Taken For His Own

by Tara Fox Hall

  Theo raised his eyebrows, but only said, “Is it?”

  “Some, yes,” I admitted. “But it doesn’t matter. My lessons with Devlin are done, and I’ll just avoid her. Brian can come and stay at our house the nights you need to work, and I’ll just come over days.” Angrily, I remembered her comment about preferring nights. Bitch.

  “Do you want me to—?”

  “I don’t want you to do anything but drive. Let’s not talk about it, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  * * * *

  With planning, I was able to avoid seeing Monica as I had before. Days passed, then a week. Danial treated me exactly as he always had, which made me think I’d imagined his affection and interest in her. That lasted until the following Friday morning, when I went in early with Theo to work on emails and found Monica coming out of Danial’s bedroom. She was clearly heading to her rooms for the day, her hair mussed from bed, her clothing somewhat wrinkled.

  I took pleasure in the fact he wouldn’t let her stay the day with him. “Good morning. I see you’re still in need of sleep.”

  She stopped still, then relaxed. “Hi,” she said uneasily. “I expected to be gone before you arrived.”

  That implied she’d been fucking him right along, maybe from when she’d first been hired. Likely he’d let her come in late to work, because he’d been keeping her up all night. “He’s the boss,” I said, daggers in my eyes. “If he doesn’t care, I don’t.” I went past her and headed upstairs to work.

  “Sar,” she called after me, “I won’t apologize to you for this. We wanted to—”

  “Don’t apologize to me, you whore,” I said icily, turning to glare at her. “I’ve got no problem with him moving on or using you to do it. But you have no self-respect to be fucking your boss.” I raised my voice. “And I just lost a good deal of respect for him, too.”

  “I’d happily leave his employ if you and his children didn’t need me so much,” Monica replied sweetly. “Be assured the time will come when I will.” She gave me a triumphant smile. “But I’ll never be leaving his bed, Sar. You can count on that.” She stalked away, then slammed the front door.

  I resisted the urge to go after her or yell. What was the point? She had every right to be in Danial’s bed if he wanted her there. I was just jealous, and that was that. I went upstairs and sat down at the desk, looking at my hands, studying my diamond ring from Danial on my right. I resisted the spiteful urge to leave it on his computer keyboard and got to work.

  Doing email for hours mellowed my mood slightly, enough so I joined Elle outside after lunch. We were in the backyard, just a little ways beyond the house. Theoron was sitting in the afternoon sun on a blanket, playing with some flowers, as Elle sketched him. Brian was sitting to the side of the blanket, dozing in bear form.

  I’d no sooner gotten settled when my cell rang. It was Danial.

  “Hi, Danial,” I said. “Shouldn’t you be catching up on your sleep, too?”

  “Sar, come inside.”

  “I’m good here, Danial,” I said, my voice cracking a little.

  “Come inside. I want to talk to you,” Danial said and then hung up.

  I sighed. I might as well face him. It wasn’t going to get any easier.

  I got to my feet. Everyone looked up. “I’ll be back,” I said. “Danial needs to talk to me.”

  Brian nodded, then gestured with his head to go.

  Feeling like I was walking to a scaffold, I went inside to the great room, where Danial waited for me on the couch, fully dressed.

  “Come and sit with me, Sar,” he said softly.

  I sat down across from him and gave him an expectant look.

  “I heard what you said to Monica this morning.”

  “I taught you a bad habit,” I said sarcastically, glancing at him quickly. “Now you are listening at doors.”

  “You said it loudly, hoping I’d hear it,” he said, ignoring the barb. “I’m sorry you don’t respect me as you did. I want to know if you’d rather not work for me anymore.”

  I cast him an astonished look, absolutely crushed.

  “I don’t want to upset you,” Danial continued. “But I’m not going to fire her or stop seeing her, which is what you want me to do. Can you work with her or not?”

  He was saying I had to go unless I was willing to accept them. I got to my feet hastily, blinking back tears. “No, I won’t. Go ahead and fire me if you want. You can have your clone.”

