“Cherry, all your shit is made for dolls or something. Do you have anything that wasn’t bought at Baby Gap?” She was hunting around in my crop top drawer, which was probably part of the issue, but I was too drunk to care. Maybe too high.
“I think I left some bed shirts in the bathroom,” I mumbled, cozying down into my pillow and tucking the blankets up around my chin while Revel hunted around my bathroom.
“Oh, this is such a pretty shade of lipstick,” she called out to me, and I mumbled something incoherent back.
She re-emerged from the bathroom, dressed in Mik’s shirt. It would have been weird to point that out though, so I kept my trap shut and she perched on the other side of my bed, chewing her lip.
“Thea … there’s something I need to tell you and I’ve kind of been putting it off.” She sounded uncertain for the first time since I’d met her and I struggled to stay awake long enough to chat a little more.
“Tell me,” I coaxed her. “I won’t judge.”
She laughed bitterly, twisting her fingers in her lap. “Okay, here goes. Uh, so … I can’t shift.”
“Huh?” Okay, the pot brownies and all the wine … it was definitely affecting my intelligence and that was the best I could muster up.
“It was just after I arrived and … with the vampire … then I don’t know …” Her words were blurring in and out of my ears as I started drifting to sleep, so I bit my lip sharply to stay awake and focus.
“Revel, you took tainted dust? Why would you do that?” I blinked rapidly to try and wake myself up more, but I was fighting an uphill battle.
“I just told you …” She faded out again and I snapped my eyes back open just in time to see a tear roll down her cheek. “Thea, I’m scared.” She whispered this, her voice choking with emotion and I pulled her down onto the pillow beside me.
“I know,” I whispered back. “But I’m going to fix it. I have a plan.”
Whatever she said back faded into obscurity as sleep pulled me under with merciless hands.
If I hadn’t been wined up and high as a kite, I’d have probably had a fit. Instead, a cold, dark unease settled over me, and I knew that I’d do anything … anything … to save this woman from her fate.
Even if it meant working with Nix fucking Locklear.
Bright sunlight poured in through my open curtains and I rubbed at my crusty eyes. Revel and I had stayed up way too late talking and drinking. Thankfully, I wasn't feeling any lasting effects from all the wine, which I could only assume was due to the quality of it.
Sitting up in bed, I ran a hand through my silky straight black hair. It was pooled around me on the mattress and I sighed. It really needed to be cut ... but not today. Today, it smelled of pine and oak, mixed with my own signature scent of cherry blossoms, so I decided to leave it down for once.
"Ziff?" I called out, seeing his little bed empty. "Revel?"
Silence met my voice and I frowned, looking around.
Propped up on my bedside table was a neatly folded note with my name scrawled over the front, so I picked it up and flipped it open.
Hey Cherry, I went out and grabbed Ziff some of those mice you said he likes. Gone back to my hotel now, but wanted to remind you I'm not giving up. You'll fuck me one day. Thanks for the cuddle, but I want to hear about this plan! Kisses! Revel
After her name there was a distinctive kiss mark in a deep plum lipstick that I knew she'd snaked out of my bathroom. Cheeky vixen. I was surprised she could be so goddamn cheerful after what she’d just told me. I wouldn’t let myself think about it too hard; if I did, I’d freeze. I’d lay down on this bed and I wouldn’t know how to get up. But I’d rather fight for my people, for all the shifters affected frankly, than wallow in misery or despair.
Hauling my butt up out of bed, I threw on some thigh-high woolen socks, a short pleated skirt and a buttery soft cashmere sweater. For some reason, today I was feeling particularly sassy, and wanted to look the part. Guess this was what pretending to be a superhero felt like? Hopefully I didn’t suck at it. If Revel went mad because of me, because I’d invited her over here … Fuck. I couldn’t even imagine. But if Nix Locklear had started this shit, he could damn well finish it.
"Ziff?" I called out again as I wandered down to my kitchen. No wonder he hadn't responded. When Revel said she'd grabbed Ziff some mice, she clearly hadn't understood how to store them so he didn't eat them all at once.
