Sundown & Serena

by Tara Fox Hall

  I sat bolt upright, looking again at my clock. It’s almost six now, and Nick isn’t here.

  I hurried downstairs, and checked the kitchen. No Nick.

  Pushing open the door to the attached garage, I noticed that the Hummer H2 at the far side was missing. With a scream, I ran down the stairs to Titus’s shop, and found he wasn’t there, either. I ran for the kitchen phone, and called his house. A sleepy sounding Leri answered. “Hello?”

  “Get here!” I screamed. “Nick is missing! He never came home last night!”

  Leri yelled for Titus. Dropping the phone, I ran upstairs, and began pounding on Devlin’s door. I knew he was there, and so was Sar. She’ll be concerned, even if he isn’t. She knows I’m in love with Nick.

  Devlin and Sar came downstairs with me. Titus arrived via teleportation in the kitchen, located Nick magically via his tracking spell, and a few minutes later, he arrived holding a bloody form. But it wasn’t the Nick I knew. Because this man had been skinned. He was just muscle, bone, and red rawness dripping blood in a steady pat-pat-pat onto the bright yellow tiles.

  Sar fled the kitchen and ran to the bathroom, dragging her girl child with her. The bathroom door shut with a click.

  “He’ll die soon,” Devlin said forlornly, looking down at Nick’s twitching body. “Damn it, I’m losing men left and right.”

  “Isn’t there anything we can do?” I screamed. “We have to save him!”

  “We have no skin to heal together,” Leri said, appearing suddenly from the living room. “There’s nothing to cover him.”

  “Maybe we do,” Titus rumbled, eyeing me. He fixed his gaze on me. “If you help us.”

  “Tell me what to do!” I shouted.

  “We need a skin, a wereanimal’s skin, to drape him with,” Titus rumbled. “Something to sew closed, that his body hopefully won’t reject.”

  Danial excused himself to look after Sar, to keep V out of the kitchen.

  “Are you willing, Serena?” Devlin said seriously, taking my hand in his cool one. “You’ll lose one of your animal forms, and the pain’s going to be bad, even with a spell. You’re under no obligation to do this.”

  “I can help with the pain,” Leri said quickly. “But he’s right, essentially you’re going to be losing part of your soul. And it’s a part that won’t heal. Nick’s dying in part because the bear half of him has been ripped away. Losing your animal side if you’re were is not like losing an arm, or a kidney. It can’t grow back.”

  “We do this now, or it’s too late,” Titus rumbled loudly. “He has another ten minutes, at best.”

  “Do it,” I said, letting my robe drop. I shifted form to coyote, laying down on the floor and stretching out, steeling myself for what was to come.

  The next ten minutes were the worst of my life. Devlin pulled my skin off slowly with a skinning knife of Titus’s. Even with Leri stopping the bleeding, and helping the physical pain, she was right, it was pure agony. There was the feeling of my soul being cloven, of part of myself being separated from the rest. I screamed over and over, struggling and flinching even as I tried to keep still. Finally, when my coyote skin was fully off, Leri and Titus began to work on Nick. Devlin grabbed hold of me. “Change to fox!” he whispered urgently. “Please, Serena!”

  It’s the first time he’s ever said please to me. I began to shift, my orange-red fox fur covering my bare muscles. The change completed, I lay panting on my side as fox, my soul still feeling shattered.

  My sacrifice hadn’t been in vain. Titus and Leri had somehow made the skin larger, and it was adhering to Nick’s body, as his bloody form shrunk to fill the skin. Soon he was lying in the coyote form, somewhat larger than I’d been as a coyote. He was panting hard, but no longer hurt.

  “They must both rest,” Leri whispered to Devlin. “And be left with raw meat, blood, and water, as much as they’ll eat, when they wake.” She paused. “I can’t believe that worked.”

  “I’m not a novice, witch wife,” Titus said irritably.

  “You’re a hero,” Leri said tenderly, kissing him. She clearly meant it as a light kiss, but he grabbed hold of her, sitting her on his lap, and hugging her tightly. “And a genius,” she added, with a sultry smile.

