She told the story as simply as she was able. “Masao had come to the country for an autumn-foliage viewing party. He was there with a lover, and several times I hid in fox form, spying on the two men making love in the garden. They were both handsome, and at first I’d thought to see if I could seduce the pair of them, but I soon realized the older one, Hiro, was a sorcerer. They mistrust my kind—we’re too playful for those stuffy, studious types—and he’d never let me get that close.” Tag smiled knowingly at that, but she continued. “I’d never heard words of love between them, though, so I thought they were simply amusing themselves. It was a fad in those days for young men of the upper classes to experiment with each other, but it was generally friends sharing some uncomplicated pleasure, not a romance. Thinking that was all there was between them, I went to Masao in secret and seduced him.
“I meant only a bit of fun. I certainly didn’t mean to hurt anyone, and in any case, Masao claimed they were merely pillow-friends, that Hiro didn’t wish to commit beyond the pleasure of the body. But I must have used too much glamour. He fell in love and wished to marry me. He was so besotted that he thought Hiro would be charmed by me as well and insisted we meet. Instead, Hiro exposed me as a kitsune. They had a terrible fight. It turned out Hiro loved Masao after all, but was too proper to say it. And Masao loved Hiro and felt rejected by his sorcerer’s aloofness, and that was why he’d been so easy to seduce. That seems like the kind of mistake you might forgive someone for, especially someone so young. Masao was only nineteen. Hiro was older and much more experienced. Wouldn’t you…what’s the American phrase?…cut your lover some slack under those circumstances?”
“Yes, but sorcerers,” Paul said dryly, “aren’t known for being forgiving, and their power increases when they’re angry. There’s a big glassy area in Siberia that prove it, even if normies think a comet caused it.”
Akane shuddered. “That sounds like Hiro. It was…” she took a deep breath, forcing herself to focus on the serene image of a blue lake with snow-topped mountains in the distance, rather than on memories of that terrible evening, “…awful. Terrifying, even for me with all my powers intact. I’ve seen humans behaving terribly to each other, but I’ve rarely seen such concentrated rage. I wanted to flee, but I was afraid for Masao, and I thought I might be strong enough to protect him if I needed to. My mistake. Hiro didn’t try to hurt Masao except with words, but words have power even when they’re not wielded by a furious sorcerer. In the end, Masao renounced the world and became a monk. And Hiro cursed me.”
“In a way he thought would be unbreakable,” Paul said. “There are no male kitsune, and no fox duals in Asia. That man meant you to stay cursed, but a curse spell will only work if there’s some chance, however slim, it can be broken by the victim’s efforts. He must have been very powerful to make a curse stick on a being like you, though, and very angry, with a lot of dark energy to draw on.”
“I think we’re her chance, Paul.” Tag’s accent seemed especially thick. “It’s healing, darlin’, and I know y’all will bend some rules to pull off major healing. It may be the only way this poor kitsune can get her rightful body back. A lady fox needs her ears and tail.”
“Tails,” she said. “I had three.”
“Three?” Tag raised an eyebrow. “So I didn’t imagine that. Do all kitsune have three tails?”
Anxious as she was, Akane smiled at how familiar Tag’s curiosity seemed. A fox-natured person couldn’t resist delving into anything out of the ordinary, even if it wasn’t the best time. “It’s a sign of rank among my people. Three tails indicate I am of the middle rank—neither the youngest and lowliest nor the oldest and cleverest, but showing promise. Unless the gods decided to revoke one for ruining the life of a perfectly decent young human. Not to mention the sorcerer. I wronged him badly.”
“Not badly enough to deserve what he did to you,” Tag said gently. “Sure, you messed things up between him and his man, and that was bad, but you’re not mortal. You can’t be expected to understand everything about mortal relationships, especially ones where the mortals themselves don’t know what they want. Hiro should have told Masao he loved him. Instead Masao was hurt and used you to get back at his lover. That never ends well, even if no one involved has über-powers that get stronger if they’re pissed. And when things went wrong they should have tried to work things out before throwing curses and joining monasteries and all that emo crap.”
