Fox Mate (Madison Wolves) (14 page)

"I had fun today," I announced.

The table agreed with me, with the exception of Gia. I felt badly she'd been excluded, but she and I had never bonded that well. I respected her, but I wouldn't have called us friends. She didn't seem to like my irreverent attitude, and that caused stress in our relationship.

I looked at Scarlett. "You
caught me."

She grinned. "You almost had me. I couldn't believe it; the
Little Fox actually tripped me onto my back. If I hadn't tucked my chin, you would have had your teeth on my neck."

"You were a gracious winner," I told her. "Thank you."

"I want a rematch," Angel said.

"Maybe you shouldn't have bowled your mother over," I told her.

"What?" said Gia.

Francesca laughed. "That was well-played, Fox."

"Anyway," I said. "I had a wonderful day. Thank you for being so gentle with me, Scarlett and Angel."

"Gentle, hell," Angel. "We couldn't catch you. Wow, you're fast! Now I know how you stay away from Lara so easily."

"Oh, it's not at all easy," I said. "And you two would have easily caught me if I had not use the adults the way I did. You have to be gentle with them or they'll let you have it. I don't have to worry about it. You saw I can't knock one of you down if I try."

"Oh god," Angel said. "That was funny. You surprised the hell out of me, and then bam, there you were on the ground."

We spent the rest of the meal chatting amiably. I was biding my time, waiting for everything to be cleared away. Finally, the meal was over, the kids cleared our places, and I sent Sophia to my room for my phone and my laptop. She returned a moment later, and I thanked her.

"Well," I said, punching in my phone. "I am curious."

Most of the people at the table grew nervous.

"You know," I said. "I didn't think I'd win the wager today, but the alpha said I won. I really suspect y'all are going to wish you hadn't let me trick you."

"What's she talking about?" Gia asked.

Lara explained the wager and how I'd won it. Gia just shook her head, but Ava and Sophia were amused by it.

I turned my attention to my phone, and just as I suspected, the pictures of Elisabeth were missing. The tension at the table was tight.

"So," I said. "Other than Ava, Sophia and Gia, do the rest of you have anything you want to say to me?"

"No," said Lara. "I can't think of a thing."

"Alpha, what part did you play in the disappearance of photos from my phone?"

"What photos are those?" Lara asked me.

"The photos I took of your sister."

"They're missing?" she asked. "Maybe you deleted them."

"Someone deleted them, most likely while I was in the bathroom. Are you denying involvement, Lara?"

"Yes," she said.

"Seriously?"

"Honestly, Michaela. I didn't touch your phone."

"Who did?"

"I didn't see anyone touch your phone after I gave it back to you."

"Did you delete them while you had my phone in your possession?"

"No."

"Did you relinquish possession of my phone to anyone while I wasn't looking?"

"No."

"Someone moved my phone while I was in the bathroom. Who was it?"

"That was me," Lara said. "It buzzed. I looked at it, but nothing was on the display, so I set it back down. Michaela, no one else touched your phone, and I didn't delete the photos."

"They're not here, and you're acting guilty about something." I sighed. "But no worries. I mailed them to myself."

I pulled out my laptop and opened it. The room remained tense. I opened my mail, and the mail I had sent myself was missing. I checked where I'd copied the files, and the copies were missing. Someone was being complete.

"I'll be right back," I said quietly. I closed my laptop. "No one move, or
'Taming of the Shrew' will take on a whole new meaning."

I climbed the stairs and
retrieved the thumb drive I'd hidden. It was exactly where I had left it. I descended the stairs slowly, listening for conversation, but they were all sitting quietly. The cat was out of the bag about my hearing, so I gathered I was going to overhear a lot fewer conversations than I had in the past.

I sat down at my space at the table, toying with the thumb drive and trying to decide what I was going to do.

"Lara," I said. "I practically begged you to tell me earlier while you were changing clothes. I gave you a free pass."

She didn't say anything.

"And then I gave you that wager, never expecting to win. And then I even let you decide I hadn't. You all would have had a free apology."

I set the thumb drive on the top of my closed laptop. "Is that empty?" I asked, pointing to it.

"I have no idea," Lara said.

"Anyone else?" No one had anything to say.

"Let's find out." I opened my laptop, bypassed the security, then turned it to Lara and handed her the thumb drive. "Please let me know what is on that thumb drive."

She glanced at me, then slid it into the side of the computer. There was a pause, then she began clicking. "It's blank," she said.

I sighed and reached over to close my laptop case. "I was going to give you the photos, Elisabeth. You didn't have to do it this way."