  “I couldn’t bear it, if I lost you,” he rumbled.

  “You aren’t going to,” she said tenderly. Then she kissed him again, as I lost consciousness.

  * * * *

  When I awoke, Nick was near me, also awake and still in coyote form. He caught my gaze and shifted back. So did I. As soon as we had arms, we grabbed each other tight, holding fast.

  “What did he do to me?” Nick whispered in fear. “What did Titus do to me? I can’t feel my bear self, Serena. But I feel something else. It’s like when I was fox for you, but different.”

  I squeezed him reassuringly. “You were skinned. I gave you my coyote form, so you wouldn’t die.”

  “Why?” he choked out. “Why did you save me?”

  “I love you,” I said, enough longing and feeling in the words to rend my heart.

  There was so much I hoped he would tell me, so much I wanted him to say. Instead, he looked at me in silence. “When?” he got out finally.

  “For a while,” I stammered, thinking back.

  “Since Vince died?” Nick asked.

  I didn’t reply

  “I know he was going to ask you to be mated to him, even though some of us laughed at him for it. I’ve seen the ring that you wear, the emerald ring he got for you.” Nick wouldn’t meet my eyes. “But my answer is still the same, Serena. I’m not ready to be mated.”

  I felt floored. I’d have done it anyway, I told myself, squeezing the tears back. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t love me.

  Then I registered what he’d said. “You laughed at him, for caring about me? For not just thinking of me as...as what, a good fuck?”

  “I’m sorry,” Nick said in the same solemn tone. “I should’ve gone after Sar with Kev. Then Vince would’ve been here with you, and you’d still have both your forms.”

  “Just leave,” I said bitterly, pushing him away. “Leave, Nick, and don’t ever come back.”

  Nick gave me an anguished look, but he grabbed a blanket from my bed, and left.

  I cried for a long, long time. I told you if love was going to hurt, I didn’t want it, God. This isn’t a blessing, to feel this strongly for someone and not have them feel the same in return.

  That night, everyone stayed away. Everyone that is, except for my newest lover, Sar’s adult dhamphir son, T. I heard his knock, and murmured, “Go away.”

  The door opened. Stupid, I didn’t lock it after Nick left. T stood there, looking confused. Then he saw I was upset. “Are you okay?” he whispered, coming over and holding me. “You’re crying.”

  He’s here for his session. Nice as he is, I just can’t make myself do it. “No,” I said, dissolving into tears again. “I’m not okay. I feel like I’m dying!”

  “Shh,” he said calmly, holding me. “I’m here, Serena. Let it out if you need to.”

  I blinked at him. “You’re telling me to cry?”

  “Mom says to always let it out,” he said calmly. “She’s right, keeping it inside hurts. Let it go, so you can feel better.”

  So I cried for another hour, lamenting my choice in men, my profession, and the day I’d met Devlin Dalcon. In time, the tears stopped and became sniffling, then sometime after I fell asleep.

  I awoke in T’s arms, in bed. “Are you feeling better?” he said, brushing my cheek with his hand. “I can bring you breakfast, if you want some.”

  “You can cook?” I said in shock.

  T laughed. “Breakfast, sure. My sister Elle taught me. She said not to expect a woman to be around all the time to cook for me. And she was right, there usually hasn’t been one, unless Mom’s home. Though Elle or Cia sometimes feels in a mood to take pity on me.”

  His voice was matter of fact, and not angry or resentful. I managed a
smile for him. “Sure, that would be nice.”

  I expected him to bring me some burnt toast, and maybe, if I was lucky, some water and undercooked eggs. But he came back in thirty minutes with eggs over-easy, toast, bacon, sausage, pancakes, and also a bagel, along with some water, and a vaseful of black and yellow daisies.

  He handed me the tray, and took the daisies, putting them on the end table.

  “Thanks,” I said gratefully. “They’re beautiful.”

  “Mom likes roses best,” T said, shrugging. “But you look like more of a daisy kind of girl. Sorry they’re not in a prettier arrangement.”

  “I’ve always liked daisies,” I said, digging into the food with gusto. “Especially those black and yellow ones.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he was the only one besides Nick who’d ever gotten me flowers.

