Feisty Heroines Romance Collection of Shorts

by D. F. Jones

  I shivered, and she pulled the sheet back over me, and when she began singing again, that invisible blue smoke filled the room, and the elves’ hisses turned to cries, and they were gone.

  When I first opened my eyes after my fever broke, she stood over me, glowing like some kind of angel.

  Or maybe one of the damned winter elves out hunting me tonight.

  A blue-white halo of light surrounded her, and I blinked to try to throw off sleep, to figure out where I was and who had me.

  It took me a long time to figure out what was going on. The longer I stared at her, though, the more that glow faded until I could see the woman beneath it.

  She was beautiful—not like a supermodel, but real. She had shiny, chestnut-colored hair that just brushed her shoulders, a small nose that turned up a little at the end, and blue eyes that looked right through me, all the way to my soul. At least, that’s how it felt once my vision resolved and I could meet her gaze with mine.

  I let her take my temperature with a thermometer after she touched my forehead with her cool, slim fingers.

  “Hot is an understatement,” she muttered, scowling at my forehead as if it were to blame. She frowned at me. “Do you know what your temperature usually is?”

  I ran a hand across my eyes. “101, 102 degrees? Something like that. Fever range for most people.” I glanced up at her to see how she was taking the whole kitsune thing.

  She frowned down at the digital thermometer in her hand after I’d held it in my mouth until it beeped. “Can you take Tylenol or ibuprofen? Anything to lower your fever?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never taken any kind of medicine before.” My head pounded, and I realized I was shivering. But I felt hot. I couldn’t decide whether to pull the covers up or push them off entirely.

  She chewed on her bottom lip with straight, white, even teeth, and even in my weakened, feverish state, I found the gesture endearing.

  Endearing? What the hell is wrong with me?

  Somehow, though, every move she made absolutely entranced me. I didn’t know if it was the fever causing my intense attraction…or something else.

  “What are you?” she asked, almost conversationally, as she turned to pick up a glass of water that she must have brought in with her—I certainly hadn’t seen it during my occasional lucid moments since she brought me in here, though I remembered drinking from a straw the night before.

  I struggled to sit up, and she rested her hand on my back, offering some combination of support and assistance.

  I took the water from her and drank it. When I handed it back to her, I simply said, “Thank you.”

  She waited for another moment to see if I answered her question, then said, “Let me see your leg.”

  I hesitated to show her. It was healed from shifting, but I knew it would take a couple more shifts before the bone was really strong again.

  Still, I owed my life to this woman, whoever she was, so I threw back the covers to let her see my left leg.

  Her gaze flickered across my midsection then focused on my leg. A delicate pink blush flowed up her face.

  Right. Human.

  Shifters didn’t have the same sense of modesty that humans did. We spent too much time in nature, and when we were shifting back and forth, clothes were a hindrance. A lot of shifters I knew wore them only for warmth when they were in their human shapes.

  “It’ll be completely better in a day or two,” I said, gesturing at my leg.

  “That’s amazing,” she murmured, peering intently at it. “I could have sworn it was broken.”

  “It was. But my shift in the night began the healing process. Your healing song helped further it.”

  “My healing song?” She seemed genuinely confused.

  “The one you sang last night as you nursed me?”

  The frown creasing her brow cleared. “Oh. That’s just an old lullaby my mother used to sing to me. She said her father sang it to her.”

  Was it possible this woman really believed she was fully human? I might not have come across her type before, but it was clear she had some sort of powers.

  And she doesn’t even know what she is.

  Chapter 8

  Mary

  “If you feel up to eating this morning, I’m about to cook some oatmeal for myself...” I paused, realizing I didn’t even know what to call him. “I’m Mary Kendrick, by the way.”

  As introductions went, it was a little awkward. After all, I’d seen him naked, nursed him through a fever—and although he didn’t know it, fallen asleep beside him for at least part of the night.

  He answered as if it were not at all strange, though. “Tristan Todd.”

  “I also have chicken soup, if you’d prefer?” I had some vague idea that foxes liked chicken. Or was that eggs?

  Am I being racist? Or species-ist, I guess.

  “Either is fine.” His deep voice was quiet, but it filled the room at the same time. I found it comforting.

  Which is also weird. You don’t know him, Mary. Don’t get too cozy.

  Speaking of not getting too comfortable, I needed to find that man some pants. Damn, he was gorgeous. I hadn’t meant to peek at all of him when he threw the covers back, but some things are worth catching a glimpse of—like, for example, the completely naked, muscular form of Tristan Todd. In my bed.

  Did I mention naked?

  Gorgeous didn’t begin to cover it.

  “Cover it,” I muttered aloud.

  “Excuse me?” Tristan frowned.

  My face flamed hot. I could only imagine how red I must be. I’d been living by myself too long and had gotten too used to talking to myself. “Just trying to remember where I put the lid to the soup pot.”

  What a stupid excuse. Get yourself together, Mary.

  I needed to quit thinking about him being naked in my bed. He was injured and in no shape to do any of the things my imagination insisted on showing me every time I blinked. Clothes. I needed to concentrate on getting some clothes on that man.

