Crookshollow foxes box set: The complete fox shapeshifter romance series

by Steffanie Holmes

  “And an amazing wife.”

  Ryan’s eyes practically bugged out of his head. “So you still want to marry me, then?”

  I stared down at his family ring that he’d slipped over my finger last week. “Well, this ring is nice and all, but a girl can’t pass up a geode.”

  Ryan laughed, and slipped the ring over my finger. “What do you say we hit the bar, Mrs Raynard? I suspect some of these reporters are going to be interested in learning more about our little performance art piece.”

  I laughed, slipping my arm through his and letting him lead me across the floor. “Hey, where are Kylie and Marcus?”

  “I don’t know.” Ryan glanced around. “I can’t see them in here.”

  “Maybe Marcus got injured. I hope he’s OK. What if he got some of the iridium on him?”

  Ryan’s face clouded over. “You’re right. We should find them.”

  We rushed out into the adjoining gallery, where we were displaying a giant pipe organ made out of blown glass. I couldn’t see them anywhere, and the door joining this gallery to the next hall was locked. Ryan pointed to a fire escape door, which I knew led into a long corridor that joined up with the staff car park. I pulled open the door and we stepped into the corridor.

  Marcus and Kylie were locked in a passionate embrace. His hands were on her face, and she was kneading his back like a kitten. He had pulled down the neck of her dress, and his large hands cupped her breasts, his fingers swirling around the engorged pink nipples. Kylie opened her eyes at the sound of the door, and flew off Marcus when she recognised us, cowering against the wall and pulling her dress back over her exposed breasts.

  “Well, well,” Ryan chuckled, slapping his brother on the back. “It seems I’m not the only one who got lucky tonight.”

  Kylie’s face was as red as a beetroot. Marcus growled at his brother, shoving him towards the door. “Get out of here. We’re busy.”

  Ryan laughed, as Marcus and Kylie looked up guiltily. “Well, I guess we don’t have to worry about you, little brother. It looks like you’ve healed up nicely.”

  “Excuse me,” Kylie found her voice. “This is a private hallway.” She pushed Ryan back out through the door. I stepped back beside him, and gave her the thumbs up. She scowled at me and pulled the door tight behind her. A few seconds later I could see them kissing passionately through the glass.

  Ryan collapsed against the glass organ, laughing deep in his chest. I couldn’t help but giggle, too. “Of all the people who I expected Kylie to hook up with tonight,” I said between sniggers, “I didn’t expect Marcus to be one of them.”

  “You have to admit, they make an adorable couple,” Ryan smirked.

  “I thought Matthew would’ve had a better shot with her!”

  Ryan wiped his eyes, then held out his arm for me. “What do you say, my beautiful soon-to-be wife, shall we go back and enjoy your party?”

  “It’s your party. You’re the guest of honour.”

  “I may be the artist, but you are the conductor of this entire hoopla.” he smiled. “This is your last night as a curator, Alex. You should enjoy it.”

  “I intend to.” I wrapped my arms around him. “Do you know what I want to do right now?”

  “What?” He licked my earlobe.

  “I want to go into the forest.”

  8

  The moon was high in the sky when we stepped outside the staff entrance of Halt. Thankfully, no reporters had followed us, but I knew it was only a matter of time before they noticed Ryan and I were missing, and came to look for us. Let them look, I thought, my mind giddy with rebellion and expensive champagne. I pulled Ryan across the car park, my eyes fixed on the line of dark trees that lingered just beyond the streetlights.

  We didn’t have to walk long before we were at the edge of the forest. Ryan picked me up in his arms, sweeping my full chiffon skirt around me. He carried me over the threshold between our two worlds – the world of humans, of houses and cocktail parties and art shows, and the wild world of foxes and magic and the natural order of things.

  My heels crunched over fallen leaves and twigs. In the pale moonlight, the forest seemed to take on a new personality. Now that it was no longer filled with dangerous shifters trying to kill me, it felt like the forest I knew again – the forest of my childhood. The place where I felt safest. The heat from Ryan’s body warmed my cold skin.

