by T. S. Joyce
His phone rang again. Stupid Damon.
Irritated, Nox answered, “I don’t have any new information for you.”
“Where are you?”
“On the road.”
“Have you any new leads on Vyr?”
Damon was testing, but Nox knew better than to lie to an ancient. Damon Daye had hundreds of years of lie detection experience.
“What do you know about fox shifters?”
“That they don’t exist,” Damon said blandly. “Answer my question.”
“Vyr doesn’t want to be caught.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t answering the question either. Check-fuckin’-mate.
“Nice try. Do you have any new leads?”
“I met a girl.”
Silence greeted him from the other end. Finally, Damon took the bait. “And she’s a fox?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you’re fucked. Go fall in lust with someone else. Foxes don’t give up their own, and they aren’t going to let a grizzly into their den. I’m not paying you to stir up a fox den, Nox. I’m paying you to find my son.”
“I want to know why.”
“That’s none of your business.”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong. It’s me out here risking my neck to track down your out-of-control fire-breathing dipshit son. There is a ninety percent chance I’m going to be charred and eaten. I should at least know why his own fucking father is trying to send him to shifter prison.”
When Damon sighed, it tapered into a prehistoric rumble over the phone that tickled Nox’s ear and made him pull the cell away from his face until the noise stopped. God, he hated dragons.
“Have you not seen the news?” Damon asked.
“I hate TV.”
“Right. Well, here’s the facts. My son burned Covington, which you know, because you broke the line with him. He then ate several gorilla and lion shifters on camera, scorched the earth for twelve straight hours after the battle like he was claiming the Appalachian Mountains, also on camera. He also ate an entire ranch worth of cattle when he finished burning the land. And then he curled himself around a barn and started defending it like it was a castle. When a massive police force was brought in to neutralize him, he blew up four police cars.”
Nox snorted. It was kinda funny. If Nox was a dragon, he’d be doing the same kind of destruction. Vyr was a dumbass and Nox still hated him, but at least he was an amusing dumbass.
“All eyes are on the dragons now. There is a lot of heat on Dark Kane, Rowan, Harper, and me. It’s even trickled down to Diem. And if that kind of attention stays on us, it stays on our people.”
“Eh, that’s bad. There is a hundred percent chance of the Gray Backs screwing up.”
“Boy, I like how you blame the Gray Backs for bad behavior when your father has been arrested twice this week for spray-painting twelve-foot penises on billboards. They’ve caused three wrecks because people get distracted—”
“Dick-stracted—”
“This isn’t funny!”
“Disagree, and I know which signs he tagged because I was supposed to do it with him. It was supposed to be our father-son prank of the month, but instead, I’m out here in boring-ville trying not to get eaten alive by your son! Dude!”
“I’m a millennia old, boy. Don’t call me dude.”
“Dude! Vyr isn’t going to skip off to shifter prison because one grizzly shifter, who he hates by the way, told him he should.”
“Well, that’s what I negotiated, so he has to. One year was better than a lifetime in there. It’s better for all of us this way.”
“My dad wouldn’t put me in shifter prison even if I ate a hundred gorillas. He would’ve handed me a Tums afterward.”
“Well, your father is a delinquent just like you, and he’s also not in charge of my mountains with dozens of people depending on him.”
“Your parenting skills need improvement. Oh, my God.” Nox stared out the window at the flickering neon sign of Essie’s Pantry as something hit him like lightning. “That’s why you want me to convince Vyr to come in, isn’t it? You don’t want to be the bad guy to him. You want me to be the bad guy.”
“Enough.”
“Either way, he’s going to hate you.”
“I said enough! It’s family business, and I’ve told him a hundred times he has to be careful with the dragon. He doesn’t try to control it, and there have to be consequences for his actions. He’s a grown man now, and he should have control, but he doesn’t. He never even tried. I’ve told him over and over this would happen, and now I can’t protect him like I used to. I can’t! He’s put shifters everywhere at risk with his behavior, and he has to be punished or the government will make all of our lives a living hell. Find my son, Nox. And leave the foxes alone.”
“Oh, the ones you said didn’t exist?”
“You have no idea what you’re getting into with that. They aren’t submissive like they’ll convince you they are. Foxes are very clever and very good at staying unseen. They also hunt en masse. You could disappear, and no one would ever know what happened to you. They are the piranhas of our kind, and they are completely silent killers. They govern themselves, and their law is to kill any threat to them, ask questions later. Leave the vixen alone and get to work. You have two days.”
The line went dead.
Nox barely resisted the urge to chuck the phone through the front window. Two days and then what? The blue dragon would eat him? But if he tried to take Vyr in, then he was Red Dragon food. Add Nevada and claiming marks and a bone-deep need to keep her safe into the mix, and he was totally stuck. He was like a duck that had fallen asleep on a pond in a snowstorm and woken up to find his feet frozen in the water.
The longer he stayed in Foxburg, the harder it became to leave.
Chapter Ten
Okay. She could do this. Nevada was going shopping during the day and would make herself talk to one person while looking them in the eyes. And she would smile and pretend to be a normal, functioning adult.
One person.
