"Fin won't talk to you, so I will. He's miserable without you, Thea. We both are." I shrugged his arm off. Sitting at home in the shadows of a long-forgotten forest, breeding a bunch of kitsune pups … that wasn't the life I wanted. Even if I did still want the men that went with it. That secret whispered in my heart like a tiny flame that I oh-so-carefully snuffed out.
Of course, I never expected to be killing people for a living either, but at least I was out. I was out, and I had my own life, and there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell of me ever going back. I wasn't about to be tied down to one man, not even two. I was meant to do more. And if I had to slay some bad guys on my way to get there, then that's what I was damn well going to do.
"I found an unmated kitsune on a dating site," I said casually, not bothering to look over my shoulder. If I did, maybe Riot would see the sweat on my forehead, the wild fluttering of my pulse. Maybe he'd see that my nipples were rock-hard or that I was clenching my thighs tighter than normal?
The man was as muscular, as sleek, as the big cat he embodied.
And it was far too fucking dangerous for me to be standing out here alone with him.
"I'll let you know if she gets back to me." I started walking away, but I wasn't concerned with Revel Jones responding to my message. No. Unmated kitsune were far too rare. She'd snatch Fin up, and if I was lucky, she'd take Riot, too, and I'd never have to see either of them again.
"This is all bullshit, and you know it," he called out after me, but I was too busy climbing into the Porsche and giving Ziff a pat on the head. "Even if they won't admit it, there are problems back home. The kitsune-tsukai … they made an announcement last night, Thea. There are members in the Earth who can’t shift anymore, the first kitsune cases in the world."
I slammed Lola's door a fuck of a lot harder than I'd meant to, and then patted her dash in apology all the while refusing to acknowledge the frigid chill that'd just crawled down my spine.
The Ancients were made up of old, powerful kitsune, with more tails than even I could ever hope of acquiring; they didn’t share information easily, especially not information like that. Shifting was like breathing. Once that was gone, no shifter—whether kitsune, werewolf, or otherwise—lasted very long. I should know; I’d killed my fair share of them, and that was even before they had a chance to degenerate too far. I’d never seen a damaged shifter live past two weeks, wasn’t even sure if I wanted to.
I started the ignition, kicked up dirt and gravel into Riot's face and took off down the road, leaving my problems behind me.
One thing at a time.
I'd deal with Nix Locklear … and then maybe I'd see if I could figure out what was happening to the Vail Valley Earth.
Maybe.
But Thea Hunt, she came first.
Call me a selfish bitch, but that's the way the world worked, and I'd finally figured out how to take advantage of that.
I wasn't giving it up anytime soon.
Mikhail was waiting outside The Shack—the nickname us lowly peons gave the RADOPA Training Facility—with his arms folded over his chest and his sharp gaze locked onto my face. It was overcast, so even though he was a vamp, a pair of sunglasses, a hat, and the shade of the old awning were enough to keep his skin from burning.
"What are you doing at The Shack?" I asked him as I climbed out of Lola, Ziff hanging out on my right shoulder, tiny claws dug into my jacket. I slammed the door and moved onto the sidewalk, realizing that in my anxious frustration at Riot and his bullshit, I'd parked with two wheels on the curb and two wheels off. Also, I’d never gotten any goddamn coffee.
Whatever.
"You know I hate that name," Mikhail said with a slow half-smile, one that said he was already onto my bullshit. To my right, warehouse workers unloaded a massive truck, and underhanded deals for drugs, favors, and black magic exchanged hands. But even lowlifes like those knew not to bother us over here.
"Sorry," I said with a smirk, crossing my arms under my small breasts and trying to pretend that I wasn't up to no good. If Mikhail had any indication that I was planning on going after Nix, he'd lock me in a coffin for the night and I'd lose my chance to prove myself. "The Recruitment And Defense of Personal Assets Training Facility. Can't I just say assassin's guild? It sounds so … fantasy novel-esque."
Mikhail gave the men nearest us a look that I could read even through his sunglasses.
"Please, they're more interested in dealing meth than spying on us."
"You can never be too careful, Thea," he purred, his voice low and dark and threaded with so many emotions that I decided not to even go there. Instead, I reached up and stroked one of Ziff's massive ears, fully aware that I was about to get my ass handed to me during this workout.
"Hey!" a voice called cheerfully, the metal door of The Shack slamming into the brick wall.
I exhaled in violent relief.
It was Rebecca, the only woman in RADOPA—aka the assassin's guild—that I gave two fucks about and actually liked. I had a problem with female intimacy usually, and didn't have many women friends. I blamed my mother for that crap, but maybe I was just too insecure? It was easy to feel like I had my shit together around a bunch of dudes.
"Hey," I said with a genuine smile and a sigh of relief. Bex was a good sparring buddy, but she wouldn't crush my skull into the mat for fun like Mikhail might do. Well, okay, I wasn't sure the man ever had any fun, but he really liked proving 'points'. And showing me that I was too weak without my magic to do shit would probably be one of them. “How's it going, Bex?"
Rebecca Michaels gave me one of those half-hugs where the two participants pat each other's backs but barely touch. I liked that about her. Uncomplicated. No touchy feelings involved.
"I got your text earlier," she said, brushing back hot pink hair from her face and glancing over at Mikhail with a scowl. Bex hated him with a passion that I understood on a primal level. He was a prick, plain and simple. Bossy. Domineering. Know-it-all. Didn't matter that they were both vampires—Bex despised our boss with good reason.
"Get inside before you sear all your skin off," Mikhail demanded with a small scowl, probably disappointed that he wasn't going to get the chance to rip me to shreds in the ring. Rebecca adjusted her big bug-eyed sunglasses and glanced down at her right arm, sticking out of the awning's shadows and into the gray midday glare.
Her flesh was red and starting to crack, like the worst kind of sunburn.
With a small shrug, she retreated back into the shadows and turned toward the door, holding it open for me to head inside. As soon as it closed behind us, she went off on Mikhail.
"Who the hell does he think he is?" she asked, tearing her glasses off her face and flashing eyes that were more pupil than iris. Just like Riot, I thought, and turned my head away, ignoring Ziff as he bit my right earlobe. Little shit. "He has serious daddy issues," she continued, narrowing her black eyes as we passed through a small door with a lazy looking guard in a chair slouched nearby.
I knew better though.
That man could stand up and snap both my neck and Rebecca's before we even knew he'd moved. The Shack wasn't very high tech, but it was draped in magical wards and chock-full of people even I knew better than to mess with.
"Daddy issues?" I asked, turning back to look at the six foot tall woman on my right. She was thin, reedy, and paler than I was, but with arms that rippled with muscle when she reached up to push her hair back. Bex was the only girlfriend I really had, but she wasn't into shopping trips or sharing ice cream over romantic movies. Her favorite pastimes were talking shit about other members of the guild … and killing people.
"He thinks he's everyone's parent," she said as she pushed open another set of doors at the end of the hall, and I slipped through.