by J. L. Weil
My shoulders relaxed, and a hint of a smile curled on my lips. “Ain’t that the truth.” I glanced at Jesse, who still looked as if he wanted to do Devyn bodily harm.
“If that’s what you say happened, but if I find out you lied to me…” He let the unspoken threat dangle in the air between the four of us.
“When have I ever lied to you?” The words felt like acid in my mouth. I wanted to go to bed, turn back time, and restart this entire day. Lying to Hannah and Jesse tore at my guts.
“You’ve changed,” Jesse said, pain in his eyes, like twisting a knife in my back.
“Change isn’t always bad,” Devyn added, stepping closer to me and sending a message to Jesse.
“We’ll see,” Jesse said, folding his arms.
“Sit still,” Devyn ordered, dabbing a cotton ball of antiseptic onto the cut on my cheek. He sat next to me on my bed.
I tried to smile and winced. Any form of face movement was a no-go. “It isn’t fair. You heal in, like, minutes.”
“This may sting a bit,” he informed after the fact.
“You think?” I snapped dryly. “This is utterly pointless. I should have shifted.”
Devyn rolled his eyes. “That’s what I said, but you wouldn’t listen. It’s just a little cut, you said,” he mocked, raising his voice to unnatural octaves.
It was true that I had shut down his suggestion that I shift. Hannah and Jesse had seen the damage to my face. I couldn’t very well show up the next day looking good as new. They were already suspicious, and the last thing I needed was to give them a reason to mistrust me. My lips started to twitch again, and I caught my lower lip in my teeth to avoid another round of pain. “Don’t make me laugh.”
“I like the sound. You haven’t laughed enough since I came here.”
My eyes traveled over the black T-shirt he wore, and how it stretched over his broad shoulders. There was probably blood on the material. “Yeah, well, my life the last few months hasn’t exactly been cheery.”
His eyes snagged and held mine. “I used to hear your laugh in my dreams.”
Those words wrapped around me like a warm blanket. “Really? It’s so weird you know so much about me, and I know next to nothing about you.”
“What do you want to know? We’ll see how much we can cram in before you pass out on me from exhaustion.”
“Everything.”
His smile traveled up to his eyes. “Good thing we have the entire summer. Everything might take months.” The pad of his thumb softly brushed over my bruised cheek, skimming under the cut. “What are you going to tell your parents about this?”
I shrugged. “Same as I told Jesse and Hannah. I need to keep my story straight.”
“Your mom won’t buy it.”
“No, she won’t.” I pressed a kiss to his lips, unable to help myself. “Thanks for what you did back there. For risking your life for me. For taking more than one punch for me.”
He gently blew on my cut, drying the disinfectant. “Anytime, Kitten. There’s nothing in the world I’d rather be doing than being here with you.”
Damn. He was good. Way too good with words. I rested my head on the pillow. “Will it never end? The constant threats on my life?”
“Not as long as you breathe.”
I sighed, a heavy weight settling in my chest. “I can’t stay here, Devyn. What happened today, made me realize I’ve been living in denial, thinking I could go on pretending everything is fine. This double life is only doing more harm than good. It isn’t safe for me to be here, and I’m only putting everyone I care about in danger. How long will we be able to fight them off?”
He rubbed his hands up and down my arms, leaving behind little tingles. “Whoa, slow down. I get you’re scared and worried. But tonight was a win.”
I snorted. “I still have no idea how I got the second tail.”
“You’re serious about this?”
I nodded. “I am. My parents think I’m going away to college. There’s no reason they shouldn’t continue to believe I am. And Jesse, Hannah, and I had been talking about taking a trip overseas, one last hoo-raw before college.” It had been something we’d planned since junior high. I was the crappiest friend on the planet because I was going to ditch them this summer, but I had to.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do. You know it. I’m not backing out. I’m jumping in, full throttle. We’re doing this shit.”
“I know of a place we can go. We might be able to buy ourselves some time, putting distance between Seaside Heights and us. They know where you are now.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” And he was just the guy I trusted to be able to provide us an escape and make us disappear.
I felt like crying. It seemed to be the most prominent emotion these days. I was a mess. My life was a mess. And I was about to make it messier. The knot that had formed in my throat expanded.
By some small miracle, I had managed to achieve my second tail, but I was far from ready to save a world. The origin behind my tails still remained a mystery.
I graduated in a few weeks. Leaving home would be the hardest thing I’d ever done, especially with Mom so sick, but I didn’t have a choice. If embarking on this journey to save Katsura would save Mom I had to try, regardless of how much it hurt to leave. An entire world was counting on me. Mom was counting on me. Devyn was counting on me.
Failure was not an option.
“You’re going to be okay,” Devyn whispered, sensing I needed to hear it, because I did. The Shaman would know that. He stretched out his arm, draping it around my shoulders, and pulled me to him.
Tears burned in my eyes. “I will be, because I have you,” I croaked out, pressing my face into his shirt, not caring I was probably smashing my face into caked bloodstains.
It was going to be a long, bumpy road ahead, but nothing was going to prevent me from getting there. Talin and Ryker wouldn’t stop coming for me. I had seven more tails to go, or all would be for nothing.
I was a Kitsune. I wasn’t the same Karina from a few months ago. Everything was different now. The world. Me.
But I wasn’t alone.
Ready for the next part of Karina & Devyn’s story?
Grab your next Devyn fix in FLAME SHIFT the third book in the Nine Tails Series!
Coming March 29, 2018, Click here to preorder
Here’s a preview of the cover (you may need to turn to the next page for it to be visible):
Can’t wait to meet you back in Seaside Heights!
Thank you for reading.
xoxo
Jennifer
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Read more by J. L. Weil
THE DIVISA SERIES
(Full series completed – Teen Paranormal Romance)
Losing Emma: A Divisa novella
Saving Angel
Hunting Angel
Breaking Emma: A Divisa novella
Chasing Angel
Loving Angel
Redeeming Angel
LUMINESCENCE TRILOGY
(Full series completed – Teen Paranormal Romance)
Luminescence
Amethyst Tears
Moondust
Darkmist – A Luminescence novella
RAVEN SERIES
(Full series completed – Teen Paranormal Romance)
White Raven
Black Crow
Soul Symmetry
BEAUTY NEVER DIES CHRONICLES
(Teen Dystopian Romance)
Slumber
Entangled
Forsaken
NINE TAILS SERIES
(Teen Paranormal Romance)
First Shift
Storm Shift
Flame Shift
Time Shift
SINGLE NOVELS
Starbound
(Teen Paranormal Romance)
Dark Souls
(Runes KindleWorld Novella)
Casting Dreams
(New Adult Paranormal Romance
Ancient Tides
(New Adult Paranormal Romance
For an updated list of my books, please visit my website: www.jlweil.com
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About the Author
USA TODAY bestselling author J. L. Weil lives in Illinois where she writes teen and new adult paranormal romances about spunky, smart-mouthed girls who always wind up in dire situations. For every sassy girl, there is an equally mouthwatering, overprotective guy. Of course, there is also lots of kissing. And stuff.
An admitted addict to Love Pink clothes, raspberry mochas from Starbucks, and Jensen Ackles, she loves gushing about books and Supernatural with her readers.
She is the author of the international bestselling Raven and Divisa series.
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