  “They’re called Black-Eyed Susans,” T offered. “Elle said so, anyway. I had Terian teleport down south just now, to grab me some for you.”

  How can T be so thoughtful of me and Nick be such an asshole? “You didn’t have to.”

  “I wanted to,” T said, reclining beside me. “We’re intimate, Serena. I think you deserve to be treated well.”

  There was something of Devlin in the way he said it, and in the manner of how he was reclining so casually on my bed. But there was a difference in that there was real feeling behind T’s words, that he meant them and that he cared about how I felt emotionally, not just as a satisfied lover to whom he was teaching sexual tricks.

  I finished my food in a few moments. I’d been hungrier than I thought. I put the plate aside, and turned to him. “Are you visiting Hayden to see your uncle?” I asked. I’d been going to say see Lash, then remembered with embarrassment that Lash was in jail. My coworker had gotten framed by Ulysses, and was doing his month or so of remaining time in the county lockup. Sar had just accepted Devlin’s explanation, when he’d told her of Lash’s confinement. Yet I’d scented there was some lie behind why Lash remained in jail, when I knew that Devlin could have found many ways to facilitate his escape. He’s staying there for a reason.

  “To see you,” T said with a boyish grin, snapping me back from memory to the present. He turned solemn. “I want to know why you were crying though first, please.”

  With halting words, I related what had happened, all of it, between Nick and myself, adding in what Vince was planning to ask me, and even how I’d met them, just over a year ago. When I finished, T held me to him gently. “Please don’t be sad. Vince loved you a lot to want to make you the promise it sounds like he was going to make to you. And you saved Nick’s life, which was very brave, even if he was an asshole who didn’t deserve the sacrifice you made.”

  “I know,” I whispered. “I just feel stupid.”

  “Love makes us all stupid, at least that’s what Devlin told me once. He said he’d only been in love twice, but both times it happened, he’d done stupid things.”

  I didn’t reply. Devlin had been very stupid about a lot of things. The thought of him admitting that, however, was surreal.

  T gave me a kiss on the cheek and got up. “I’ll come back tomorrow, if that’s okay,” he said gently as he started to leave.

  “We can now, if you want,” I said, mustering up a smile.

  “Is that what you want?” T said, shooting me a concerned look. “I can wait.”

  I’d been pretending that so many of my lovers were Nick for months now. The first few times with T, I’d done that. And I wanted to be with him now, to think of him, and not Nick. I walked to him, and kissed him passionately. He kissed me back with abandon, wrapping me tight in his embrace.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Over the next few months, a sort of healing took place. T came to me a few times a week, and I began to look forward to our times together, the way I hadn’t looked forward to anything before loving Nick. It wasn’t love, but it was comforting and good to find some solace in his arms.

  Devlin came to me within a week of my break with Nick, and asked me to consider taking Nick back to my bed. He offered me double my usual rates as retribution for Nick’s insult to me, and thanked me again for saving his life. I agreed, permitting Nick to visit me again but only in animal form. His coyote could mate with my fox, enough for both of us to get by. With Vince gone, there was no one willing to pay the money for a potion to do that for me. And while I could easily afford it now, I didn’t want to solicit a new animal lover from my client list. I still enjoyed sex, but I’d had enough of emotional ties. I was not making any new ones if I could avoid it.

  The uneasy truce between Nick and I lasted until December, when I found out from Titus the real reason Nick had gone to town the night he’d lost his skin.

  The demon was in his workshop in Hayden’s cellar, working on an animal pelt. I looked closer, realizing it was a bear skin. “Is that his?”

  I’d meant Nick’s, but Titus’s mind was elsewhere, and he thought I meant someone else. “No,” he rumbled. “That was sent to his widow. This is Klara’s pelt. Hers was the only skin recovered that wasn’t claimed by next of kin for burial.”

  I felt a cold feeling. “Who was Klara?”

  Titus gave me an odd look, and then his face darkened, until its normal flushed hue was a dark burgundy wine color. It hit me suddenly that he was blushing; the odd darkening was because the color of his blood was black. “She’s the female werebear who lived in town,” he rumbled. “Some of the men went to her to be bear for them, sometimes human, too.”