Bleh, she wanted to puke. Just do it. Be the fox, not the chicken.
Her hand shook as she reached for her apartment door. She hadn’t even left her apartment and she was already breaking out in hives all over her face. She would look like she had chicken pox by the time she got to Essie’s Pantry. I f she didn’t have a full-blown panic attack in the grocery store, it would be nothing short of a miracle.
Determined, she yanked the door open and almost stepped right on a bouquet of what looked like yellow weed flowers. The stems were tied with a pink satin ribbon. Outside, it had started to snow, and there was a thin layer of white all over the yard, but on her welcome mat was a little bundle of springtime.
“They’re dandelions,” Nox murmured from where he sat against the wall by her door.
He didn’t wear a jacket, only a tight black T-shirt with another Bone Ripper logo in white over his left pec. His jeans were worn at the knees, and his black leather boots were scuffed. His blond beard covered most of his expression, but she didn’t miss the shadows in his eyes when he’d lifted his attention to her.
No one had ever gotten her flowers before. Nevada stooped, picked them up, and smelled them like she’d seen girls do on romantic television shows. They smelled good and were cold to the touch. “Where did you get dandelions this time of year?”
Nox pushed a scratched, blue cooler forward with the toe of his boot. “My dad shipped them overnight for me. He grows them for my mom all year round in a greenhouse behind their trailer.”
“He grows weeds?” she asked softly as she sat down beside Nox and rested her back against the wall. She wished she could lean her head on his shoulder because she was so dang relieved to be near him again. She’d thought he was gone for good, and admittedly, she’d cried last night because the ache in her chest wouldn’t go away.
“He used to give them to my mom when they were kids. He would say, ‘Look for me in the dandeli
ons.’ And when they found each other again when they were older, he gave her them again. He was never good at I love yous.” Nox chuckled. “The other kids would give me so much shit because my dad would give me a flower when he was proud of me. I would press them in an old dictionary, and then when they were dry, I would put them in this scrapbook of plastic sleeves. Torren saw it once when he spent the night.”
“Torren is your friend?”
“No. I hate everyone.”
Nevada frowned and cuddled the flowers to her chest, then scooted close to Nox. “Then why did he spend the night?”
“Because my mom was worried I would end up…” He let the words trail off and swallowed hard as he gave his attention to the falling snow.
“End up, what?”
His lips ticked up in a sad smile. “She was afraid I would end up like this.”
The ache in Nevada’s chest grew, so she moved closer until their arms brushed. Nox’s reaction to her touch wasn’t to flinch away like she’d feared. Instead, he lifted his arm over her, rested it on her shoulders, and pulled her tightly against his ribs. And now she got to rest her head on him. He smelled of mint toothpaste, some hot-boy cologne, and the subtle scent of fur.
“She would invite the boys from around Damon’s Mountains for sleepovers to try and socialize me. Torren was okay. I hated him the least, but he never understood my language. He is big and dominant and broken like me. He’s got animal problems. He’ll be sick in the head soon. Totally fucked. He was raised in a small family group of gorilla shifters outside of Damon’s Mountains, down in Saratoga. He was an outsider like me. But when he slept over, he saw the sleeves of dried dandelions and asked me why I had a book of flowers. And when I told him it wasn’t a book of flowers, that it was a book of I love yous, he laughed. So I beat the shit out of him, and he asked my mom to take him home. She wised up and didn’t try to force people to be friends with me after that. Nevada?” he said suddenly, turning to her. His face was so close to hers, his lips only inches away. “I’m not going to be good at it either.”
“At what?”
“The I love yous and romantic shit you’ll need. I’m not built to be a good mate.”
She lifted the dandelions and smiled. “You’re doing just fine.” Slowly, she wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek on his chest, listening to the quick drumming of his heartbeat. “You don’t have to be anything other than what you are with me.”
Nox let off a sigh, as if he’d been holding his breath, and his arms tightened slightly around her. He was so strong and steady, all her anxiety melted away. Here, in this little world this feral man had created, she was safe. Not only safe from other people, but safe to unapologetically be herself, and that’s what love was…right? It wasn’t a trapped feeling. It wasn’t a cage. It was freedom. She wouldn’t tell him how hard she’d fallen yet because it was too soon, and she didn’t want to seem desperate. But her animal had picked him, she’d picked him, and that was that. She would give up her den to have one day like this, where she could breathe easy, feel valuable, and be touched by a man who wanted to touch her because he thought her soul was pretty, not because she could give him kits.
“I did research,” she said cheekily.
“Uh oh.”
“Yep, I did research on why you bit me, and I found out about claiming marks.”
“Woman, you’re a shifter. How did you not know about claiming marks?”
“Because foxes don’t do those. We stick to our own and don’t concern ourselves with what you barbarians are doing. Get it? Bar-bear-ians?”
Nox chuckled and tickled her ribs. Surprised, she wiggled away from his touch and laughed. “I’m not ticklish. Don’t even try it.”
“Lie,” he called her out.
“Well, that’s how you’re supposed to do it. You pretend early on in a relationship that you aren’t ticklish, and then they never try to tickle you again because it’s boring if you won’t react.”
