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Did I steal the life force from Gunner?
I was wide awake the moment the thought struck me. Ignoring the brilliant flare of magic surrounding my grandmother, I instead frantically felt at my stomach in search of my mate bond.
Surely I would have known if the magic beneath my fingers belonged to a werewolf instead of to a human. The odds were seventeen to one against, and yet....
Gunner’s tether was the one I stroked when I felt lonely. Gunner’s tether was the one that rose to my fingers like an affectionate cat. Would his tether also be the one that responded to my frantic need unbidden? Would he throw himself into the void with the same loyalty as a member of Sakurako’s honor guard?
Unfortunately, stolen magic flared and buzzed all around me. I couldn’t for the life of me tell whether the missing tether belonged to an alpha werewolf.
Meanwhile, Sakurako was slowing her own transition even as magic twined into a collar around her neck just as it had done around Oyo’s. “I’m proud of you,” she whispered, fighting the magic...and failing to escape just as the book had said she would.
Because, although powerful, this magic was seductively simple. Or so the book had promised. I couldn’t have gotten it wrong when the recipe included only three parts.
Use every ounce of magic embodied by a loyal underling. Strike in a moment of trust and shared understanding. Watch your loved one turn into a fox with no possibility of ever coming back.
The book hadn’t mentioned how my eyes would fill with water, tears making it impossible to figure out whose tether I’d stolen even as my grandmother was forced out of her human skin forever. “Sobo,” I murmured. “I’m sorry.”
“Never apologize for the necessary, granddaughter.”
And then she was my grandmother no longer. Instead, sharp, dark eyes met mine from within the face of a fox.
Only this was a subtly different fox than the one I’d fled beside when racing away from Atwood clan central. Sakurako then had been snow-white and nine-tailed. Now, her fur was speckled with gray and she possessed only one tail.
In other words, she looked like a wild animal, not a fox-form kitsune. Still, she maintained the same lithe fluidity as she leapt from chair to floor to window ledge. Her collar gleamed golden, then she was outside in the early morning. Was sprinting for distant trees as a herd of bare feet heralded her honor guard racing into the library to lend their mistress aid.
Or, rather, to lend their new mistress aid. “Mai-sama. I knew you would be triumphant.” This was Koki, kneeling at my feet, his hand on my knee even as his tether refilled the empty reservoir of magic inside me. The surge of power was heady and riveting...and gave me a nearly uncontrollable urge to throw up.
But then my gorge calmed as I noted my mate bond springing back into existence at the same moment. I hadn’t turned the vibrant alpha into a vegetable after all. And for at least a minute, I didn’t care whose life I’d ruined in his place.
***
“HE WILL BE TAKEN CARE of Mai-sama.”
We stood around the bed of the male whose life I’d stolen for the sake of my own freedom. And I hated the fact that I couldn’t remember his name, couldn’t recall the sleeper’s signature fencing move nor bring to mind a single identifying feature that set him apart from all of the other humans squeezed into the small space that made up his sickroom.
But that wasn’t the point. The point—after the better part of a day spent poring over Sakurako’s finances—was dealing with responsibilities that were now my own. As my grandmother’s sole heir, I would inherit her extravagant wealth and numerous properties. I planned to use both to ensure these males who had sacrificed so much for the sake of a kitsune mistress could now live simple human lives.
The first step in achieving that goal was breaking the bonds that bound them so they could figure out their own paths into the future. So I raised my voice and spoke to the assemblage. “I appreciate your service. But you are now dismissed.”
Magic bit into my waist as one tether snapped and sprang away from me, then someone in the back turned and left the sickroom. Yuki. Gone to seek out his fox-form lover? Everyone else, however, stood their ground and stared at me as if I was speaking Portuguese.
“You can go out into the world. Take whatever you want from the mansion. Use Sakurako’s money to live on. But make your own lives. Be free.” As I spoke, I tried to push past the nearest humans to follow Yuki, but I found myself blocked at every turn.
“We don’t want to be free, Mai-sama.” This was Koki, speaking for the remaining fifteen humans. “You are the new mistress. We will stay here beside you. Or go anywhere you wish to wander. We are your honor guard.”
“No, you’re not.” My face was hot, and I suddenly felt trapped in the midst of the assembled humans. Would I be forced to fight my way free due to my own manipulations? Sakurako would be laughing up her sleeve if she hadn’t fled so preemptively into the cold.
“It’s all we know, Mai-sama,” Koki said.
“Yes, it is our honor and our duty to serve you,” offered another voice. Then the same sentiment in multiple different incarnations rose to fill the room.
So I did the only thing I could think of—I chose my own selfishness over extended explanations. Donning the form of my fox, I grabbed tethers in my teeth one after another and gnawed through every one of them until I was one bond away from entirely free.
Because these men might think they wanted to be my honor guard. But they couldn’t think, not really, not with my kitsune nature skimming off the cream of their energy.
In time, I suspected they’d come to their senses. But, for now, there was only one place I wanted to be...and it certainly wasn’t here.
So I gnawed until magic flung itself away from me like broken rubber bands, knocking male after male down into a tumble of bellows and elbows. And I was as heartless as my grandmother because I didn’t care about their pain or confusion. All I cared about was the single tether remaining. The one thick rope of glowing magic leading me out of the mansion toward the west.
I’d been separated from my mate for far too long already. With a mental promise to reassess my responsibilities in the near future, I took to my heels and I ran.