The Nine

by C. M. Stunich

  "I should've called Fae-Bitch and told him I was gonna be late," I whispered aloud, just to hear myself talk. My best friend, Chris, was putting on a drag show tonight and I was supposed to be there. After all, he was not only the most fabulous queen in town, he was also a faerie with a serious sense of style and an attitude that more than earned him his spectacular little nickname.

  But … there was also no fucking way I was wandering around with an unbound ninth tail. That was just asking for trouble.

  That, and Finley was right: I actually did have places to go and people to kill. As an assassin, that was kind of my job.

  Around the next curve of rocky wall, I found a gold and white kimono waiting and I knew without being told that I was expected to put it on.

  With a sigh, I slipped out of my boots and bodysuit, and into the silken folds of the robe, letting it drape over my arms in streamers of cherry blossom-patterned fabric. It pooled around my ankles as I wrapped the obi around my waist to secure it.

  There was a slit in the back for my tails, which was nice except … there was a bit of a draft. Fortunately, the heavy fabric weighted the kimono down and hid most of my ass from view.

  Wrapping my long braids around my head in a rough semblance of what was considered appropriate, I turned the next corner and I saw them. They took my fucking breath away.

  I felt all the snark and sass knocked right out of me as I stood facing three kitsune women in kimonos, a mess of golden tails behind them as they sat like gods, staring down at me with vulpine masks on their faces.

  And the tails … oh fuck, the tails.

  They didn't have nine each: they had hundreds.

  Gracefully, I sank to my knees and touched my head to the floor, as was the required sign of respect for these ancient kitsune. It was a posture I should have taken the second I entered the great hall, but I never had been one for following rules of obedience and submission.

  "Very good, Thea," one of the women mocked, "this time you were only borderline disrespectful in how long you stared. I think we're finally getting through to you."

  The elaborate red and white masks gave all three of them some anonymity, but I knew it was Giselle on the left.

  Bitch.

  My teeth sunk into my lower lip to keep from snapping back at her with a sarcastic response. She was over a thousand years old, yet acted like a damn teenager sometimes, and it took all of my self-control not to take the bait. The last thing I needed was to get stuck in another endless lecture on etiquette and manners when I was already late for Chris' show.

  Keep your head down, your mouth shut, and get your ninth tail bound.

  I repeated this over and over in my head, as if it would keep me from offending any of these ancient kitsune. But really, it was hardly my fault they were so damn sensitive.

  "We see you've acquired a new tail." The golden kitsune on the right, Nadege, spoke this time. Her dark hair billowed in an unnatural breeze behind her, silhouetted against the sloping cavern walls by the flames of the burning torches. It was so damn showy. "We presume you have come to request it be bound?"

  Nadege always spoke in plural, like she was the damn Queen of England or something. My ability to pick who was speaking from behind their masks constantly infuriated them, but I couldn't see why no one else picked up on their distinctive speech patterns. They always followed a pattern.

  Left, right, center. Giselle, Nadege, Trina.

  My head stayed bowed, and I refrained from responding. Despite her question, I had not yet been given permission to speak, and the punishment for speaking out of turn was far greater than simply staring at their tails a moment too long.

  "I find it unusual, that a kitsune of so few years has ascended to the Nine already." Trina finally spoke after a seriously uncomfortable amount of time, and I breathed a sigh of relief. They weren't dragging it out this time. "You may address us, Thea Hunt. Share with us how you have achieved this most impressive feat, and perhaps Trina will feel so inclined as to bind it for you."

  Trina was the worst of the three, and sporadically spoke about herself in third person, in an attempt to confuse. It was a stupid power game, and not one that worked on me. My job as an assassin required I be smarter than that.

  Sitting back up to face them, I tucked my feet under my bum in a picture of demure grace. My mama did manage to teach me a couple of things before she died, so I could follow the rules when I wanted to.

  This whole subservient behavior rubbed my fur the wrong way though. For a matriarchal society, as the kitsune were, it just sat wrong. Surely as women we were better than this? Then again, the Ancients were exactly that. Ancient.

