Stone-Cold Fox (Black Dog) Read online

  A silver pickup squealed into a parking space beside us. It rocked when a door was opened and then shut. Footsteps rang out. Metal groaned. My head still hurt too much to raise it far enough to investigate.

  “Give her to me,” Dean demanded.

  Katsuo set me on my feet gingerly, keeping his hands at my waist to prevent me from toppling over while I battled vertigo. A heartbeat later a second pair of hands steadied me, and more of those unwelcome tingles spread from that brief contact. Looking at Dean made my chest ache. His long hair was natural, not a prop, and loose strands tickled his cheeks. Hooded eyes slid over me, drinking in the sight of me like a parched man who had stumbled onto an oasis.

  “Mai.” He said my name reverently, as though he doubted I stood before him. The hard slant of my eyebrows must have spoken volumes. He stared at me, his will all but beating against me. It wasn’t magic, though that poured off him too. This was pure magnetism. “You don’t remember me at all, do you?”

  No, but I would never forget him. I memorized every square inch of his face and told myself it was so I could describe him to my father later and not because his presence called to some visceral corner of my soul I hadn’t known existed within me.

  He didn’t wait for me to mumble an answer against the gag. He gestured to Katsuo, who placed a wad of fabric in his hand. Dean shook out the bag and draped it over my head. Nostrils flaring, I sucked in a panicked breath and breathed in the scent of chamomile, lavender and…magic.

  My head lolled, too heavy to support. What the violence of the dart failed to do, this fragrant magic gently accomplished. I slumped against Dean and let him hold me, and he did, so tenderly I might have been cradled by clouds instead of his muscular arms. Or maybe that was whatever drowsy-soft spell he’d used on me. Either way, I was suddenly much less concerned by the idea of two rogue kitsunes bundling me into a pile of quilts spread over the bed of the truck.

  The purr of the engine rumbled under my back, and the vibrations lulled me into a dreamless sleep.

  * * *

  Dragging my eyes open required too much effort. I rolled onto my side, groped across the bed for my body pillow and growled when my fingertips didn’t brush it. It must have fallen on the floor again. Oh well. I didn’t have the energy to hunt for it. I kept turning until I rested flat on my stomach with my face buried in my pillow. Awareness crashed over me a second later. The fiberfill didn’t smell like me, didn’t smell like home. I shoved onto my knees, and the bedframe squeaked beneath me.

  I crawled to the edge of the mattress and sat. Now that I was awake and away from the nest of quilts that held faint traces of my scent, the sting of pine cleaner burned my nose. My toes brushed industrial carpet in Unseelie gray. I stood and walked the perimeter of the room, fingers trailing along the wall as though walking through a dream. This place reminded me of any one of the dozens of roach motels Thierry and I used to crash at during spring break. Except those usually came with a few dozen roommates sporting twitchy antennae, and this one, while shabby, was immaculate.

  The cotton batting stuffing my head made focusing more difficult than it should have been. I reached the door through the haze and gripped the knob. The cool bite of metal swiped away more cobwebs, and when turning my wrist got me nowhere, a bolt of dread struck my heart.

  “Katsuo,” I said out loud, remembering. Then louder, “Katsuo.”

  I pounded on the door until my fists went numb, then whirled toward the window opposite the bed. I jogged to it, threw back the curtains…and met with iron bars spaced so close together that even if I somehow managed to break the glass, my fox couldn’t squeeze through. That I was imprisoned in a kitsune-proof room didn’t escape my notice. This wasn’t random. They had prepared for me.

  While breathing through the panic, I scratched an itch on my forehead. My fingers came away with brownish crust beneath the nails. Thanks to shifter healing, I didn’t have a goose egg, just a smudge of old blood. The urge to scratch moved up to my scalp where dried sweat left my skin salty under the hairnet. I ripped it off and ran my fingers through my matted hair, working out the tangles. Limp chestnut strands had stuck to my nape, but the wig was nowhere to be found. My boots were gone too. I had been left in socks, gray spandex tights and a men’s old-fashioned bloused shirt.