  I took a step toward the door, and Danial grabbed hold of me.

  “Let me go!” I shouted furiously, trying to yank my arm from his iron grasp.

  “No,” he hissed fiercely. “I won’t. You don’t want me, but you don’t want anyone else to have me, either.”

  “That’s fucking right!” I yelled. “You’re mine, and we have a child, and that should mean you don’t want to fuck bimbos anymore! You should want me!”

  “I do want you,” Danial snarled and brought his lips down on mine forcefully. I responded to him, kissing him back hard, my tongue slipping between his parted lips. He pushed me back onto the sofa, then crushed me to him, kissing me thoroughly as his hands roamed my body, touching and caressing me. Danial’s kisses moved to my throat. He sucked gently at my skin, his hips grinding into mine, pressing his steel-like erection between my legs. I arched my back and pressed close to him, letting out an eager cry.

  My heart was racing. This was so wrong. I knew it, and I was doing it anyway!

  Danial pulled back from me, panting. “Tell me yes,” he murmured, moving in to lick my throat. “Tell me yes, and I’ll tell her she’s fired.” He kissed up my neck. “I’ll be yours again if you’ll be mine.”

  That was enough to shock me back into reality. I pushed him off me with one fast movement, scrambling to my feet. Breathing hard, I put some distance between us. “I love you,” I gasped, lust and love mixed together in my words. “I’m sorry for this, all of it. I’m so sorry.” I turned and fled, Danial’s lunge just missing me.

  “Sar!” he shouted.

  I ran from him and everything I was feeling into the woods. I walked quickly out of sight, stopping to gather myself together.

  I’d wanted Danial so bad I could taste it. What had happened to me? Was it just jealousy?

  My cell phone began to ring. It was Danial. I ignored it. Knowing he’d call Brian next to hunt me down, I walked to Terian’s lab, hoping by the time I got there my eyes wouldn’t look upset or lustful.

  Terian was there mixing some potion studiously. “Hey, Sar,” he said, glancing up at me. Then he did a double take. “What’s wrong?”

  Quick, think of something, anything. “Terian, I need a charm or something to ward off Monica’s illusions. Do you have anything like that?”

  I expected him to say no, but he went to a drawer and wordlessly pulled out a charm on a leather thong. He handed it to me. “Wear it against your skin.”

  I put it around my ankle, under my sock, figuring that was the last place anyone would look for it. “Thanks.” Standing, I added, “You had these ready. Who else has one?”

  “Danial asked for one a month ago and I made extras, because they’re a pain in the ass to make. Theo asked for one this morning. I get why they want one, but why do you?”

  “They must be some kind of truth spell, right? So you can only see what’s real?”

  “I don’t need one to see you’re pissed at Monica. I can guess why.”

  “You know why, so stop with the questions,” I said, irritated. “Where is Theo?”

  “Working out,” Terian said. “And if you are done with me, I’d like to get back to work.”

  Always the moralist. It must come from his mother’s side of the family. “Don’t work too hard. You need to save some energy for Erin.”

  Terian blushed red, confirming my hopes. “Well, at least something is going right today,” I said, giving him a smile. “Good luck. I hope she makes you happy.”

  I headed to the exercise
room and found Theo exercising with close to three hundred pounds. He finished a set rapidly, then put the weights aside.

  “I didn’t expect you,” he said happily. Then he sniffed the air, and his face registered anger and jealousy. “Did you come here for a confession?”

  “Yes, of sorts. I confronted Danial about Monica, and the next thing I knew we were kissing. I stopped it going further, and I want you to know I’m sorry. The bottom line, though, is I think it might be best if I looked for another job.”

  “No,” Theo said flatly. “Things are working well just as they are. I don’t want you leaving.”

  I stared at him in surprise. He’d never before just told me what to do. My hackles rose instantly, but then oddly, they relaxed. Theo was my husband. He had a right to give me his opinion, and I was supposed to listen, not just brush it off as meaningless. “I thought you’d insist on it after what I just said. What do you think I should do?”

