“If you want it to be.” I didn’t know what else to say as he pressed harder against my collarbone. I swallowed back the coppery taste in my throat, trying not to let my fear show on my face.
His grin was wide, seeming unnaturally stretched across his face, like someone was pulling the edges of his mouth outward.
“Don’t look for another fox,” he suggested. “Because I won’t let you find one.”
It clicked, then. The reason that I hadn’t been able to scry for anyone but him.
“It was you. You interrupted my spell.”
“Your cousin’s too.” He seemed happy to add to his accomplishments. Then he pulled away, and suddenly he was back to the Merric from five minutes ago. Wide eyed, innocent, orange-eared and two-tailed.
Yuna appeared at the end of the hallway, exasperated. “Come on you two!” she snapped. “it’s time to go!”
“Sorry!” Merric grabbed me and pulled me after her. “I almost passed out when George took out that wendigo.”
“George did?” She glanced towards Jameson’s body, opening her mouth to speak, but Merric tripped, stumbled into her, and drew her attention. “Watch it, fox!” she spat.
“Sorry Yuna!” He looked at me and winked, like we were both part of this inside joke and found it hilarious.
She booked it past us, going back to the driver’s side and getting in while I slid into the passenger seat. Merric gracelessly fell into the back, and thankfully his rambling apologies seemed to have distracted her from the wendigo’s death.
She threw my car into drive and tore out of the parking lot like the devil was chasing us out.
Which, honestly, was a pretty good analogy.
The ride was silent, in spite of the heaviness that encircled us. I had no idea what to say or who to say it to. Merric was busying himself on his phone, back to the haphazard and good natured kitsune I’d been fooled into thinking he was.
Kitsune were tricksters, and Merric was no exception. Perhaps Marin had been right.
“I brought you your clothes,” Yuna said. “From the cemetery.”
I blinked at her, bemused. “Really? That’s…very nice of you. Thank you.”
She shrugged one shoulder like it was nothing. “It was only because I wanted to actually meet you. I saw you before you shifted that night when you were struggling.” She added, like an insult.
Merric’s tail brushed my arm, making me flinch. “You were watching me?”
In the rearview mirror I saw the kitsune grin, his eyes flashing yellow once more.
“Just that night. Now that I’ve met you, I can absolutely confirm you’re good at getting yourself into shit situations,” the cecaelia went on. “Having a vampire cast that far of an illusion to get you to show up? Resorting to the help of a two-tailed fox?” My eyes found the silently giggling kitsune in the back seat. Two tailed fox my ass.
“Do you want to go on a date with me?”
Her words caught me off guard and I was sure I had misheard. She hadn’t exactly been that nice to me tonight, and hadn’t at all acted as if she was interested in me romantically.
“What?” I asked, eyes wide. “Go on a date?“
“With me. You owe me,” she reasoned. “So actually, two dates.”
“That’s so hot,” Merric whispered conspiratorially from the back seat.
“Shut up, fox.”
“Merric,” the kitsune corrected.
“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes.
“C’mon, be nice,” I begged them, my words more for Merric than her.
He lifted his hands in surrender, grinning like a fool. “I’m always nice and I think the both of you are amazing. Hey, can one of your dates include me? We’ll go get dinner and go see When Couches Attack-“
“Yes,” Yuna interrupted. “But only because of the light trick you did.” She paused, then went on. “And because I want to see that movie.”
“I’m sorry.” I was getting some of my stability back. “You both want to go see When Couches Attack? Is that even real?”
“It’s incredibly real,” Merric promised me.
“Tomorrow night?” Yuna pressed. “Unless either of you have any pressing danger to attend to?” she glared at me and I quickly shook my head.
“No. I mean yeah, I can do that.”
“Can we meet at your house George?” Merric asked sweetly.
That seemed like a bad idea. What would Aveline think? What would she say?
“Sure,” I agreed. “We can…absolutely meet at my house.”
Yuna was quick in her goodbyes. After driving back to the quarter, the water shifter traded numbers through all three of our phones, then excused herself.
Merric hung around. Naturally.
“I like her,” he said, and when I looked at him I found him back to his nine-tailed, half shifted form. “She’s a cecaelia, but I’m not sure you know what that is.” He tipped his head, tone full of patience. “Do you, George?”
Hesitantly, I shook my head.
“It means she’s a predator.” He snapped his teeth playfully. “Maybe she wants to eat you up, huh?”
“What do you want?” I asked, keeping my tone light. Nine tailed kitsune were rare; legends held that it took hundreds of years for a kitsune to obtain nine, if they did at all. Was he as strong as Akiva? As Cian?
Was he stronger?
“To have fun,” Merric admitted. “It was lucky I caught your little spell the other day, wasn’t it? And that Marin didn’t scare you off of me.” His eyes danced at my look of surprise. “Though she did try her best.”
“You know her?”
His grin widened, but he didn’t answer.
“I’ll help you,” he said after a moment, two of his long tails wrapping around my waist and urging me to step closer. Here, in the dark and without anyone around us, I wondered if he would kill me. Would I be able to defend myself? The wendigo hadn’t, and I couldn’t hold a candle to Jameson. No one was here to see. No one was here to help. “But I’ll ask something from you in return,” the kitsune went on.
“Then maybe I’ll find another kitsune,”
