The Nine

by C. M. Stunich

  I snorted a laugh. "How old are you, Mik?"

  "A hell of a lot older than you," he replied, sounding defensive. "Now, if we're done playing twenty questions, we need to get into the office to discuss the developments in Nix's case."

  He stood there, tapping his shoe on the floor like he was waiting for me to leap out of bed and immediately follow him in nothing but my skimpy thong underwear.

  "Do you have some clothes I could borrow?" I prompted, feeling my fox ears twitch at him. He really did suck at social graces.

  Mik grunted, like he was not only incapable of human speech, but like I was also being the most painful houseguest in the entire world. He did, however, turn around and rifle through one of his drawers. As he bent, I couldn't help but notice how great his ass was, nice and firm and taut. I’d always admired it, but I’d never had the guts or the gall to say anything. It had to have been the lingering effect of him having fed from me, but all of a sudden, I found myself dropping the sheet and scooting to the edge of the bed with my hands outstretched towards that lush butt.

  Thankfully, I regained control over my rogue hands before they touched down—so to speak—and I froze. What the hell? I'd just been about to squeeze the rounded, firm ass of my boss. Was I totally insane?!

  Sadly, fate was not on my side, and as I sat there frozen with my hands outstretched, he straightened up and stepped back directly onto my palms.

  This time, we both froze.

  Oh shit. Oh shit, shit, cocks and balls, this is not happening right now!

  "Thea?" My ancient, vampire assassin boss said my name in a deadly quiet tone. "Why are your hands on my ass right now?"

  "Uh." I frantically searched my brain for any reason why this might be okay. "Would you believe me that I have no idea?"

  He gusted out a long sigh. "Is there a reason why they're still on my ass?"

  "Is there a reason why your ass is still on my hands?" I countered with the lamest comeback I had really ever used in my life.

  "Thea," he snapped, "remove your hands."

  Quick as a fox, I snatched them back and tucked them under my thighs to prevent anymore slip-ups like that. "Sorry," I muttered, feeling incredibly foolish. I also felt hungover and slightly weak from the bloodloss. If I’d had my magic, my body might’ve already recovered. As things stood, I was going to heal at a rate only slightly more accelerated than a human’s. Lucky me.

  "Here." He tossed a shirt my way and leaned his firm butt against the dresser to scowl at me. "I was worried this might happen. It's always a risk when feeding from a new species."

  "Worried what would happen? Me grabbing a handful of your butt? No offense, Mik, but I'm pretty sure that's just my hangover and seriously dried-out libido making me do weird shit." Or … something like that anyway. I'd never had bad impulse control before, but there was a first time for everything, right?

  "No. That's not what this is." Mikhail sighed again and rubbed at his brow. "This is uncomfortable news to have to deliver, but you might find yourself acting out on impulses that you maybe would’ve suppressed under normal circumstances." He paused, his lips pursed. "In regards to me."

  Squinting at him, I tried to understand what he was saying while pulling his shirt on. It was easily long enough to wear as a dress, if I could snag one of his ties as a belt.

  "So … spell this out for me, Mik," I replied eventually. "You're saying I’ve lost my impulse control, like a drunk person or some shit? That I'm going to start acting without thinking? Because that would be a really bad thing in our line of work, don't you think?"

  "Not all impulses. Just any that might relate to myself, and any sexual desires you might have." He looked uncomfortable, but I was just getting angry.

  Checking that his shirt was covering all my lady bits, I stood up and propped my hands on my hips to glare at him. "Excuse me? Any sexual desires I might have? What are you trying to imply here, Mikhail? That I'm harboring a secret crush on you that I'm suddenly going to start acting on?" Oh crap, this was not good. Not good at all.

  "Don't you?" he challenged, quirking a black brow and almost laughing at me with his sapphire eyes.

  I spluttered with indignation and embarrassment. Had I been that obvious?!

  "Absolutely not. You're the last person I would want to fuck, even if we were the last people left on earth. No offense, Mik, but you're kind of an asshole." Swear to the Fox Father, if I were made of wood my nose would be a mile long by now.