“Yeah, that wouldn’t stop me. I’m going to keep tickling you just for the excuse to accidentally touch your boobs. Do you want to fuck?”
“What?” she asked, sure she’d heard him wrong.
“Do you. Want. To fuck?”
“Not romantic.”
“We can do it naked this time.”
She sighed. “Last time you ran away. It hurt my feelings.”
“I will hurt your feelings six hundred times a day because I’m a monster.”
“Well try harder not to!”
“I am trying! I hurt other people like eight hundred times a day.”
“Oh.” Well that was kind of romantic in Nox’s way. “I want missionary position.”
“Bland.”
“That’s what I want, and I don’t want to call it ‘fucking,’ and you have to look me in the eyes when you finish. And no more biting.”
“I don’t have to bite you anymore. You’re already mine.”
“Hmm. Are you mine?”
“Not yet.”
“Doesn’t seem fair. I don’t want to belong to a man who doesn’t belong to me.”
Nox blinked slow and slid her a challenging look, his eyes sparking silver. “Then make me yours, little fox.”
The smile fell from her face, and her heart hammered against her breast bone. Nox was hot when he went all serious and told her what to do. “And we come at the same time,” she whispered, still negotiating.
He gave her a wicked grin just before his lips pressed onto hers. He laved his tongue against hers, once, twice, and then she was in the air, in his arms, being carried into the house. He was squishing her dandelions between them, but that was okay. She was going to press them and dry them and add them to a scrapbook with plastic sleeves. She was going to make her own I love you book. She hadn’t missed the meaning of these flowers. He’d had them shipped here just to give to her. He loved her already, as she did him. They didn’t have to say it out loud for it to be true.
The door slammed as he kicked it closed behind them, and then she was on her feet again, unsteady but upright as he shoved her jacket off her shoulders and threw it on the ground. He didn’t stop stalking her until she was to the couch. The backs of her legs hit the edge of the cushion, and she plopped onto it with a yelp.
“Clumsy,” Nox accused through a grin. His crystalline blue eyes danced as he reached down and hooked his fingers in the hem of her jeans. Without even unbuttoning them, he peeled them off, shoes, panties and all, like she was some kind of horny banana.
Daylight streamed in through the thin curtains, illuminating the room. Nox ripped his shirt over his head in one smooth motion and rested a knee between her legs. She could see every line of tattoo ink, every ripple of muscle. This was the part where she was supposed to be self-conscious about her body, right? Well screw that, because Nox was looking down at her with such a hungry expression in his eyes, she couldn’t feel like anything but a sexpot vixen right now. Feeling bold, she canted her head and gave him a devilish grin, and then she laid back and spread her knees apart.
“Fuuuuck, woman,” Nox murmured, his wide eyes between her legs. “I want to eat that,” he said, pointing. Then he jammed a finger at her tits. “Shirt off, I want to fuck those.”
“There are rules this time.”
“Fuck rules, I break them. Shirt off.”
“Missionary, and then you can do whatever you want next time.”
Nox gave off a frustrated growl. “I don’t know how to do missionary. I’ve never done it facing forward before.”
“What?” Nevada asked in shock, lifting up to her elbow. “Never?”
“Well, no! Animals do it from the back. I’m an animal. You’re an animal.” He frowned. “This is unnatural.”
“This is like a dandelion,” she murmured. Did he understand? Did he realize she was telling him another way to show affection for her?
His eyes softened, and he looked so uncertain. It was strange to see that on a big grizzly of a man, shre
dded with muscles and tattoos and a big manly beard and that long hair on top that flopped in front of his face.
Slowly, Nox lowered himself to her, pressing his weight on top of her until she sank into the couch cushions. Gently, he pulled her sweater over her head, unsnapped her bra in the back, then draped them on the arm of the couch behind her, and as he shucked his pants, his eyes never left hers.
Naked, powerful body humming with tension, he hovered over her. “Nothing scares me but you.”
But the way he said it made it sound like not such a bad thing. And plus, she understood. He was creating a tornado of change within Nevada after she had stood still for so long. It was terrifying, but it also felt right.
Lifting up slightly, she pressed her lips to his, and when she relaxed against the couch pillow again, he chased her mouth and stayed with her. His fingertips were gentle as he brushed them through her hair and then gripped the back of her neck. And as his tension eased, he relaxed on top of her, his warm skin blanketing hers until there wasn’t an end or beginning to either of them. He felt so good pressed against her, the head of his cock right there at her entrance, teasing. He flexed his abs and rolled his hips forward, pushing all the way into her. He eased back and watched her face when he did it again. Nevada rolled her eyes closed at how good he felt sliding into her and arched her back against the couch cushions just for the chance to be even closer to him. He was filling her just right, touching her just right, and when he brushed his fingertips up her forearm, intertwined his fingers with hers, and pressed her hand over her head against the arm of the couch, the glowing, tingling sensation inside of her heated up even more.
He was being gentle, and sensitive, this man who had probably not lived a gentle day in his life—he was doing it because he cared for her and wanted to meet her needs. And from the awed expression on his face, maybe he’d needed this too, without realizing it.
