by Juniper Hart
“Sorry,” he muttered gruffly, righting her onto her stilettoed heels.
Time seemed to cease for a moment as the two locked eyes. He was staring into the soul of the loveliest creature he had ever seen.
Her strawberry blonde hair seemed like spun silk with hints of gold, orange and red highlighted as it fell along the lines of her face. The strands curled sweetly around her pixie-like ears, falling gently to the base of her slender neck. Her eyes were cat-like, wide, aquamarine, more green than blue, and mischievous, as if they were in a perpetual state of surprise. She had the maturity of full womanhood, even though she carried herself in a slightly younger fashion.
Jordan couldn’t guess her age. She was Enchanted, but all Enchanted beings—except witches—stopped aging at twenty-seven. She wasn’t a witch, was she? There was something reminiscent about the Aldwin lineage in her, but Jordan wasn’t comfortable with that, either. He couldn’t place her genus, try as he might. Beyond that, though, he felt like he’d met her somewhere before.
Her rosebud mouth was slowly losing the “O” shape and falling into a puddle of sultry pink deliciousness. Jordan was almost unable to resist the urge to lean forward and taste her lips turning upward into a smile, those light green orbs slowly drinking him in simultaneously.
“I wasn’t paying attention,” she breathed, breaking the pregnant silence between them. “Are you all right?”
Jordan grinned at her, showing off an elongated eyetooth and revealing the dimple in his left cheek.
“I think I’ll survive,” he joked. Awkwardly, he folded his arms against his chest, suddenly unsure of what to do with his hands.
“I’m Samantha,” the woman offered, holding a pale, slender hand for him to take. Eagerly, he reached out acceptingly.
“Jordan Archer,” he replied, pumping her palm with too much enthusiasm. She arched an eyebrow with interest.
“Jordan. The promised land,” she commented. He was covertly watching the way the silk of her red blouse teased the contours of her full breasts and accented a tiny waist, causing a burst of heat to flow through him in a wave.
“I named myself,” he told her seriously. She laughed, and the sound resonated into the depth of Jordan’s toes.
“Well, I think it suits you perfectly. It’s brooding and deep, just like the river. You’re new here, right? You’re the one who replaced Ray?”
Do I look brooding and deep to her? he wondered, watching her lips move. He suddenly realized she was waiting for an answer. Jordan nodded quickly.
“I’m not really new, and I have no idea who had the job before I got here.” Samantha smiled coyly, cocking her head to the side.
“You replaced Ray,” she assured him matter-of-factly. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard all the stories about him.”
Jordan shrugged indifferently. He didn’t care about Ray. He didn’t care about anything at that moment except the incredibly beautiful woman standing before him, but Samantha seemed to want to share, so Jordan listened. Anything to keep her talking.
“Ray wasn’t a very good team player,” she explained, leaning in confidentially. “Claimed to be a religious man and had a wife and four kids. I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that your job is to spy on everyone around here.” Jordan didn’t know whether to frown or laugh. Samantha made the choice for him and grinned brilliantly. “I’m guessing you don’t really do that, or I would have heard about it by now—this is a fairly small and nosy company.”
“I’m not a very good spy,” Jordan agreed, and Samantha nodded approvingly.
“Well, Ray, he ratted everyone out around here all the time for every little infraction. He once got Thom in accounting in trouble for being in the bathroom too long one day when the poor guy had the stomach flu.” She grimaced at the memory. Jordan had to admit that Ray sounded like a dick.
“He sounds lovely,” he said.
“Well, karma is a terrible bitch,” Samantha replied, her eyes glittering deviously.
“How’s that?” Jordan wanted to know, intrigued by both her and the gossip.
“Well, it turns out Ray liked to hire male escorts when he was working overnights. Now, somehow, corporate found out about it, complete with proof, phone numbers of the men, and security camera images. Needless to say, Ray was out on his ass. He should have never messed with IT.” Samantha’s smile widened, and Jordan’s jaw dropped at her flippant tone. She winked alluringly at him, trying to alleviate the borderline look of distress on his face. “You don’t look anything like Ray,” she offered softly.
“I like my escorts female,” Jordan stammered without thinking. She burst into a round of laughter, causing a co-worker to shoot her a reproving look as he walked past, but they both ignored him and continued to relish each other’s presence.
There was almost a palpable connection between them, something that struck Jordan almost physically. Could she be…?
He quickly shoved the notion from his mind, knowing this wasn’t the time to pursue any such thoughts.
“There is nothing wrong with a man having a healthy appetite,” she assured him, gently placing a small, soft hand on his shapely arm. Her eyes seemed to light up at the touch, and her fingers curled slightly into the fabric of his shirt. Jordan’s gaze followed her touch, and it was at that second when he noticed the small, shining diamond on her ring finger.
The tiny piece seemed to mock him against the thin material. His spine stiffened, and he instinctively stepped out of reach, a wave of different emotions hitting his stomach simultaneously. She glanced up, surprised at his abrupt movement.
“It was nice meeting you, Samantha,” he told her, turning to leave, his jaw clenching furiously. Taken aback by the sudden end to their conversation, her beautiful face lost the smile, and her lips twisted into an expression of confusion.
