Fox Blood

by Aimee Easterling

  “We had a deal.” Now the fire was back in my veins and I had to cling to my temper to prevent myself from leaping across the desk and strangling the old woman.

  “We did. And if you don’t hold up your end of the bargain then I see no reason to hold up mine.”

  My magic was a mere pinprick compared to my grandmother’s, but for one split second I considered blasting her with everything I had and hoping it would wipe her off the face of the earth. But the likelihood of failure rose before me along with the specter of Kira’s lost innocence. So I forced my voice to harden as I returned to business instead.

  “I’m here, aren’t I? And I understand that Oyo needed to be prevented from continuing what she was doing. But couldn’t you have harvested a little bit of energy from each member of your honor guard rather than draining Kaito dry? Can’t you push power back into him from his friends?”

  Now I was just grasping at straws, but Sakurako provided me more leeway than I’d expected. She sighed, and for a second I thought she might regret her own actions. “That’s not how big magic works,” she started. Then her subsequent words turned that supposed empathy into a lie. “Kaito’s life is a small price to pay for keeping the werewolf packs from restarting their vendetta against all kitsunes. The sacrifice was necessary and I’d do it again tomorrow. When the time comes, so will you.”

  No. Just—no. I refused to accept that the ends justified the means when it came to stealing the life of an innocent. I refused to think that Sakurako would expect me to take part in similar atrocities as my own magic grew.

  All I managed to say aloud, however, was: “That’s inhuman.”

  “Yes, it is, granddaughter. Because we aren’t humans; neither one of us is. Instead, we are kitsunes. And expedience is what we do best.”

  I TORE THE LIBRARY apart in search of another solution. There had to be a way to embrace my heritage that didn’t involve vampiric energy harvests and questionable moral choices.

  But there were so many books and they were all so disorganized. It seemed highly unlikely I’d find the answer in a single night.

  Still, I gritted my teeth and dipped into histories of kitsune lineages, lesson plans for advanced magical techniques, and picture books clearly intended for soon-to-be foxes. All the while, Gunner’s tether twisted and tugged at my stomach, like a bloodling puppy who didn’t understand why he was being ignored.

  “There has to be a compromise,” I murmured, laughing grimly as I realized how closely my words mirrored Elle’s sentiments when I chose to leave Gunner behind. She’d been wrong then and I was wrong now...and yet I still had to try.

  So I read and skimmed and climbed tall ladders searching through books on the upper levels. And sometime long after midnight I must have fallen asleep in the midst of my research because gnarled fingers once again shook me awake.

  “Stay...” I started my morning mantra, only to be interrupted by Sakurako’s belated explanation for Kaito’s fate and my own apprenticeship.

  “My child, I do this to protect you.” Her voice was scratchy, reluctant, as if she expected to be rebuffed before she finished what she’d come here to say. “I wish I’d done the same for your mother. It’s my own fault that she’s dead.”

  And something about the older woman’s admission made me want to wrap her up in a blanket and hug her to my chest. This was, after all, the mother of my mother. My own flesh and blood.

  “Sobo,” I murmured, using the pet name I hadn’t even thought since being blackmailed into trading places with my sister.

  “Granddaughter,” she answered, her bones creaking as she lowered herself down onto the ottoman on which my feet rested. “This is a difficult situation for both of us. But please know how glad I am to have you here beside me. It’s a lonely life, being a kitsune. Less lonely since you arrived to make my house into a home.”

  I was still half asleep, but in that moment I could imagine Sakurako as a young woman. Could guess how her own mother or grandmother had indoctrinated her into their beliefs, how she’d had no more choice coming to terms with her heritage than I did with mine.

  If I stayed on my current road, someday I’d do the same thing to my own daughter or granddaughter. Someday I’d rip the rug out from under my offspring’s feet and watch innocence fade from her dark-irised eyes.