And then I got up and climbed the stairs to my room. I locked the door when I got there. I found a book then filled the tub. I added some bubble bath and started the jets. The resulting noise would surely drown out any conversation from downstairs. I shucked out of my clothes and
lowered myself in the water. I tried to read.

I kept reading the same page over and over, but eventually I was able to actually read. The water grew tepid, so I added more hot
water and continued to read. Eventually, weariness from the day and the warm water lulled me, and I fell asleep in the tub.

I woke to Lara caressing my cheek. She was kneeling next to the tub. I turned my head to her. "If you had asked me to delete them, I would have," I said.

"It started as a prank," Lara said. "Karen said she could hack your phone."

"I gave you outs. Why didn't you take them? You had to know what I was asking about."

"Had you already checked your phone?"

"No. But I saw it had been moved, and I was pretty sure Karen could hack it. You were all acting guilty. I was pretty sure I knew why, but I wasn't going to
make accusations until I was sure. Why didn't you take the out?"

"Because my head of computer security asked for six hours."

"Gia?"

"Yes. She has been telling me our network security is lacking, and Elisabeth said this was the opportunity to prove it. If Gia could outfox you, there was no doubt."

"You had to know I wouldn't respond well."

"I have copies of the photos. You may have them back."

"Keep them," I said. "I was never going to use them. I wouldn't embarrass Elisabeth like that. Surely you know that."

"Then why are you so upset?"

"I have private things on my computer," I said quietly. "Private thoughts. Things you don't know. Things no one knows. How do I know Gia doesn't have all that now?"

"She doesn't. Only the pictures."

"How do I know that? How do I know the next prank won't be to find my private files, if she doesn't already have a complete backup of my computer? Gia doesn't like me much, I have no reason to believe she'd honor my privacy."

"Gia loves you," Lara said.

"Oh please, she thinks I'm a bad influence on her sister and the other youth in the pack, she thinks I am disruptive, and she's the last person in the pack who wants an omega fox pack mate. She probably had a great deal of fun hacking my computer."

"It wasn't like that, Michaela," Lara said. "And she loves you."

"Yeah, whatever." I turned away. "Where is my computer now?"

"On the bed."

I climbed out of the water. Lara moved to help me, but I hissed her away. I didn't bother with a towel but went out to the bedroom, grabbed the computer, and returned to the bathroom.

"What are you doing?" Lara asked.

I held the computer over the tub and dropped it. Lara lunged, barely catching the computer before it hit the water.

"No!" she screamed. "Michaela!"

"I can never trust that computer again, Lara. Drop it."

"No." She stood up and tucked the computer under her arm.

I stared at her. "Lara, there is evidence on that computer that I am a serial killer."

Lara stared at me for a good ten seconds.

"Wolves?" she asked. I nodded. "Self defense?"

I turned my back on her then walked into the bedroom and found some pajamas and a bathrobe. I pulled them on. I turned around and stared at Lara. She was on her phone. "My room," she said. "Bring Gia."

"Gia hates me, Lara. If she found those files, she'll find some way to use them."

"She doesn't. I swear, Michaela, she loves you."

I turned away. I didn't believe her. Lara tried to put her arm around me, but I shrugged her off. I stood quietly, not at all sure what to do, but really hoping Lara could fix this.

There was a knock, then Elisabeth entered with Gia behind her. The two saw my body language.

"I had permission!" Gia said immediately.

"Not from me," I said quietly.

"Permission from the Alpha is sufficient," Lara said. "Gia, Michaela isn't angry at you. She's deeply frightened."

"Michaela is angry at all of you," I said. "That was an extreme invasion of my privacy. I now have to run. Will you give me a day's head start, Alpha?"

"You aren't going anywhere," she said. "Stop being so dramatic. Gia, how did you do what you did today?"

"I had permission," she said quietly. "Cyber security is my responsibility now."

"I know," Lara said. "Tell Michaela what you did."

"Elisabeth called me. She said you had probably mailed some pictures to yourself from your phone. She told me to delete them."

"You went a lot further than deleting some mail," I said.

"I told her it would be tricky and I would probably have to hack your computer. So she gave the phone to the alpha. The alpha gave me permission to run the security intrusion I'd been asking for permission to do, but to make sure I copied anything I destroyed."

I turned to her. "What did you do?"