  Liar, liar pants on fire, my subconscious sang to me and I told it to shut the fuck up. There was no way in hell I was letting this arrogant, sexy, infuriating son of a vixen think I had the hots for him.

  "Uh-huh," he nodded, almost sarcastically. If he was capable of sarcasm, that is. "We need to get going. I called a meeting this morning to discuss the developments of the anti-shifting disease."

  Looking around the room, I spotted my black sequined hooker heels poking out from under the bed, so I fished them out to put on. "Fine, can we just stop by my place, so I can grab clothes on the way?"

  "No," Mik said calmly, his eyes raking my body from head to toe. He seemed to linger far too long on the naked lengths of my legs, making me wonder if I wasn’t the only one who might be having a little problem with my impulse control. With a shake of his head, Mikhail headed toward the door of the apartment. "We're already late enough as it is."

  "What?" I squawked, grabbing one of his ties from the dresser and using it to belt the shirt-dress. "Mik, I'm not going in there looking like a fucking hooker."

  He cast a glance back at me, trailing his eyes over my improvised dress again, which just so happened to end several inches short of decent. "You look fine," he said in a gruff voice. "Now hurry up. This is a time sensitive matter, which you would’ve known had you answered your phone last night."

  Jogging a little to catch up with him, I ran through the patchy memories of my night once more. "That's right. You didn't want to kill Nix. What gives? I thought the guild had a hit on him. You know, the one that I'm supposed to fulfill on Sunday?"

  "Things have changed." His answer was short and sweet, but it wasn’t cutting it for me.

  "No, you really didn't want to kill him. Even when he was clearly trying to kill you. What sort of history do you two have anyway?" We had just stepped into the elevator and as the doors slid closed, Mik slammed his palm into the wall beside my head, making my jump and baring his fangs at me.

  "None of your damn business, Thea," he growled in a threatening tone. "Now leave it the hell alone."

  I should’ve been scared. Hell, I should’ve been terrified. But all I could focus on was the shiny, sharp points of his pearl white fangs, and how good they’d felt inside my flesh as he’d fed from me.

  Totally against my better judgement, my back arched and the points of my bra-less breasts brushed against Mik's chest. I wasn't alone in this though, as his breathing seemed to speed up a fraction and his face dipped lower, towards my neck. My hands gripped his muscular sides, pulling him closer to me as I tipped my head to the side and the points of his fangs grazed my skin.

  Ding! The elevator announced our arrival in the parking garage and the doors slid open, causing me to shove Mik off me and him to jump away like I was made of molten silver or something.

  "You see?" he snapped, storming off the elevator and into the fluorescent lit garage.

  "Oh bullshit," I snarled back. "It doesn't mean I like you, you arrogant ass. Your magic is just fucking with my mind."

  He huffed a frustrated sound as he unlocked the doors to his classic ‘57 Ford Thunderbird and slid into the driver’s seat. I opened my own door, muttering under my breath about chivalry clearly being dead before buckling my safety belt. In a car this old, who knew if there were airbags or any sort of real safety in the event of a crash.

  "Look, just … try your best to keep your hands to yourself while we're at the office, okay?" Mik gave me a vexed look, narrowing his gorgeous eyes. "The effects should wear off
as soon as your body breaks down the pheromones."

  "Should?" I repeated, not liking the uncertainty of that statement.

  "Yeah, like I said, I've never fed from a kitsune before so I'm guessing. But so long as it doesn't happen again, it should wear off." He guided his clunky old car out of the garage and into the early evening. "So just, try to resist me for a few hours."

  I scoffed. "I could say the same to you."

  His jaw clenched so hard I could actually hear his teeth grinding together. "Fine. We both agree to keep our hands to ourselves until the pheromones fade from your system, then everything can go back to normal."

  The fact that he hadn't argued confirmed I wasn't the only one with poor impulse control. Something about this made me feel … smug. Then I processed what he'd just said. Everything could go back to normal? Great, I could go back to crushing on my vampire boss in secret. Is that what I wanted?

  Plain and simple, no.

  The side effects from him taking my blood were actually presenting a perfectly plausible opportunity to release a little frustration … if I had the ovaries to take advantage of it, that is.

