You lift your head suddenly, ears twitching around. What was that? Then you smell it. Gunpowder, Cigarettes... humans. Humans. Shit. You start to move slowly, but before you can gain any ground, you hear a voice close by. Too close.

"Target acquired." Ghost's voice cuts through your thoughts like a blade. To both sides of you and in front of you, shadows emerge. Tactical gear, silenced weapons, cold eyes behind rifle scopes.

Soap steps forward slowly, hands raised in mock surrender - but that smirk? It's dangerous. "Now now... no need tae bolt. We just wanna talk."

And Gaz? He's already circling behind you.

Your ears flicker to Gaz, the closest one to you, but aslo the one blocking your path to the forest. You move before you can think, instincts taking over. You lunge at Gaz, using hybrid strength to wrench the gun from his hand and knock him over. "Ah, hell-" Gaz hits the ground hard. Price is the one to block your path next. Soap is closing in behind you, helping Gaz to his feet.

It's a standoff.

"Now, hold on a minute-" Price steps forward, hands raised, but the motion just sets you off again.

You charge at him, just like you did with Gaz. You try to dash past him, but then he points a tranquilizing gun at you. You grab the gun with your teeth and crush the barrel, rendering it useless. Price jumps away in surprise, watching his tranq shatter to the ground like it was nothing.

You hold the gun in your jaw, backing up into the forest slowly, making sure you can see them. Price's jaw drops in disbelief. "Blimey...they're vicious too." Gaz stands next to Soap, eyes wide. "Damnit Soap, I thought you could handle one bloody hybrid!" They start to bicker, and you're about to take that as your chance to escape when you feel it.

Eyes on you. Weren't there four of them..?

Ghost appears just a couple meters away from you, and you can tell he's been watching. Studying. You growl at them, ears folding back as if to say "Stay away from me."

Ghost takes a step forward - boots crunching on Price's broken gun. His voice is low, rough, and far too calm for the situation.

"Cute." He hums.

Price exhales deeply, with begrudging respect. "They've got fangs. I like it." Gaz rubs his bruised shoulder, grinning despite himself. "Aye. Fiesty little thing."

But you don't move, almost paralyzed in your indecisiveness on how to get out of here. You hiss, tail lashing high and puffed up - a red warning flag. And then-

CRACK!

A shot rings out, but it's not at you.

Ghost fired into the air. "Next one goes into your leg," He says flatly. "Stand down...or we take you down." His words are firm, but theres no heat behind them. Like he doesn't want to fight you.

Price shifts to flank. Gaz moves as well, hands open - but ready.

You're fully ready to tackle Ghost until you realize that you're slowly being surrounded. In the blink of an eye, you've turned around and darted into the forest, not wasting a second more on entertaining them.

Gaz and Soap start running after you, but Price raises his arm, signalling them to stop. They regroup, and Ghost speaks.

"Let ‘em go." He says with certainty. Soap practically breaks his neck twisting to look at Ghost. "What? You letting prey walk now?" Ghost's eyes narrow. "No. I'm letting them run..." His eyes shift back to the forest. "They will be back."

Somewhere, deep in the forest, you skid to a stop, heart pounding in your ears. Alone. Free. But your ears still twitch, listening to any sign of them following you. And against your better judgement? You glance back one last time, waiting to see their shadows appear.

You don't go back right away, no, no. You're not that crazy. You give it a week. Each day you creep closer and closer to the flower field, just waiting to see them appear.

But you do just as Ghost said you would. You go back. Out of morbid curiousity, or stupidity...you don't know. But you at least try to be smart about it. you take a different route, just in case. You follow the river that cuts through the forest, and that the flower field runs along. You wash your fur further downstream, before heading upstream to the field.

You approach slowly - watching, listening for any sign of them. Considering that you're in full fox form, you cant see high up. So, you balance precariously on your hind legs, head on a swivel. You stay at the rivers edge, making sure they're gone.

You breathe in the smell of the river, dirt, and flowers. No gunpowder, no cigarettes. Just an empty field, rustling in the summer wind with the soft sounds of nature.

You drop four paws on the ground, relaxing a bit. But then, a voice calls out.

"you came back."

You spin around to where the voice is coming from, and you see a figure emerge from beneath a willow tree. Ghost steps forward, his movements measured and calm.

He holds his hands up, showing that he's unarmed. "Easy. S'just me."

Shifting into a more humanoid form, you stay in the river. "You say that like you aren't a threat."

