Crookshollow foxes box set: The complete fox shapeshifter romance series

by Steffanie Holmes

  “Not so far, but I think it would be safer if the two of you let Melissa and I inspect the place thoroughly first.”

  I shook my head. “No way. Miss Havisham will be alone and frightened. If she sees the two of you stalking through the house, she’ll hide and we’ll never be able to find her. Kylie and I are going in first, then Ryan can follow behind.”

  I pushed open the door, scanning the entrance and living room for any sign of intruders. So far, so good. I had just taken a step inside when I heard a mighty crash from the kitchen.

  Someone was humming. A human someone. Shit. Isengrim had sent someone to attack us at the flat. Someone who was so unafraid of being caught they were actually humming inside. I raised my sword and took a step toward the kitchen, Kylie and Ryan right behind me.

  The humming continued, a beautiful tune, perfectly on key. I heard water sloshing around, crockery banging against each other. What was going on?

  I peered around the door of the kitchen, and nearly leapt out of my skin in surprise.

  A round, cheerful-looking woman of about fifty, wearing a white vintage sundress, stood in front of the sink, humming to herself as she washed the dishes.

  Someone broke into our house to clean the kitchen? What was going on here?

  Ryan reached out to stop me, but I was too fast. I ducked under his hand and stepped into the room. “Who are you?” I demanded.

  The intruder spun around. Her eyes. I noticed her eyes were a strange kind of yellow, like she had jaundice. Her pupils were large, almost comical, like a character from a Japanese comic. And what was strangest of all, was that she seemed so familiar. As if I had seen those eyes somewhere before. But I would remember, wouldn’t I? I stood frozen, waiting for the answer to reveal itself.

  “Hello, Alex, dear,” the woman purred. “I’m so glad to see you alive. I’m just cleaning up some of my mess.”

  “Who … who are you? Why are you in our house, doing the dishes, and how do you know my name?”

  She poked out her lip. “I’m surprised you don’t recognise me,” she said. “Perhaps if I was in my other form …”

  “Your other form …” I stared at that face again, at those wide, expressive eyes, and the pale dress made from printed calico. Calico. “You're … Miss Havisham?”

  She nodded, her round face breaking out into a smile. I could see my beloved cat in her features, the flat, turned up nose, the chubby cheeks, the satisfied smile. It was Miss Havisham, alright.

  “You seem surprised, dear. I would’ve thought your fox lover would have told you my secret.”

  I turned to Ryan, who was leaning against the bench and looking faintly amused. “You knew about this?”

  He nodded. “We’ve crossed paths before, haven’t we?”

  She smiled tacitly at him. “That rabbit should’ve been mine.”

  “You were too slow. I can’t help it if your prey wandered into my territory.”

  I slumped down into a chair, placing my head in my hands. “I have a headache.”

  “That’s no good,” Miss Havisham fussed. “You should have some tea.”

  “That’d be great, thanks.”

  “Well,” she blinked those large, yellow eyes slowly. “The pot’s right over there. I’ve seen you use it hundreds of times, so I assume you have the hang of it by now. “

  “Oh, I thought you were going to–”

  “You only have a headache, you haven’t had your arms amputated.” She sat in the chair opposite me, her back straight, her hands clasped daintily in front of her. Even as a human, she was so perfectly catlike.

  Luckily, Kylie slipped past Ryan and reached for the kettle, her eyes on Miss Havisham the whole time.

  “You’ve got quite a situation here,” Miss Havisham said. “What do you intend to do about it?”

  “How do you know about Isengrim?”

  “I’m a cat. It’s my business to know things. Some foxes have been stalking around the house,” she said. “I told them to beat it.”

  “And they listened to you?”

  “I can be extremely persuasive when I want to be,” she stared at her fingernails. “Let’s just say they got the message. So what are you going to do?”

  “We’ve come to take you back to Raynard Hall. That’s the safest place in town right now. From there we will–”

  “I don’t think so,” she smirked. “That place reeks of vulpines.”

  “Don’t be difficult.”

  “She’s a cat,” Ryan said, as he helped Kylie bring the tea to the table. “Difficult is just part of her nature.”

