by Leia Stone
Her light extinguished, but only for a moment. When it returned, it was brighter than before, setting the seethe lord aflame.
Holy shit! I hadn’t realized she could do that!
Brock and I skidded to a stop, and Reo stepped forward to place the hilt of my katana in my hand.
“Thanks,” I muttered.
Hearing, and especially smelling, a vampire burning alive was decidedly unpleasant, and I wished to end it quickly. Kicking off the ground, I leapt up, squinting against the bright light, and came down sideways. With one swift slice, I released the seethe lord’s head from his body. Tianna’s light fizzled as the head plopped to the ground, all magical flames extinguished.
With a grin, I spun around and met Brock’s wolfish gaze. “That was easier than I tho—”
Something slammed into my back, knocking me forward and stealing my breath as I scrambled not to fall flat on my stomach or impale myself and my baby with my blade. I managed to fall onto my side with the sword next to me when warm, hot magic pressed against my back and I gasped for air.
Brock whimpered, nudging me with his nose. “Fuck! The vampire had a killing curse attached to him.” Tianna’s voice broke through my oxygen-deprived haze. “Whoever kills him will also meet their death.”
Brock’s panicked howl raised goose bumps on my entire body as I prepared to die.
“Evie!” Cass jumped from his hoverboard as I started to see spots. Some of them might have been from Tianna’s lights after we were once more plunged into darkness, but I knew most of them weren’t. I couldn’t breathe. The spell was sucking the oxygen from my body.
“Can you stop it?” Cass begged his new woman.
I focused on Tianna’s boots as they entered my scope of vision. Then yellow and green flashes of magic illuminated the night. They bounced off my skin, hitting the ground, to no avail.
“No.” Tianna sounded utterly horrified.
The baby.
No.
Anger flared inside me. I was not going out like this. No. Fucking. Way. I was Evie Black. I may have thought I was a dud my entire life, but I wasn’t. I was a badass witch, kitsune hybrid—
Kitsune.
“Shift!” Molly shouted at the same time I had that exact thought.
My kitsune form could maybe heal this. I had to believe that. Struggling to push the panic down, I attempted to calm my mind, and called forth my kitsune. Reo and Haru were bent on their knees behind Brock as if in prayer, but I forced my attention on the shift and on Brock’s burning amber gaze.
‘You can’t die, I’m in love with you,’ he said.
I blinked up at him, trying to decide if I was so oxygen deprived that I was hallucinating.
My bones started to crack as consciousness began to leave me. I had to shift before it was too late.
Forcing the image of myself as a kitsune to completely fill my mind, I pictured my thick coat of rust-colored fur, violet eyes, and three tails. I focused on the purple glow of my kitsune magic.
Dizziness washed over me as the shift finally took over, making the trees above me spin. Brock nuzzled me, but he was helpless to stop this curse. If Tianna couldn’t save me, and if my kitsune couldn’t … I was gone. And I’d take our unborn baby with me.
7 Dead. Just Kidding.
The moment my body completed its shift to a kitsune, purple healing light shot from my center, encircling my body. When it wrapped around my neck, I dragged in a deep, gasping breath and shuddered as if a huge fucking boulder had been lifted from my chest. Though it hurt to pull in air, my throat and lungs strained to the point of pain, it also felt good.
Sweet relief. I was alive.
Brock sagged against me, nestling his large wolf body next to mine on the ground as all I could do was focus on breathing in and out.
“Another tail!” Molly squealed excitedly.
Dude. Fuck my tails. I almost died.
A small hand stroked my back. Cass. I’d recognize his tiny, four-fingered hands anywhere. I probably nearly gave my bestie a heart attack.
‘Want me to punch her?’ Cass asked, and I chuckled, which as a fox came off as a weird chuffing sound.
‘No. She’s just being Molly.’ I lay there, breathing slowly, just allowing my body to fill up with oxygen.
Brock nuzzled my belly, probably worried about the baby.
‘I’m sure she’s fine,’ I told him.
‘He,’ Brock corrected, and I grinned.