Paul chuckled at that.
After a few seconds, and to her own surprise, so did Akane. Guilt didn’t come naturally to her trickster heart, but she’d carried it for two hundred years. It had never occurred to her to question that the debacle had been entirely her fault and that Hiro had been in the right. Tag’s perspective, the perspective of a fellow fox, released a burden as heavy and rank as the mortal form that imprisoned her. She’d made a bad mistake, certainly, but neither Masao nor Hiro were blameless in what had happened.
In that case, trying to lift the curse with these two men wouldn’t get her into more trouble with the universe. It might not work because in the end they’d decide not to risk their own hearts. It might not work because it wasn’t the right magical solution after all. But at least they were all being straightforward with each other. Since being straightforward didn’t exactly come naturally to one of her nature, maybe the gods would look with favor upon a kitsune who’d learned that the best trick was sometimes not tricking someone.
Still laughing, she bowed her head, first to Paul and then to Tag. “I said I would submit myself to whatever was required to break this curse, and so I will. If the best solution is to try the magic with another partner, so be it. I trust you will choose someone suitable. But my heart tells me you are the ones most likely to lift the curse.”
Paul shook his head. “That’s the complication, Akane. My heart tells me the same thing, even if my head and all I’ve been taught tells me otherwise.”
“You think too much. You all think too much, you witches. For people who talk about heart, you use your heads way too much.” Tag kissed Paul.
Then he leaned forward and brushed Akane’s lips.
A small flame burst into life in her belly from that simple caress.
Inari, he and Paul were definitely the ones who could free her.
But would they see it?
Chapter Six
“You can’t mean that—that we should throw everything we have away and fuck Akane just like that.” Paul snapped his fingers.
The orchid in the corner of the living room dropped its buds, withering from Paul’s anger. “Now look what you made me do.”
“Looks like you did it yourself, Paul. You know I can’t do that shit.” In contrast to Paul’s pacing, Tag sprawled on the sofa. He looked deceptively relaxed and lazy.
Paul knew better. Tag’s eyes had shifted to fox’s eyes, and his stillness was that of a wild creature, watching. He waited with uncharacteristic patience for Paul to calm down.
“Go fix the poor orchid, darlin.’ You’ll feel better once you do.” Tag’s voice was soft and unusually honeyed, which meant he was trying not to shout. “I love you, even when you’re being all stubborn.”
Powers, sometimes Tag knew him way too well. And Tag might not “do magic”, but his ability to manipulate a situation through charm qualified as magic in its own right.
Paul strode over to the drooping plant. He closed his eyes, said a quick prayer to calm himself, and reached for the green pulses of power that, even after Mabon and well into autumn, lingered in the evergreen forests on the estate. “I’m sorry for my anger,” he thought, to the plant and by extension, to Tag. “Be whole.”
He grabbed a strand of green power and stroked it over the plant’s shocked leaves until they perked up.
If only it were that easy to clear the air between Tag and him. Too much tension. Good thing he wasn’t a sorcerer or he might have blown something up on a far grander scale than wilting an orchid that was delicate at the best
of times.
“Powers! Why was I born a Donovan? Grandma Josie must be laughing on the Otherside. She always said the Donovan rules stopped as much good magic as they supported.”
“Yeah, she’s probably laughin’ her ass off.” Tag sprang to his feet and crossed the room, standing close enough Paul could sense the annoyed pulses of his aura, but not close enough to touch. “I know there’s this whole tradition, and I know it’s important to you. But we’ve gone back and forth a dozen times and we can’t think of any combination of a male witch who’s powerful enough to break such a strong, weird curse and a fox who’d be able to work with him on short notice.”