  Ryan walked with me in his arms for a little way, then set me down on a fallen log, collapsing beside me. From here, we could just see the lights of Crookshollow, twinkling like bright stars that had fallen to earth. I rested my head against Ryan’s shoulder, and breathed the deep, earthy smell of the woods.

  I am home.

  THE END

  Want more from the world of Crookshollow? When London lawyer Elinor Baxtor arrives in the village to settle the estate of a dead client, she finds more than she bargained for. The client’s crumbling gothic mansion is inhabited by an incredibly sexy ghost! Read The Man in Black now.

  Excerpt from The Man in Black

  Love so fierce it transcends even death.

  When Elinor Baxter arrives at the dilapidated Marshell House to settle the estate of her law firm's oldest client, she can't help but feel a little spooked. The creaking gothic mansion is a far cry from her life as an adventurous party girl back in London.

  Then she meets Eric Marshell, a man dressed entirely in black with a wicked smile and the ability to float through walls. Eric was the violinist in popular rock band Ghost Symphony until a hit-and-run accident claimed his life. Now he's trapped inside his mother's house for all eternity, and the only one who can see or hear him is Elinor.

  Eric and Elinor fight their attraction for each other as they dig into the mystery of Eric's death. But when they uncover a dark and sinister plot that threatens Elinor's life, their bond draws them into a world neither of them understands. Can their love transcend the boundary between life and death?

  The Man in Black is a steamy gothic romance by USA Today bestselling author Steffanie Holmes, Set in the English village of Crookshollow, it's a standalone novel of love, redemption, and second chances. If you love clever BBW heroines, crumbling gothic mansions, and brooding rockstars who know what they want, then this book will have you shivering all over.

  Elinor moved her hand, so her palm lay flat against mine. It was so odd to see her fingers nestled right inside my body, and even odder to feel them there, not as fingers usually feel, but as a hot ball of energy, emanating heat to a steady rhythm.

  It took me a few moments to realise the rhythm was Elinor’s heartbeat.

  I stepped forward, my hand shifting against hers, her fingers dancing inside mine. I pressed my other hand against her back, my palm sinking into her flesh. If I were alive at this moment, I would push Elinor against my body, and relish the warmth of her, the shape of her, against me. But I couldn’t do that, so instead I folded myself in closer to her. The front of my jacket brushed against her chest, sending waves of pulsing heat through my whole torso.

  “This is amazing,” Elinor breathed, her bow-shaped lips parting slightly. I didn’t trust myself to reply, so I smiled back at her. I started to sway, pushing my right hip forward, moving the warmth through her leg. Elinor sensed the movement through her skin, and she moved backward, turning her body with me. I stepped again, and again we slid across the floor, our bodies sweeping and dipping with the music.

  With my next step, I pushed myself closer, bowing my head slightly, so that my face hovered inches above hers. My eyes locked on those bow lips, ripe and delicious like the first berries of spring. God, I want this woman—

  “I like the music,” Elinor said. Her voice wavered. She sounded nervous. I wondered if she was speaking because she sensed what I wanted to do, and she was trying to fill the space between us, to stop me from doing something I couldn’t take back.

  “Mmmm,” I shifted my fingers in her hand. The heat flickered, thrumming through my body with a quickened pa
ce. She was nervous. Interesting.

  “I love the … distortion. The way it crackles right through my whole body.” Elinor breathed. “It’s almost as if the music is mirroring the sensation when we touch.”

  “This piece is originally written by the composer Niccolò Paganini, a Greek violinist in the early nineteenth century.” I murmured. If she wanted to talk, I could at least impress her. “He was known for making liberal use of the diabolus en musica, the devil’s tritone, which creates that haunting dissonance you hear in the piece. Of course, Paganini’s composition has been sped up and updated, and accompanied by the electric guitar, bass guitar, double bass, and drums, it’s quite the feat of modern gothic rock.”

  “Who is playing the violin in this piece?” Elinor asked, her lips barely moving, struggling to form the words.

  “I am, on Isolde. Ghost Symphony is my band.”