  Shock washed through me. Then utter rage. I turned without a word, and went to my room. Once there, I called Nick on his cell, and asked him to come to me, pleading it was an emergency. When he got there a minute later, I slugged him with everything I had, knocking him to the floor. “You bastard!”

  Nick looked up at me from the floor, pissed. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “Tell me I didn’t save you with part of my soul when the reason you were caught and skinned was because you were visiting another woman for sex! Tell me that isn’t true.”

  Nick got to his feet. “Serena, we aren’t mated!” His tone was strident. “This is why I don’t want to be mated, to have a woman telling me I can’t be with anyone I want to be!”

  “Should I get checked for diseases?” I said sarcastically.

  “She got checked as you do, and the same rules were in effect for her, though she had no one watching out for her, like Devlin watches out for you.” Nick’s tone was now neutral. “I wasn’t the only one who saw her.”

  Don’t make this seem like its normal, like it’s nothing! “I was bear for you!”

  “Serena, that was six months ago.”

  “Yes, it was! When were you last fox for me? Almost a year ago! If I were like most other werewoman are, I’d have gone insane by now!”

  “I can’t afford the potion’s price on my own,” Nick whispered. “I’ve never been good with money. And there isn’t anyone that I feel I can approach to help. These new guys aren’t as close with me as Vince and Kev were.”

  I looked at him, standing there looking so removed from me, his lame words still echoing in my ears, his eyes not meeting mine. God, he’s such an utter jerk. “Get out! Get out and don’t come back!”

  Nick left, and I wept again as if I’d hadn’t cried in years.

  That night, T came to me, again finding me crying. As he had before, he held me, and asked me what was wrong. As before, I told him, leaving nothing out. “Are you free tomorrow?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Come to me,” T said. “Around midnight. I’ll send Rip for you, okay?”

  I nodded. He kissed my forehead gently, then excused himself.

  As he’d said, Rip came for me a little before midnight, and teleported me to T’s home. The handsome dhamphir met me in his large great room, where we shared a glass of wine and some light double-entendres. Together, we walked out into the forest, admiring the night.

  T suddenly turned to m
e in mid-sentence, and bore me to the ground. At once, we were changing forms. In mere moments, I was looking at him in surprise from all fours through my fox eyes, because he was fox, also. He was a different type of fox than I was; a dark color, almost grey, but I didn’t care. I lay down almost desperately, mewling at him to hurry, hoping he wouldn’t be too gentle. Then he was on me, taking me, barking out sharply that I was his, and no other fox’s. And I lost myself in pleasure and relief, to finally feel whole once more.

  Three hours later, he began to change back, and I changed with him. When we were human, I dressed, and so did he, and together, we walked back to his home. There, I led T to his bedroom, telling him gently that Devlin had shown me some secrets of his, and if he’d permit me to, I’d like to share all I knew of them with him, by way of thanks for what he’d done for me. He replied with a smile that he’d learned from Devlin, too, and that he’d reciprocate, if I felt that way.

  We passed that entire night together.

  After, things between us were a little more... serious, I guess is the word. T had me come to him every week, though he still came to me at Hayden, as well as to visit his mother, and other family, and he was fox for me every time I visited him. And after being together as animals, I spent the rest of the night with him as human, loving him that way until my strength left me.

  When he invited me to spend Christmas with him though, I was a little apprehensive. “What will your mother say?”

  “She’ll ask me if I’m happy, and if this is what I want,” he said reassuringly. “And it is.”

  But she knows what I do for my living. So does your father. So does everyone we know. “You won’t be embarrassed of me?”

  “My mother is not embarrassed to be with Lash, though she isn’t snake,” he replied evenly. “It’s well known they are lovers now, and that they care for each other.”

  “But she’s not a...” Why don’t you just say whore? It’s what you are.

  “She is also Oathed to my father, and Devlin,” T said in a calm but concise tone that brooked no argument. “Please, do not concern yourself. No one will make you feel ill at ease.”