Crookshollow foxes box set: The complete fox shapeshifter romance series

by Steffanie Holmes

  I clamped my hand on his shoulder. “No, you can’t hurt him.”

  Ryan shot me one last, longing look – a look so fraught with intensity it took all of my resolve not to run over to him and wrap myself in his arms – and turned on his heel, yanking open the door to a cab and climbing inside. Through the window of the cab I could see a silhouette of another figure … a distinctly feminine figure, with a long neck and flowing auburn waves spilling over her shoulders. I turned away, not wanting Ryan to see the tears pooling at the corners of my eyes. She’s there in the car with him!

  Ryan’s cab screamed away, just as our own pulled into the car park. As the cab pulled away from the gallery, I slumped down in the seat, pulling my hair over my face so Marcus couldn’t see the fat tears rolling down my cheeks.

  Marcus didn’t say anything to me in the cab, but his eyes never left that mark on my neck. I could feel his anger rippling out from his body.

  Our hotel room was on the third floor, and Kylie had sensibly booked one without a balcony, so it would take a particularly agile creature to climb up the outside wall, and I didn’t think even a fox was up to the challenge. Unless, I thought ruefully as I rode the elevator up to our room, Isengrim has recruited a vicious pack of were-squirrels. I snorted at the ridiculous notion, then quickly subdued my laughter, my stomach tied in knots once more. With everything that had happened to me in the last couple of days, it would be just my luck to find Kylie mauled to death by vicious were-squirrels.

  Thankfully, Kylie opened the door for us in one piece, her hair askew, and the smell of takeout pizza wafting past her. My stomach growled. Thank god for Kylie.

  I threw my jacket down on the double bed, gazing around the small room Kylie had booked for us. The curtains and carpet were the same shade of faded brown and the furniture looked as if it had come from a junk store in the 1970s. A large double bed took up most of the floor area, with starched white linens that seemed glaringly bright in the dingy space. Next to the door was a closet-sized bathroom, where Kylie was standing, stringing up a line of crystals over the doorframe. She’d decorated every available surface with bright-coloured stones and charms. I saw my broadsword propped up against one side of the bed, and Kylie’s mace was laid out next to the tea tray.

  Marcus stood at the doorway, his fox ears pulled back against his head, his expression pained. “What is it?” I snapped, as I flipped open one of the pizza boxes and chose a slice.

  “She’s done a great job on those protections,” Marcus snarled through bared teeth. “No shifter or mutt is going to be able to get through here.”

  “Oh, of course.” Kylie walked over to the doorway and removed the crystals and herb satchels she’d hung there. “Can you get inside now?”

  His face screwed up in pain, Marcus stepped over the threshold. He gasped for breath, his face twisting into that odd half human, half fox state. Marcus made a move toward the double bed, but I pointed to the single rollaway bed under the window. “Kylie and I are sharing this bed,” I told him. “That one is for you.”

  Still clutching his stomach, he turned to me and lifted his eyebrow suggestively. “I thought we could … share the bed?”

  “Sorry. The hotel doesn’t allow dogs on the bedspreads.”

  He growled at me, snapping his teeth. But he slunk over to his bed and sat down, staring at the crystals on the windowsill with disgust.

  I sighed, sinking into the bedspread. “Look, I thought I made this clear. I’m not going to sleep with you. All I want you to do is keep me alive. My eggs won’t be any good to you if I’m dead.”

  “They’re not any good to me now.” he mumbled. “Don’t you understand? Ryan has claimed you. Even if you gave me a child, it would be illegitimate, because you belong to him. I left Isengrim for you, and now you are useless to me, and it’s all thanks to him.”

  The venom in his voice terrified me. His face had nearly completely contorted into that of the fox, its eyes wild with anger, its mouth pulled back into a fierce scowl. What is it about Ryan that makes him so angry?

  “Calm down,” I threw a pillow at him. “You sound like a whiny goth teenager.”

  Kylie finished in the bathroom, then flopped down on the bed beside me and took her own slice of pizza. She pulled out her library books and began flipping through them. “You need to help us with this stuff,” she told Marcus. “You know the shifter world, and we don’t. We need to know what’s fact and what’s just mythology.”