As it was, my little fennec fox was stalking a juicy little rodent around my kitchen island with his tail wagging like a battery powered toy turned to high.
"Ziff," I scolded, snatching his prey up and holding it out of his pleading reach. "How many have you already had?"
Ziff rose up on his hind legs, waving his paws at me desperately like he was some sort of starving Ethiopian fox. The bulge in his belly betrayed the truth of the matter though, so I wasn't buying it.
"No, buddy, you'll make yourself sick and then guess who has to clean it all up? Yeah, me. No offense but cleaning up your half digested mice is totally revolting." I gave him a stern glare and carried the rodent through to my butler’s pantry where I kept a container just for mice. After he was secure inside, I came back out and gave Ziff a suspicious look.
"Any more running around here that I should know about?" I asked him, and he chirped a sad sound, nudging the cupboard under the sink with his nose. "Good boy," I praised him, opening the cupboard and retrieving the other live mouse to join his friend in the pantry.
"Now come on, we have a deal to make with the devil." I gave him a sharp whistle and headed back through to my front door. With all the craziness the night before, I'd left Lola just sitting in my driveway rather than tucking her safely away in the garage. Poor Lola.
Once inside my car, I grabbed my makeup back from the glove compartment and touched up my face a bit. One benefit of my Japanese mixed heritage was that I had little need for mascara, but a little dramatic eyeliner and lipstick never went astray.
"Don't judge me, Ziff," I murmured, smooshing my lips together to even out the blood red of my lipstick. "It never hurts to look our best when striking a deal."
Ziff chirped something that sounded suspiciously like judgement, but I let it slide seeing as he was just a normal fox, and possibly didn't understand half of what I credited him with knowing.
Before pulling out of my driveway, I quickly checked the voicemail flashing on my phone screen. There had been some twenty-odd missed calls, all of which I cleared without bothering to check them seeing as there had only been one message left.
"Thea," Mik's voice reached my ear and I shivered. Fuck him for having such power over me, even on recorded voice message. "We need to talk." There was a pause, and my guts turned to ice. I was in so much trouble. "There’s a meeting next week with all of the guild’s higher ups. I’m going to fight for you, but I don’t know how this is going to turn out." There was another pause, and then the message cut off.
For a long moment, I sat there and stared at the phone in my hand, shocked at the coldness of his message. Then anger built inside me once more.
Gunning my engine, I took off back toward downtown Denver and the swanky restaurant that I somehow knew Nix would be waiting for me at. He was a smart guy … scary smart. He'd know that his offer was temping the hell out of me, so he’d deliberately be taking lunch at the same table every day in order to give me a chance to accept.
Either that, or he wouldn't be there and I'd be back at square one.
I had a good feeling about this though. Not about accepting his deal, that was making me so sick I almost needed to pull over and vomit, but about finding him.
"Welcome, ma'am," the valet greeted me politely as I stepped out of Lola in my black spike heel pumps. I gave him a small smile and handed over my keys before heading inside.
At the front desk was the same priggish little man that I'd dealt with the other day and he paled when he saw me.
"Don't mind me," I told him with a caustic smi
le, "I'm here to see a friend."
Dismissing him with a flick of my ears, I headed into the restaurant and immediately spotted Nix's dirty brown fur sitting at the table we'd shared last time. Walking over to him confidently, I trailed my fingertips lightly over his fur as I circled the table and took my seat on the bench facing him.
He tensed when my fingers touched him, and glared at me with his ice-blue eyes, framed once more with square black glasses.
"You're playing with fire, Thea," he growled, his voice pitched low and rumbling with tension. "I told you not to touch my fur. I could kill you for that."
"And I told you it needs a wash," I informed him with a head tilt. "We don't always get what we ask for."
"Is that why you're here then? To dissuade me from my course?” He said it so blandly that I knew, I knew that he was already confident that he had me right where he wanted me. Piece of shit.
I pursed my lips and considered him. He was such a closed book sometimes and yet so incredibly easy to read at others. "Actually, no. I came here to negotiate terms."