"You guys were gone. Your laptop was here. I installed a program that would log everything you did and mail it to me. I installed another one that would delete files on any removable media, but I didn't trigger it. Then I waited. As soon as you got home, you logged into your mail. I have a complete log of everything you did, including the files that you put on the thumb drive. After you left, I took control of your computer, deleted the files you copied, and told your computer that if you installed that thumb drive again, to delete those specific files."

"Sophisticated," I said.

"Not really. An inside attack is easy. It would have been much harder if I had to come in from the outside."

I turned to Lara. "She has been complaining about network security. This was not about security intrusion. This was about hacking my computer. Mine! Not the pack network, not your computers. Not even pack computers. Mine!"

I turned and glared at Gia, daring her to state otherwise.

"I had permission," Gia said again.

"You copied the pictures?" I asked coldly.

"Yes."

"What else did you copy?"

"Nothing! One copy of the photos. That's all."

"Did you look around? You had the fox's laptop right there, filled with who knows what? I bet you were curious."

She looked away.

"Fuck!" I said. "God damn it!" I stormed into the closet, evading Lara's grab for me, jumped up to grab a duffel bag from the top shelf, and began shoving clothes into it.

"Calm down," Lara said. "Please, Michaela, let's talk about this."

"Go ask her!" I screamed. "Ask her what she found!"

"I didn't find anything!" Gia said.

"Fuck!" I screamed. "She won't even tell the truth!"

Lara was blocking the closet door. I had all the clothes I wanted from the closet. I tried slipping past her, but she shifted to block me. I'd expected that, and I slipped around her the other way. I evaded her twice more on my way to my dresser. I opened it and poured undies, bras and socks into my duffel bag, now overfull. I shoved everything in tighter and tried to pull the zipper closed. Lara hovered over me, not touching me.

"I didn't find anything that should have you this angry, Michaela," Gia said.

I turned to look at her. "What did you find?"

"Tell her," Elisabeth said. "Don't be evasive. She has something on her computer that she's terrified you found. If you found it, tell her so we can work it out."

"You have class notes," Gia said. "Lesson plans, science experiments. That directory is huge. You've only been teaching for a short time and you have all that built up."

"I also have comments about the students," I said. "Notes I take about them, what they're strong at, where they need help. Did you read them?"

"I found them," Gia said. "
I glanced at them, but as soon as I realized what they were, I closed them all." She paused. "You should encrypt those."

I stared at her. "You're right," I said. "I should have. What else?"

"Financials. Your tax returns."

"Did you look at them?" I asked.

"No. I found the directory and did a list of the files. That's all."

"Keep going," I ordered.

"I found a directory with notes about your house. I poked around for a couple of minutes. I looked at some of your photos." She looked at Lara. "She has a lot of pictures of you. A lot of my sister." She looked at Elisabeth. "Some of you that I bet you didn't know she was taking. A lot of photos going back years."

I knew what was in the photo directory. While I wasn't pleased she'd poked through them, there wasn't anything frightening in them. And if Lara found out I had dated a human for a few months five years ago, it served her right. I hoped it gave her ulcers thinking about another woman touching me.

"Let's cut to the chase," I said. "Did you find any encrypted files?"

"Yes," Gia said immediately.

"Those files were buried pretty deeply," I said quietly. "You didn't just look around, you dug through everything."

"I ran an automated trace looking for files that appeared to be garbage or were clearly encrypted with the known encryption tools. Garbage files tend to be encrypted.
Encrypted files are usually something interesting. It took a while to run."

"Did you decrypt them?"

"No."

"Did you try?"

"Briefly," she admitted. "You didn't use a simple encryption key."

"No, for those files, I wouldn't have."

"Gia," Elisabeth said. "Did you make copies? Tell the truth."

"No," she said.

I studied her. I'd played poker with her. Gia was a horrible liar. Oh, the wolves couldn't tell, but I could. She was telling the truth.

I started to cry. Lara pulled me into her arms.
I stood stiffly and didn't hold her back, but I didn't push her away, either.

Gia stepped closer. "Michaela," she said softly. "I'm sorry. I was ordered to delete the photos, and I guess you can be mad about that, but that's between you and the alpha. Looking through your computer was beyond what she told me to do, and I'm sorry. I didn't copy anything except the pictures of Elisabeth. I didn't break your encryption."

"What's in the files, Michaela?" Elisabeth asked. "This is a security problem, isn't it? It's not just your private notes about Lara's bad habits."

"Gia," I said, pointing to the computer. "Show Lara the encrypted files."
I waited until Gia had pulled up the directory with the encrypted files and given the computer back to Lara. "The password is: fucking wolves killed my family."

Gia
took a loud breath but didn't comment.