“I’d swear the sorcerer was thinking of us when he came up with the curse,” Paul conceded. If Akane fancied women, he could think of half a dozen single, female cousins who’d be glad for an excuse to jump a lovely woman and one of Tag’s charming brothers at the same time. The Donovan women tended to be more powerful red witches than the men, with Paul as a notable exception. Then again, if Akane fancied women, she could have found another kitsune and solved her problem two centuries ago. “But it goes against everything I know as right. No Donovan has ever done something so crazy and gotten away with it.”
“Except for Elissa.” Tag shrugged eloquently, leaving Paul to fill in all the details about how many outrageous and supposedly impossible things Paul’s younger and purportedly magically weaker cousin had done with the help of her two husbands. “And speaking of people laughin’ on the Otherside, don’t you think that Hiro character is crackin’ up over us? Akane’s finally found folks who can free her, and they’re arguin’ with each other about rules instead. What sorcerer wouldn’t think that was the funniest thing ever?” As usual when he was in grip of emotion, Tag’s accent got stronger.
“But the rule about monogamy makes sense. Our magic grows from hearth, home and heart, and if you’re cheating…”
Tag cut him off. “Cheating makes everything dirty, so of course it would dirty your magic. But darlin’,” Tag said, his honey voice straining to remain patient, “if that’s the worry, it doesn’t apply. If we’re both playing with the other person, then it’s not cheating. It’s another way of being together.”
Now Tag did come close enough to touch, wrapping his arms around Paul from behind and leaning his red head against Paul’s back. Paul let down his shields a little—he’d pumped them up when they started fighting—to feel waves of love and trust pouring off Tag. “I’m not throwing anything away, you idiot,” Tag said. “You and I are forever. I love you and nothing’s ever going to change that.”
“I know. I know you love me. I know we’re forever. And I know you weren’t raised to be monogamous, so I must sound like a pompous ass. But it scares me to change.” Paul let his aura embrace them both. Lord and Lady, Tag felt so right against him. Any contact with him, even in the middle of a disagreement, made Paul’s whole world brighter.
Made his cock twitchy too. This was a comforting hug, but it was easy to imagine Tag behind him for another reason, pushing him against the wall, fucking him until all resistance broke.
Paul shook himself. Nice thought, bad timing. If he let himself be distracted, they’d never find a solution.
Tag pressed his hips forward, making the hug a little less comforting, a little more suggestive. Sometimes the silver cord that bound them and gave them some ability to read each other’s thoughts was wonderful, but sometimes it was damn inconvenient.
Paul did his best to ignore the tempting hardness. “I couldn’t live with myself if we do this and it screws things up between us.”
“I respect you for worryin’ about that, but it won’t.” Tag pulled away, leaving Paul half relieved, half frustrated. Then he moved in front of Paul. Shorter than his husband, Tag could still loom when he needed to. “And I don’t think either of us can live with ourselves if we don’t help out someone who needs us like Akane does. That goes against everything we were both taught, things a lot more basic than your rules for married people. When someone’s in trouble, you help—and that girl’s in trouble.”
Okay, score one for his husband. Neither a Donovan nor a Southern gentleman, even a roguish one, could say no to rescuing a damsel in distress. Paul couldn’t help smiling, though, at the way Tag phrased it. “That ‘girl’ is older than English, Tag, and more powerful than any four Donovans in her natural form. Just because she’s petite and sexy and adorable…”
“Ha! You said it first!”
“You probably thought it first.”
Tag’s chuckle in response was very close to a chuff. “I’d bet we thought it about the same time. She’s thirty-one flavors of hot. But we’d still need to help her if she had a face like roadkill and a body to match. The fact it might be fun in her case as well as the right thing to do”—he scratched where his fox ears lived under the skin—“probably makes you feel guilty, don’t it?”
“You know me too well.” Paul took his husband in his arms. “I see all the signs pointing our way, screaming this is the path we’re supposed to take. But my cock’s chiming in so loudly with its two cents I can’t trust my own judgment. I want it too badly. It’s the answer to so many fantasies I figured we’d never be able to fulfill. How can I know if the magic’s steering me or my lust?”