His blond brows rose with mock surprise and his body language immediately changed. "Terms? Of course. But tell me something?" I nodded and he continued. "Does Mik know you're here making a deal with me? And looking … fucking delicious, I might add."
I pursed my lips to hold back a smile at his compliment. "It's none of his business. He told me I'm on suspension, so he no longer has any say over what I do."
"Oh?" Nix's eyes rested on the very obvious vampire/werewolf combo bite on the side of my neck which both Mik and Bennett had been too fucking rude to heal. I can’t believe I fucked that guy. To be quite honest, I was still sore down there. But in a good way, at least. "Very well then. You know what I want. How about you, Miss Hunt? What do you want?"
"I understand that you want to study me because of my unprecedented early ascension to the Nine, is that correct?" I toyed with the stem of his empty wine glass and watched Nix from under my lashes.
"That’s all true, yes" he drawled, sipping a fresh Scotch. An empty plate sat at the end of the table, like he’d already eaten and been about to leave. Lucky I’d caught him. “I need to study you, you and your magic.” I didn’t miss the way he’d phrased that, need. What a load of shit.
"So exactly what do you mean by study? Are we talking live autopsy? Drug trials? Electroshock therapy? What?" I was trying really hard to keep my cool, but my voice shook a little. I was terrified of what I might be agreeing to, but there were no other acceptable options anymore.
Having seen what the disease did to shifters when they were left to go past the point of insane ... and now knowing that could be Revel's fate? I couldn't just stand by and let it happen. Not when I could possibly help find a cure. Greater good and all that.
"So dramatic, Thea." Nix smirked, but his eyes were clear and calculating. "Nothing so barbaric. What do you take me for? A murderer?"
"That's exactly what I take you for," I replied, then paused. "Then again, I'm hardly one to talk, am I? So I guess we're more alike that I first realized."
He chuckled. "Indeed we are." He paused when our waitress approached and ordered two cosmos. I didn’t comment on it. Inari knew, I could use a drink right about now. "So you want my assurance that no physical harm will come to you over the course of my research?"
"Physical or mental." Might as well shoot for the stars. In reality, I was desperate enough to agree to anything ... but he didn't know that.
"I can't promise to spare you from mental anguish, Miss Hunt. Honestly, I can't even promise your complete physical safety, considering the company you keep. I can assure you that I won't actively seek to inflict physical or mental harm." He spread his hands wide. "Does that reassure you?"
"You don't honestly think I'll just take your word for it, do you?" I chuckled, accepting the pink drink from the waitress that had just returned. "I must look dumber than I thought."
"Not at all." His cool gaze raked over me and I shivered. "But of course, you need a more binding agreement. I can provide that, but I’ll need some time to prepare it, and some strands from your fur."
I met his eyes and chewed my lip. "That's a big ask. I'm supposed to trust you with my fur? What if you make a voodoo doll of me or some shit?"
"You have to trust me at some stage or this won’t ever work. In exchange, I’ll cease distribution of the tainted dust and simply work off the data already gathered." Nix drummed his fingertips on the table, but his gaze never flinched.
"No," I said quietly. "No, in exchange you'll stop distribution and you'll share with me everything you know about the disease. Everything. This is personal for me now."
For a long moment, he just stared at me through the lense of his glasses, long enough that I started wondering if he ever blinked.
"I’ll need to run that past my employer. After all, it’s their information to share, not mine." He sipped his own cosmo and then licked his lips, all tricksy like a fucking coyote in a suit. I couldn’t forget that his kind, they were master manipulators. Good thing I was fly like a fox, baby.
I nodded. "Fine. Call me when you get it approved and we can bind this agreement. Okay?" He tipped his head in acquiescence. "As great as all this magical bullshit is, and all these clandestine meetings, wouldn’t it just be easier to exchange numbers?"
"You read my mind, Miss Hunt," Nix purred, pushing a paper napkin across the table at me. I fished around in my bag, moving Ziff aside and pulling out a pen to scribble down both my number, and then his as he gave it to me. I ripped the napkin in half and offered mine up. "Of course, I could also just turn up at your house."