  Miss Havisham poked her tongue out at Ryan. She took the cup of tea Kylie gave her and tipped it daintily down the sink. She filled her empty cup to the brim with milk, and lapped at it with delight.

  “Gross,” said Kylie, as droplets of milk flew across the table.

  “Well, now you know my little secret, you might as well know that I’ve taken the liberty of putting the Glaring Gang into action. We’ve been tailing that evil wolf and his pack.”

  “Clever girl,” Ryan smiled.

  “Of course. I am a cat.”

  “What’s the Glaring Gang?”

  “You might know them better as Mittens, Clancy, Ralph, and Chairman Meow.”

  “The neighbourhood cats? I thought you hated them? All that yowling you do out on the fence at night–”

  “Oh, that.” She waved a paw dismissively. “Intellectual debate. Ralph has socialist leanings, whereas Chairman Meow is a Rational Anarchist. Sometimes things get rather heated. But we’re all the best of chums. With the gang wandering their different territories, I’ve got eyes and ears all over this town. For instance, it may interest you to know that your pal Isengrim has been stalking around the witches’ cemetery.”

  “Really?” That was interesting. The witches’ cemetery was an old graveyard on a hill overlooking the southern edge of the village. Two Roman roads met each other on top of the hill, forming an ancient crossroads. Woman and men convicted of witchcraft were buried there, as it was unconsecrated ground. It was a spooky site, but an abandoned one. Why would Isengrim be interested in it?

  “Perhaps he’s hiding out there,” said Kylie. “After all, he knows that Ryan can only follow the foxes.”

  “Perhaps, but that seems unlikely. He wouldn’t like to go anywhere for a long period of time without his bodyguard. If he’s gone there alone, it’s because there’s something there he wants, but he doesn’t want us to know about it.”

  “It could have something to do with the spell.”

  “That is my thought exactly,” said Ryan. “We’ll check it out today.”

  I beamed at Miss Havisham. “Thank you. You don't know how helpful you've been already.”

  “Your words are hollow and meaningless,” yawned Miss Havisham. “A saucer of cream would speak your gratitude more plainly.”

  I needed a few minutes away from the group to wrap my head around the knowledge that my adorable calico cat was actually a sassy middle-aged women. I went up to my room to find that iridium pigment. Leaning under my bed, I pulled out the box of journals and sketchbooks, and shoved that across the room. Next came two vintage hat boxes containing old cards and photographs from my parents – memories that were still too painful to look at. Behind them, I could see several more boxes and bags of stuff. I was meant to be a bohemian artist, a free spirit. How did I accumulate so much stuff?

  “Why doesn’t your friend take these?” Ryan asked. He must have followed me upstairs.

  “Huh?” The box I wanted had been pushed right to the back of the bed, against the wall. I shoved a suitcase full of men’s ties out of the way (I was going to sew them together into a skirt, but hadn’t got around to it yet) and leaned further under the bed. My fingers grazed the corner.

  “These journals. You said you were storing them for a friend. How come they don’t come pick them up? I would think any artist wouldn’t want their work out of their sight.”

  �
��Oh, she doesn’t have a lot of room at her place right now.” I grabbed the box and pulled it out, bringing a cloud of dust along with it. I coughed, wiping a ball of carpet fluff from my cheek.

  “You said it was a he.”

  “I did?” I said it lightly, but my heart was racing. I pulled open the flaps of the box and began hunting through it, deliberately avoiding looking up at him.

  “Alex,” he bent down beside me. “I know these journals are yours.”

  “They’re not. I told you–”

  “This one says, ‘Property of Alexandra Kline’ on the inside cover.”

  My cheeks burned red. “Alright,” I snapped. “They’re mine. Could you please stop looking at them? It’s embarrassing.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m nobody. I’m an art school graduate who hasn’t sold even a single painting, and you’re Ryan fucking Raynard. It’s like some goth teenager showing her poetry to Pablo Neruda.”

  “These are good, Alex. They really are good.”

  “Put it away,” I tried to snatch it out of his hand, but he yanked it out of my reach.