  Then this hypothetical descendant would repeat the maneuver for the sake of her own daughter or granddaughter. And on and on the wheel would turn until it was sad-eyed foxes all the way down.

  Which is why I did it. Used the information discovered in the hundredth book but rejected as too awful to contemplate.

  Scrabbled at my waist without looking downward and yanked at the first tether my fingers came in contact with.

  Materialized a shard of pure magic...then thrust that disloyal dagger directly into my grandmother’s heaving breast.

  Chapter 41

  Did I steal the life force from Gunner?

  I was wide awake the moment the thought struck me. Ignoring the brilliant flare of magic surrounding my grandmother, I instead frantically felt at my stomach in search of my mate bond.

  Surely I would have known if the magic beneath my fingers belonged to a werewolf instead of to a human. The odds were seventeen to one against, and yet....

  Gunner’s tether was the one I stroked when I felt lonely. Gunner’s tether was the one that rose to my fingers like an affectionate cat. Would his tether also be the one that responded to my frantic need unbidden? Would he throw himself into the void with the same loyalty as a member of Sakurako’s honor guard?

  Unfortunately, stolen magic flared and buzzed all around me. I couldn’t for the life of me tell whether the missing tether belonged to an alpha werewolf.

  Meanwhile, Sakurako was slowing her own transition even as magic twined into a collar around her neck just as it had done around Oyo’s. “I’m proud of you,” she whispered, fighting the magic...and failing to escape just as the book had said she would.

  Because, although powerful, this magic was seductively simple. Or so the book had promised. I couldn’t have gotten it wrong when the recipe included only three parts.

  Use every ounce of magic embodied by a loyal underling. Strike in a moment of trust and shared understanding. Watch your loved one turn into a fox with no possibility of ever coming back.

  The book hadn’t mentioned how my eyes would fill with water, tears making it impossible to figure out whose tether I’d stolen even as my grandmother was forced out of her human skin forever. “Sobo,” I murmured. “I’m sorry.”

  “Never apologize for the necessary, granddaughter.”

  And then she was my grandmother no longer. Instead, sharp, dark eyes met mine from within the face of a fox.

  Only this was a subtly different fox than the one I’d fled beside when racing away from Atwood clan central. Sakurako then had been snow-white and nine-tailed. Now, her fur was speckled with gray and she possessed only one tail.

  In other words, she looked like a wild animal, not a fox-form kitsune. Still, she maintained the same lithe fluidity as she leapt from chair to floor to window ledge. Her collar gleamed golden, then she was outside in the early morning. Was sprinting for distant trees as a herd of bare feet heralded her honor guard racing into the library to lend their mistress aid.

  Or, rather, to lend their new mistress aid. “Mai-sama. I knew you would be triumphant.” This was Koki, kneeling at my feet, his hand on my knee even as his tether refilled the empty reservoir of magic inside me. The surge of power was heady and riveting...and gave me a nearly uncontrollable urge to throw up.

  But then my gorge calmed as I noted my mate bond springing back into existence at the same moment. I hadn’t turned the vibrant alpha into a vegetable after all. And for at least a minute, I didn’t care whose life I’d ruined in his place.

  “HE WILL BE TAKEN CARE of Mai-sama.”

  We stood around the bed of the male whose life I’d stolen for the sake of my own freedom. And I h
ated the fact that I couldn’t remember his name, couldn’t recall the sleeper’s signature fencing move nor bring to mind a single identifying feature that set him apart from all of the other humans squeezed into the small space that made up his sickroom.

  But that wasn’t the point. The point—after the better part of a day spent poring over Sakurako’s finances—was dealing with responsibilities that were now my own. As my grandmother’s sole heir, I would inherit her extravagant wealth and numerous properties. I planned to use both to ensure these males who had sacrificed so much for the sake of a kitsune mistress could now live simple human lives.

  The first step in achieving that goal was breaking the bonds that bound them so they could figure out their own paths into the future. So I raised my voice and spoke to the assemblage. “I appreciate your service. But you are now dismissed.”

