Jack Addison vs. a Whole World of Hot Trouble - The Complete Series

by K. A. Merikan

  “You love another,” the creature growled, his face becoming more vulpine as it contorted in a sneer. “He’s marked by another!”

  All eight heads lifted, eyes pointing at him like daggers. “Another?”

  “Another?” Jack uttered, sitting up, his vision hazy at the edges as the nine handsome men focused on him like harpies. Their eyes shone in the dusky light, faces narrow, with pointy noses.

  “Someone has marked you. You’re of no use to us!” Adam hissed and pushed Jack back to the pillows, but instead of soft down, his naked back met a pile of snow.

  There was nothing around him but endless white, all the way to a distant line of trees. No foxy boys, no castle, and his stomach rumbled as if he hadn’t had any food at all. He sat butt-naked in the snow, shivering already.

  A wolf howled in the distance.

  Chapter 4

  There was no color to the landscape. No means of recognizing where Krasnoyarsk was. Jack could see no lights, and heard nothing but the wind howling as it clashed with his bare skin. The hardened snow had started melting around Jack’s feet already, creating a layer of cold so painful he let out a moan, helplessly stepping in one direction, then another as his brain slowly got back to normal. Even his eyeballs felt as if they were about to freeze.

  Once the intoxication-like haze dispersed, he was left with nothing to protect him from the adverse weather, and with a growing sense of despair, because he was positive he’d die here and nobody would even find his body. By the time spring came, his flesh would have been devoured by hungry animals, leaving only bone and no identification.

  He’d be lost forever, before leaving his mark on the world.

  And he couldn’t have that. He was an Addison, the son of a resourceful and resilient family. He had too much to lose to simply give up. He briefly toyed with an idea taken from a fantastical play he’d watched with Drake in London. Its main characters were stuck on an arctic moon and survived by burrowing inside a dead animal, but with no animals in sight, he quickly gave up on that plan and decided to make use of the one resource there was plenty of.

  Snow.

  Didn’t inhabitants of remote areas in the northern hemisphere use it for making shelter? What an ingenious idea in such harsh climate!

  With his feet already numb, he wasn’t keen on giving his hands the same treatment, but at this rate all his extremities were at risk of falling off, so he pushed his fingers into the snow. It was hard like a meringue with too much sugar, and getting through the crust was so painful that, by the time Jack attempted to form the snow into a block, he uttered a sob of helplessness. Despite the cold, he was feeling oddly warm inside, and that could mean only one thing. He was surely dying.

  The snort of a horse made him turn around frantically. He thought it was only a hallucination at first, but when the same noise could be heard again, he waved his hands in the air, even though the snowstorm confused him to the point where he wasn’t certain where the sound had come from. “Help! Over here!”

  A dark sleigh emerged from the blizzard, and Jack was so desperate to get closer he forced his aching limbs to move.

  He couldn’t even feel his toes at this point, but the will to live propelled him forward, and he screamed out, heated by sheer desperation. “I’m lost! Please!”

  “Jack!” Roux’s familiar voice cut through the roaring wind. Jack was so happy to hear him he could’ve cried. “I’m coming!”

  Roux’s whip swished through the air, forcing the horse to run faster. When the sleigh finally reached Jack, his teeth rattled so hard he couldn’t speak, but the warm fur Roux wrapped around his shoulders brought relief.

  Roux pulled him into the seat and started rubbing his arms, with the most caring and desperate expression on his face. Jack had a strange flashback to the time they’d first met and he couldn’t yet understand the expressions or the body language of a chat. Now he could read every little twitch of Roux’s whiskers, and he longed for their touch on his cheek.

  The few minutes spent in the freezing cold had left a toll on Jack, but the heat of Roux’s body, the fast massage, and layers of coverings made him feel more secure, even though his teeth still clattered. “You’re here, right? This isn’t another illusion?” Jack demanded, clutching Roux’s wrist.

  Roux urged the horse to move through the snow, but dove deeper under the covers. This time, his ears flattened and he wouldn’t look into Jack’s eyes. “Yes, I’m here. I always am.”