  “I think you should work here like you have been. Not only do you do a good job, but also I’m nearby, the way I wouldn’t be if you went to work somewhere else. I’ll talk to Danial. Monica can work nights as she has been doing, but I’ll ask her to avoid you.”

  “We’re going to run into each other sometimes if we both work here.”

  “Monica can teleport,” Theo stated. “That means she can travel without her feet, and she can do that if you’re around, so you never have to see her. Don’t worry. She’ll do it, or I’ll fire her. I don’t care who Danial fucks, but I expect any employee here to listen when I tell them something.” He gave me a hug, then added teasingly, “That goes for you, too.”

  “If he cares about her, he’s not going to like you giving her orders,” I said, dubious.

  “That’s my job here—to give orders,” Theo said confidently. “Let me talk to Danial. We’ll sort it out.”

  * * * *

  Days passed, then a week. Theo’s plan worked, at least to the point I never saw Monica in the flesh. Even so, hearing her open Danial’s door some mornings when I was above in the study was enough to infuriate me.

  Danial himself also avoided me as much as possible, except when we chanced on one another. When that happened, we were polite but distant as we speedily parted. He took to leaving any questions or instructions he had for me on his desk to find when I came in the next morning. As much as the arrangement was odd, I got used to it.

  When the first of September came, I began harvesting the garden. Despite that everything had grown well, my passion for it was nonexistent, something Theo quickly picked up on.

  “You don’t have to harvest more if you don’t want to,” he said, hugging me from behind one night as I steamed and froze vegetables.

  “You want me to leave it for the rabbits?” I joked.

  “Yes, actually,” Theo said eagerly. “I like rabbit a lot. If you open the gate, they’ll be drawn to the food, and I’ll bag us a few.”

  I reminded myself he was part animal, and a rabbit wasn’t something cute to look at for him. It was food. “You’ll have enough meat. I bought a cow’s worth from the farmer down the road. He’s bringing it by in a few days along with a dozen chickens.”

  “Good. I’ve also purchased some meat through Danial. We have a reliable source for the werefox larder, a farm in the Midwest that is organic and free of antibiotics.”

  “How is he?” I asked tentatively.

  “Danial’s fine,” Theo said flatly. “He’s adapting to you being gone and using Monica to do it. For what it’s worth, I think he’s happy with her. But don’t worry, there aren’t going to be any Oaths spoken anytime soon. Danial said he was done with that.”

  “He told you that?”

  “No, he told you that,” Theo said, releasing me and going into the other room. “He said it, knowing I’d tell you if you asked, knowing you would ask. He knows I don’t care if he takes vows, so long as they aren’t to you. He knows you do care, despite you’re married to me.”

  I didn’t reply. What was there to say? Theo was right.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The phone rang at three a.m. Groggily, I grabbed it. “Hello?”

  “I’m sorry for waking you, Sar,” Danial said politely. “Please put Theo on. It’s urgent I speak with him.”

  I nudged Theo awake. “Danial.”

  Theo took the phone, mumbled a few assents, then hung up. “Shit.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I need to go to L.A for a meeting tonight with Danial. Terian was supposed to go, but he can’t now.”

  “Why?”

  “Danial didn’t say. Anyway, this means you’ll have to come in with me to work and stay overnight there.”

  “Not with Monica there, I won’t.”

  “She’ll be on guard with Terian, but she can guard from outside the house and pull night shift. Brian and Erin will be there all day. Has she given you any trouble?”

  “No,” I admitted reluctantly. “You think Ivan and Janice can come and watch things here? It’s almost the weekend.”

  “Sure,” Theo said, dialing. “I’ll arrange it. Go back to sleep. We won’t leave until close to dark. I need to be rested enough to be up all night.”

  * * * *

  An hour after our arrival at dusk, Theo and Danial were airborne for L.A., Erin had gone to rest up for her next shift at dawn, and Terian, Elle, Brian and myself were in the great room playing Pollyanna, an older version of Parcheesi.

  “So why didn’t you go?” I asked Terian. “You’ve never bailed on a trip before.”