Fucker.
‘I thought I was going to lose you both,’ he said, and all thoughts of him being a fucker whisked away.
‘Me too.’ With a heavy sigh, I rose to my feet, and he followed. I wobbled at first, but then steadied.
He’d said he loved me. Was that only because he thought I was dying? I hadn’t said it back because I was, you know, dying. Oh God, epic fail. If I said it now, it’d be weird. Maybe he hadn’t meant to say it, but fuck if I didn’t really want him to mean it. Because dammit, somewhere along the line I’d fallen in love with him too, as crazy as that sounded. This one night stand that had turned into a pregnancy had now blossomed into love without any input from me.
Tianna crouched down in front of us and looked between Brock, Cass, and me. “Hate to break up the threesome, but I don’t think Evie should shift back just yet. I fear the curse could still be attached to her human form. I’d like to see a witch friend about it first.”
The cracking of bones signaled Brock changing form. Yep. He was about to lose his shit. Me, on the other hand? I was still too in shock that I’d almost died to really focus on the fact that I might be stuck as a fox for a while.
Once Brock was back to being a beautiful naked man, he roared, “What do you mean, attached to her human form?”
Tianna rolled her eyes. “Calm down, baby daddy. It’s just a hunch, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.”
Brock’s jaw twitched at her use of “baby daddy,” but I guessed Tianna wasn’t fond of being yelled at by a huge naked alpha werewolf, so I didn’t blame her.
‘Ask her if she knows Willemena,’ I told Cass.
The furry imp looked up at his woman. “Lover, do you think Willemena Worst could help with this?”
Tianna gave him a smoldering look. “You read my mind, sugar plum.”
Eww.
But I was glad that she thought Willemena could help. Gran trusted the witch, which meant so did I.
“Will she come here?” Brock asked. I knew that me leaving his property wasn’t going to happen right now. The alpha was sure to go into super protective, possessive mode after all that had happened. Besides, I was a fox. Not much I could do to track a killer siren when I was all furry. And I had an ex-boyfriend scheduled to show up tomorrow morning. Fuck!
Tianna shrugged. “For the right price, a witch will go wherever.”
Brock growled low in his throat. “Then have her name her price and tell her it’s done. Evie won’t be leaving my side, and I can’t leave my land after this attack. I have to report it to the werewolf council.”
The werewolf council? Great, that was just what we needed. More attention, and bigwigs breathing down our necks.
“Is there any chance of delaying calling in the council?” Tianna asked. “They’ll ask questions we don’t have easy answers to.”
Brock raised his eyebrows at the Amazonian fae-witch. “A horde of vamps invaded werewolf pack territory. I have no choice but to alert the council. It’s my duty as a pack alpha. Besides, if they were to find out some other way before I told them, that’d be reason enough for a trial on my competence to rule these wolves.”
Ah, so Brock had considered keeping them out of the loop, but we couldn’t. Damn.
Tianna nodded slowly as if she understood all that Brock wasn’t saying. “Then I’ll leave you to it while I go seek out Willemena. If we’re lucky, she won’t want to charge you something you aren’t willing to pay.”
“I’ll pay whatever her price. Evie’s safety is my top concern,” B
rock said.
“Willemena was Gran’s friend, and she’s already played a role in guiding Evie,” Cass added. “She should want to help.” But he emphasized the word “should,” because witches were a fickle and moody bunch. Just because Willemena should do something was no guarantee that she would.
Tianna nodded once, but didn’t look overly hopeful. “I’ll keep that in mind, sweet cheeks. Thanks for the heads-up.” Winking long pretty lashes at him, she sashayed out of there, stepping right over the vamp’s head as if it were nothing more than a rock.
Cass whistled after her, encouraging her to wag her hips even more. She looked over her shoulder, offering him a smoldering look that made him fidget and me grateful that he now had his own place to spend his wild nights.
“All right,” Brock barked. “Let’s get to it, everyone. I might have to tell the council that we killed an entire seethe of vamps, but they don’t need to see the evidence of our kills. The vamps’ bodies will disintegrate with the first light of day, but the wolf council might arrive sooner if they question my story. Ray!”