  “Thank you… I thought I’d die. I thought—” Jack buried his face in Roux’s neck and whimpered, absorbing the high heat of the chat’s body. His thoughts were still chaotic, but the fact that despite their argument earlier, Roux had chosen to come back for him was already warming him inside out.

  Roux sighed as deeply as if the weight of the whole world were on his shoulders, but he didn’t avoid Jack’s touch. Once they reached the road, Jack spotted the blurry lights of Krasnoyarsk ahead.

  “Adam… he… had these eight guys there, but it had to be an illusion, and they all had fox bodies, and pulled me into—”

  Roux snapped at him. “I don’t want to hear it!”

  Jack blinked. “What? Why? That venator they found frozen to death? The miners claiming to see things that can’t be there… Adam must be the creature we’re looking for!”

  Roux grumbled, but his arm felt firm against Jack’s back. “That venator hadn’t been fucked to death.”

  This time, heat was definitely back, at least in Jack’s face. “They said something strange. They left me when they smelled someone else on me. Told me I was marked,” he said loudly, so Roux could hear him despite the wind.

  Roux shrugged and when he looked away, a snowflake dropped onto his nose in the cutest way. It stayed there for a second before melting. He rubbed his eye and sniffed. “Who would have done that?”

  “That’s what I’m asking, Roux,” Jack said, swallowing as he pushed even closer. “I can only think of one person who’d touched me recently. Why would you do that when you’re making it so clear just how much you don’t want me?”

  Roux’s breathing got faster, and he hid his face in his hands. “Because I’m in love with you, idiot!”

  Even the snow blown into Jack’s face couldn’t have cooled the heat of his skin. His heart swelled, and he squeezed Roux’s hand harder. “I’m the idiot? You rejected me! You told me it’s not gonna happen!”

  “Because all you want to do is go around screwing other creatures!” The complaint sounded like a mewl, and when Roux looked at him, fur damper by the minute, his big green eyes were tearing up. “I will not be another notch on your bedpost!”

  For fuck’s sake.

  “But you’re not. I’ve been chasing after you for how many years now? Three? What do you expect me to do? Stay chaste in hope you might one day invite me to your bed after saying no every single time I tried flirting?” Yet despite his annoyance, Jack’s heart wouldn’t stop beating fast as he replayed the word love in his head.

  “I… I find it hard to trust.” Roux leaned into Jack under the cover of furs, and Jack couldn’t help but accept him for much more than his warmth.

  He tightened his hold around Roux and rubbed his face against the furry cheek, which was now damp from the snow. His heart beat faster by the second as the meaning behind their conversation sank deeper into his flesh.

  “But you have to. If you want to be with me, you’ll need to trust me.”

  Roux rubbed his fuzzy ear with a whine. “I had this human boyfriend when I was at the Academy, and I was in love with him, and we had sex all the time, even wilder when I was in heat, but then it turned out he was telling all his friends about how things are ‘with a chat’, as if he didn’t even see me as a person with feelings. I was so ashamed he told everyone about our intimacy, as if I was some novelty. No one ever wants me for me.”

  Jack pushed his hand from under the furs to pet Roux’s head. He couldn’t imagine anyone treating Roux as only a novelty.
He wasn’t just an exotic beauty. He was fierce, brave, smart, and loyal, despite his difficult personality. But maybe the other creatures Jack had fucked just for the sake of it had other qualities, too. Maybe he just hadn’t seen them? Maybe he never got close enough to learn all there was to know about them?

  Was he a bad person?

  “That’s not true,” he said softly.

  Roux pressed into Jack’s embrace, leaving no room for the chilling wind. “I can’t go through that again, I just can’t. I’m stupid to fall for men like you, but I can’t help it. I can see you want all this adventure with other creatures, and that wouldn’t work for me.”

  Jack exhaled, hugging Roux even more tightly. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. But you know how much I enjoy your company. You make me open up, and we might be so different, but we understand one another. I feel like nobody gets me the way you do,” he whispered.

  Roux purred and pressed his forehead under Jack’s chin. It didn’t even matter that he was wet. Soon enough, Jack would take him to the inn, they’d warm by the fire and finally clear up all the misunderstandings.