  Somewhere I had an old boyfriend’s sweatpants and T-shirt from back in my police academy days. I dug through the bottom drawer of the tall-boy dresser beside the bed until I found them.

  “Here you go,” I said, dropping the folded clothes on the bed next to him. “These should do until you’re….” My voice trailed off. Until he was what? “Better,” I finished lamely.

  At which point, I supposed, he would shift back to his fox shape and take off into the woods again.

  It was good for me to remember that he was not only just a visitor, but a non-human visitor. As pretty as he might be—and oh, lord, he was—he wouldn’t be in my cabin any longer than it took him to finish healing.

  I realized I’d been standing there staring at him as he sat up in bed and pulled on the T-shirt. He reached for the covers to throw them off, and I spun around.

  “I’ll be in the kitchen,” I announced in a slightly strangled voice. “You can come out to the living room once you’re dressed, if you want to.”

  I fled at the sound of him stepping out of bed, shutting the door behind me.

  It was ridiculous in some ways. I shouldn’t be afraid of my own fantasies. It’s not like he could read my mind.

  Could he?

  He’s not even human.

  I kept repeating that to myself over and over, ignoring the tiny voice in the back of my mind that kept responding with, I don’t care.

  When Tristan emerged from my bedroom, I was at the stove, cooking the oatmeal. It had taken me a long time to learn to cook in the high altitude. Everything took longer and required different ingredient proportions.

  But I’d finally figured it out, so I was at least able to do the basics. Which might be a really good thing, if the clouds rolling in were any indication. I’d need to check the weather after breakfast.

  I glanced back at Tristan, who was staring down at the Dallas Police Academy logo on the front of his shirt. “Are you some kind of cop?”

&n
bsp; “No—just a consultant. I basically work with various departments to help them streamline some of their processes. I’m a paper-pusher, not a cop.”

  He stared at me so intently with those golden eyes of his that it made me nervous. “But you used to be.”

  It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “Yeah.”

  He padded over to the loveseat and sat, easily taking up more than half the space. “So what made you quit?”

  “I got hit by a bullet at a crime scene that was supposed to be secured.”

  “Hit where?”

  I turned to face him and pointed to my left shoulder before going back to stirring the oatmeal with my wooden spoon. “It missed anything vital, but it scared me. And worse, I’d already been considering leaving the job when it happened.”

  “Why?”

  I spooned oatmeal into two heavy Fiestaware bowls and loaded them onto a tray with sugar and cream. “I realized that I had seen one too many crime scenes. That last one would have made me walk away even if I hadn’t gotten hit.”

  His voice was quiet as I set the tray down on the small coffee table in front of him. “Bad, huh?”

  I sat in the straight-back chair and handed Tristan his bowl, gesturing for him to help himself to the cream and sugar. “The worst. I couldn’t stand the thought of what people did to each other.” I laughed, but the sound was harsh and hollow. “Anyway, my recovery from the shooting gave me plenty of time to think about what I really wanted out of my life.”

  “That turned out to be a cabin up in the mountains, I guess?”

  “More or less. I got a phone call from an attorney here in Assumption who said he’d tracked me down as the only relative of William Kendrick, who’d died six months earlier.” My wave encompassed the cabin, the land, all of it around us. “I had inherited everything. Once I had the okay from my doctors, I headed up here, cleaned out this place—not that there was much here to begin with—and made it my home.”

  “And now you’re a police consultant.”

  “Online, mostly.” I pointed to the stairs leading up to my loft.

  We ate our oatmeal companionably, and as soon as he was done, I said, “Your turn.”

  “My turn?”

  “I told you almost my entire life. Now it’s your turn.” I gave him the smile I’d used with countless suspects, the one that said I’m your friend, you can trust me. “How did you end up in that trap in the woods?”

  Chapter 9

  Tristan

  Ah, hell. I was going to have to tell her everything, wasn’t I?

  Not that she had actually told me much more about herself than I could have discovered in a public data search. I didn’t trust that smile of hers, either—it was too predatory.

  She used to be a cop, I reminded myself. She’s used to questioning people and getting them to answer.

  Then again, she had also saved me in the woods after she had seen my shift. She hadn’t panicked. As far as I knew, she hadn’t turned me over to police or to scientists who might want to observe me. Or worse, dissect me. She hadn’t called the tabloids. She hadn’t even called the local sheriff.

  All of those things already made her more trustworthy than most people in the world.

  Now, with our empty oatmeal bowls stacked on the tray between us and her socked feet perched on the coffee table, her knees drawn up to her chest, she simply waited for me to consider her request, a quiet half-smile on her face.

  I realized, to my surprise, that I wanted to tell her everything.

  I inhaled deeply and blew the breath back out in preparation for breaking one of the most sacred rules of my clan. We did not reveal ourselves to humans.

  She’s not fully human.

  I realized that was a justification, especially since I was certain she considered herself completely human.

  But that would be my answer if I was ever questioned about this moment: I had revealed us to another supernatural.