  "Respectfully, Ancients, there is no story to tell. One minute I had eight, and the next, nine. It took another day or so for my fur to fade." I kept my answer short and stuck to the facts. These old vixens were not above taking offense just because they were bored. "I humbly request that Trina bind my tail, so that I can resume my duties." Aka, I have a fucking job to do, bitches.

  Kitsune with unbound tails were not permitted to act in any official capacity. Not just for the Earth, but for any supernatural organization, period. The wild magic was too dangerous, too unpredictable. Only the Ancients were permitted their multitude of tails to be left unbound, as only they were deemed strong enough to control the magic.

  "Your duties?" Giselle scoffed. "Don't play us for fools. Your loyalty is to the assassins’ guild and its barbaric nonsense and bloodshed, hardly a worthy cause."

  "And now you’re one of the Nine. You make a formidable weapon for the guild's arsenal. Why would we want to strengthen them anymore than they already are?" Nadege, the snarky bitch, commented and I ground my teeth together hard.

  "My work for RADOPA has always been to the benefit of the Earth," I snapped, trying to get a handle on my anger. My employment was a large contributing factor as to why I was mostly unwelcome within the Vail Valley Earth, and it stung.

  RADOPA, aka the Recruitment and Defense of Personal Assets, was just a fancy title for what our organization really was: a guild of assassins. Killers. Murderers.

  "So far, yes." Trina took her turn speaking. "But what happens when the guild turns on us? Will they send you to slaughter your own people? Trina need not remind you that we are an endangered species."

  "No, she need not," I muttered, desperately trying not to roll my eyes as my hands curled to fists in my lap. "It is my utmost belief that RADOPA has no interest in turning on the Earth. Indeed, they seem unconcerned by the kitsune people, considering the size of our population."

  It was the politest way I could say, because we're damn foxes. And in a world of wolves, bears, snakes, and vampires, foxes ranked low on the threat meter. So far as I knew, I was the only kitsune in history to have ever been inducted into the guild. But then again, I’d just gained my ninth tail well before my time, so perhaps they knew something I didn't?

  There was a long silence before the Ancients spoke again, but this time it wasn't to me.

  "What do you have to say on the matter, Finley Wilde?" Giselle asked, and I heard Fin make a surprised noise behind me.

  "You may speak, Finley," Nadege added, oh so graciously. "You were Thea Hunt's intended mate, after all. Tell us. Should we bind her tail and allow her to return to her little group of murderers?" Oh, for fox sake, I thought, so frustrated that even I was willing to resort to puns.

  "As her intended mate," he snapped, and I swear, if it wouldn't have gotten me killed, I would’ve turned and chucked my bone knife straight into his throat. With my training, it wouldn't actually be that difficult an accomplishment to achieve. "I request a motion to block her binding."

  "What?!" I shouted, forgetting my place for a moment and standing straight up.

  Standing in the same room as the Ancients was not permitted.

  Magic tainted the air around me, cracked it right in half like it was made of glass. For a moment there, I didn't quite understand what was happening, not until I in
haled sharply and found that it was impossible to breathe. Whatever entered my lungs was not oxygen, just this horrid cloud of needles that seemed to slice the inside of my chest in a million places all at once.

  I fell to my knees with Finley Wilde in my field of vision, kneeling at the entrance to the cave like a proper kitsune male, his orange tails wafting back and forth in lazy annoyance. Damn it. I knew I should've chucked that knife in his fucking throat, even as my heart clenched painfully seeing his handsome face for the first time in … forever.

  He looked exactly how I remembered. Same strong but slim athletic build, same rust-brown hair and autumn leaf eyes … Shit, he was gorgeous as ever.

  "Sit down, Thea Hunt," Giselle said, and I could hear a smug sense of superiority in her voice as I landed on my side, vision blurring, body desperate for air. My tails twisted around one another, seeking out the natural magic of the earth, but there was none.

  The three women sitting at the head of the cavern had stolen it all from me.