  “Why are you not exhibiting? You have so much talent. You should be the one with your art on the walls of the Halt, while someone else runs around satisfying your every whim.”

  “Don’t patronise me.”

  “I’m serious. Alex, you have more talent than those cretins I saw you exhibiting. Why did you stop drawing?”

  “Because I …” I shrugged, trying to find the words to explain. “Because I paint for myself. When I went to art school, I thought I’d learn new techniques, new ways of looking at the world. I wanted to improve my skills so I could create art worthy of the painters I admire. But all they did was deconstruct my work and bombard me with criticism. Every tutor wanted me to be something other than what I am. One wanted more surrealism, another thought I should be a photo-realist, another wanted me to practice complete abstraction. I didn’t want to fit into a mould, or listen to what people said about me. I just want to paint.”

  Ryan reached behind me, and turned over the canvas I had rested backwards on my easel. He stood silently for several moments, his eyes fixed on the moonscape I had been working on, tracing his finger along the edges of the orb as it shone through the crooked branches outside my window.

  “Will you paint for me?” he asked.

  “What? You mean, right here?”

  “Sit down, Alex. Please. I want to watch you paint.”

  “But–”

  Ryan guided me onto the bed, pressed my palette into my hand. “I’ll get you some water,” he said, running to the bathroom with my little water cup. I stared at the canvas blankly. I had been trying to convey the way the moonlight changed the light, bending and shaping the trees so that their shadows were something completely other, almost alive in their own right. I glanced out the window, my stomach tight with nerves. It was daytime, of course, but it took my mind only a second to retreat into a perfect night – the sky clear and cold, the brilliant full moon ringed with a grey-blue tinge, the breeze gently pushing the branches against the side of the flat ...

  I can’t do this.

  Ryan returned with the water, and sat down on the bed next to me, pressing his thigh against mine. His eyes followed my shaking hands as I squirted out dabs of colour on to my palette. I picked up my brush and swiped it through a deep blue, then held it up to the canvas.

  My mind went blank. The air around us crackled with energy. I tried to shut my eyes, to bring myself back to that cool moonlit night, but Ryan’s warm leg was pressed against mine, and I could feel his eyes boring into me.

  Just as I was about to fling my brush down and tell Ryan to leave, I felt a flash of anger at myself. Get it together, Alex. You spent four years at art school painting in class while tutors frowned behind you. You are sitting here with a man whose paintings have given you the strength to embrace your own creativity, a man who wanted nothing more than for you to be all that you can be, a man who whispered that he loved you ...

  I squeezed my eyes even tighter, my mind reaching out to the very memories that we now shared from the past week – the way he came back to rescue me, even when it was my own impulsiveness that got me into trouble, even when I told him I never wanted to see him again. The way I felt when I was in his arms, as if nothing bad could ever happen to me again. What had he said over and over again? Trust me. And I did trust him. I could take that leap. I could give myself over completely to him, to let him into this deep, secret part of me.

  I opened my eyes, and I saw my painting in front of me, and I fell into the scene. The room around me disappeared, and I was floating in the sky, cool and bright, a glowing orb illuminating the tiny streets below. I was the moon, and Ryan’s warmth beside me gave me the strength to hold myself up in the sky.

  The whole village was revealed below me, a bright beacon of twinkling lights embraced by the dark, wild forest. I could see my flat at the edge, the branches reaching out toward it, beckoning the building into its embrace. I touched my brush to my palette, barely noticing as I swirled the colours together into a beautiful midnight blue, and I started to paint.

  My brush scraped against the canvas, and bit by bit, the world I’d seen from the heavens came to life before me. I shaded in the dappled light hitting the edge of the window pane, and added leaves of deep red and burnt umber. All the while, I could feel Ryan’s eyes on me, on my brush. I let out the breath I was holding. This was OK. In fact, it was better than OK, it was incredible, maybe even the most amazing experience of my life. Ryan didn’t criticise, he didn’t take the brush from me, and he didn’t suggest improvements. He just watched, falling into the image with me. He noticed me. He thought my artwork mattered. He thought it had value. He thought I had value.