  Roux was in love with him. How amazing, how undeserved, how unimagined. Jack kissed the cold ear as they drove through the outskirts of Krasnoyarsk.

  “Are you telling me you won’t miss tentacles and centaur cocks?”

  Jack could’ve cried with joy. He squeezed Roux and kissed the wet fur. So he was impulsive, and he liked novelty, but Roux’s presence affected him in a way no one else’s did. “I’m more interested in those nubs you have,” he whispered.

  Roux snorted but pulled Jack closer. “You’re lucky they’re not hooks after all.” He licked Jack’s cheek, sending hot shivers down his body.

  Jack couldn’t wait any longer. He trailed gentle kisses along Roux’s jaw and finally licked the front of his mouth, practically melting into the warmth of his body. Roux was a challenge, but that also meant Jack would never get bored of being around him. “Only your words can hurt me.”

  The horse knew exactly where to take them, so Jack focused on Roux and the things they’d do once safely tucked under covers. If Jack’s kitty needed safety and reassurance to trust, Jack would happily spend his life making sure Roux got it from him.

  The touch of warm pads against his chest made him want to turn around into the snowstorm so that they wouldn’t have to face getting out and walking into the inn. He wanted Roux now.

  “I take it, you’ll warm me up once we’re in our room?” Jack asked, nuzzling Roux’s cute little nose.

  The shy smile he got in return didn’t fool Jack. He’d seen Roux writhe and ask for cock. Jack had a sexpot on his hands and wouldn’t be letting go of it until they were both sticky.

  Their horse stopped in front of the inn, but they didn’t get to just hurry upstairs and dive into bed.

  “Jack Addison and Roux Chat-Bonnes?” boomed a heavily-accented voice.

  Jack groaned, peeking from under the furs when he saw two men staring at him. Both wore similar outfits, which instantly designated them as outsiders. Instead of donning furs, like the locals did, they wore jackets layered under thick cloaks and wide, pleated pants gathered at the knees with wraps that went all the way into their boots. The wide, vaguely bowl-shaped hats and hoods that also covered their shoulders cast shadows on the men’s faces, but Jack was stunned to realize that one of them was at least 6’5”.

  “Yes?” he uttered, covering his body with the fur to spare himself the indignity of strangers seeing him naked.

  Chapter 5

  This was Jack’s worst nightmare. Singled out while naked in a public place, and now sweating into the thick fur Roux had covered him with. Should he excuse himself? Lie that he needed to take a piss? No, that wouldn’t work. Everyone would see that he had no shoes on if he left the sleigh.

  So he sat in place, buried in the pile of animal skins.

  The shorter of the men left the shadows and walked into the area lit by a streetlamp. He was East Asian, in his thirties, and there was a bold white kanji at the front of his cloak, though Jack wouldn’t have been himself if he hadn’t noticed the spear and sword attached to his back. What did he want with him and Roux?

  Not knowing what to do, he pushed his hand out of the fur and raised it in greeting.

  “There’s no time to explain. We need to hunt down the fox before it can attack anyone else,” the man said, and showed off the iron emblem all venators carried on their persons for situations where their identity needed proving. Each depicted the silhouette of a man entangled with a dragon, as a reference to the legendary St. George, as well as the carrier’s name and alma mater. “I am Namikawa Genta and this is Akito of the Wolf Lake.”

  Akito choose this moment to emerge from the shadow, and Jack soon realized why he was so tall and broad. Akito, while dressed the same way as Genta, was a giant werewolf. And the werewolves he’d had sampled in Bohemia had nothing on this guy in terms of size.

  “I—uh… are they who they’re saying they are?” Jack whispered so quietly only Roux could hear.

  The green eyes narrowed, but while Roux’s whiskers twitched in annoyance, he answered in a low voice. “Can’t you see the symbol of the venator academy in Kyoto on their clothes?”

  Uh-oh. Jack knew that there were venators in Asia too—because there were venators everywhere—but he never paid much mind to information about creature-related activity in places where he didn’t plan working. Would it bite him in the ass now?

