Dog Eat Dog World: Limited Edition Bundle (Black Dog)

by Hailey Edwards

  A frown knitted his brow, and his hand lowered to his chest. My hand lifted, and I rubbed my breastbone until the skin turned red, but the fire engulfing my rib cage continued to expand. I had to swallow a few times to get my mouth to work. “Ryuu?”

  “Mai,” he replied, dumbfounded.

  “Ha!” Exhilaration whipped through me, and I was gone. My feet sprouted wings, and I flew straight to Mom. “I did it.” I squealed. “He’s mine. Ryuu’s mine. I claimed him.”

  Ryuu’s voice intruded on my thoughts. “Once your mother knew, it was over. She told your father, and Mr. Hayashi cast my entire family out of the skulk the next day. All because I passed your test.”

  All of this… It was because of me? “I had no idea.”

  He didn’t have an answer for that. “I still had friends in the skulk, distant relatives really. We talked a few times. Mostly they wanted to know what the hell my parents were thinking uprooting us all to move in with family no one had ever heard of because they didn’t exist.” His forehead bunched. “Then the calls stopped coming. Whatever your father told them put them at ease or warned them off trying to help us or both. The only ones who knew what had happened between you and me were Katsuo, because he had been spying on us, our parents and the two of us.”

  “That’s how you knew I didn’t remember.” He had ears inside the skulk.

  “One of my cousins mentioned seeing you on the street in front of our old house. He stopped to ask you what was wrong, and you asked him who used to live there. He told you, and you didn’t react. You didn’t leave, either. You just stood there until your father picked you up and took you home.” Ryuu grimaced. “The skulk thought you were in denial because you had lost your best friend. Severing friendships can be tough, skulk bonds run deep, and you were a very—” he almost said spoiled, I could tell by the way he bit off the word, “—indulged child.” He rolled a shoulder. “They figured you would outgrow it eventually, and honestly, at the time, I thought the whole incident was a fluke. It wouldn’t have surprised me to hear you had married by the time I caved to the need to check in on you.”

  I struggled to get my legs under me. “You’re saying I claimed you when I was twelve.”

  “You did,” he said calmly.

  “You—no. Just no. That’s not possible.”

  “You haven’t felt that pull in your gut?” He sat upright, sliding to his knees on the carpet, a predator stalking his prey. “You don’t feel the need to mark me?” He prowled closer, eased his hand around my nape and anchored me to the spot. “Because I want my scent all over you.” Ryuu lowered his head, eyes dark and focused on my mouth. “This close I can’t think for wanting you.”

  Even though my inner vixen was brushing the underside of my skin, eager to claim what was hers, I had to be honest with him. “I don’t know what I want.”

  He braced his forehead against mine, and I rested my hand over the steady thumping in his chest. “That’s not a no.”

  “No,” I allowed. “It’s not a no.”

  He released me almost in slow motion, crossing the room to sort through a hanging rectangular cube divided into cubbies. “Katsuo is heating water for a bath.” He reached for the lowest shelf and removed the set of clothes folded there. “You can change into these when you’re finished.”

  “Are those your clothes?” I wasn’t sure yet if I hoped they were or prayed they weren’t. “I can make do tonight, but Dad doesn’t need to see any territory marking before he gets close enough to be reasoned with.”

  Ryuu’s smug expression prompted me to shake out the clothes. The set was identical to the outfit I wore now. He had been keeping clothes in my size in the “closet” in his bedroom.

  “I was optimistic,” he explained with a shrug.

  “So I see.” I crushed the clothes to my chest and took a long look at Ryuu. “There’s one thing that keeps bothering me about what you’ve told me.”

  His stance widened, and he folded his arms over his chest, bracing his fingers against his upper arms. It was a dirty ploy that tricked me into watching the flex of muscle and the tightening of his T-shirt over his straining biceps. “Only one thing?”

  I carefully spread the snare at the center of my trap. “You said it would be easier if I remembered.”

  “It would be,” he agreed without hesitation.

  I baited my prey carefully. “But what I’m hearing is we didn’t have some great love affair.”

  “You were twelve,” he said flatly.