He lets out a low, rough chuckle. "Oh, I'm a threat." He takes a slow step forward, boots quiet on the damp earth. "But not to you. Not right now."

He tilts his head slightly. "you came back. That means somethin'."

A beat of silence. Then- "Means you're curious."

The wind shifts, and you catch his scent. Gun powder, leather...and something close to rain underneath. He crosses his arms.

"You could've run far away by now...changed shape, vanished into the wilds...but here you are." His eyes lock onto yours through the mask.'

"Why?"

That's the million dollar question, isn't it? Why come back, even after you so narrowly escaped. Is it naivety? Curiousity?

You stare at him from across the river. "I'm just...making sure you aren't here." is all you can come up with. You cross your arms over your chest, mirroring his stance even as the water flows around your legs.

He doesn't flinch. Doesn't look away. His eyes drag from your bare feet in the water up to your narrowed eyes, and for a second... soemthing unreadable flickers beneath the skull mask.

"And now I am." He takes a step closer to the river bank. Th water ripples between you, clear and cold in the morning light.

"Gonna scream? Run? Or finally ask what we want with hybrids like you?" A beat of silence passes. Then he adds quieter - almost curious - "...Or did you come back just to figure me out?"

Upstream, a bird calls. The wind teases your wet hair across your shoulders. And Ghost? He's watching. Waiting.

You take a few moments to answer, and he can see the gears turning in your head. "What do you want? A regular poacher would have shot me as soon as they saw me. But you're clearly not a poacher. Judging by the amount of gear you have on, you look like military. and if you are military...what are you doing out here in the sticks?"

He lets out a rough sound when you mention poachers, somewhere between a scoff and a snort.

"Poachers are trash. They just want money, and don't care who or what they harm to do it." The disgust is clear in his voice.

Then, his eyes crinkle at the corners, and you can tell he's smiling beneath the mask. "But yeah. We're military. Kind of." He takes another step forward, letting the water lick at his boots.

You watch him carefully, ears flattening to your head as he steps forward more, into the river.

He doesn't stop, wading until the water is rising up mid- thigh. He's calm, deliberate, like he knows fear when he sees it...and you can barely hold yours back.

"Probably haven't heard of us." His voice drops lower. "We don't exist anymore. Not officially."

The current swirls around him as he stops halfway between the banks - close enough to see the faded scars on his hands, the skull tattoo peeking from under his sleeve. Looks like he has a theme.

"We protect what's left of the wild. What's sacred." His gaze locks onto your ears - the way they twitch at every sound around the two of you - and something unreadable flashes in his eyes.

Not pity.

Respect?

Maybe worse - Interest.

And then softly:

"And right now...I'm lookin at one of the last wild things on this earth."

A moment of silence passes between you two.

"You came back. That means you're not just prey." He looks you up and down. "...means I see you, pup. Not the ears. Not the fangs. I see the one who broke Price's gun with their teeth, the one who outsmarted Gaz...and now stands here, half-naked in a river askin' questions like they ain't afraid of ghosts."

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Can y'all tell this is my first actual fic 🙈

I really hope this makes sense is actually coherent bc it came to me in a dream and I couldn't stop thinking about it until I got it out <3

anwayyyy thanks for reading if you got all the way down here and pls pls tell me if I made any spelling errors🙈

As someone who is not familiar with fox-shifters (not until Lucien from A Court of Thorns and Roses whom I adored 😌), the book was a pleasant surprise. To the point that this is up there as one of my favorites in this series.

The seventh and most recent of Grayson’s Once Upon a Romance series follows Rapunzel living in an isolated tower with her cute little animal friend, a squirrel named Finick, living day to day in her tower. Though, with no previous memory of her life before her time in the tower.

When a fox-shifter prince named Ren comes to her tower to seek his fortune, he finds Rapunzel and is eager to help her gain her freedom as well as her memories. From the first time our two characters meet, the both of them can see that there is a connection between them. However, Rapunzel is conflicted as she continues to grapple with gaining her lost memories as she feels she cannot get close to Ren without fully understanding whether who she is is who she once was. Nevertheless, all this angst makes their ending worthwhile.

It was also interesting to see that Grayson wrote a male character with insecurities surrounding a physical disfigurement he has. As we often see this written in female characters and not enough in male, showing that men can be vulnerable and allowing for there to be awareness regarding the gender stereotypes that we still see in today’s society.

*Remember, all these books in the series can be read as standalone if you decide to do so. I just read them in order because I like to be chronological.

Link to book: https://amzn.to/3TcgaHF

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