And I was getting pissed.
You sent off for a vixen for Fin, and you got one. Look at her. Just fucking look at her. My hands curled into fists, and I tried not to hate Revel Jones right off the bat.
Didn't work.
I despised her.
She wasn't supposed to come until the end of the month! The end of the goddamn month.
"What are you doing here?" I choked out as she swept past me in a black bodysuit that hugged her generous curves and made me fully and completely aware that I had less than half of what she did, both upstairs and down. Tits and ass. That was Revel Jones. That and full lips dressed in bloody red, eyes outlined in dark liner, and a swagger that I'd be hard-pressed to match.
Fin was going to take one look at her, and I'd never see or hear from him again.
I did not feel as I should about that.
"That's not an answer to my question," she said with a wink and a grin. "The answer was men. You said it yourself, the universal pest." Revel stepped off the curb in boots that were as tall as my borrowed hooker heels. "And in answer to your question, a high-ranking kitsune Minister of State just bit the Prime Minister's ear off—while in fox form. My assignment was elevated. That's my boss' problem now." Revel flicked a look over her shoulder and smiled at me in a way that was simply dripping with heat. Sultry is what it was, that look. And if I hadn't known she'd flown all this way to meet Fin, I'd have said she was hitting on me.
"Your boss' problem?" I started, blinking and realizing what while I was having this conversation, Mik was crouching on the roof of a parked car while Nix hacked up blood onto the cement and a crowd of drunken revelers gathered on the opposite side of the street.
"Yeah, well, I'm the best of the best, but I am known for having a heavy hand. Politics … eh, like fine china coated in shit. It stinks like high hell, nobody wants it, and the slightest bump makes it shatter." Revel turned back toward the two men, her hair lifting in the same sort of breeze that Nix had just conjured. It was a response from mother nature, the energy in the world saying I see you and I'm here. "Last thing we need is this kind of crap. Relations work right now is fuckery at its finest."
A circle appeared around her, drenched in silver. And the runes were all ones that I recognized. Revel's tails—a set of four—snapped forward as she swiveled her ears in annoyance, and sent a wave of magic out at Nix and Mik.
There was no real power in it, just a bunch of smoke and glamour.
But it worked.
A large tour bus zoomed up between Mikhail and Nix, just before my boss launched himself forward. He reached for the edge of it, presumably to haul himself over, and found his fingers touching nothing but air. But Mik wasn't an idiot. He was old and well-trained, but so was Nix Locklear. That split-second it took the vamp to readjust his aim gave Nix the time he needed to retreat back, behind a rush of traffic that was part real, part kitsune magic.
Our eyes met for the briefest of moments as he rushed past me, and Mik made to follow.
Nix was … running away.
With my hand still on Ziff's fur, I threw up an illusion of my own and … dropped all my clothes. Not what I meant to happen. I'd meant to throw a trash can at Mikhail—or at least make him think I was throwing a trash can at him.
Instead, I ended up in the nude.
It worked though and Mik stopped to look at me, pupils dilated, breath coming in heavy pants.
"Thea ... " he started as Revel let out a laugh and stepped back onto the sidewalk.
"Oops," she said with a loose shrug of her shoulders and a grin. "That was all me."
With a flicker, my clothing reappeared—it was all an illusion, after all—but when both Mik and I glanced down the sidewalk in the direction Nix had run, he was fucking gone.
I turned my attention back to Mik, and I tried really hard not to be afraid.
But when he looked at me, I had to wonder if he was too far gone.
"Thea." Mik's voice had dropped dangerously low, and he was bleeding all the hell over the sidewalk. Or at least, he was dripping massive amounts of crimson onto the pavement. It might all have been Nix's.
"You know this guy?" Revel asked, her voice hardening and her green eyes sliding from my face to Mik's.
Mikhail's hands came out faster than I could follow, and suddenly, he was latched onto my upper arms with enough force to make me cry out, slamming me into the wall and cracking my head against the brick. The crowd was already bored and starting to stumble off, but I could hear sirens in the distance.
I wasn't sure if it was the human police responding or the NHSC—Non-Human Species Coalition.
If it was the latter of the two, goddess help us.
"Mik, we need to go," I ground out through clenched teeth. The guild and the NHSC did not mix. If they got the chance to round RADOPA members up, they did so happily. Iron, silver, or wood bars—pick your weakness—and a justice system that was even more broken than the American one. If you can even believe that, that is.
Mikhail though, he was not himself in that moment. His eyes were black and his breathing had stopped. He was staring at my throat in a way I'd never seen before. Gone was the calm, rational asshole that'd ruled my life for the last few years. In his place, was a monster.
Revel reached down to a bag she had hanging off her shoulder and pulled out a revolver, putting the barrel up against the side of Mik's head.
"Bullets loaded with rowan ash," she said with a loose shrug of her shoulders. "Just give the word and I'll blow his immortal brains out."
"Don't hurt him," I said as Ziff hissed, and Mik continued to stare down at me unblinking.
It was in that moment that I knew he was going to bite me. His head dropped so quickly, I didn't see him move. What I did see was Revel's gun tumbling through the air and clattering against the asphalt.
Pain exploded through me, followed very shortly by pleasure, waves and waves of pleasure. My knees went weak and even though Ziff was frantically biting my ear and lips to try to rouse my common sense, I couldn't move. Hormones flooded through me, making my knees weak.
"Don't hurt him?!" Revel choked out, looking between my boss and me with wide eyes and a clenched jaw. "He could kill you!"
"He won't," I whispered as Mik tightened his grip and sucked harder on my neck. It was like he was pulling every molecule in my body toward that one single point, drawing all of me up and into him. He's eating you, Thea, for fuck's sake, I tried to tell myself, but the pleasure was so intense ... Not only that, but Mikhail was hard as a rock, grinding the bulge in his pants against me as he made these guttural, male sounds under his breath.
Revel looked like she was about to puke.
"Take Ziff," I whispered as my little familiar switched from attacking me to biting Mik. Revel moved around us and snatched the little fox, just before Mikhail moved his hand and clamped it over the shoulder where Ziff'd been standing.
"I'm not leaving you here with this guy," Revel said as the sirens screamed closer and Fin's future bride picked up her gun. She glanced over as two cop cars—human ones, fortunately—pulled up on the opposite side of the road. Revel surreptitiously tucked her weapon into her bag and looked up to meet my eyes.
I was struggling to keep them open as Mik drank past the point where he should. I felt it, like a switch was being flicked. Panic threaded its way through my veins, but I exhaled slowly and pushed it back, reaching down and giving Mikhail's hard cock a squeeze.