  I pushed extra sway into my hips as I approached him, placing one hand over his heart, which pounded just below his skin as though eager to leap into my palm. “So what you really meant was that things would be easier if I remembered our past, because I used to idolize you.”

  Trap set, baited and sprung.

  Ryuu’s lips parted, but not a damn thing came out. Possible answers swirled behind his eyes, but he blinked those away too. He was a smart man, and he had done a stupid thing, and he knew it.

  “You wanted me to fawn over you.” I linked my fingers, tucked them under my chin and batted my eyelashes at him. “You wanted me to trail after you like some lovesick puppy.” I shoved him back. “That’s not me. That’s not who I am.” I gestured toward myself. “This is me. I’m loud, hilarious and have amazing fashion sense. Think about that.” Ryuu’s expression blanked. “You need to open your eyes and take a good look at who I am, and then you need to take a good look at who you are.” I crossed to the exit and toyed with the flap. “I hope you respect us both enough not to pursue me if you’re chasing the memory of a girl who doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “Mai…”

  I clutched the clothes tighter. “I should go before the water gets cold.”

  Or before curiosity got the better of me and I decided to explore Ryuu’s mouth with my tongue in case there were any more secrets waiting to be uncovered in there.

  Chapter 7

  The companionable murmur of voices lured me through the same slit where Katsuo had vanished earlier. I found him standing over an inflatable tub, testing the temperature of the water with the inside of his wrist. A striking young man stood beside him wearing a bemused expression. He still had a few grains of white rice in his hair. I wondered if they had gotten into a food fight in the kitchen. His wide-set eyes lifted at my approach, and his smile broadened a fraction.

  He hefted a plastic bucket and tapped his fingers on the lip. “You must be the princess from the tower.”

  I plucked at my shirt. “I feel more like the troll from under the bridge.”

  “This is Shinji.” Katsuo nudged him aside. “Shinji, this is Mai.”

  “Mai, oh Mai.” His laugh was infectious. “I’ve heard so much about you.” I kept my smile in place, and Shinji saw through it. “It’s all right. I don’t expect to hear the same. Most folks lie when they parrot it back anyway.”

  “Shinji…” Katsuo warned.

  “I’m Katsuo’s husband,” he announced with no small amount of pride.

  My eyes peeled open wide. Katsuo is mated?

  “See?” Katsuo flung his arm toward me. “That’s the reaction I was hoping to avoid.”

  “The reaction where I’m shocked that you’re mated and you didn’t say a word?” Anger at the way he held himself, waiting for condemnation, burned in my chest. Did he really think so little of me? “I know things have been tense, what with your brother holding me prisoner and all, but you couldn’t mention you were mated? I might have wanted to congratulate you, you know.”

  “You wouldn’t have congratulated me.” Katsuo sounded resigned. “You would have pulled another Houdini, located Shinji, and then used him as leverage to force me into helping you escape.”

  He wasn’t wrong. Family was weakness. Lovers were weakness. Friends were too. I had used Gen, and I would have used Shinji too.

  “He worried you would judge him,” Shinji interjected helpfully. “He’s been beside himself since Ryuu got it into his head to bring y
ou here.”

  “People are responsible for their own happiness. I’m glad Katsuo found his with you.” I faced the veteran cosplayer with a nostalgic grin. “Besides, after you’ve attended some of the cons we have and seen some of the things we’ve seen, you learn not to judge. You just roll with it.” I shrugged. “Diversity is a beautiful thing. The only beef I have with Katsuo is that he went along with Ryuu’s boneheaded scheme in the first place.”

  Shinji set his hand on Katsuo’s arm. “He did what he had to do, for all of us.”

  “I’m beginning to understand that,” I said on an exhale.

  “We’ll leave you to your bath.” Katsuo pointed out the towels and soaps. This room had no rugs. It was carpeted with grass, and it felt delicious tickling my bare toes. “Call if you need anything. We won’t be far.”

