Mmm. Cake. I rubbed my stomach. A slice and a cold glass of milk would sure hit the spot right about now. The hunger crested until I fought back with the mental picture of a bride and groom positioned on top of a multitiered, raspberry-filled, chocolate-ganache-glazed— Focus, Mai!
I ground my fist into the pit of my empty gut, crawled back into bed and dreamed of white satin nooses and lace-lined straightjackets, of cherry-wood eyes and gentle hands that touched me with familiarity, and of chasing a slice of seven-layer cake the size of a car with a fork taller than I was.
Chapter 3
A scratching noise at the door perked my ears. I slid off the bed, padded toward the jiggling knob and pressed my back against the wall. Muscles tensed, I leapt the instant the door opened wide enough for my arms to reach through. I fisted hair and yanked the guard staggering into the room, wedging my foot in the door so it couldn’t shut and lock behind them.
Thank you, marshal academy. I flunked out of the program, but I still recalled the basics of self-defense. I might not be able to shift yet, and believe me, I had been trying, but I didn’t need claws to fight dirty.
“Ouch.” The guard, who was much tinier than expected, whined. “Let go of me.”
“What the heck?” I jerked my hand back when needlelike teeth sank into my forearm. “Who are you?”
A girl around the age of eight glared up at me. “I’m Gen.” She straightened her plain yellow top. “Who are you?”
“I’m Mai.” I rubbed the wound until the pink marks vanished. “What are you doing here?” I poked my head out into the hall. “Where are your parents?” And the guards I assumed would be stationed outside my door?
Light sparked behind her eyes, and she studied me with renewed interest. “Mai Hayashi.”
“Yes.” My skin twitched at how familiar the name came to her lips.
“Ry told me not to come up here.” She set her jaw and angled up her chin. “He said he was keeping a surprise in this room.” Her narrowed gaze raked over me. “You’re not a surprise. You’re just…a girl.”
A growl entered my voice. “Ry as in Ryuu?”
“He’s my big brother.” Her tiny chest swelled. “He gives me whatever I want.”
I blinked at her, trying to reconcile my impending doom—er, groom?—with her description of a doting older brother. Nope. My imagination was good, but it wasn’t that caliber. The brat had to be fibbing. “Sure he does.”
“He does.” Her lips pursed. “My birthday was last week.” Smugness wreathed her face. “He bought me a puppy. A real one. I don’t even have to share it with the other kids if I don’t want to.”
Wow. Maybe she wasn’t telling tall tales. That kind of entitlement couldn’t be faked. It oozed from her teeny pores. Ryuu had made a monumental error in telling his little princess he had a surprise that he wouldn’t give her. Clearly his denial had shocked her so much she had to investigate for herself. Her precociousness rankled. It also sort of reminded me of me as a kid.
I liked her already.
Gripping the door, I held it open. “Prove it to me. Show me the puppy.”
“I don’t know.” She glanced around the sparse room, teeth worrying her bottom lip. “Ry might not like it if I let you out.”
Think fast, kiddo. I was seconds away from bolting without her and taking my chances navigating the den solo. Instead I played a low card, the lowest of the low cards, one I knew would get her into trouble when she got caught. Desperate times and all that. “Do you always do everything Ry tells you?”
“No.” Her eyes glittered and chin jutted higher. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”
“Yes, you are.” And thank the gods for it. “So? Are you going to let Ry boss you around? Or are you going to show me this puppy of yours? Unless…” I made a thoughtful face. “My dad never let me have a puppy. He said they hunted foxes and that it was too dangerous for me to keep one near the den.”
“You don’t believe me?” She balled her fists. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
I smothered my grin as she led me out into the empty hall.
“Hurry up before they get back,” she whispered, rushing down the long corridor.
Even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, I asked anyway. “Before who gets back?”
“The guards.” Duh was implied.
“Where did they go?” And how soon would they return?
“I distracted them,” she said proudly. “They’re not total dummies. They’ll figure it out soon.”