  Marcus made to sit on the bed with us, but I pointed to the rollaway. He frowned as he lay across it, his sandy fur growing thick on his arms as he fought to stay in human form. “Anything religious is bollocks,” he said, inspecting the dirt under his claws. “You can’t kill a shifter by sprinkling them with holy water or reciting Leviticus backwards.”

  “What about silver?”

  “Over the centuries, we’ve built up a tolerance to it. It’s no longer deadly, but if we swallow silver or are stabbed by a silver blade, it hurts like buggery.” He screwed up his nose. “Iridium is better. It’s deadly poisonous. I don’t know why – I think it reacts to something in our blood. But it’s more rare.” His head twitched. “Although, I doubt it would hurt Ryan at all. Vulpines as perfect as him are probably immune to it, somehow.”

  “Why do you care about Ryan so much? What is it about him that makes you so mad?”

  Marcus stared at me. “He hasn’t told you?”

  “Told me what?”

  “That I am his brother.”

  6

  I looked at Marcus again, searching for a sign that he was kidding, that it was some stupid idea of a joke. But what I saw when I looked at him, really looked at him, was a thin, sculpted nose – just like Ryan’s, a strong, square chin – just like Ryan's, those broad, heavy shoulders – exactly the same shape as Ryan’s. “But … you’re a mutt.”

  “I told you not to use that word.” he growled.

  “How? How can you possibly be brothers?”

  “We’re fraternal twins. In genetics, not everything goes according to plan. Ryan probably told you that our father fell for a witch – a human witch, at that, not a proper vixen. Our grandfather was very upset about that, and he killed the old man for bringing shame onto the family. When the witch gave birth to us, she could see quickly that I wasn’t all right. I couldn’t control my shift. I am like a feral animal, unable to control anything. She obviously felt I was inferior compared to her other, perfect son, so she took me out into the forest, and left me there to die.”

  I cringed as he clawed at the bedspread, tearing a gaping hole in the cover. Feathers exploded across the room. I couldn’t imagine Clara abandoning one of her sons in the forest, even if he was, as Marcus said, no more than a feral animal.

  “What happened?” Kylie leaned forward.

  “The fox Nero, from the Claudian clan, picked me up and gave me to his subordinate vixen, Kelia, to raise as her own. Normally, subordinates aren’t allowed to raise pups. But Kelia was a mutt, too, and Nero had some revolutionary ideas about changing shifter society, and maybe he felt sorry for me, also. He believed that fox shifters could be far stronger with a different social order. Kelia raised me for a few years in Nero’s clan, but it didn’t really work out. His primary vixen, Heather, had a problem with Kelia, so we left after a few years. We travelled around a lot, eventually we ended up on an estate in Wales. Kelia was shot by poachers. I hid in our den and watched them skin her.” He shuddered.

  “Oh, no,” Kylie looked heartbroken. I said nothing. I didn’t want to give Marcus any indication his story affected me. I was still reeling from his news that he was Ryan’s brother.

  “I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I returned to Nero. He’d since teamed up with Isengrim, who was starting to assemble his army of shifters and mutts. Isengrim has been following Ryan’s career for years. He collects all the newspaper clippings, attends auctions where his paintings are rumoured to appear. Isengrim has known for years that Ryan’s hold on
Crookshollow is the key to the success or failure of his mission to unite all shifters as the rightful rulers of England. That's why he was so happy to have me around. He thought I might be able to convince Ryan to join his cause, but Lord Raynard couldn't give two shits about me.”

  “So Ryan knows you’re his brother?”

  “Oh, yes. We've met off-and-on throughout the years. Usually it ends in blood. And his is the only voice I can really hear through the call, although it's still weak and faded.”

  “Have you talked to Ryan about any of this? I mean, a proper conversation, without teeth bared.”

