“Did she? Well, good on her. At least someone is using their fucking brain around here,” she snapped.
“She’s his mate,” Nick said quietly.
Everyone turned to him, shocked.
“He hasn’t said anything, but I’ve heard his dragon say it a couple of times. If his dragon claims it, it’s a foregone conclusion that he’s telling the truth. She’s his mate.”
“She’s Asher’s too,” Trent said from the doorway. “I heard him telling Justin. She’s also mine.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mrs Hardinger said. “Foxes don’t have fated mates.”
Trent growled, long and loud, the sound impressive for a fox. When Ryan looked more closely, he could see that the fox’s normally golden iris was amber and the pupil a vertical slit. The beast was near the surface.
“Kitsune do,” he growled, and then he shifted.
If Ryan had thought his fox was large before, it was huge now. It had grown a third again, and the fur was darker, almost a chocolate brown, while his paws and the tips of his ears and tails were black.
Wait. Tails?
Ryan did a double check, and sure enough, instead of one tail behind him, Trent had three. What the hell was going on?
“A kitsune,” Mrs Hardinger breathed. “Oh boy. When word of this gets out, they’ll try to take you from her. You’re rarer than hen’s teeth, young man.”
The kitsune gave an odd chirping yip, looking pointedly at Nick, who just stared back at him.
“Nick,” Ryan called, knowing what he wanted. He’d spent many an hour wishing that Nick could just hear when he wanted him to. “Throw open the link. He’s trying to talk to you.”
Nick startled, and then Trent’s voice sounded in Ryan’s head. He translated aloud for Mrs Hardinger, as nobody else thought to.
“They can think what they want, try what they want, but she’s my mate and I will settle for nothing less. Already our bond is stronger for the time we spent last night, and if my human had listened to me, she would bear our mark on her skin. He said we must wait, and I do not understand why. It is a human thing and I do not care for it. She is ours, and we will mark her,” Ryan said for Trent, who nodded his thanks in a regal manner.
Little shit.
Although, now that he’d changed, he was probably on par with Ryan’s wolf when it came to size.
“I like the new getup,” Ryan said. “But I’ll miss the short orange fuzzball.”
Trent snarled at him, but then suddenly appeared as the smaller orange fox, although still much larger than usual.
We take whatever form pleases us, Trent said, although his voice was a little lighter.
“Trent?” Ryan asked hesitantly. “Do you have two foxes in there?”
He didn’t want to sound stupid, but there were slight differences in the way the two beasts carried themselves, and it wasn’t due to size alone.
So, you are intelligent then, Trent responded.
“Can all kitsune do that?” Mrs Hardinger asked.
Trent regarded her coolly, before shifting back into his human form. Ryan was shocked to note that his clothes shifted with him. They hadn’t in the past.
“Dude,” Ryan exclaimed, excited. “Do you have magic now? Or did you always have it?”
Trent’s gaze flicked from one to the other of them, slightly panicked.
“Trent,” Mrs Hardinger said. “If you want, I can spell us all to keep your secrets, so they cannot be forced from us. I’d give you my word that I wouldn’t tell a soul, but given what we saw here yesterday, I don’t know if I can promise that in surety now. I believe a witch like Georgia could pry such things from my unwilling mind.”
Trent went utterly still. “Yes, if you could do that, I’d appreciate it. If you could include Melody, Justin, Asher and Dean in that spell, without them being here, I’d appreciate it.”
Mrs Hardinger chuckled. “I’m flattered by your confidence in my ability, but no, I need them to be here for that. However, I can add them into the spell afterward.”
Trent nodded.
She stood there for a moment, murmuring under her breath, and then Ryan’s nose was accosted with the pungent ozone scent that accompanied magic. Unable to prevent it, he sneezed several times. The others were hardly better.
“I bind you all to keep the secrets about to be shared. They may only be passed on with specific permission from Trent or his foxes,” she said, moving her hand in a sweeping gesture to include them all. “There, it is done.”
Toby stepped forward then from the shadows, where none of them had noticed him, wrapping his arms around her.
“I included him, Trent, you have nothing to fear from us now.”
The magic pinched and nipped at Ryan’s skin, making him feel like it was crawling with biting insects.
“Was that a geas?” he asked Mrs Hardinger, rubbing his arms.
She fixed him with a penetrating gaze. “Yes, it was,” she told him.
“Then it could be broken?” he asked her.
“Only with my natural death. It’s not coven based, I’m not on coven lands, or using coven magic combined with others. It’s a single promise that I hold in trust, because your hearts were open to it at the time of the spell. There’s a bit more to it than that, but I’m not going into the dynamics of the magic with you. Suffice to say, it’s tied to my life force, but an unnatural death would only bind it tighter.”
Trent nodded. “It’s fine, I know of the magic she’s talking about. Or at least my kitsune does.” He sighed and looked around, but there was nobody in sight. Closing his eyes for a moment, his hands clenched at his side, Trent stood there, as though he was seeking the courage to tell them.
Only, Ryan got an odd scent that made him sneeze again. It felt like ozone, but it was another aroma altogether that he couldn’t place. Kind of like a new penny. Metallic, actinic, equally unpleasant.
“I’ve never felt a ward like that before,” Mrs Hardinger said.
“Our magic is ancient,”