Lara
, sitting on the bed, began digging through the files, one by one, her lips growing tighter and tighter together. There were pictures I had taken of some of the wolves I had killed over the years. Not all, just some. I had journal entries describing the situations for each.

She looked at me. "May I show Elisabeth?" I nodded. So Lara showed Elisabeth everything as well. When they were done, Lara looked up at me.

"It's all self-defense," Lara said.

"Check the
notes for July, eleven years ago."

Lara dug through
the files, found the journal entry, and found that those two wolves had killed a family of werebeavers. It wasn't self-defense; it was retribution.

She looked
back at me. "That was the most egregious," I said. "But four of the other wolves I killed were disabled. I could have run. I didn't absolutely have to kill them."

"
You are thinking about human laws," she said. "They challenged you, and it was mortal combat. By were laws, you are justified to kill them."

"Gia hates me, Lara!" I said. "
If she had copied those files, all she had to do is release those files to the human authorities, and my life would have been over!"

"Michaela. I don't hate you. I love you. How could you think I hate you?"

I stared at her. "You think I am a terrible influence on the pack and don't understand how anyone could possibly want me around. You want to be rid of me."

"That's ridiculous," she said. "I don't understand you.
But Lara is my cousin, and I love her! And you saved her life. Michaela, you saved my cousin's life. You saved the pack. Twice. You've made our alpha happy. You've made my sister happy. I love my sister. I love my pack. I love my alpha." She started to cry. "I could never hurt you, Michaela. Oh god, how could you think that?"

Lara took a breath. "Michaela," she said. "Does that settle that part?"

I crossed the room to Gia, put my hands on her shoulders, and turned her to face me.

"Michaela," she said. "I don't understand you. I don't understand why you get away with your insolence. But you are our fox. Ours! And no one touches you. If I'd decrypted those files, I would have reported them to the alpha
, but I would never, ever give them to anyone else or use them against you. I'm so sorry. Oh god, I'm sorry."

"Michaela," Elisabeth said quietly. "Even if Gia hated you, which she doesn't, she is immensely loyal to Lara and the pack. She would never turn a pack member over to human authorities. There are wolves in the pack who would be deeply incensed at the contents of these files. None of them live in the compound or are in the slightest position of authority. And Gia would never share Lara's secrets with any of them."

"How about my secrets?"

"Your secrets are Lara's secrets," Gia said. "You are her mate."

"You shouldn't have done it," I told her. "This wasn't about security. This was entirely about invading my privacy, what little I have remaining to me. The only security you were testing was mine, and I should be able to trust you."

"You're right," Gia said quietly.
"You should be able to trust me. I'm sorry."

I paced around the room for a few minutes, no one saying a word, the three wolves practically holding their breaths. Finally I asked quietly, "Do I have to worry about this happening again?

"No," Gia said. "But Michaela, do you know how easy it is to steal files off a laptop? You have to scrub that computer. Not just delete the files, but use a real scrubber. Do you have other copies?"

"No. Just those."

"Why did you keep these files, Michaela?" Elisabeth asked. "They're dangerous. You had to know that."

"I needed them," I said. "Some days I needed them to remind myself I wasn't helpless. Some days I just needed to remind myself that the wolves that killed my family were all dead. And then some."

"Do you still need them?" Lara asked.

"No. Gia, will you scrub them for me?"

"Yes," she said. "Like they were never there."

"Please remove the programs you installed."

"I did that after dinner," she said. "But I can tighten your security if you let me keep the computer until tomorrow."

"Thank you. I am going to bed now."

Lara chased Gia and Elisabeth out and then locked the door. I turned to her. "I feel deeply violated. You may think you had a right to do that, but I firmly disagree. You knew I was going to be angry when I found out, and you did it anyway. Why?"

"A mistake, Michaela. Pure and simple. A mistake. I'm sorry. If Karen had hacked your phone and deleted the photos, but we'd stopped there, would you have been angry?"

"I took them as a prank, so it would be ungracious if I didn't accept another prank to delete them," I said. "If Gia could have deleted the emails without invading my laptop, that would also have been a fair prank, although I would then be obligated to find a more secure way to receive email. But invading my laptop went too far."

"I agree," Lara said. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have authorized it. We started with what you agree was a fair prank, and then it went too far a little at a time. I'm sorry."

I moved to her and looked up into her face. She was concerned, but I was ready to accept her apology. "You consistently go too far when trying to outfox me. You beat me plenty by being a wolf. Isn't that enough? Can't you let the fox win by being a fox?"