Brock’s second in command stepped forward, leaning a shotgun against either shoulder. The look in the werewolf’s eyes was calm, as if it took far more than a battle with vamps to rattle him. I could see why he was Brock’s most dominant wolf.
“You know what to do,” Brock instructed. “Get it cleaned up fast. I have to tell the council right away. I’ll have Tianna bring the witch to Evie’s cabin. Make sure the council doesn’t go near her place.”
Ray gave one curt nod. “You got it.”
Brock had been assigning Ray a lot of responsibilities since our one night stand, and I hadn’t seen him much. Now I wondered how much of that was Brock delegating his duties to Ray so he could keep an eye on me.
The second—as tall and broad shouldered as Brock, but with close-cropped brown hair—turned to face the wolves gathered around us and started barking orders. He was clearly used to organizing them. Those who remained as wolves began shifting back to their human forms. Those who hadn’t shifted set off to track the strewn bodies. I wasn’t sure what exactly they planned to do with all of them, but I didn’t think I wanted to know. Probably burn them. It was going to be a big fire.
“Take Nathan’s body to the clearing by the river,” Brock said. “You know the one. We’ll put him to rest there.”
Ray nodded. “All right.”
“We’ll do right by him once I deal with the council.”
Sabine ran up to us, carving a path between the wolves in varying degrees of transformation, her ashy blond hair disheveled and her eyes wild until they landed on me. “What happened? I was tending to the wounded when I heard that Evie almost died.”
My heart sank. The wounded? I’d been too busy worrying about almost dying to consider what might have happened to all the wolves that had rallied to defend the pack.
“I need to check on the baby,” Sabine added, and from the looks around the pack, it was clear that the rumor mill had done its job and everyone there now knew I was their alpha’s baby momma.
“Can you do it while she’s a fox?” Brock asked. “Because she can’t shift back yet.”
Sabine raised her eyebrows in curiosity, but didn’t ask. “That will be fine. I need to make sure the baby’s heartbeat remains strong.” The doctor moved to my side.
“Are any of the wolves seriously injured?” Brock asked, sounding conflicted. The alpha had to be feeling pulled in all sorts of directions at once.
“A few. I’m treating eight wolves, but all of them will make a full recovery. Some might just take a while is all.”
I hinged on the “full recovery” part of her statement with everything I had. This vampire seethe attacked because of me. Tonight’s display was all my fault.
The edges of Brock’s shoulders softened just a bit at Sabine’s report. I imagined that, beneath the unshakeable leader mask, he was as relieved as I was that we hadn’t suffered greater losses.
Brock faced Ray, who appeared to be waiting for any final instructions. “Let me know if you find anything unusual,” Brock told Ray, who only nodded knowingly before taking off to supervise the cleanup.
“Cass, Reo, Haru, and Molly,” Brock continued, “please wait for Evie at the cabin. We’ll be along shortly.”
Cass narrowed his eyes at the alpha as if he didn’t want to let me out of his sight either, but he eventually relented. “I’ll go, but only because Tianna might need my help.” I didn’t want to think about what kind of help Cass might want to offer the Amazonian woman.
“Let’s go,” Brock urged me as Sabine led the way to the house. Never before had the walk back seemed so long, nor had I ever wasted an opportunity as fine as this one. Brock’s beautiful body was on full display, yet all I could think about was our baby and how much I needed to hear her heartbeat.
8 Majorly Fucked
“So?” Brock asked the moment Sabine pressed the ultrasound wand to my fox belly. Relaying through my telepathic link with Brock, I’d made her drape a sheet over my foxy bits even though Brock argued that there was nothing to be shy about. Yeah, I might be in the shape of an animal, but I was still a woman with dignity.
I was lying on Brock’s bed with my paws in the air, craning my neck to make out the ultrasound machine. If I couldn’t make sense of the blobs when I was a human, there was no chance I would as a fox, but I still tried.