  He took his husband by the arm and hauled him through the flap with a tolerant expression in place. Shinji wiggled his fingers and allowed himself to be removed even though questions burned in his eyes. No doubt he wanted the scoop on Katsuo as a kid. I wondered if that meant Shinji hadn’t been told that, according to the brothers Tanabe, there was a hole wide enough you could drive a semi through my memory.

  Knowing the intensity of the scrutiny I would be placed under the following day, I took my time bathing and washing my hair. The Tanabes had gone about their crusade all wrong—I had no sympathy for their methods—but I couldn’t deny there was merit to their claim. Put my family in their place and I would have made the same choices as Ryuu. There was right and wrong, and then there was family. We all committed sins in the name of love.

  I sank deeper into the water and probed my memory for fragments of Ryuu’s story, but all I got for my trouble was a headache. Parts of my past I hadn’t reflected on in years made no sense when I lined up the clear bits in my head. Did that mean, as Ryuu’s contact had said, that the loss of my best friend had shocked me into amnesia? Or had I been helped to forget key moments of our shared past?

  One way or the other, I supposed I would find out tomorrow.

  Chapter 8

  “It’s almost time.” Thierry peered through the clear plastic window behind the cot where I had spent the night. This room was much larger and far emptier than Ryuu’s bedroom, so I assumed it had served as his parents’ quarters originally. “Are you ready for this?”

  “No.” I finished brushing my hair and placed the brush in a pocket sewn into the wall. “I’m scared, Tee. What if Ryuu is telling the truth?”

  She crossed to me and slung her arm around my shoulders. “Then we deal with it.”

  I basked in her sense of calm, but it drained out of me just as fast. My gut twisted at the thought of confronting my father. I wanted him to be honest with me about as much as I didn’t want to hear the truth from him. Ever. “What do you think?”

  “I think I’ll support whatever decision you make.”

  I groaned and rested my head on her shoulder. “That’s not helpful.”

  “I know.” She sighed. “The suckiest part about making the hard decisions is it’s a one-woman job.”

  A throat cleared, and we both turned to find Katsuo watching us.

  “Itsuo has arrived.” He swept the fabric aside and gestured us into the living area. “He brings word from your father. He’s willing to meet with you at Jose’s.”

  Thierry pulled back to look at me. “How does your dad even know about Jose’s?”

  “He can read.” I spotted Ryuu and forgot what I was saying.

  “What’s your point?” A scowl twisted up her features. “Are you telling me he’s monitoring your debit card withdrawals again?”

  Her gaze skated toward Ryuu, and something tightened in my chest. Thierry was my best friend. She was mated. But she was appreciating how Ryuu’s faded jeans cupped the ass I knew was marked by a birthmark that resembled a daisy with asymmetrical petals, and I couldn’t fight down the gruff edge in my voice. “He’s seen the carryout boxes. In the fridge, on the table, that one time in my bathroom.”

  Don’t ask.

  Hearing the change in my tone, Thierry nudged me with her elbow. “I see how it is.”

  “You’re mated to an incubus.” I snorted. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “It’s not my fault if women randomly punch themselves in the face if they stare at him for too long.” Her smile could have sliced a watermelon into quarters and then stabbed each of its seeds through the eye. “It’s the darnedest thing, right? It’s almost like his lure’s gone sour. Lucky for them, they seem to get instant immunity after the one time.”

  An incubus’s lure, an intoxicating scent that rose from their skin, drove women to throw themselves at him. Shaw didn’t have to use his to turn heads, though. The guy was total eye candy, not that I would ever admit as much to Tee. I preferred my vital organs to stay in their original packaging.

  “Are you ready to go?” Ryuu tugged at the neck of his light sweater. The style was something an older man might wear. Say, his father. I didn’t comment on the dated look, because he cut a fine figure in everything he wore. I just walked up, tucked the ends of his dress shirt’s collar into the neck of the knit material, and said, “Yes.”

  “I’ll change and follow.” Thierry raised her voice to ensure our small party heard her. “If you see a black dog, leave it be. Don’t hurt it, follow it or try to pet it, if you value your fingers.”

  Ryuu angled his head. “I thought only your father…?”

  Not about to give up her secrets, she winked at him. “Don’t feel bad. Dad is good at making people think what he wants them to. It’s a talent honed during the thousands of years he’s lived.”