  Marcus shook his head roughly. “After our first couple of meetings, Isengrim wouldn’t let me get close to him, in case I messed things up. Ryan is too important to him, both because he owns this territory and because of his high profile in the art world. It’s typical that my brother, the great Ryan Raynard – who got all the talent and all the good genes – would also be the key to Isengrim’s success.” Marcus laughed bitterly. “While the wolf barely notices I have left his pack, he visits you in person to attempt to win you over to his cause, all in the name of gaining Ryan’s support.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d believed Marcus until I saw the intensity of his jealousy when he spoke of Ryan. I was an only child, but I’d had plenty of friends who had siblings. Art school is littered with second children – brothers of lawyers, sisters of doctors – who fell into the shadow of their more successful siblings. The same dark rage that simmered under their skin, occasionally bubbling to the surface to fuel their art, burned in Marcus’s eyes. He and Ryan were brothers.

  Great. Yet another secret of Ryan’s I hadn’t known yesterday, when I’d agreed to become his mate. How did I get myself into this situation?

  We finished up the pizza in silence, but my stomach was still rumbling with hunger. Kylie called room service, and twenty minutes later a lovely man knocked on our door, bringing two steaming plates of roast beef with all the trimmings, and a steak (extra rare). We all tucked in.

  After we ate, there wasn’t much to do except shower, watch TV and read Kylie’s occult books. Marcus and Kylie got into an in-depth discussion about shifter mythology. I tried to listen in, but my eyelids kept fluttering shut. I pulled up the covers and snuggled underneath. It had been a long, scary day.

  The others decided to sleep, too. Kylie reached across the bed and clasped my hand. “It’s going to be fine,” she whispered. “This isn’t like the movies. You aren’t a dumb blonde virgin, so you’re guaranteed to survive.”

  “The dumb, blonde virgin always survives the horror films, Kylie. It’s the sassy, sexually adventurous co-ed who always ends up with an axe through her head.” My mind flashed back to the night before, when Ryan and I had had wild, kinky sex in his bed at Raynard Hall. Yup, I was definitely doomed.

  “Oops, right. Sorry, Alex. I just meant to say that you’re smart. If anyone can figure out how to get us all through this, it is you.”

  “Thanks for being here for me.”

  “Anytime.” She closed her eyes, and in minutes she was asleep. I could hear Marcus’s breathing from the rollaway beside us. I rolled over and stared at the full moon through the window, my mind whirring. Kylie’s confidence in me had in no way improved my mood – I was no closer to figuring out what to do.

  I hated to admit it, but I wished Ryan was there. I craved his arms around me, his breath against my ear, whispering that it would be OK, that he would protect me.

  Oh, Ryan, why did it all have to be a lie?

  I was running through the forest, the branches tearing at my bare arms. The trees seemed to lean in toward me, the trunks bending in the moonlight as if I were looking through a pinhole camera. I pumped my arms at my sides as I poured on speed, a faint but growing fear gnawing at my chest.

  I looked down at my body, realising with a kind of vague horror that I was naked, and that long, jagged wounds ran across my stomach. Claw marks. Something had attacked me.

  I ran on, watching the trees whizz past in a blur of serene calm. Behind me, I could hear someone, or something, crashing through the trees, the heaviness of their body sagging against the branches. I knew, without really knowing, they were coming after me to finish what they had started.

  Even as I ran, gasping for air, I felt strangely void of emotion. I knew if whatever-it-was caught me, I would die. But I didn’t care. I almost felt like laughing. The crisp night air caressed my naked skin as I flew through the trees, leaping over logs and roots with grace and ease.

  I barely noticed as I pushed my foot out, and stepped on nothing but air. The ground tipped up toward me, and I realised I’d ran right over the edge of a cliff, so wide and deep that the bottom was only a swirling fog. I was falling into the deep chasm, toppling head over heels, colours splashed across my vision – streaks of midnight blue and deep purple raced through the gloom. I reached out my hands, searching for something to hold onto, something to save myself. I kept falling and falling, the world around me disappearing into the swirling haze of colours.

  I love you, Alex. I will catch you when you fall.