  “Eric …” Elinor’s face turned up to me.

  I leaned closer, I could practically taste the sweetness of those berry-red lips, feel the warmth of her mouth against mine. The air between us crackled with electricity. Elinor shifted her weight against mine, falling into me as she leaned forward, her lips pursed, waiting.

  I brushed my lips against hers. It was like no other kiss I’d ever experienced before. The heat leapt through my body, twisting from my mouth right through my core. I felt as though I’d swallowed a hot coal, and though it burned me deeply, it was the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted. I leaned forward, my weightless body pressed against hers, my lips parting to devour her heat as our bodies hummed with pulsing energy.

  READ NOW from Amazon: The Man in Black

  Excerpt From Witch Hunter

  Enjoy a preview of Steffanie Holmes's new medieval paranormal romance series, Witches of the Woods. Witch Hunter is the first book in this sizzling series. A dark plague, a forbidden love, an ancient curse so powerful it threatens to tear them apart.

  That night, I tossed and turned in my bed. I could not sleep, thinking about everything my aunts had told me.

  We're cursed.

  I could not believe it. Every seven days for the past nineteen years, my aunts had been sleeping with a man, in order to keep our powers. I thought of Aunt Bernadine in her younger days, before the arthritis had clawed at her hands, when she would entertain the woodsmen while Aunt Aubrey took me fishing at the lake. I thought of Hans, the young farmhand not much older than I, who showed up at the doorway every week last summer with a bowl of fresh roots from his garden, and Aunt Aubrey made me go to the river to wash them, even if they'd already been washed. I thought of Andreas, sauntering down the path with a big grin on his dopey face …

  For nineteen years they'd kept this curse – and their men – secret from me. And now it was my turn to use my body in order to preserve our powers. This was not the way I imagined losing my virginity.

  I had to find a man, and sleep with him. All within three days. When all the most eligible candidates were either dying of the plague or skinning their knees in the church praying for salvation, and the greatest witchfinder in all the land was making his way to our village to destroy my coven?

  But I didn't know anything about sex.

  I'd heard other girls in the village talk about it, but they said it hurt. They seemed to regard it as something you did for men so they'd give you money or food or attention. My aunts were both quiet on the subject. In fact, it was impossible to imagine Aunt Bernadine even kissing a man, let alone lying with one with enough regularity to keep her powers all these years.

  My sexual education was limited to Rebekah's spirited retellings of what happened behind the public house, and a couple of forbidden lithographs Waltraud once brought to Sunday school.

  Even with the help of the ritual, the chances of me finding a man to have me seemed slim. How was I going to seduce a man within four days?

  I woke the next morning in a cold sweat, jolted from my bed by a nightmare. I dreamed I'd gone into the forest to perform the rite, only instead of conjuring a man, great buboes grew all over my body, and the skin on my hands grew black and flaked away. It was just a dream. You don't have the plague.

  I clutched my chest, waiting for my pounding heart to return to normal. My wool blanket was dripping with my sweat. With shaking hands, I lit my candle and checked every inch of my body – running my hands over my curves, feeling every inch of my skin, searching for the buboes or rash that announced the arrived of death. Nothing.

  It was only a dream, I told myself again. But I couldn't stop my hands from shaking. My aunts, as seasoned witches, placed much importance on the contents of dreams. Was my dream a prediction, or a warning? Is it telling me that death waits for me in the grove?

  I sat down at the table as Aunt Aubrey cut thick chunks of bread, and gave me a wooden bowl containing a foul-smelling tea. "Drink that," she patted my shoulder. "And do not fear, Ada. I have mixed it perfectly. It is not dangerous."

  "How long until it takes effect?" I lifted the bowl to my lips with shaking hands, steeling myself to gulp down to foul liquid.

  "A few hours. Are you ready? You will need to hurry to the grove."

  The grove was a long distance from the village – nearly a full day's hike, even from someone as young and fit as me. The women in my family had used it for centuries as a safe and secret place to perform rituals. The last time I had visited the grove had been for my ritual of initiation into the family coven – two summers ago. Now I had to return on my own to ask the goddess for a man.