  Rolling onto my side, I continued to stare at Finley until my vision went dark and I just touched the edge of unconsciousness. They decided to free me then and probably enjoyed the sight of me scrambling around in the dirt, gasping for breath.

  "Continue, please, Finley Wilde," Giselle said as I laid on my side and took huge, ugly, rattling breaths that hurt my lungs almost as much as the needle-like pain from the spell.

  "I request a motion to block her binding," he repeated as I stared at him. His orange eyes dropped to mine and stayed there, challenging me, letting me know that this time, he was asserting his rights as my intended mate. "I've waited eight long years as an unmated male, working guard duty. I have no home, no pups, and no social standing. Until Thea releases me as her mate and finds me a new one, I request that she stay unbound."

  "Your response to the motion?" Trina asked, and even though I was facing the opposite direction, I could just imagine her tilting her head to one side, floor-length hair cascading down the front of her red kimono. Skin like cream, hair like night, and eyes that burned with a golden shimmer. All three Ancients looked much the same.

  "I …" I started, but it was still a struggle to breathe, let alone speak.

  They were going to nail me on a technicality here. They’d made it impossible for me to object … those cunts.

  "If you have no further arguments," Giselle continued, and I knew from the tone of her voice that she was smiling, "then we'll accept Finley Wilde's request."

  "Motion granted," Nadege said in a sensual purr, and I felt the warm curl of another spell. They might not bind my tail, but they also wouldn't let me walk around with a furry white bomb strapped to my ass. They would wrap my tail in threads of their own power to keep its volatility contained until I'd fulfilled the end of this new bargain. My tail wouldn't be a problem, but I also wouldn't be able to use the other eight either.

  This was going to be an issue.

  A serious motherfucking issue.

  Since I'd declined to accept Finley as my mate—at least in a public capacity since we'd definitely fucked—he had every right to request that I find him a new one. In a world where kitsune were rare and mates were selected at birth, that put me in serious, serious trouble.

  I was bound to carry out the orders of the guild and next Sunday, I had a very important client to deal with. But no magic, no way I could complete my work.

  That gave me exactly one week to find Finley a mateless vixen that was actually interested in him.

  One week to figure out how to weasel out of this mess before I botched the job and the guild sent someone to assassinate me.

  "I can't believe you had the fucking audacity to pull that shit!" I shouted as I slammed the door to Finley Wilde's house—what used to be my house—and curled my twitching fingers into fists to keep myself from going for the knife again. Half of my anger was directed at him; the other half of my frustration was from being inside a house that held so many good memories that I’d given up. If asked, I’d do it all over again, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to hurt.

  Like most kitsune, our home was set into the carved center of a massive tree trunk, with stairs leading up to treetop rooms and balconies. Most of the homes in this particular neighborhood were connected with rope bridges that left the privacy factor at a virtual zero.

  That's why I wasn't at all surprised when a hulking, black jaguar appeared at the top of the steps, melding seamlessly into a tall man with a mottled brown mohawk to match his kitty-coat, and a crooked half-smile. He had a set of piercings on either side of his lip as well as a silver ring through the center of his nose, and a matching one on his left eyebrow.

  My breath caught in my throat as our gazes locked.

  Riot Langthorne.

  My other ex.

  Before I'd decided on a change of both career and scenery, I'd been in a ménage relationship with Riot and Finley. Riot's mate had been killed by a car when he was twelve and since he was a jaguar shifter—a breed which had been hunted to near extinction, even worse than kitsune—his pickings for a new mate were even slimmer than Fin’s.

  I hadn't seen him in six months or more. For the life of me, I couldn't remember, but when he came down the stairs and brushed his fingertips lightly down my arm, I shuddered with undeniable desire. The way he moved, like a lazy house cat, was enthralling. A long, black tail twitched behind him as he headed for the sofa and slunk into it like he owned the place. Of course he did, he was a cat—they owned everything. Like a kitsune, a jaguar shifter had enough magic to hold onto their clothes when they changed, so unfortunately, I didn’t get to see him naked, but I could see his muscles sliding beneath his tight, black t-shirt, fluid and liquid and full of barely-leashed power.