  “We’ve never heard of a fox emerging all the way in Siberia,” Genta continued, “but we need to capture and kill the beast as soon as possible. The locals have no idea what they’re dealing with.”

  Roux got up, and while he was in the sleigh, he didn’t appear that much shorter than the werewolf. “We are ready to do the job. Explain to us all you know about the creature.”

  Was Jack missing something? He didn’t get why a fox, even a rabid one, would require the involvement of four venators. But Roux seemed to know what he was doing, so he didn’t reveal his doubts, out of fear of looking like even more of an idiot. He should have paid more attention in school, but it had been so easy not to when none of the teachers were willing to fail the Kraken’s son.

  “Yeah, I’ll just… go to the room real quick,” he said, pulling the fur tightly around him as he rose.

  Akito’s muzzle twitched, and Jack felt the back of his neck heat up. Could a werewolf smell that he didn’t have any clothes on? Instead, Akito leaned to Roux and unceremoniously nuzzled his cheek, sniffing loudly.

  Roux lost all his professional composure, and pushed at the werewolf with a hiss.

  Jack was ready to rise to Roux’s defence if necessary, even though he was underdressed and didn’t want to confront a werewolf with his cock out. “Do you have to do that? Chats have a big need for personal space!”

  Genta ignored Jack’s protest. “Why are you barefoot? Oh. Did you meet the fox? They will steal everything you’ve got, the bastardly creatures. And it must be here for the gold.”

  “I was… stretching my legs. I’ll just put on my hunting clothes,” Jack mumbled when his mind finally connected the dots. All those pretty boys, and the thick red tails... “Shapeshifters,” he uttered, stunned. Just like Nessie. Of course.

  Genta approached with a serious expression that made Jack even more self-conscious about his lack of clothes. “They can be. They can appear as male or female, but they can rarely hide their tails. There’s only one here, but it’s powerful, can create illusions, and appear in more forms. Where did you see it last time?”

  Jack pointed to the whiteness consuming the buildings down the street. In this weather, they might not even be able to follow the road beyond the city limits. “Close to the mine.”

  Akito hummed, and then spoke in an inhumanly low voice. “It must be who possessed the miners. We need to chase it down immediately. The people of this country don’t understand the danger they’re in.”

  Jack was
fuming. How could he have been so stupid? The fox had messed with his head! “Motherfucker. I’m gonna rip all the fur out of his tail.”

  Roux nodded. “It’s a kitsune. I’ve read about them. Jack, you need to get dressed, and we have to track this creature fast. Akito should be able to catch its scent if we hurry.”

  Jack groaned, resuming his walk of shame into the inn. He was still freezing after the time spent completely bare in the blizzard, but there was no chance of Roux losing time to warm him up in this situation.

  He wasn’t a vengeful guy, but leaving him to die? So not on. The fox… kitsune would pay!

  He ran back outside within five minutes, silently mourning the warm fur coat the malevolent creature had stolen from him. Maybe once they captured this vicious monster, he could get it back? This time, he took the Gouger with him, and vowed to never let the legendary sword out of sight.

  Akito was far too heavy to board the sleigh, so he walked beside them.

  “So… are there many werewolf venators in Japan?” Roux asked, eying Akito suspiciously. Ha. Was he jealous?

  “Several,” Akito said, breaking into a run to catch up with the sleigh. The blizzard didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest.

  Genta nodded. “There’s nothing scarier for a fox than a werewolf.”

  Jack, who once again wrapped himself with fur in the hope of retaining at least some warmth, looked at the stranger. “Is there anything else we need to know?”

  “Those creatures have been present in Japan for hundreds of years. There’s more of them now, and those which are bad, like this one, wreak havoc on people’s lives, just for the fun of it. It is fortunate that we have centuries of experience, and know how to deal with them. Unlike the locals here,” Genta said, holding on to his hat as they drove against the wind

  Akito, who had to jog slower than he could, in order not to overtake the sleigh once they’d left the city, spoke next. “They’ve only recently ventured beyond the Japanese archipelago. This one traveled on a ship to China. We’ve been tracking it from there.”