  “I’m a kitsune.”

  She tilted her head and frowned. “A what?”

  I shrugged. “Basically a fox-shifter.”

  “A fox-shifter who decided to go for a run and got caught in a bear trap?”

  I winced. “Not exactly.”

  “I didn’t think so.” She crossed her arms over her chest, leaned back in her chair, and waited for me to start talking.

  “My clan—my family, really—is in danger.” I paused, trying to think of how to describe the convoluted connections of the arcane world I lived in. In the end, I just dove right in. “There is a fae queen named Maeve who currently leads the Winter Court.”

  She watched me, her eyebrows raised. But I couldn’t tell if she believed me.

  “The thing about this Winter Queen that’s different from all the ones who came before her is that she has been able to figure out how to use her magic to pull power from different supernaturals. Last I heard, she’d all but killed off the brownies. And my species, the kitsune, are some of her favorite. She started hunting us down to be used like batteries.”

  “And that’s why she was chasing you?”

  “Why her warriors were, anyway.”

  “What would happen if they catch you?”

  “They would take me to their queen. I would be put in a dungeon, probably tortured for a while. When the time came, I would be drained of all magic.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Ultimately, it means we die.”

  But not before we existed—I couldn’t say it was living—for some time without our powers, including the ability to shapeshift. I wasn’t sure which I hated most, losing that power, or dying.

  At least dying would put an end to suffering.

  “So what brought you into my woods tonight?”

  “I didn’t actually have a clear idea of where I was. I left home—the enclave where I live with my clan—and set out to create a false trail for Maeve’s warriors. My plan was to lead them in the wrong direction, and then double back and go home. But it hasn’t worked that way. They have been within minutes of catching me repeatedly on this hellish chase. I missed seeing the trap, and you know the rest.”

  She considered my story for a long time, staring out the front window at the fat, white snowflakes beginning to fall, before she finally asked, “Why didn’t they follow you here?”

  I, too, watch the swirling snowflakes outside as they begin to fall faster and faster.

  “I think they did.”

  Chapter 10

  Mary

  At Tristan’s words, I whipped around from staring out the window to gaze at him with wide eyes. “They did?”

  He nodded. “I heard them last night. But they weren’t able to get very close to the cabin.”

  I considered his words. “You had a pretty high fever for most of the night. Are you positive what you heard was really what was happening?”

  “No. Mostly sure, though.”

  I hadn’t actually bothered to check the weather yet, but I needed to. I picked up my phone and pulled up the weather forecast.

  Yep. As I suspected.

  “This is supposed to blow up into a big storm today.” I gestured at the falling snow outside the window. “Do we need to leave the cabin, go somewhere safer?”

  “I don’t think there is anywhere safer.” Tapping one forefinger on his thigh, he regarded me for a second. “But if you’re anxious, I could leave.”

  “No.” I answered without thinking.

  Why did I say that? Every reasonable part of me was shouting that I should get him out of my home and keep myself safe. But the rest of me—including, apparently, most of my body—was screaming to keep him near me. “If you’re safer here, too, then you should stay.”

  “I would appreciate that.”

  “Then it’s settled.” Because I’m an idiot with more hormones than good sense.

  Well, if things got really scary, I could always kick him out.

  Not that I would.

  He stretched his inj
ured leg out in front of him. “I need to shift and get some exercise in, preferably before the storm gets too bad to go outside.”

  “Will it be safe outside?”

  The glance he gave me made my insides twist up, it was so heated. I didn’t know why he was looking at me like that—and that part made me nervous. But all he said was, “I don’t think the fae can approach the house itself.”

  His comment distracted me from my anxiety about his glance for a moment. “Why not?”

  “I’m still trying to figure that out. I’d like to sniff it out a bit more before I discuss any of my theories.”

  “Of course.” I waved my hand toward the front door. “You are welcome here in the cabin and on any of my land. Just try to stay safe.”

  His half-frown melted into a brilliant smile, sending a shiver straight through to my belly. “Thanks.”

  What was going on with me? I’d met plenty of gorgeous men in my life, and none of them had ever affected me like this one. Damn.

  I pushed my reaction aside for now. “Feel free to use my room to...change? Shift? Do whatever you need to do. If you need privacy, that is. I mean, if you want to.” I was babbling, and I could feel my face growing hotter by the second.

  His smile relaxed into a grin. “That’s fine. I’ll shift in there—if you’ll promise to open the door for me to go outside when I’m done.”

  “Cross my heart.” I made the gesture and he gave a little two-fingered wave as he headed into the bedroom.

  He disappeared into my bedroom, and I shook my head at myself as I cleared away the breakfast dishes from the coffee table.

  Yes, he was gorgeous.

  Yes, he was exotic.

  In fact, there was pretty much no one more exotic than a shapeshifter.

  And that was exactly why it was utterly insane for me to be working so hard on a crush on someone I had only just met. Someone who was vastly different from me. Someone whose world should never have intersected mine. It was sheer happenstance that we’d met at all.