“You too,” she called back weakly, but he was almost out of earshot. He was practically running back toward the security desk.
By the time he reached the front, he was still breathing heavily with anger. He was furious with that woman.
How dare she flirt with me when she is engaged or maybe even married? She doesn’t have any shame at all? he raged internally. The nerve of some women! I wonder if her fiancé knows she’s such a flirt! Someone should let that poor bastard know.
But as Jordan sat down in the high back chair in the reception area, he realized that he was not angry that Samantha had been flirting with him. He did not feel sorry for her husband-to-be. Instead, he was inexplicably livid and sickeningly disappointed that he hadn’t found her first. He was furious Samantha was already taken by another man.
3
Julia stared balefully at her daughter entering the remote cabin in upstate New York.
“Oh, look what the cat dragged in,” she growled, her eyes flashing with bitter anger. “What do you want? You know I don’t have anything, being exiled here, in the middle of nowhere.”
Indignation shot through Lane’s bones, and she glowered at her mother, the corners of her lips turned inward. After everything she had pulled, she was still playing the victim. Unbelievable.
“Mom, you’re not exiled,” Lane sighed, shaking her head and closing the door behind her. You’re lucky you’re not banished—or worse, she thought, swallowing her ire. “How are you doing?” she asked instead, looking around the cottage where she had spent her childhood, hidden from the world.
“How do you think I’m doing, Lane? I’m alone, forgotten. I have no one!” Hope flooded Julia’s face, her eyes widening with it. “Are you here because you’ve changed your mind? Are you here to turn me?” Julia demanded happily. Lane stifled a groan and forced herself to smile at her mother.
“You know I can’t do that, Mom,” she said quietly, wondering why she was lying. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d challenged the Council. She could have turned her mother if she’d had the slightest desire.
They were all deserving. The idea of Mom acquiring immorta
lity is… nauseating. And I’m trying to be good. No need to push my luck.
“You could if you wanted to,” Julia grumbled, folding her arms over her chest. “You’re just ungrateful, spoiled after all I’ve done for you.”
There it is, Lane thought, her frown deepening. “I need to go through Alaric’s scriptures,” she said, cutting to the chase. She already felt like she’d been there too long, even though she’d only just arrived. “Are they still in the cellar?”
Confusion crossed over Julia’s face. “What do you want those rotting pages for? You’re on the Council now. You have access to everything you need.”
She had a point. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have needed to go through the relics, not when the combined information of the Council should have sustained her, but this was something no one could help with except Alaric Aldwin.
“What’s this about?” Julia questioned. Lane peered at her mother warily, unsure if she should disclose what she sought. It wasn’t against anything in the Charter, and it wouldn’t violate Council privacy to ask about the Vulpes. Still, she didn’t entirely trust her mother.
“Well?” Julia snapped. “Have you forgotten that I’m an Aldwin witch, too? A direct descendant of Alaric. I know things also, Lane, even if you choose to ignore that.”
A familiar guilt pierced through Lane, and she smothered a sigh. She always knows how to make me feel like a jerk, doesn’t she?
“I’m looking into information about the Vulpes,” she confessed, sinking onto the plaid sofa at her mother’s side. “Do you know anything about them?” For a moment, Julia stared at her expressionless, and Lane wondered if she hadn’t heard what she had said. “Mom?”
“Why are you asking about the foxes?” Julia asked, her tone almost flat. “Have you seen one?”
“I haven’t,” Lane said. “But there have been reports.”
“Reports?” Julia echoed. “As in more than one?”
“Two,” Lane confirmed, and suddenly, a light came on in her mother’s eyes.
“The prophecy,” Julia breathed. “It’s true!” Confusion overcame Lane for a moment, and she stared at her mother, a spark of excitement intermingled.
“What prophecy?” she asked, again unsure if she could take anything her mother said at face value.
“The Demon Prophecy,” Julia said, her voice rising an octave as she jumped to her feet. “It was in the Chasm of Purity, a thousand years ago.”
Lane eyed her mother skeptically. “How do you know that?”
“You really still do underestimate me,” she said, a note of sadness creeping into her voice. “I can read, and once upon a time, I had faith in all things Enchanted.”
Lane bit back a caustic reply and instead watched her mother head toward the front door.
“Where are you going?” she called out.
“I’m going to find that prophecy,” Julia replied. Lane jumped up to hurry after her.
She really thinks she knows something about this. It wasn’t a wasted trip after all. Julia had already disappeared into the root cellar, Lane hot on her heels where she paused at the top of the stairs, a swell of nostalgia sweeping through her.
What a time to get homesick, she thought with some amusement. She still couldn’t stop the heartstrings from tugging at her heart as she remembered how many hours she’d spent in the depth of the basement, pouring over the very books she sought to find. The smell of phosphorous filled her nostrils, and Lane smiled wistfully.
“Are you just going to stand up there all night?” Julia called out to her. She shook off her reverie to join her mother below the ground. “Here!” her mother breathed, handing her a thick volume, her face twisted into a look of wonderment. “It’s in here. Everything about the Vulpes.”