  Neither of us spoke for the remainder of the drive to RADOPA, and I got more than a few curious or scheming glances when I stepped out of the boss' car wearing nothing but a pair of drag queen heels and his shirt. Talk about injustice, having to do a walk of shame without even getting laid first.

  "What the fuck is he doing here?" I exclaimed, stopping short at the doorway of the boardroom and glaring at the obsidian-haired alpha werewolf who had accosted me several nights ago.

  Mik, who’d been a few steps ahead of me, paused and turned to raise his brows. "You've already met?" His tone smacked of jealousy and I fought back a grin.

  "Not officially," the alpha responded with a predatory smile, "but she has touched my balls. Haven't you, fox?"

  Mik's expression clouded into something legitimately terrifying and I both wanted to rip his clothes off and run in terror. It was a constant battle around him sometimes.

  "I kneed him in the balls when he tried to rape me," I corrected, and Mik's scary ass anger turned to the wolf, who had the grace to look a little uncertain of himself. If I hadn’t reached out and put my hand flat on Mikhail’s abs, I think he might’ve ripped the man apart right then and there.

  "I was never going to rape you," he snarled. "You kitsune are so dramatic sometimes. I was just planning on torturing then killing you. Like I said, I don't go for unwilling bed partners. Now if you'd changed your mind about being willing, well that would be another matter altogether, wouldn’t it?"

  Mikhail slammed his fist down on the table, making everyone jump, and I noticed the other occupants for the first time. "Everyone, sit the fuck down. We have important business to discuss." The look he threw me said that we’d be discussing this later, whether I liked it or not. The only comforting factor in the equation was that I was certain he’d kill the alpha male if he thought our banter was in any way serious. I wasn’t entirely certain it wasn’t.

  From a quick glance around, it looked like all of the shifter groups were represented, including—oh for the love of fucking tails!—a representative from the Vail Valley Earth. Finley fucking Wilde. Damn him for looking gorgeous in a loose-fitting gray-brown shirt and jeans, wrinkled and slightly disheveled but clean. He had one bare foot up on his chair, like he didn’t care where he was. Fin wouldn’t dress up for some hoity-toity meeting if he had a gun to his head.

  It reminded me why I used to … why I might still be in love with him.

  As I gawked at my ex, all the unseated shifters quickly scrambled to take seats as Mik's order roared through the room, and I found only one vacant seat left available for me to take. Beside the alpha. He hadn’t bothered to dress up much for the meeting either, but his protest felt intended while Fin’s felt natural. Still, he looked damn good in the black tank he was wearing, his massive, muscular arms and their many tattoos exposed.

  Groaning to myself, I gave him a tight-lipped smile and perched on the edge of the chair next to him, as far away from the overgrown dog as possible. He seemed to find this amusing, and gave me a wolfish grin. That wasn't even a metaphor, he actually displayed fangs in his grin. Considering he’d promised to kill me the last time we met, it wasn’t exactly a reassuring expression.

  "Right, thank you all for coming on such short notice," Mik began with a sigh, then saw me seated beside the alpha wolf and scowled. "Mr. Wilde?" He turned to Fin, sitting on his left. "Please switch places with Miss Hunt."

  "What?" Fin exclaimed, running his fingers through his mussy hair. It was a tad too long, but without me around to cut it, I guess it’d stay that way for a while longer. "Why?"

  Mik glared death and Fin wisely dodged his gaze. "Because Bennett Beowulf just admitted he would quite like to torture and kill your ex-mate.” This last word was said with a certain amount of frustration that I had no idea how to parse out. “Are you happy to leave them sitting together in such close proximity? No? Then move."

  Fin looked pissed as hell, but no one disobeyed a direct order from Mikhail Ravena and lived to tell the tale. Well … no one except me. I chose my battles wisely though, and certainly not in front of witnesses, so I did as he asked and switched seats with my ex. Whether it had been an accident or not, I hadn't missed the emphasis Mik had put on the ex part of that equation, and neither had Fin, if his pissed off face was any indication.

  Once I was in my new seat, Mik's foot hooked around the leg of my chair and tugged me a little closer to him. Now who had a crush, hmm?