  Magic bit into my waist as one tether snapped and sprang away from me, then someone in the back turned and left the sickroom. Yuki. Gone to seek out his fox-form lover? Everyone else, however, stood their ground and stared at me as if I was speaking Portuguese.

  “You can go out into the world. Take whatever you want from the mansion. Use Sakurako’s money to live on. But make your own lives. Be free.” As I spoke, I tried to push past the nearest humans to follow Yuki, but I found myself blocked at every turn.

  “We don’t want to be free, Mai-sama.” This was Koki, speaking for the remaining fifteen humans. “You are the new mistress. We will stay here beside you. Or go anywhere you wish to wander. We are your honor guard.”

  “No, you’re not.” My face was hot, and I suddenly felt trapped in the midst of the assembled humans. Would I be forced to fight my way free due to my own manipulations? Sakurako would be laughing up her sleeve if she hadn’t fled so preemptively into the cold.

  “It’s all we know, Mai-sama,” Koki said.

  “Yes, it is our honor and our duty to serve you,” offered another voice. Then the same sentiment in multiple different incarnations rose to fill the room.

  So I did the only thing I could think of—I chose my own selfishness over extended explanations. Donning the form of my fox, I grabbed tethers in my teeth one after another and gnawed through every one of them until I was one bond away from entirely free.

  Because these men might think they wanted to be my honor guard. But they couldn’t think, not really, not with my kitsune nature skimming off the cream of their energy.

  In time, I suspected they’d come to their senses. But, for now, there was only one place I wanted to be...and it certainly wasn’t here.

  So I gnawed until magic flung itself away from me like broken rubber bands, knocking male after male down into a tumble of bellows and elbows. And I was as heartless as my grandmother because I didn’t care about their pain or confusion. All I cared about was the single tether remaining. The one thick rope of glowing magic leading me out of the mansion toward the west.

  I’d been separated from my mate for far too long already. With a mental promise to reassess my responsibilities in the near future, I took to my heels and I ran.

  Chapter 42

  Returning to fox form after days spent entirely human should have come as a relief, even more so when I was finally traveling toward my absent mate. But the tethers of my honor guards snapped back into place before I’d gone half a mile, and I ended up slogging slowly through a sodden landscape rather than dancing fleet-footed toward the west.

  Still, I was single-mindedly adamant about pushing onward. Even after rational sense reasserted itself and told me that I’d get to Gunner faster if I retreated to the mansion, used Sakurako’s telephone, and called a cab.

  Instead, I fought against the magical headwind, pausing only when I reached a vast pool of water that cut me off from running straight toward Gunner. Right or left? Either direction made my stomach equally queasy. And as I racked my brain, trying to remember which route Elle had used to drive here, my attention caught on the reflection in the lake that blocked my path.

  I was as familiar with my fox form as I was with my human one. Red fur, white-tipped tail, black nose and paws. But that wasn’t the sight that greeted me in the water. Instead, my pelt had turned so white I might as well have been albino, although my eyes still gleamed black on either side of my head.

  I spun in a circle, trying to catch sight of the other obvious visual difference between myself and my grandmother. As best I could tell, I still had only one tail....

  And even though the change in coloration—and the change in self it likely represented—was disconcerting, the spinning action managed to unstick my latent sense of direction. Left. I was somehow positive that was the direction closest to Gunner. So I shook off the surprise of being bleached white in an instant and followed the lakeshore south even as the sun sank down toward the west.

  I’d be spending the night outside in fur form if I didn’t achieve civilization quickly, which would be annoying given the muddy soil and the lack of dry leaves to nest within. Still it was impatience rather than discomfort that hastened my footsteps. I needed to see Gunner so badly the wish had turned into a physical ache.

  Tethers still streamed behind me like anchors. But they were weaker than they had been earlier, less likely to make me stumble and fall. So I picked up the pace and was running headlong when I felt my nails clicking against pavement after topping a short rise.