Lane blinked and met Julia’s eyes in the flickering candlelight. She tried to remember the last time she’d seen her look so pumped about anything. “Does this interest you?”
“Fox shifters? Of course!” Julia laughed. “Everyone thought they were a myth, something that didn’t survive if they had existed in the first place. The Vulpes are to us what we are to the mortals.” Lane couldn’t help grinning at the analogy.
“So, they are real,” she exhaled, opening the leather-bound book. The instant musky smell filled her nostrils, and she began to pull through the pages, grunting slightly. “My Latin is atrocious,” she lamented.
“Mine isn’t,” Julia replied, scooping the book back into her own arms and flipping through. “Here it is. The Vulpes.” She cleared her throat and scanned the foreign words while Lane read over her shoulder, catching the odd phrase and word as she did. “They’re rarer than demons,” Julia began. “No one really is sure if they were created by Alaric or produced as some hybrid by-product, but either way, they were a mystery, and one that the Enchanted accepted as that. I have never met anyone who has ever encountered a fox shifter to this day.”
“I haven’t, either,” Lane said. “I have only gotten wind that they existed.”
Julia pointed. “This is an ancient prophecy, you understand. Not everything can be taken as gospel.”
“What does it say?” Lane narrowed her eyes, as if that would help her read the Latin better.
“In the light of a Vulpes love, all that wasn’t will rise above.”
“Bad poetry, or does that mean something?” Lane asked dryly.
“The Vulpes need to find their mates,” Julia explained.
“Don’t we all?”
Julia cast her a slight scowl before turning her gaze back to the book. “The words go as follows: once the Vulpes have found their mates, the impossible among the Enchanted is no longer so.”
“What is impossible among the Enchanted?” A slight irritation was burning in Lane.
“I think the prophecy is a promise that the Vulpes can unlock secrets,” Julia said slowly. “Things we hadn’t thought about before.”
“Great,” Lane groaned. “That’s all we need—more power.” Suddenly, Julia clamped the book closed and shuddered like she was cold. “What’s wrong?” Lane demanded as her mother hurried to return the book to its proper place.
“I don’t know,” Julia confessed, a slight quaver in her voice. “But I don’t think we were supposed find this.”
A slight uneasiness slid through Lane, but she shoved it aside.
“Of course we were,” she retorted quickly, following her mother out of the cellar. “If we weren’t, the books wouldn’t be here.”
Julia didn’t respond and instead almost ran back to the cottage, leaving Lane to stare after her with some concern.
Nonsense, she chided herself. There are no more secrets in the Enchanted. We know everything there is to know… don’t we?
4
“Is work going that badly?”
Jordan stopped wailing on the punching bag long enough to shoot Harley a questioning look, panting. He shrugged without answering and continued his reps, each blow more intense than the next.
“Well? Are you gearing up to quit or what?” Harley pressed, not willing to let the matter go so easily.
“Why are you asking?” he finally replied. Harley was usually more in tune with Jordan ’s emotions, but this time, he was completely off. Harley laughed, leaning against the fighting ring in the center of the gym.
“I haven’t seen you punch something that hard since you took out Frank Giles last month. Are you raring up for round two with him this weekend, or are you just unleashing your anger at the job?”
Again, Jordan pushed his shoulders skyward but lost some of the furious gusto he was feeling. In truth, he had been unable to get Samantha out of his head since their chance encounter the previous week. He’d found himself suddenly doing rounds of the office much more frequently than necessary—up to three times more often than he was required—simply hoping to catch a glimpse of her. He’d learned that she was a web designer for the company, so she was out of the office either working on location or from home most of t
he time.
That didn’t stop Jordan from wandering by her office several times daily, even when he knew she was not there. Sometimes he would linger in her doorway, hoping to catch a whiff of her scent as he tried to place where he had known her before.
He knew he had no right to blatantly chase after an engaged woman, but there was something about her that would not allow him to rest, a quality he didn’t even attempt to explain. He didn’t need to be told what it was—she was his mate, of that he was sure.
Since maturing splendidly from his awkward childhood, Jordan had never had a shortage of female attention, especially not in the circles he ran. From the day he had gotten his braces off, his solid frame and handsome face were irresistible to the opposite sex, and while he had dated occasionally, he was much more focused upon his training than he was interested in romance.
He was young for a shifter, only in his early thirties. But, like most Enchanted beings, he stopped aging at twenty-seven. In all his years, he had only been in two serious relationships. They had both been doomed to fail, given the circumstances in which he had met them both, while he was running his pack and spiraling toward rock bottom with his parents’ help.
In all fairness, Jordan had been grateful when both women had finally left. While the idea of romance was romantic, the reality usually left him soured and determined to remain single. Both of his previous girlfriends had caused endless drama in his life during and after their time together, and Jordan had given up on the idea of finding a partner, despite his desire to become a father one day. He’d had a notion that he would do much better by his own family than his parents had done for him and Wren, but as he grew older and more focused on his career and pack leadership, the idea of starting his own family had taken a back burner.
That was, until he had laid eyes upon Samantha.
It was more than her beauty which had captivated him. She seemed so confident, and she was clearly successful, two traits which the other women Jordan had dated had lacked substantially.