  "You all know why you're here," he continued, addressing the room, like that little act of male dominance hadn't just happened. "So I’m going to make this short and sweet. If you’re sitting at this table, you’ve asked our organization to deal with one of your own at some point in the last few months." Several of the people around the table grimaced or grunted their agreement; Mikhail didn’t have to say you paid us to murder a rabid shifter for you outright in order to get his point across. This was a seriously big fucking deal, one which had seen RADOPA overbooked with mercy kills in the past few weeks. Not a single shifter faction in the Denver Metro Area had been left unaffected.

  "There's a party drug going around known as pixie dust," Mik continued, and paused when the alpha wolf chuckled, this deep, low throaty sound that I tried not to like. He was a fucking psychopath, but also … Mik was hilarious. "Something funny?" he asked, focusing his attention first on Bennett, and then on me.

  When our eyes met, my body lit up, like I was covered in flames. My mouth began to water and my throat got tight; I even shifted in my seat.

  "Calling dust, pixie dust is like calling pot, marijuana. Or referring to meth as methamphetamine. Nobody says that. Just call it dust." I tore my gaze away from Mikhail and found myself looking at the doors to the room, just in time to see Riot burst through, dressed in tight leather pants, his mohawk styled up into a fringe.

  Oh, for fuck's sake. Like my panties weren’t flooded already.

  Clenching my jaw, I tapped my fingers on the table and tried not to think about the fact that Ziff was missing. He was the only constant in my life and I wanted him back. The only clue I had that he was okay was a simple text from Revel telling me she had him at the downtown Best Western. She also wanted to meet me for dinner tonight to make the exchange and discuss the uh, arrangement that I'd messaged her about.

  I was probably going to have to take Fin, wasn't I?

  Just the thought infuriated me. Imagining his first sighting of Revel, all those luscious curves. Ugh. I was not a woman-hater, but thinking about my ex joining up with the swanky, sexy vixen was putting me into a seriously bad mood.

  Well, that and the fact that Riot grabbed a chair from the edge of the room and squeezed his way in beside me. He smelled like cigarettes and wood smoke, and that familiar old scent made me want to kiss him so bad my lips tingled.

  "Sorry, I'm late," he said with a loose shrug of hi
s muscular shoulders. He was wearing this ridiculous leather vest that bared both arms and the carefully placed tattoos hiding the scars running down them. As soon as he saw me looking, he gave me this slow, stupid wink. A quick flick of my eyes back to Mik, and I could see his jaw was clenched, his nostrils flared.

  Jesus, it was a testosterone storm in this room, even with a good dozen women sitting around the table with me. Or maybe it was just me that was trapped in a testosterone triangle? Stuck between Mik and Fin and Riot.

  Dinner with Revel was starting to sound … not quite so bad. Maybe I'd go alone tonight, vet her, see if she was even right for Fin before I tried to drag him along. Although getting him mated gets you your magic back … Even with that thought fresh in my mind, I knew that I wasn't ready to pass over my ex just yet.

  "Riot Langthorne," Mikhail said, his voice drier than a good Cabernet, not that I’d really know a good one from a shit one. I wasn’t exactly a wine connoisseur. "I don't recall extending you an invitation."

  "Do you see another jaguar in the room?" Riot asked with a grin, flashing two, long feline teeth at the vampire. "Because I sure as shit don't."

  "We have a felidae representative at hand," Mik continued, gesturing with his chin in the direction of a thin, svelte woman that I knew to be an acinonyx, aka cheetah, shifter.

  "Are you telling me to leave?" Riot choked out, reaching into the center of the table and grabbing a pitcher of water and a cup. Slowly, he poured himself a glass as we all waited in silence and I gave Mik a please don't start shit sort of look. Riot and Fin were my problems. I was pretty damn positive I'd get chewed out later, but fuck it. My boss was constantly riding my ass.

  Oh.

  The thought of my boss actually riding my ass made my nipples pebble into hard points.

  If looks could kill, well, Mikhail would've burnt Riot to a crisp in that moment.

  "Long story short, the drug ‘dust’ is laced with something. We don't know what it is, but we do know who's supplying it." Mik licked his lips and then tossed a folder full of files onto the table. "Nix Locklear."