“Is everything okay with the baby?” Brock asked again, before Sabine had the chance to answer.
“Hmm,” she said, and I had to resist the urge for every muscle in my body to clench. “Yeah, it looks like the baby is doing fine.”
I let my head roll back onto the comforter and let out a breath I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding. Brock sank heavily onto the bed next to me. Leaning down, he whispered next to my ear. “You hear that, Ev? The baby is fine.”
I might’ve been annoyed that his whisper, while I was in fox form, was akin to him shouting, and he should have realized that. But he sounded so damn happy that I couldn’t help but feel the same.
‘Evie! Get over here. It’s an emergency!’ Cass called out through our connection, and I snapped to attention, rolling onto my stomach, getting tangled in the sheet for a moment before breaking free of it, and then jumping down to the floor.
‘I’m on my way.’ I was already making my way out of the room, my nails clicking as they hit the tile floor of the hallway. Oh God, were more vampires attacking?
‘Good. Try to make it fast. Willemena is here and, well, from what she says, your situation is pretty fucking urgent.’
How the fuck had the witch gotten here so soon?
“What is it, Eve?” Brock asked, sprinting until he was right alongside me in human form.
‘The witch is already there.’
“Really? That’s ... all right. Then let’s get you back to yourself. With any luck, you’ll be back to my sexy woman before we know it.”
And before my ex-boyfriend arrives. But I sure as hell was keeping that thought to myself. I didn’t bother telling Brock that something serious was happening. He’d find out soon enough.
‘I’m coming,’ I projected to Cass. ‘How the hell did Willemena make it to the cabin so damn fast?’ I clattered across the tile of the dining area when it hit me. ‘She can materialize, can’t she?’
‘Sure can. Evie, it was fucking nuts. We were standing around the porch waiting for my sexy T to arrive, when Willemena just materialized out of thin air. Literally. Molly about crapped her pants from the excitement of it.’
‘I bet she did. I wish I’d been there to see it.’
Gran hadn’t been able to materialize. The ability was reserved for incredibly powerful witches, and even then, only a select few who were predisposed to the tricky magic. I mean, the witch’s body got pulled apart to a cellular level before being reconstructed again. If the witch got one single thing wrong, well, they’d never be the same again, literally. Even of those few select wit
ches who could do it, few had the guts. It was a tool reserved for emergencies.
‘Move those little legs as fast as you can, girl. This witch is hard to deal with.’
‘Entertain her with your superb sense of fashion until I get there.’
‘Sadly, I don’t think that’s going to cut it.’
A fluorescent pink furry demon imp with horns and wings? Yeah, there was nothing more distracting than Cass.
Running out the open patio door, I launched across Brock’s back lawn and down the hill as fast as I could. Brock was right beside me.
“Finally! There you are!” Willemena called out from the deck of my porch the second Brock and I entered earshot, descending the hill at a full run. The witch proceeded to glare at us, hands on hips, long silver hair and hippy skirt whipping in the breeze, until I was at her feet.
“Took you long enough,” the witch grumbled.
‘Told you,’ Cass said. ‘She woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, that’s for damn sure.’
“Follow me inside,” Willemena said, pointing a bony finger at me. She gave Cass and Molly the squinty eye. “I guess you two can also come.” Rows of silver bangles chimed along her wrists when she shook her hands at Brock and my two warrior protectors. “You three can wait outside. I don’t know you.”
Brock looked like he’d been punched in the gut. “I’m her alpha and the father of her child. I’m coming with her. It’s my duty to protect her.”
“Her alpha?” Willemena actually looked surprised, and I was pretty sure a witch like her wasn’t surprised often. “My, my. You don’t say?”
“I do say,” Brock all but growled. “And I say I’m coming with her.”
Willemena arched her dark brows, which seemed at odds with the silver of her hair beneath the glow of my porch light, and clucked. “Fine,” she said. “You, Tianna, the human, and the pink furry one can come.” But she sounded like she was agreeing for some reason of her own.
Cass looked mortally offended at “pink furry one,” but wisely decided not to argue.