee stuck his head back in. “Yep. What do you need?”

“We need to get Ellery some towels and something to drink.”

“I got it.”

I moved to help and Coach Murphy snapped at me. “Not you. I asked Lee to do it.” He turned his attention back to Ellery. “You’ve got to tell him.”

“I can’t, Billy. You know I can’t.”

“You could. We all know it was a precaution, but there’s no doubt.”

She gulped and then whimpered. “Don’t make me, Billy. Spare me the pain and humiliation of having to grovel.”

“Ellery.” Coach Murphy’s voice was tender, but I still saw red.

“Hey, she said she doesn’t want to, so don’t fucking force her to do whatever it is you’re talking about,” I snarled.

“Oh, so now you care about her feelings?” Coach Murphy scowled at me.

“I never said that I didn’t, and if I did something to give her that impression it was not intentional.”

Lee came back with some towels at that moment and Coach Murphy grinned. “Ah Lee, just in time. We need a little more help from you.”

“Sure thing. What do you need?”

Coach Murphy looked at me, then at Lee and then at Ellery. “Don’t you think she looks cold?”

A grin spread across Lee’s face and he chuckled to himself. “She sure does, Coach.”

“Someone should help her remedy that situation, don’t you think? We don’t want her to get sick.”

“Oh no,” Lee said as he peeled off his shirt. “Can’t have that.” He scooped up Ellery in a cradle hold and began to speak to her in a gentle murmur. “Come on Elly, snuggle close to your Pooh Bear. I’ll keep you warm.”

“Pooh Bear,” she sighed, “I’m sorry about before.”

She closed her eyes and rested her head on his chest the way she had snuggled against me on the bus. By the time he carried her out of the room with the towels he’d brought I was on the verge of exploding.

I started to follow them when Coach Murphy stopped me. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“After her,” I hissed through gritted teeth.

“And why’s that? You’re not jealous are you? After all, Elly is just a friend right? Why shouldn’t Lee comfort her? She knows him, she trusts him, she likes him.”

“Because she’s mine!” I snarled.

“You certainly haven’t been acting like she’s yours.”

My claws came out. “She’s mine and he needs to get his paws off of her!”

Coach Murphy folded his arms across his chest and smirked at me as he waited for my brain to catch up to what I had just said. My eyes widened with shock.

“She’s mine?” I asked.

“Congratulations on finally figuring it out.”

All my anger and confusion left me and they were replaced by sheer joy. I grinned at Coach Murphy and headed for the door to find her, kiss her, hold her, but he grabbed my arm and stopped me.

“Not so fast, Casanova. You’ve made a huge mess of things and that mess needs to be straightened out.” I started to protest but he stopped me.

“I know; it wasn’t all your fault, a lot of it was Ethan’s and well, mine; but that’s not the point. You are the only one who can fix things since after all, she’s yours. I took the precaution of giving her a sedative in her drink, which with any luck should be kicking in within the next two minutes.”

He looked at me standing there in my uniform and sighed. “Go get yourself dressed and then I’ll let you go in and see her.”

I got dressed faster than I ever had before, taking time to spray myself with deodorant and splash some water on my face, and was waiting outside the door to Coach Hendrix’s office for Coach Murphy. He grinned at me and put his hand on my shoulder.

“You need to keep your emotions in check when you go in, because even sedated she will still feel everything you are feeling and I don’t want you to wake her up. Do you understand? She’s been through enough tonight.”

My face fell. “Oh gods, she’s going to be so embarrassed by what happened. Fuck, it will be all anyone is talking about on Monday.”

“The only things people will be talking about are that the two of you are a couple, and how the crowd almost killed us at the game. Your teammates are not going to breathe a word about Ellery’s meltdown. They care too much about her and if that isn’t enough they now know she’s a Fae, and no one wants to piss off the Fae.”

He knocked on the door and cracked it open. “Is everything calm?”

“Yeah, she’s out cold. Come in.”

I followed him in and had a hell of time making eye contact with Coach Hendrix. He chuckled to himself.

“It’s okay, Xander. I’ve spoken to your parents and while they are very excited to meet Ellery they understand that you’ll be staying at the Sinclairs this weekend. Come on Billy, let’s leave them alone.”

I stood staring at Ellery, who was curled up on the small sofa in the office. Her face had been wiped clean but the evidence of her tears was still visible. I reached to push some of her hair off her face when someone cleared their throat.

I whipped around to see a man I hadn’t noticed when I had come in. One look at his face told me that this had to be her brother Ethan.

“Hello. It’s a pleasure to meet you after all this time.” He glanced at Ellery then looked back at me. “I feel I owe you an apology. Ellery,” he stopped, choked on an emotion that I couldn’t identify.

“Ellery is unique, even amongst the Fae. Nothing has unfolded for her the way it should have, or rather, the way eons have led us to believe it should have. A great deal of her stress and pain could have been avoided had we all, yourself included, been given more information, and for that I apologize.”

He paused again. “I’ve brought Ellery a change of clothes. You’ll need to undress and redress her before we leave. If at any time you feel you are about to lose control, I suggest you shift until you can continue. Take your time, we’re happy to wait. Oh, and if you decide you cannot manage, come out and Billy will take over.”

“Like hell he will.”

Ethan smiled for the first time. “I’ll leave you to it.” He left, closing the door behind him.

I looked down at Ellery’s sleeping form and closed my eyes. “It’s no big deal. You’ve undressed women before. Nothing to it.”

My pep talk was interrupted by Ellery moaning in her sleep. My eyes flew open to see that she’d shifted her position and now her back was arched pushing her breasts tighter against the wet fabric of her dress.

“Oh shit.” I yanked off my clothes and shifted.

In the end it took me an hour and a half to get her dry and changed, but I did it. I wanted a shot of whiskey and a bath in a vat of ice, but I did it, and I hadn’t needed to ask for help. It didn’t matter to me that Coach Murphy wouldn’t have been aroused by the sight of her; she was mine and I didn’t want anyone else to see her exposed.

Mine. I let that word roll around in my mind. Ellery Sinclair was mine. I pulled on my pants and shrugged my shirt on before I opened the door. I didn’t bother with an undershirt or my tie.

“She’s ready.”

Ethan looked at his watch and chuckled. “Not bad. How many times did you have to shift?”

“Three. She kept making noises and that dress was like cling wrap before it got wet so…”

Ethan laughed. “I’m impressed. My older brother found himself in a similar predicament when he was twenty and it took him five hours with all the shifting he had to do to stay calm.”

“Jones is a Shifter?” I asked as I did up my buttons.

“Ah. Not the way you are. He had to resort to astral projecting himself to the Yukon every five to ten minutes to keep himself in check. Why he didn’t just use his magic to help I’ll never know.”

“Because that’s not what it’s meant for, Ethan. Cut Jones some slack. You’ve never had to deal with the things he’s dealt with.” Coach Murphy shook his head.

“True.” Ethan sighed. “Finish getting dressed and bring Ellery outside. Billy will lock up. I’ll be in the car.”