"You could try," I snickered. "Mik installed new security, though."
"Ah." Nix's smile widened and for the first time, it seemed genuine. Too bad I hated him and wanted him dead. If he hadn’t fucked over Revel and the rest of the shifter community, then maybe … "A challenge then."
"Something like that." I rolled my eyes and finished my drink with one swallow. "Nice to see you again, Nix."
"Get used to it, Thea. You just earned yourself a second shadow," he responded with a half-smile, and a wash of prophecy rolled over my tongue. What use was my power of foretelling when all it did was my make my mouth tingle like I’d sucked down sour candy?
Unnerved, I said nothing more, just slipped the strap of Ziff's bag over my shoulder and sauntered back out to my car praying I hadn't just made a massive mistake.
Then again, if it meant saving Revel's life ... surely it would be justified?
A kitsune could only hope.
Arriving home, I half expected to find someone on my doorstep again, but my house was mercifully silent.
"Thank the Fox Father," I groaned aloud, putting Ziff down and watching him scurry off to the kitchen. I knew he wanted one of those mice, so I followed after him to fish it out of the box and set it free. Might as well make Ziff work for it a little; it'd stop him getting fat and lazy.
That taken care of, I dragged my exhausted ass up my grand staircase to the master suite. Or as I liked to call it, the mistress suite. It never made sense to me why it should have such a masculine name when both men and women resided in there.
"Yes, glorious bath time," I sighed, stripping off my clothing as I wandered through my bedroom and into the ensuite. After quickly dumping some cherry blossom bubbles into my tub, I turned the taps on to fill it and then went in search of some good bath tunes. After the few days I'd just had, I badly needed it.
Humming along to the instrumental track I'd turned on, I sat on the edge of the tub in the nude, swirling my hand in the cherry scented bubbles while the water filled up. Just as I turned the taps off and stepped one foot into the heavenly warm water ... my fucking doorbell rang.
"No," I groaned dramatically. "Go away, I'm not home."
Of course, whoever it was totally ignored my pleas and kept ringing that fucking doorbell. Why did I have to leave my car outside again? If I had just taken the time to garage he
r, then I could conceivably be out!
"Thea!" Finley’s voice reached me from outside, and I scrubbed my face with my hands. If Fin had driven all the way down here, and was yelling at me from outside my house ... it was something important.
"Fucking vixen tits!" I screamed in frustration, removing my foot from the water and grabbing my satin robe from the back of the door.
The whole way downstairs I muttered curses under my breath, then threw open the front door and released an angry vixen growl.
"What?!" I snapped, glaring at Fin like I hoped he would shrivel up and fucking die. It was all an act, of course, but I barely even admitted that to myself most days. Fin had been my first love, my fated mate, and I doubted I would ever lose that warmth for him ... no matter how big a cunt he had been in recent years.
"Thea," he breathed. His gaze tracked over my body from head to toe, taking in my loose hair, short satin robe, and bare legs. "Did I ... was I interrupting something?"
"Yes, Fin, you were. What are you doing here? And how did you get past the gates?" I scowled at him, like he was a sneaky vacuum cleaner salesman who had slipped past the guard dog.
"I'm a fox, Thea babe. A gate can't keep me out." He quirked a boyish grin at me, and I needed to bite my lip to stop myself returning it.
"What do you need, Finley?" I repeated, folding my arms under my breasts to hold my robe a little tighter to my body. The last thing I needed was to accidentally flash him.
He sucked in a deep breath and dodged my gaze, staring at his bare feet.
"The kitsune-tsukai have summoned you. I was tasked with the job of delivering the invitation to you." He sounded guilty as fuck, and so he should. It was his fault they'd bound my magic in the first place.
"I see," I snapped, "When?"
He gusted a heavy sigh. "Two hours from now."
My jaw clenched, and I closed my eyes to count to ten. As if these last few days weren't hard enough, now those trumped up witches wanted to show me how big their dicks were? Fuck they had impeccable timing.
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