Our footsteps bounced off the empty walls. We reached a section of crumbling plaster, and the girl climbed over it. It led into a massive open space resembling an old barn used for storing farming equipment. Musty hay still littered the floor, and wicked instruments hung on the worm-eaten walls. The room where I had been kept must have once been an office or a storeroom.
I scanned the blacked-out windows. “Where are we?”
“Home,” she breathed.
The Tanabes lived in an abandoned building? Kitsunes lived in dens underground when in fox form or houses while on two legs. I couldn’t think of a single reason for a skulk to be haunting the shell of a decaying barn.
Gen’s mad dash ended at a warped metal door. Instead of shoving through it, she hit her knees and started crawling through a hole beside it. It was a tight fit, but I managed to wriggle through after her. Gen was a blur in the darkness, already yards away and sprinting. I put some pep in my step and closed the gap as we squeezed through one final turn to emerge on a deck overlooking a low valley populated by tidy green tents. Cords snaked from a half-dozen gasoline-powered generators, and their steady hum filled the air.
The Japanese word bakufu popped into my head for some reason. It translated to something like “an office in the tent”, and referenced the headquarters of a general on the battlefield. Where I had trouble picturing Ryuu as the adoring brother, I had no trouble imagining him planning a coup that started with the loyal kitsunes traipsing through his encampment.
What did this all have to do with me? With my family? My father? Was Ryuu planning a takeover? If he was, he must be suicidal.
“That’s where I live.” She pointed to the largest tent, and also the one with the most patches. “Chiffon is tied out in back. Ry built a puppy pen, but Chiffon won’t stay in it.”
Finding out the man was good with his hands did not help my mood. “What kind of dog is she?”
“He’s a…” Her face scrunched. “I don’t know what he is.”
Out of the three dozen tents, I spotted only a handful of kitsunes going about their business. There was no movement near the Tanabe tent. “Are your parents at home?”
“Katsuo’s there.” She pointedly ignored the mention of her parents for a second time, and I took the hint. I wouldn’t ask again. “He was sewing one of the flaps that Chiffon chewed up by accident.”
Past the big tent, rolling hills eclipsed whatever lay beyond the encampment. We definitely weren’t in Dallas anymore. “Can we get down there without being spotted?”
“I do it all the time.” She snorted. “It’s easy.”
Hoping she was right, I imitated her monkey-crawl down the support piers of the deck. Our feet hit the ground at the same time. Thick grass cushioned our landing. From there Gen darted into the field to the right of the encampment, and I was huffing to keep up with her. The girl could move.
We snaked through the stout tufts of wheatgrass on our hands and knees, and my heart thumped harder at the possibility that escape was just beyond that blasted tent. All I had to do was make it that far, give the dog a few pets then shift and bolt over the hills with no one the wiser.
Voices drifted to me as we ran. I caught snatches of conversation. None of it about me. You’d think if I was some kind of war prize, Ryuu would have told his people. Prisoners were a morale booster, right? Having never joined a rebel army myself, I wasn’t sure what qualified.
Several yards out that same low tug in my gut told me Ryuu
was near. Movement beyond the wall of grass spurred me on faster. It was all too easy imagining him experiencing that same awareness of me and discovering his future wife had gone out on the town without his permission.
“You have proven yourself a fair and just reynard to our people. Your parents would be proud. However, I must warn you. You risk war bringing her here.” The frail quality of the speaker’s tone pulled me up short. “Are you sure she is worth it, nephew?”
“She is my mate.”
The hard edge of that voice I recognized. My gut had been right. Ryuu. According to the other speaker, my would-be husband was the reynard of this hodgepodge skulk. As potent as he was, as many kitsunes as he had in his service, the confirmation didn’t surprise me.
Wolves had their alphas. Kitsunes had their reynards. I wasn’t a fan of either variety, truth be told.
“She is a Hayashi,” the elder warned.
A tug on my sleeve made me jump before I heard whether Ryuu joined in the elder’s condemnation of my family or not. I’m not sure why it mattered, but I wanted to hear his response. Gen yanked again to make sure I was paying attention and mouthed, Come on.
