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Or I thought I was alone until a voice rang out from deeper within the darkened living room. “So you’re the kitsune.” Clearly, lack of lights meant very little when denning with wolves.
I tensed, prepared for another ultimatum like the one I’d recently had dumped on me by Elizabeth. Only...this was no Atwood. I was pretty sure everyone in Gunner’s pack was either being soothed by their alpha or was protecting my sister. Meanwhile, the air within my cottage was redolent with the unfamiliar scent of bitter almond, suggesting my questioner was someone I’d never met before.
Someone I’d never met but who just happened to know my identity. Ignoring my racing heart, I flicked on the light switch as if my world wasn’t crumbling down around me.
“What’s a kit sunny?” I asked, purposefully mispronouncing the name of my own kind while assessing my uninvited visitor out of the corner of one eye.
Despite being in another shifter’s territory, the broad, menacing stranger lounged on my plush sofa as if he owned the place, legs splayed and arms spread so he took up enough room for three people or more. I didn’t smell any fur or electricity to go along with the power pose, but something told me not to turn my back on this werewolf.
I did so anyway. Walked past him without waiting for an answer then padded down the hall in search of the sister who should have been asleep in her bed. The air didn’t smell like Tank, Allen, or Kira, however, suggesting the trio had made a pitstop before obeying my order. Oyo on the other hand could pop out at any moment directly into the jaws of the strange, bitter-almond-scented wolf....
In an effort to prevent that eventuality, I crouched down to peer into the darkness beneath my bedstead, stretching my fingers into the hole in the wall. When Kira had called to tell me the redheaded kitsune was missing, I’d assumed Oyo had heard about my grandmother’s arrival then dug herself in deeper. But the gap in the drywall was both empty and cold.
“I’m speaking to you, fox.”
Head under the bed, I’d missed the stranger sneaking up behind me. But I couldn’t miss the way he dragged me out of the darkness by my hips. Hard hands on my shoulders slammed me up against the wall before I could make a comment on being manhandled, and I silently berated myself for turning my back on someone much larger and stronger than myself.
Aloud, though, I disavowed all understanding of the situation. “What’s wrong with you?” I blustered. “And what do you mean by calling me a fox?”
The shifter silenced me the easy way, backhanding me so hard my head slammed into the drywall. Darkness tried to claim me as his hot breath flowed across my stinging cheek. And I tried without success to think of a way out of the situation that didn’t involve creating a magical dagger to thrust into my opponent’s gut.
I can’t show what I am unless I’m ready to kill him. The knowledge chilled me even as it narrowed my options to...well, none.
Meanwhile, the male who held me began speaking, his voice so cold I shivered despite every effort to appear impervious. “Let me spell it out for you, kitsune,” he murmured. “I’m an enforcer.” At my blank look, he sighed and elaborated. “I decide on life or death for werewolves...and all who come in contact with them.”
“No, Gunner is the pack leader. His word is law.” This part wasn’t bluster. I thoroughly believed that fact or I never would have brought Kira to live in Atwood clan central.
“A werewolf would know that is true only of problems that don’t threaten the neighbors.” My opponent dropped me so abruptly I slid down onto my butt rather than regaining my footing. “But enough about me. I want to hear about you.”
This wasn’t a threat—this was a warning. So I did the only thing I could think of. I raised my hand to my mouth as if in terror. And, surreptitiously, I licked up a stray droplet of Edward’s blood.
***
THE PACK BONDS FLARED to life so quickly that I almost thought they’d always been there. This was no time for analyzing magic, however. Instead, as the enforcer dragged me upright, I ignored his muttered demands and tugged as hard as I could on the solid rope that led from me to my not-quite-mate.
“Gunner!”
“Isn’t here to help you, kitsune.” A fist slammed into my stomach and I lost my ability to verbalize. Instead, I strove to send the pack leader an image of what he’d be walking into if he raced here to help me. I needed his assistance, but it was too dangerous for him to walk into this ambush blind.
And Gunner must have heard me. Both heard and understood me. Because images now flowed back the other way in answer. Images of a gathering of alpha-leaning werewolves, the mass of them telling this stranger what to do.
So, an enforcer was some kind of regional sheriff? I wasn’t entirely sure I understood what Gunner was trying to tell me. Rather than providing time for questions, however, he managed to send through two words loud and clear.
“Get away.”
Good idea. I both wanted to laugh at the obviousness of Gunner’s suggestion and to vomit from the sharp agony spiking through my gut where the enforcer had driven his fist. Instead of doing either, I let my legs crumple a second time...then I dove between the enforcer’s knees as he allowed me to drop.
Only my opponent was fast and smart and ready for me. His foot came down on my spine as I slid past him. Then I was supine on the floor while once again struggling to regain my breath.
“These are simple questions, kitsune.” His words seemed to come from the other end of a long tunnel, and I couldn’t have answered even if I’d wanted to with carpet fibers embedded in my mouth. “Which werewolves do you manipulate?” he demanded, sending my mind off on a tangent of guesswork.
Did kitsunes have a pattern of behavior, insinuating themselves into werewolf clan centrals and tearing down not only that pack but the neighbors also? Was that why Sakurako had come here, what had riled up non-Atwood wolves enough to send this enforcer to find me? Was that fate what Oyo was hiding from?
“This is your last chance,” the enforcer growled as he flipped me over. There was a knife in his hand now, I noted. A knife that hovered so close above my left eyeball that I couldn’t focus on the tip poised to impale me.
It was finally time to shift, I decided. I had nothing left to lose and everything to gain....
Only Gunner leapt through the door in a whirlwind of cold air and enraged werewolf before I could get my magic together. He was mostly human—kinda human. Human enough to bellow instructions in my direction before diving onto the enforcer in the full skin of his wolf.
“Kira is on her way to your grandmother’s. Join her and flee as far and as fast as you’re able.”
And even though the enforcer laughed, frost spreading out from the stranger’s feet as if he was as magical as I was, I did what Gunner suggested. I turned tail and fled from the battleground that had recently been a welcoming home.