  Her father was the Black Dog of Faerie, one of the most powerful fae in existence, and Thierry was very much her father’s daughter. The less people knew about her powers, the safer she would be. She was family as far as I was concerned, and Ryuu’s abduction racket was mild compared to what I would do to protect her.

  “Keep anything you hear or see under your hat,” I warned the brothers. “Old friends or not, no one messes with Thierry. Understand?”

  The brothers nodded in sync, and Thierry pinched my cheek. “She’s so cute when she’s threatening violence on my behalf.”

  “Uh, yeah.” Katsuo ruffled his hair. “Cute.”

  The would-be reynard continued regarding Thierry with a straight face. Reading him was difficult, but I think he was weighing the cost versus reward of growing close to me when she was part of the package. Dealing with us was very much like reaching to pet a fluffy bunny only to have a rattlesnake strike your hand instead.

  Thierry left us to slip into something more furry, and the brothers chose a few others to join us in addition to Itsuo and the men he had left to guard me overnight.

  Though I hadn’t seen or heard a vehicle during my time as a guest of the Tanabe skulk, the same silver pickup waited for us in the middle of a field beyond the one where the tents had been staked. The men climbed in the back. Ryuu sat behind the wheel, I scooched across the bench seat to the middle, and Katsuo took the spot to my right.

  According to the first road sign I spotted once our tires hit asphalt, I had been squirreled away in the small town of Talpa, Texas. The ride to Jose’s, all the way back home in Wink, lasted exactly forever. Or maybe it was closer to four hours. Once in a while I glimpsed a great black hound darting through the trees, keeping pace with the truck. We didn’t hear a peep from the kitsunes sitting behind us. They had seen the beast too, and none of them knew what it meant aside from being a grim omen.

  I might have felt the same way too if I hadn’t once seen Thierry don the skin of a hound in order to run across town to reach the local pizza joint before it closed. Of course, she’d had to beg a ride home after, but at least we got out of cooking. Since then her hound shape and I had bonded. I could respect a beast with a love for Canadian bacon.

  Lost in thought, I almost missed the familiar turn that dipped into a massive pothole that had be
en on Jose’s to-do list for as long as Thierry and I had been dining there. I braced on the dash, but the guys bounced on the seat, and Ryuu thumped his head on the roof of the cab. They aimed matching glares on me.

  “Sorry,” I tossed out as an afterthought.

  They grunted in unison.

  The sight of a glossy, black town car set my pulse fluttering. “That’s Dad’s car.”

  “You don’t say.” Ryuu swept his gaze over the other beat-up pickups and dusty sedans sitting in the parking lot. “We couldn’t tell.”

  My fingers itched to thump his ear, but I could be mature and take my lumps. Right?

  Katsuo squeezed my thigh. “There’s no shame in coming from money.”

  Ryuu’s mouth opened. Katsuo shook his head hard once. Ryuu’s mouth closed.

  Hmm. Katsuo must have learned relationship crisis management from being mated himself.

  “There’s nothing wrong with earning your own way, either,” I told them. “Dad started with nothing, and look where he is now.”

  Considering we were here to discuss possible brainwashing and tampering with fate, it was maybe not the best comparison I could have made.

  Another squeeze and Katsuo exited the truck. I scooted toward him and stepped onto the cracked pavement. The lean black dog padding up the sidewalk looked both ways at the crosswalk and then trotted across the road to join us. The kitsunes all took a generous step back. The dog snapped her teeth to make them jump then chuffed with doggy laughter under her breath.

  “Be nice.” I leaned back inside the truck. “I don’t see any old newspapers in here, but there are plenty of menus inside. I’ll roll one up and thump your nose. You know I will.”

  Her hackles lifted, and a growl poured from her throat.

  “Remember.” I tapped the end of her wet nose. “Nice.”

  A step to the left put her right in front of me. She reared up on her hind legs and draped her paws over my shoulders. Pressing her chest to mine, she rubbed up and down a few times before I managed to shove her off me. Black fur speckled my light blue top. So much for making a good impression on Dad.