I backed away slowly, casting one last glance over my shoulder before chasing Gen up the slight incline. I met her in a patch of flattened weeds. Over the tips of the seed-heavy grasses, I spotted the patchwork tent and heard the low whine of a canine.
“You stay here,” she ordered. “I’ll bring Chiffon to you. You can play with him for a couple of minutes, but then I have to take you back, okay?”
Not a chance. “Okay.”
I waited for the stalks to close behind her before I bolted. Finally. That familiar prickling started down my arms. The change was a glimmer of intent, a second of lost breath, and then I was shaking out my rust-colored fur and digging in my claws. I kicked up dirt and grasped as far as my legs could stretch for each impact of paws on earth.
Gen must have deliberated on the odds of her not getting grounded for life before caving to a good, old-fashioned scream, because I earned a decent head start. More shouts rose behind me. Grass swished, and my heart pounded double time. I couldn’t let them catch me. They wouldn’t be stupid enough to fall for Gen’s trick more than once, whatever it had been, and the brat wasn’t likely to ever want to see me again after I had betrayed her.
A deep-throated bark dumped a bucket of icy adrenaline over my back. That wasn’t a fox bark. It was a dog. Gen had set Chiffon on my trail. Frack. I pushed harder, moved faster, building my lead.
It was no use. Paws the size of dinner plates hit me mid-spine and sent us rolling. The curly-furred beast sported a bright yellow pelt like a lemon with a bad perm. It braced on my chest and pressed down while snuffling me. This wasn’t a puppy. It was a fracking pony. Its weight made stars dance in my vision.
A throttled growl lifted fur down my nape. I kept my head tucked to my chest to avoid exposing my throat to the dog, which did nothing to protect my tender belly, but I rotated my eyes in the direction the sound originated. A large, dusky orange fox with high black socks eased forward with its head lowered and teeth bared.
The pony whined and shifted its weight off one paw, allowing me to gulp a breath. The fox darted in, snapping at its other leg, and the pony jumped back with a yelp. Even I could tell the fox hadn’t hurt the thing. Just startled it.
Tail between its legs, the pony began a march of shame back to where Gen called its name. Chiffon indeed.
I flipped onto my paws, wobbled and plopped down on my hindquarters. My ribs were sore, and breathing hurt. Shifters healed most injuries quickly, and the healing fever spread warmth through my chest like a swallow of aged scotch.
The fox, having run off the predator, turned his bass grumbles my way. In no mood to be chastised, I whacked him in the face with my plush tail. His ears flattened, and he spat fur. I glowered at him, a rumble in my throat, and dared him to try me on for size.
Ignoring me, Ryuu—and it was him, I recognized his scent—circled me, inspecting me for damage. He paused before me, almost nose to nose, and butted his head against my cheek. His relief left a tang on the air. My shock must have too, because he withdrew several yards and shifted.
Ryuu the man sat with his legs crossed, black hair sheeting down his back, eyes gleaming with anger or fear or some equally dark emotion. He didn’t move to touch me again. He didn’t yell at me or threaten me. He simply stared until Katsuo joined us a minute later.
Ryuu broke his silence. “Return her to her room. Place new guards at her door. Chain them there if you must.”
I snarled and snapped at Katsuo when he tried picking me up and tucking me under his arm. I hated being touched in this form. Katsuo ought to remember that, and yet still he attempted to catch me. Ryuu allowed the battle until I leapt from Katsuo’s shoulder and hit the ground too hard. My chest pulsed with pain, and I whimpered. I wavered on my feet, and Ryuu rolled to his in a fluid motion, extending his hand toward me.
This time a reynard’s heady magic spilled from his fingers into the air, so much harder to resist while instinct ruled me. No doubt that was why he waited until I got furry to give it a try. The compulsion to obey Ryuu forced my chin to my chest, but I swiveled my eyes upward, and he sighed at the slight disobedience. His power beat at me until the horizon wobbled in my vision. I had no choice but to lower my gaze.