  The voice thundered through my thoughts, the words enveloped me, calming the rising panic in my chest. Beneath me, the fog began to clear, and a blue pool appeared, the surface clear and flat as glass. As I fell toward the surface, my whole body screaming in anticipation of pain, I felt a warmth envelop me – warm arms wrapping around my shoulders, pulling me up, away from the glassy surface … but they weren’t fast enough, and that blue lake rose up, up, until I could see my reflection flying toward me. I closed my eyes and braced for impact ...

  My eyes flew open, and I flung myself into a sitting position, gasping for breath. The fog and the lake and the warm arms around my shoulders disappeared, and, as my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I could make out the shapes of the hotel room – the rollaway where Marcus snored, the little desk with its hotel stationery and tea caddy, the luggage rack. The crystals stacked across every surface, casting small prisms of moonlight against the walls.

  I rubbed my temples, trying to calm the throbbing headache that attacked my skull. The echoes of the dream flooded my head; the wild run in the forest, the pool of water rushing toward me, the arms around me and the voice inside my head ...

  The voice I’d heard was Ryan’s. Of course it was part of the dream, a wistful figment of my imagination, but … I remembered the last time I’d been in Crookshollow forest, when he’d barked at me, and I heard his thought inside my head as a single word. Run.

  Was this the same thing? Was Ryan speaking to me through my dreams? Were we telepathically connected, somehow?

  I didn’t know how I felt about that. Couldn’t any part of me remain private? It wasn’t enough that I had to run his exhibition and avoid my flat and escape from bloodthirsty shifters, but did Ryan have to infiltrate my mind, as well?

  Go away, I thought angrily, in case Ryan was listening to my thoughts. I told you I don’t want to talk to you ever again. Stay out of my head, Ryan Raynard.

  The only sound that answered me was the tick tock of the clock above the bathroom door.

  Great. Now I was going mad. This week just kept getting better and better. I rolled over and buried my face under the pillow, my fingers seeking out the hilt of my broadsword, feeling the satisfying weight of the blade against the sheets.

  7

  I must have fallen asleep again after the dream, because I woke up in the morning to the sound of something hitting the window.

  TING! TING! TING!

  There it was again. It sounded like someone throwing pebbles against the glass. I pulled the covers off and padded across the room to the window. In the rollaway beneath it, Marcus lay curled up in his fox form, his chest rising and falling and his large paws hanging over the side of the bed. I reached out a tentative hand toward his shoulder, thinking to shake him awake, when one wild eye flew open. I yanked my hand back, just as he snapped his jaws in the air where it had been.

  “Ge
t back into human form,” I said, with more force than I felt. I took a step back, keeping my hands behind me, as far from those sharp teeth as I could. The memory of the dream still haunted me, and I was jumpy enough without Marcus removing one of my fingers from my body.

  Slowly, as if the transition were painful, Marcus shifted back into human form. His naked body spilled out from the tiny rollaway. “Morning, Princess,” he mumbled, clutching his head.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “It’s these protection spells. They make me weak, woozy.”

  “Well, snap out of it. I need you. Did you hear something at the window?”

  “I can’t hear anything except you busting my chops,” he rubbed his temples.

  I peeled back a corner of the curtain, and dared a glance down to the car park below. What I saw made me jump back into the room, crashing into Marcus and sending us both sprawling against the floor, Marcus’s head colliding with the metal bedpost with a loud clang.

  “Ouch,” Marcus rubbed his head. “What’s the matter with you, Princess?”

  “He’s there,” I whispered, jabbing my finger at the window. “Look for yourself.”

  Groaning, Marcus stood up, walked over to the window, and pulled the curtain back with such force he tore it from its tracks. Perched on the sill, its talons gripping the crumbling brick, was an enormous black raven. It turned its head toward us, staring at us with those dark, unblinking eyes, and tapped the glass three times with its beak. TING, TING, TING!

  Marcus stepped forward, baring his teeth through the glass. The bird squawked, and flew away. Marcus leaned close to the window and peered down at the street.

  “Yep,” he frowned. “That’s Isengrim, all right. And there are foxes hidden in the bushes around the garden. I can smell them.”

  “Shit.”

  I leaned over and shook Kylie awake. “What’s going on?” she asked with bleary eyes. I outlined the situation.