  “I need to be somewhere else later tonight,” Terian answered, rolling dice and moving his pieces. “But Monica should be here by then to take over. I won’t be gone long.”

  I gave him a fake smile. “Thanks. I’m so relieved.”

  “I’ll be here, too,” Brian said, yawning.

  “Your shift ended an hour ago,” Terian said. “I know your stamina’s good for another day, but you don’t have to stay if you’re tired.”

  “I do,” Brian said, straightening up visibly. “I’ll put in for the overtime. Don’t worry. Your turn, Elle.”

  “I caught you,” Elle exclaimed in glee. She sent one of Terian’s pieces back again to start. “Now I get twenty extra spaces.” She began to count them off aloud in a smug voice.

  “Whatever. It’s Sar’s turn,” Terian said irritably.

  “Why didn’t Monica go?” I asked Terian suddenly. “It’s going to be an overnight, so―”

  “I hear something,” Brian said, his voice edgy as he stood up. “There’s a small group moving toward the door.”

  “We were playing,” Elle said, scowling. “It’s probably the foxes coming back.”

  “No,” Terian said, leaping to his feet. “There’s too many of them.”

  “Elle, get your gun,” I said, moving fast for the nursery. “I’ll get Theoron.”

  Elle got to her feet without a word and ran after me. I grabbed Theoron from his crib, then my explosive bullets gun from my holster on the chair and raced back to Terian and Brian. Elle joined us a moment later, her explosive bullets gun in her hands.

  “Should we go to the basement?” I said anxiously.

  Terian closed his cell phone. “I can’t get anybody at the fox compound. Wait here.”

  Terian abruptly vanished. I gaped in shock. Elle gasped. Brian’s mouth hung open.

  Terian reappeared. “Manir is here,” he said. “The foxes are shut inside, a force of twenty werebears pinning them down with gunfire. They can’t help us.”

  “We need more guns—” I said quickly.

  “No, more ammo,” Brian interrupted. “Go quickly, Terian. Manir may have a sorcerer of his own.”

  Terian disappeared. A few moments later, he reappeared with additional explosive bullet guns for Brian and me and a case of ammunition. He handed them out quickly. “Sorry, this was all I could get. The armory’s been looted.”

  “We can’t hold them off, not with all these wind
ows,” Brian said, scanning the room. “Upstairs is exposed, too. They’ll burn us out―”

  “Terian, can you teleport us out?” I asked.

  “Not everybody,” Terian said worriedly. “And if he does have a sorcerer, I’ll get one trip out before I’m blocked. I won’t be able to return.”

  “How many can you take?” Brian asked.

  “I’ve never taken anyone,” Terian admitted, peering outside. “Monica just started teaching me a week ago―”

  “Help!” someone called from the porch. “Let me in!”

  Brian went for the door.

  “Don’t open it,” I said flatly, pointing my gun at him.

  “It’s Erin,” he said in disbelief. “She probably was attacked on the way to the compound. She might be hurt―”

  “You heard her,” Terian said, aiming his gun at Brian. “It’s got to be a trick. Don’t go another step, or I’ll shoot you.”

  That was his lover pleading for help out there. But he knew as well as I did that the coincidence was too great that Erin had escaped the werefox compound and made it to us when no one else had.

  Brian stood there looking at us, aghast. “What if it isn’t? She’s eagle. She might have flown out—”

  Erin began to scream outside, and I wondered for a half second if we had made the right choice. Then the door burst open, and it didn’t matter. Men poured into the entryway, and we fell back behind the couches in the great room.

  “Live captures only,” a snot-nosed voice said. “Don’t risk hurting the dhamphir. We have no idea what might be lethal at his age. He’s no use to me dead.”

  Guards moved into the room, fanning out.

  “Fire!” Terian yelled.

  The room filled with noise and smoke as our bullets exploded flesh and bone. Five guards went down fast, but the rest fell back to the entryway.

  “How many are there?” I whispered to Terian, who had a clear view.

  “About forty or so at least.”

  “We can’t kill them all,” Brian said. “They’re going to rush us any minute.”