  My strokes grew longer, more free-flowing, more confident. The flush in my cheeks softened as I basked in the glow of his attention. I added the branches in the corner, great, sweeping swirls that seemed to shift in an invisible breeze. As I switched to a lighter brown to shade the bricks on the wall of the house, I felt Ryan’s hand move up my thigh, the touch of his fingers lightly dancing between my legs, across my sex.

  My heart pounded against my chest, but I kept the vision in my head as his fingers moved across the fabric, sending shivers of desire through my body. It took all my self-control to pretend to ignore him, to keep my eyes on the canvas and away from his handsome face.

  Ryan rubbed harder, and my body began to ache with desire for him. I finished the bricks in the corner and moved to add another colour. Ryan reached across and took the brush from me. He swirled it around in the red paint. Before I knew it, he’d touched the brush to my cheek, drawing a few deft lines across my face.

  The paint was cold against my skin. He lifted my chin and tilted my head toward him. I watched him through heavy eyes, laced with lust, as his eyes narrowed with concentration. His jaw softened, and his lips moved silently as he ran the brush over my face. When he held that brush in his hands, he appeared completely relaxed, utterly at ease with himself.

  “Ryan …”

  “Sssshh,” he said, and continued to work. He returned the brush to the tray, and mixed up a light tan, which he dusted across my nose and on my chin. Around my eyes he drew black circles, and used a touch of burnt umber over the red he used to frame my face.

  “There,” he said, standing back and admiring his work. “Now you are a beautiful vixen.”

  He lifted an antique mirror from my dresser and pressed it into my hand. When I held it up to see, my breath caught in my throat. He had turned my face into a fox. But not just any fox … I was the new Fox Woman, the wild kitsune from his paintings. His delicate brush strokes elongated my nose and deepened my cheekbones, giving my face an entirely new shape.

  “You are my fox woman,” he whispered in my ear. “You are cunning, and beautiful, and you gleam like a brilliant diamond in a world of coal.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but no
words came.

  Ryan leaned forward, and kissed me, his lips like fire. The paint began to dry on my face, pulling at my skin, trapping me beneath that beautiful mask. I dropped the palette and wrapped my hands around his neck, pulling him closer to me, breathing in the deep, wild smell of him.

  He pulled his lips away, and bent to kiss my neck, his lips grazing the bite he’d given me. As soon as he touched it, an intense heat exploded through my body, a sensation so intense my head swirled and red spots danced in front of my eyes. The room faded around me, my art-covered walls, piles of clothing, and crappy charity shop furniture disappeared, replaced by an intense illusion of trees circling the bed, their trunks leaning in toward us, the soft, dewy smell of fallen leaves

  “This is where we belong,” Ryan whispered in my ear. “You’ve always known it, haven’t you?"

  I nodded, too amazed by the transformation to say anything. Ryan watched my face as I gazed around in wonder, reaching out to brush my hand against a lowered branch, feeling the rough bark beneath my fingers.

  It’s so real.

  It’s real because we are real, Ryan’s voice whispered inside my head. When we are together, amazing things happen.

  I lay back against the bed, staring up at the canopy stretching across the sky, at the thin rays of sunlight that pushed their way through the thick foliage to reach the ground below. Ryan lay down beside me, cupped my chin in his hands, turning my face toward his, and kissed me again, his tongue probing deep.

  My whole body hummed with a strange energy, as if lightning were crackling through my veins. I was lit up like a lightbulb. I pushed with my mind, sending that energy out through my fingers, tangling them in Ryan’s hair, pushing them beneath his shirt, desperate to share this energy with him. Never in my life had I experienced a sensation like this before.

  Ryan pulled my shirt over my head, pulled my jeans and underwear off with a flourish, and pushed me back against the sheets. Fallen leaves floated around us, swirling in and out of the shafts of sunlight, as he smeared the paint across my chest, swirling around my breasts. The cold pigment felt strange against my warm skin. Ryan swirled and swirled, creating blotchy, abstract designs that reminded me of Edvard Munch. My nipples stood hard under his touch, like a sculptural feature on the canvas of my body.