  Shifters might not have a problem with nudity, and it didn’t appear that I had been stripped so much as had layers removed, but the violation of being manhandled while I was unconscious made my gut churn.

  A quick rap on the door set me on high alert. It swung open, and Katsuo swept across the threshold carrying a plastic plate and matching tumbler. No silverware meant scooping his eyeballs out with the dull edge of my spoon would have to wait.

  I anchored my fists on my hips. “You shot and drugged me.”

  “You leapt in front of the dart. If you want to blame someone for that, point the finger at your chest.” He placed the food and drink on the nightstand. “We chose the calming hood for you. We didn’t want you to harm yourself during the trip.”

  “I’m not the one who’s going to be hurting if you don’t release me.” I snarled, “Now.”

  “That’s not possible.” He straightened, folded his hands across his navel and waited. “You should eat.”

  “Not hungry.” A lie, but one I stuck to. Who knew what drugs might lace the food? “What time is it?”

  He removed a phone from his pocket and woke the display. “It’s ten-oh-five.”

  Meaning I had been here longer than twelve hours. “You have to let me out of here.”

  “I can’t do that, Mai.”

  “I’m due at a panel in an hour.” My anger redoubled. “People will notice I’m missing.” I didn’t name Thierry. I wanted them to forget all about her until it was too late. All I had to do was survive until she found me. “It won’t take long for word to reach my father.”

  “I called the Expo this morning and told them a family emergency made it impossible for you to honor your schedule.” Proving he still knew how my mind worked, he added, “Your friend checked out first thing and headed home.” Calm and cool, he stood there, unaware of how much I wanted to shift and then bite his head off—either of them. “It will take days for her to locate you, and by then…”

  “What happened to you?” I throttled my rising anger. “What did that nutbar do to force you into this?”

  “Ryuu is my brother,” he answered softly. “I wasn’t forced into being here. I’m participating of my own free will.”

  Ryuu. A prickling sensation raced across my scalp. Where had I heard that name before?

  “You don’t have a brother,” I argued, not as sure as I had been moments ago that was true.

  “You’ll remember soon. I hope.” A faint smile. “Even if you don’t, I meant what I said. You won’t be harmed, Mai.”

  “Why do you two keep talking about my memory?” I hadn’t hit my head that hard. “Are you running some kind of brainwashing cult or something?”

  “You’ve already been brainwashed.” Cold anger spiked his words. “We all were.”

  All the superglue fumes from his costume-making must have gone to his head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I have to go.” He retreated toward the door. “I’ll be back in a few hours with lunch.”

  The urge to change rippled over my skin. I was quicker on four legs than he was on two. I could slide through the door in fox form before his human body squeezed through the gap.

  Hand on the knob, Katsuo hesitated. “You can’t shift for a few more hours. Trying is only going to hurt you.”

  “I can’t shift?” Icy fingers of dread stroked down my spine. “What do you mean I can’t shift?”

  As if to prove him wrong, my body reacted, igniting the change. Pain sizzled through my nerve endings, and I sank to the floor heaving. Panic coated the back of my throat, and I tasted true fear for the first time since this ordeal began.

  Katsuo rocked forward on the balls of his
feet and then back. “It’s a side effect of the sedative from the dart.” He rushed to add, “It’s nothing permanent. Get something in your stomach. Walk around some. The more you move, the faster it will burn out of your system.”

  “Fine,” I panted through the residual pangs. “I’ll do jumping jacks in my cell. It’s not like there’s anything else to do in here.”

  A glimmer of pity lit his dark eyes. “You know how immuring works.”

  “Immuring,” I echoed, tasting bile. “That crackpot was serious? He thinks he’s going to mate me?”

  This just kept getting better and better. Females held all the power when it came to choosing mates. We tested males, forced them to prove their worth and earn the right to court us. Fail the test, and you’re out of the running. No take-backsies. And the tests varied from female to female. The requirement could be as mundane as a male performing the trick of tying a cherry stem into a knot with his tongue, which one of my cousins chose, or as complex as a female slapping a stick of chalk across a male’s palm and asking him to hit the chalkboard to solve an algebraic geometry problem, which one of my sisters still used to narrow the field.