  A road. And this time my tether informed me to turn right instead of left.

  Only...there were headlights approaching from that direction. Headlights that materialized into a strangely familiar vehicle—Old Red screeching to a halt.

  I leapt upward into humanity as Gunner emerged and raced toward me. I grabbed my mate and clung tightly even as he lifted me off my feet and spun me in a circle as if he was searching for my human tail.

  “I love you.” I laughed into the wind of our passing before adding: “But you know that already. Because you came for me.”

  His answer made me laugh harder despite the growly undertones. “I would have been here a week earlier if you hadn’t kept telling me to stay away.”

  His mouth covered mine for one long, hard moment. Then he separated us long enough to demand precisely what I longed to give him. “I won’t push you to change and you won’t keep me out of your life any longer.”

  “Of course not,” I told my forever mate.

  OUR ROAD TRIP HOME was slow and meandering, but not because of Old Red’s infirmities. While I was gone, Gunner had not only reclaimed my beloved vehicle, he’d also totally replaced everything underneath the hood.

  “So, really, she’s not Old Red any longer,” I teased as we got back into the car after stopping for ice cream only a few miles out from clan central. There had been various other treats during the intervening twenty-four hours, the ones in our hotel room largely responsible for the huge grin currently plastered across my face.

  “I didn’t replace the car’s body or the interior,” Gunner countered, his hands intertwining with mine atop the center console as if the sixty seconds we’d been separated to get into our respective seats had lasted far too long. My favorite alpha was physically healed but still had a hard time letting a moment pass without touching me. Luckily, that wasn’t a problem since I felt the exact same way.

  “We could call her Not-so-old Red,” I suggested. “Or Cinnamon Rocket.” There was some serious horsepower now when I punched down on the gas pedal.

  “Or Safer Rustbucket,” Gunner countered even as we turned onto the driveway for clan central and rolled toward the main street.

  After that, we fell silent as I remembered that I wouldn’t be sneaking into a cottage on the periphery of the werewolf settlement this time. Kira had made that decision while I was absent, informing me over the phone that Gunner’s addition “is way too cool to leave while you get your panties out of their twist and accept the good thing knocking on your door.”

  Despite her mixed metaphors, I decided my sister was surprisingly wise
, at least in this instance. As a result, I’d be moving in as the pack leader’s mate today the way I should have done from the beginning. Smiling, I gave Gunner’s hand a squeeze.

  Intention was powerful among werewolves, so I wasn’t surprised that bonds zapped toward me out of nowhere as I maneuvered Old Red down the narrow street that bisected clan central. Still, I flinched when the first returning tether struck my stomach, then I held my breath and waited for the strangely orgasmic reaction that had resulted from building connections with Sakurako’s honor guard.

  Instead, only a faint hint of warmth infused my belly. And shifter neighbors nodded easy greetings without seeming unduly affected by our presence as we rolled past.

  Okay, now I was curious. Given our speed of under ten miles per hour combined with an arrow-straight trajectory, I didn’t hesitate to take my hand off the wheel and tug at one of the stronger bonds connecting me to Gunner’s pack mates. Were Atwood shifters feeding me magic the way Sakurako’s honor guard had, or did the power flow the other way?

  “Stop!”

  Gunner’s hand spun the wheel sideways even as I slammed on the brakes. And it was a good thing he’d replaced the pads and rotors or I would have struck the bloodling puppy who’d responded to my summoning by launching himself directly into our path.

  “Curly!” I threw the car into park and leapt out of the vehicle, knowing I hadn’t hit the youngster but still worried he’d somehow gotten hurt in the process. And as I did so, I could feel my own energy streaming down the tether, perking up Curly’s ears and making him prance with delight.

  So this was what a werewolf connection looked like. Energy flowing freely in both directions, from the stronger shifter to wherever it was needed most. This was as different from a kitsune’s tether as day was from night.