Only then did he lift me, cradling me against his chest. He scratched behind my ears, and I bared my teeth, poised to bite. Except my hind leg started kicking as he rubbed that spot I could never quite reach with my claws. Too bad for him stellar pets wouldn’t earn him absolution. I snapped out of it and then snapped at him, sinking my teeth deep in the skin of his hand and ripping open a nasty wound he dismissed with a frown. The potency of his blood rushed over my tongue, shot right to my head and made me punch-drunk. So much power. So many allies. What did he need me for? He was formidable in his own right.
“Things would be so much easier if you remembered,” he said under his breath.
Remembered what? I barked.
Human ears failed to understand the question for what it was, and he hauled me back into my cage without answering me.
Escape accomplished one thing at least. It reminded the rogues they had a prisoner in need of food, and a tray was brought to my room. This time I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t even sniff to see if I detected any tampering with my meal. I inhaled it. I was a girl who enjoyed eating, and my navel was brushing my spine at this point.
Belly full, I set my plate on the floor beside the door and placed my cup in the small bathroom so I had a spare. While I was working Escape Attempt #1, the sheets had been changed, which wouldn’t help if I didn’t get a shower at some point. The handsewn clothes left on the bed for me smelled of lavender, and I blamed my improved mood on whatever lingering magic had seeped into the fabric.
I flopped on the bed and linked my hands behind my head, wondering where Thierry was, what she was doing. Then I smiled to think she was probably raising holy hell and rallying the troops. It was what I would have done for her—what I had done when Balamohan abducted her. I was as good as saved. Ryuu just didn’t know it yet.
At some point my eyes must have closed, because a rattling sound popped them open. I swung my legs over the side of the mattress and stalked toward the door, but the noise was coming from behind me. I walked a circuit of the room and stopped beside the window. When I yanked open the curtains, a familiar face hung upside down, and her scowl was fierce.
“Ry said he’s getting rid of Chiffon.” Glass muffled her voice. “All because Chiffon thought you were a bunny or something.” She sniffled. “It’s not his fault. You shifted, and you ran, and foxes aren’t allowed around dogs.”
A sharp ache pierced my heart. “I’m sorry.” I hadn’t meant to cost the girl her dog, but I also didn’t regret what I’d done. “Gen…” I weighed how much to confide against what she must have already known. “This isn’t my home. This isn’t my skulk. My
parents don’t know where I am. My best friend is probably losing her—” I bit off that thought. “I’m sorry I got you in trouble, but I can’t sit here and wait for your brothers to…” I sighed. “I want to go home.”
“When Ry takes Chiffon to the pound, he’s going to want to go home too.” She sobbed. “Think about that.”
She swung sideways and vanished from sight. I approached the door, hand raised, but lowered it before my knuckles brushed metal. The girl acted half monkey, and she obviously knew her way around the place. Tattling on her would only alienate the one ally I had. Or used to have.
With a huff of irritation, I returned to the window and watched the grass until a sleek ribbon of ebony hair swirled through the wheat tips.
Chapter 4
Dinner that night came with a side order of tall, dark and broody. The man himself stepped into the room with a light jacket clutched in his fist. He extended it toward me. “Put it on.”
I glowered at him, at the fabric. “Where are we going?”
His eyebrows slanted downward. “On a walk through town.”
“Town?” I snatched the jacket and punched my arms through the sleeves. It fit snuggly and smelled fresh. The thought occurred to me that by using strong scents he might hope to mask my identity, but I bet everyone had heard Gen cursing my name by now.
“Don’t get too excited,” he grumbled. “It’s what the skulk calls the tents.”
“Oh.” I slumped. “Are you trying to guilt-trip me about the dog too?”
He cocked his head to one side. “How do you know about that?”
“I…” Damn it. Me and my big mouth. “I figured after he proved he was a hunter that you wouldn’t want him around. A kit might not be as lucky as I was today.”
He made a sound that was not agreement as his gaze slid past me to the window, where I had left the curtains thrown open.
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