  Of course, as with most traditions, there were loopholes. Claim a female on her skulk’s land under the full moon, and she’s yours. Needless to say, I avoided home—and males—like the plague during ripe lunar phases. Last night there had been a crescent moon, and I sure hadn’t been on Hayashi land. That meant the only legal and binding way this claim would stick was if he had already passed my test, which was impossible. No one had ever come close.

  That shred of hope gave me strength. All I had to do was survive. Once this was over, after Ryuu thought he had won, I would walk out of here on his arm. Then I would kick him in the junk, steal his truck and drive myself home. Until then I was stuck here…immuring.

  Shudder.

  Captured vixens brought into a new den were often isolated from their family and friends to make the transition between skulks easier. That was the line fed to us. Me? I called a spade a spade. Males used deprivation to kick-start a case of Stockholm syndrome between the captured female and her new mate. It was a disgusting practice.

  “I’m sorry,” Katsuo mumbled again, ducking out the door before I could reach it—or him. A shadow loomed in the hallway. A guard no doubt. One who was about to get an earful.

  “Coward,” I screamed, shoving to my feet and lunging after him. My fists pounded the door until its frame rattled. “Come back here so I can finish yelling at you.”

  Proving he possessed some self-preservation skills despite all evidence to the contrary, he didn’t rise to my taunts. The door remained shut and locked, with me on the wrong side of it. Katsuo didn’t return. Not to retrieve the plate of food I didn’t touch. Not to replace the late breakfast with a later lunch. Not even to serve me dinner.

  I paced until sweat stuck my shirt to my spine and worked up an appetite and a thirst I had to quench using lukewarm water from the drippy bathroom sink.

  It would take more than a few hours without food, filtered water or conversation to break me. Clearly, as well as they thought they knew me, they hadn’t been aware of how strict my parents were or how often I got into trouble as a kit. This was a cakewalk.

  Mmm. Cake. I rubbed my stomach. A slice and a cold glass of milk would sure hit the spot right about now. The hunger crested until I fought back with the mental picture of a bride and groom positioned on top of a multitiered, raspberry-filled, chocolate-ganache-glazed— Focus, Mai!

  I ground my fist into the pit of my empty gut, crawled back into bed and dreamed of white satin nooses and lace-lined straightjackets, of cherry-wood eyes and gentle hands that touched me with familiarity, and of chasing a slice of seven-layer cake the size of a car with a fork taller than I was.

  Chapter 3

  A scratching noise at the door perked my ears. I slid off the bed, padded toward the jiggling knob and pressed my back against the wall. Muscles tensed, I leapt the instant the door opened wide enough for my arms to reach through. I fisted hair and yanked the guard staggering into the room, wedging my foot in the door so it couldn’t shut and lock behind them.

  Thank you, marshal academy. I flunked out of the program, but I still recalled the basics of self-defense. I might not be able to shift yet, and believe me, I had been trying, but I didn’t need claws to fight dirty.

  “Ouch.” The guard, who was much tinier than expected, whined. “Let go of me.”

  “What the heck?” I jerked my hand back when needlelike teeth sank into my forearm. “Who are you?”

  A girl around the age of eight glared up at me. “I’m Gen.” She straightened her plain yellow top. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Mai.” I rubbed the wound until the pink marks vanished. “What are you doing here?” I poked my head out into the hall. “Where are your parents?” And the guards I assumed would be stationed outside my door?

  Light sparked behind her eyes, and she studied me with renewed interest. “Mai Hayashi.”

  “Yes.” My skin twitched at how familiar the name came to her lips.

  “Ry told me not to come up here.” She set her jaw and angled up her chin. “He said he was keeping a surprise in this room.” Her narrowed gaze raked over me. “You’re not a surprise. You’re just…a girl.”