  I nodded, threw my head back, and drowned the bowl in one gulp. My stomach twisted in protest as the foul concoction wound its way through my body, but I managed to keep it down. Aunt Aubrey handed me a walking staff and a pouch with some food, a knife, and the other implements for the ritual. She wrapped her warmest fur cloak around my shoulders, and strapped my bow and a quiver of arrows across my back.

  "Where's Aunt Bernadine?" I demanded, my voice hoarse from the burning tea.

  "She's by the stream, performing a ritual of her own." Aunt Aubrey hugged my shoulders. "Do not mind her – she cares for you deeply, in her own way. May the goddess protect you, Ada." She kissed my forehead, and pushed me out the door.

  The morning air was crisp, and a light pattern of snow dotted the forest floor. As I walked I kept my eyes on the ground, searching for the herbs and ingredients I would need to complete the spell. Patchouli, juniper, myrtle, white oak bark … Aunt Aubrey assured me the walk to the grove and the searching out of the herbs were an important part of the ritual – my movements now would help the magic become stronger.

  If I wanted a man, I needed all the help I could get.

  Minutes turned into hours, and I covered the ground quickly, unhindered by my elderly aunts and their weak bones. I found the patchouli easily – it grew wild in this part of the forest. I knew there were juniper bushes near the edge of the grove. Now all I needed was some white oak bark. I scanned the forest for the right tree, twisting my neck one way, then the other, searching for the familiar thick trunk and rugged branches.

  Finally, I saw a white oak tree, down at the bottom of the gully. I descended the slope slowly, gathering my skirts in my hands so they would not drag in the mud. As I stepped around a fallen trunk, my foot slipped on a pile of wet leaves and I fell forward, sliding on my hands and knees, drenching my clothing and satchel in mud and snow. I sighed, pulling myself to my feet. "Just look at yourself," I muttered. "You're a mess. No wonder you need magic to find a man."

  At least I was only a mile or so from the grove, and could soon wash away the filth under the waterfall.

  I reached the base of the oak tree. Taking my knife from my pocket, I began to scrape away a section of bark. As I scraped, I heard a noise behind me. Just a bird. Or a deer. I kept cutting.

  No. It wasn't a deer. It was a larger animal, its steps heavy in the crunching snow. There was a road – not often travelled – not far away. It might be a horse and rider perhaps? Or it could be a wolf, st
alking the foolish girl who'd entered his territory? Either could be dangerous. I swirled around, scanning the forest for any sign of life. It wouldn't do to be caught out here by myself, clutching a satchel laden with magical implements. I squinted through the trees around the gully, but could see nothing.

  A twig snapped. My heart leapt to my chest.

  As silently as possible, I pulled the small bow from my back and removed an arrow from my quiver. Although most women in the village are forbidden the use of weapons, my aunts taught me to use a bow to hunt animals in the forest. There's many a winter we wouldn't have survived if it hadn't been for the rabbits and roe deer I brought home for the stew pot.

  Again I searched the undergrowth, listening for the familiar tread of a wolf's paw, or the faint whiff of rotten flesh that often accompanied them.

  I waited for several moments, steadying my breathing, my senses poised for an attack. But there was nothing. It is nothing. My stomach twisted again, Aunt Aubrey's potion working its foul magic. My imagination was getting the better of me. I replaced the bow and arrow and moved toward the grove.

  I moved silently now, as if I were approaching an animal. If there was something out there, I didn't want it to follow me. I entered the grove through a line of fir saplings, several of their branches bent or broken from last week's storm. The rain had raised the level of the lagoon, which lapped at the edges of the firs, the stones on the bank submerged under clear water. It was not yet cold enough for the water to turn to ice. I remembered the lagoon being fed by a peaceful, trickling waterfall, but the recent rains had turned it into a torrent, churning the water around it into white froth.

  The grove was empty, and even the birds fell silent as I walked to the edge of the lagoon. Nothing would disturb my ritual today.