“Why not both? Worked for us, after all. Neither of us was thinking about magic when we hooked up, but I still augment your powers.”
Tag stretched slightly to kiss him, pressing his hard body against Paul’s. His tongue darted between Paul’s lips, still open to talk more, and did something clever to the roof of Paul’s mouth.
Any arguments Paul had evaporated.
“Come to bed,” Tag said when they came up for air. “I’m going to make you stop thinking so damn much.”
Chapter Seven
“Undress and bend over. Hands on the bed. You know how I like it when I get like this.” Tag’s voice was abrupt and thick with lust. His clothes were already flying off, sweater one way, socks the other.
The hair on his chest shaded from russet to white in a fox-like vee near his throat, a clear indication of his mood. Tag’s animalside, while it would mostly remain beneath the surface of his skin, wanted to assert its feelings for Paul too.
When he did that, he played hard and rough, leaving bites and scratches on Paul’s skin, growling and howling and yipping, mixing words of fierce possession with those of love.
Paul’s groin tightened.
Formal games of dominance and submission didn’t work for him. He’d tried a few times in his single days, but he started laughing if titles and protocol got involved and worried too much about contaminating his red magic to enjoy BDSM other than the mildest playful spankings or light bondage. Good old-fashioned rough sex, though, was another story altogether—no games or toys, only Tag riding him hard and relentlessly until they were both spent.
Undressing as quickly as he could manage, Paul checked to see if his hands shook with need. They felt as though they ought to be. They weren’t—he had that much self-control left—but ripples of nervous energy twitched throughout his body, zinging from his cock to his heart and brain and soul and back again.
As a witch, Paul could analyze those subtle movements of desire, channel them to do his bidding.
Tag wasn’t going to give him time to think that much.
Naked, Paul took the position Tag had instructed. He craned his head to watch Tag, naked himself, strut across the bedroom.
They’d been together for eight years now, but the lines of Tag’s body, the play of muscle under his skin, the slant of his cheekbones and the jaunty angle of his erect cock, still affected Paul as much they had when they were first together. No, they affected him more because of the history they shared.
“You are so hot,” Paul whispered fiercely. “I love the way you walk. Love seeing the fox under your skin. Love everything about you. And I feel your love in everything you say and do. I can’t help being scared about Akane, but I know it�
�s stupid when your love surrounds me like a second skin.”
“I love the way you talk,” Tag said, honey and bourbon mingling in his voice, “but you do it way too much. Go beyond words with me.” Tag pressed in behind him, grabbed a thick handful of his dark hair, and yanked him upright long enough to draw him into a sinfully devouring kiss.
The force, the suggestion of capture, might have frozen Paul out from another man, but this was Tag, Tag whom he loved and trusted beyond all others.
“Remember?” Tag asked, and didn’t wait for Paul's answer, capturing his mouth again instead, holding him fast with his strength and lust so Paul couldn’t have resisted if he’d wanted to.
Paul knew exactly what he meant, though. This was how foxes mated.
Shortly after they got involved, Tag had taken him into the forest in winter, not explaining why until they found the vixen and dog-fox mating under the full moon.
Paul had been uncomfortable at first, wondering if Tag expected him to be aroused by the foxes, wondering if maybe he would be, since he’d fallen so hard for a fox dual. But soon he forgot to think and worry and was simply captivated by the chance to observe the beautiful animals. The wild, unearthly cries the vixen used to lure prospective partners, the brutally forthright fierceness of the mating interspersed with playfulness, the way the vixen pretended to resist and then just as obviously pretended to submit to get them what they both wanted had moved him, not erotically, but spiritually and intellectually.
When it was over, when the foxes had separated and trotted off, together now though they’d come to the clearing separately, Tag had turned to him and whispered, “Remember, some of that’s in my nature. I look human, and I can act human, and I love you, but I’m not human. Sometimes it’s going to show. Even in bed. Maybe especially in bed.”
Paul’s cock had strained against the fly of his jeans.
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