  A growl entered my voice. “Ry as in Ryuu?”

  “He’s my big brother.” Her tiny chest swelled. “He gives me whatever I want.”

  I blinked at her, trying to reconcile my impending doom—er, groom?—with her description of a doting older brother. Nope. My imagination was good, but it wasn’t that caliber. The brat had to be fibbing. “Sure he does.”

  “He does.” Her lips pursed. “My birthday was last week.” Smugness wreathed her face. “He bought me a puppy. A real one. I don’t even have to share it with the other kids if I don’t want to.”

  Wow. Maybe she wasn’t telling tall tales. That kind of entitlement couldn’t be faked. It oozed from her teeny pores. Ryuu had made a monumental error in telling his little princess he had a surprise that he wouldn’t give her. Clearly his denial had shocked her so much she had to investigate for herself. Her precociousness rankled. It also sort of reminded me of me as a kid.

  I liked her already.

  Gripping the door, I held it open. “Prove it to me. Show me the puppy.”

  “I don’t know.” She glanced around the sparse room, teeth worrying her bottom lip. “Ry might not like it if I let you out.”

  Think fast, kiddo. I was seconds away from bolting without her and taking my chances navigating the den solo. Instead I played a low card, the lowest of the low cards, one I knew would get her into trouble when she got caught. Desperate times and all that. “Do you always do everything Ry tells you?”

  “No.” Her eyes glittered and chin jutted higher. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

  “Yes, you are.” And thank the gods for it. “So? Are you going to let Ry boss you around? Or are you going to show me this puppy of yours? Unless…” I made a thoughtful face. “My dad never let me have a puppy. He said they hunted foxes and that it was too dangerous for me to keep one near the den.”

  “You don’t believe me?” She balled her fists. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

  I smothered my grin as she led me out into the empty hall.

  “Hurry up before they get back,” she whispered, rushing down the long corridor.

  Even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, I asked anyway. “Before who gets back?”

  “The guards.” Duh was implied.

  “Where did they go?” And how soon would they return?

  “I distracted them,” she said proudly. “They’re not total dummies. They’ll figure it out soon.”

  Our footsteps bounced off the empty walls. We reached a section of crumbling plaster, and the girl climbed over it. It led into a massive open space resembling an old barn used for storing farming equipment. Musty hay still littered the floor, and wicked in
struments hung on the worm-eaten walls. The room where I had been kept must have once been an office or a storeroom.

  I scanned the blacked-out windows. “Where are we?”

  “Home,” she breathed.

  The Tanabes lived in an abandoned building? Kitsunes lived in dens underground when in fox form or houses while on two legs. I couldn’t think of a single reason for a skulk to be haunting the shell of a decaying barn.

  Gen’s mad dash ended at a warped metal door. Instead of shoving through it, she hit her knees and started crawling through a hole beside it. It was a tight fit, but I managed to wriggle through after her. Gen was a blur in the darkness, already yards away and sprinting. I put some pep in my step and closed the gap as we squeezed through one final turn to emerge on a deck overlooking a low valley populated by tidy green tents. Cords snaked from a half-dozen gasoline-powered generators, and their steady hum filled the air.

  The Japanese word bakufu popped into my head for some reason. It translated to something like “an office in the tent”, and referenced the headquarters of a general on the battlefield. Where I had trouble picturing Ryuu as the adoring brother, I had no trouble imagining him planning a coup that started with the loyal kitsunes traipsing through his encampment.

  What did this all have to do with me? With my family? My father? Was Ryuu planning a takeover? If he was, he must be suicidal.

  “That’s where I live.” She pointed to the largest tent, and also the one with the most patches. “Chiffon is tied out in back. Ry built a puppy pen, but Chiffon won’t stay in it.”

  Finding out the man was good with his hands did not help my mood. “What kind of dog is she?”

  “He’s a…” Her face scrunched. “I don’t know what he is.”

  Out of the three dozen tents, I spotted only a handful of kitsunes going about their business. There was no movement near the Tanabe tent. “Are your parents at home?”