  When I’d first broken up with them, we’d still occasionally get together to fuck. Not anymore. I think it was too painful for all of us. Sometimes, I missed those hot, sweaty nights so much that I felt like I couldn’t live without them. Other times, I was glad for my hardwon independence.

  "You blocked her binding, didn't you?" Riot asked Fin, blinking gray eyes up at me and trying his best not to smile. He might not be quite the vindictive bastard that Finley was, but he was still a serious asshole, a man that liked things the way he liked them, rest of the world be damned. I blamed the feline in his blood.

  "I exercised my rights is all," Finley said, giving me a bored look which was like a knife in my heart, and flicking one of his orange ears in response. His tails drifted lazily, giving off an I could not give two shits less look that I didn't buy for a second.

  He was clearly pissed the hell off.

  Guess I would be, too, if I'd stayed in this stifling environment and remained chaste for months at a time. Kitsune didn't mate outside their established pairings and although I'd been gone for a while, I still kept up on gossip. The only unmated individuals in this entire Earth were Riot and Finley, and Ry wasn’t even a kitsune. The fact that he’d been somewhat adopted by the foxes was almost unheard of, but a good stroke of luck for him.

  So unless they'd been fucking—I honestly didn't know the answer to that—then Fin's bed had been dry for some time. Really, it was his own damn choice. He was handsome enough to have any non-kitsune girl he wanted. Fox Father knew he still made my chest tighten whenever he was careless enough to touch me these days. When Fin was in a good mood, that arrogance of his translated into a playful mischievousness that never failed to make me laugh. In a bad mood, he was toxic and I wanted nothing more than to punch him in his slightly crooked nose.

  "So, that's it then? I either find you a new mate by Sunday, or agree to settle down and become your good, little wifey? Pop out a litter of kits? Is that what you want?" I poked Fin in the chest, getting up in his personal space and locking him with my furious glare. "You're a fucking idiot sometimes, Finley Wilde. You know that? If I don't complete my contract for Sunday night, I'll be dead."

  "Oh, give it up." Fin rolled his orange-brown eyes, like I was be
ing some sort of drama queen. "You and I both know he wouldn't let the guild off you for missing one little contract. But maybe the pressure will force you to make some life decisions, finally."

  "In the name of Inari’s fucking tits, not this shit again." I turned away from Fin's infuriating face before I plowed my knife straight into it. "How many times do I have to tell you, he doesn't like me like that. I am an asset for RADOPA, nothing more, nothing less. And when I stop being an asset, I become a liability. The guild does not allow liabilities."

  "Come on, Thea," Riot snorted, casually flopping down on Fin's couch and twitching a velvety black ear at me. "We broke up eight years ago, you can drop the act."

  A growl started to bubble up inside me, and I needed to shut my eyes and count to ten before responding. To either of them. It was insanity, that these two former lovers of mine had the ability to make me lose my cool so damn quick, especially when I'd spent years perfecting my control over my temper. Hotheaded assassins generally didn't stay alive long.

  The he they were both referring to was Mikhail Ravena, current head of RADOPA. Mikhail had been the one who’d recruited me, effectively ending my relationship with both of these bothersome men. They hadn't liked the interest Mik had shown in me, and accused us of having an affair—which was utterly untrue.

  In the end, it had been lack of trust that had broken us up, not my job. But they'd never admit that.

  "Okay. I didn't come here to argue ancient history with you two. Nothing I say or do is going to convince you that there is nothing going on between me and Mik. Never was, never will be." As I said the words, my gut clenched and the unmistakable tang of prophecy rolled across my tongue.

  What the hell could that mean?

  Curious though, that despite those old foxes binding me—effectively cutting me off from the magic—my new skill was exempt?

  "This is bullshit," I muttered, starting toward the door when neither of them bothered to reply. Fin's hand shot out before I could get more than a couple of steps, slapping me in the chest and preventing me from passing. "Finley Wilde, trust me when I say you do not want to start a fight right now."