Page 32 of Foxin' Around

Frowning in confusion, she backed out of the room and slowly closed the door behind her. That was odd. She had been so certain that he would be there at such a late hour. Perhaps he returned instead to the living room after arranging her flowers.

That seemed like the likely answer. Even so, there was an unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach as she made her way down the hall. Perhaps it was because of how dark it was. Although he seldom bothered with artificial lights since getting the generator working, it seemed darker than usual. She could barely see anything at all in the faint light given off by the coals that remained banked in the fireplace. But the couch was empty and so was his chair, that much she could make out. The foxes, in fact, were piled together on the couch, sleeping peacefully, undisturbed by anyone’s presence moving about the house.

“Syrix?” she quietly called, and when that got no answer, she proceeded to the kitchen, but he was neither behind the stove nor sitting at the table enjoying a cup of tea. He certainly wasn’t in the bathroom either, since she would have noticed him slip in after she exited. “Where the hell are you?” she mumbled as her gaze skimmed the space.

Like his bedroom, everything was neatly cleaned and stored as if no one had set foot in there in the last few hours. It was creepy and terrified her because it was like he just picked up and left without a word or any trace. If it weren’t for the fact that Fixi and Fata were still there with their kits, she was certain that she would already be losing it and latching onto any worst-case scenario. Regardless, now she was getting really worried.

Moving around the house with increasing urgency, Krystal shouted his name, no longer trying to keep her volume or tone moderate as a real sense of fear rose within her. She even wentas far as stepping outside and descending into the open yard in front of the cabin to shout for him.

“Syrix, this isn’t fucking funny. Come out now!”

But there was no answer. And with the silence, a pain within her grew into a void that echoed his name inside her every time it burst out loudly from her lips as she ran about the cabin in a frenzy. Her cries became more desperate the more she looked until they broke from her among the sobs that racked her body.

Wherever Syrix was, it seemed that he was well and truly gone, and that she wasn’t going to find him this way. The truth was, she suspected that given he was a spirit fox as he claimed, she wouldn’t have any hope at all in finding him until he was ready to be found. And only he would determine when he wished to return.

She fell to her knees, collapsing in the middle of the living room, her fingertips scraping listlessly against the rug there.

“Syrix, where the fuck are you?” she choked out. “Please come home. I need you and want you by my side. Please.”

But no response came. Nor did it come later when she turned to anger as she flew around the cabin in the light of day, looking for any sign of him at all. And it didn’t come when she collapsed with grief and cried her heart out after one day passed and gave way to night, only for the sun to rise on a new day without the male who called her his mate.

Chapter

Twenty-Four

Syrix groaned, his head lolling as a piercing pain pulsed within his head. He felt terrible and the smell of roses still clung within his sinuses, but now the perfume was mingled with a putrid smell of decay. His eyes cracked open, and he shuddered with a strange weakness. It was a miracle that he had not fallen to the ground, but that probably had something to do with the metal cuffs and chains securing him to the wall. The chain scraped against stone with his every movement as he shifted his legs, but gradually he got his legs beneath him and stumbled to his feet. That was not to say that he did not almost collapse again with the dizziness that assaulted him, but he fought against it and looked around him.

His eyes skimmed the dark walls and then dropped to the floor where the source of putridity greeted him. His throat constricted at the sight of piles of bones and the remnants of bodies in various states of decay strewn across the floor. To his right, a woman’s partially demolished face stared at him vacantly, her ruined expression frozen in an expression of terror.

He tore his gaze away, focusing instead on a thick mass of shadows deeper in the recesses of what appeared to be anunderground cellar of some sort. The walls were stained with so much blood that it made him sick, but the brick walls and the numerous chains anchored to them, identical to the ones he wore, set it apart as something different than a lamia’s subterranean nest. A pair of yellow eyes opened amid the shadows as a particularly dark segment uncoiled and shifted toward him.

“Feeling poorly, are you, little fox?” a soft voice hissed.

He froze, the fur on his scalp and along the length of his tail prickling with unease. Somehow, he had fallen into the enemy’s territory. He did not understand how it happened. One moment he was arranging the roses to surprise his mate and then?—

“Rosa nocturnum,” the lamia commented with a raspy laugh. “Your magic may be strong, but even the greatest capabilities cannot save one who is too proud to acknowledge that nature can overcome even you. And to not challenge an ancient one,” she hissed menacingly.

Coldness filled his belly. The most ancient creatures, whether fae or monsters, possessed a lethal cunning. He had badly underestimated what he was up against and now the price was his to pay.

“What… have you done… to me?” he rasped between labored breaths.

Aside from the condition of his head, he was slowly becoming aware of a weakness that followed the path of a painful fire coursing through his torso and limbs.

“Venom,” she replied, her voice dropping to a thoughtful murmur. “The natural toxin of the rosa nocturnum did quite a lot. You can thank that lovely plant for the side effects. One little scratch from its thorns makes its victim highly susceptible to suggestion.” Sighing heavily, she drew up on her coiled tail. “It was not intended for you, of course. If you had left well enough alone, I would have continued to leave you undisturbed andliving peacefully in your territory. I do not have a taste for men, after all, and a private, territorial fox has well served my purpose for keeping the undesirable far from my nest. But you just had to step into the trap that I had prepared for her—my little sweet piece of meat.”

Syrix swallowed thickly as the icy manifestation of his fear sank deeper into him. “But why her? Lamia have always shown a preference for devouring children and for acquiring adult males to satiate both terrible appetites.”

The lamia laughed and slid from the shadows, her skin and scales myriad shades of green and brown and her long, dark hair falling in six braids around her shoulders, two of which dangled in front of her bare breasts. She peered down at him, a sly smile on her face.

“It is true that a number of my sisters prefer the challenge of hunting, fucking, and devouring men but it is really not so different. We are well-equipped for it, you see,” she murmured as she rose a little higher and gestured to her genital slit. It gaped open with a shift of her muscles, from the top, a long shaft slipped out, capturing his attention. “Much like crocodiles and hyena females with their pronounced clitoris, lamia enjoy being similarly blessed with our own pleasure barb. We will trap males to breed and so they enjoy the pleasure of penetrating us, but when we feed, the real pleasure comes from penetrating them as we prepare to devour them.” She cocked her head, a cold smile visible on her lips. “Are you intrigued, little fox? Do you wish to see if you can breed more successfully than the males who once inhabited this cabin before I destroy you and release the last remnants of your magic’s hold on this forest?”

His lips twisted with revulsion, and she laughed again.

“Yes, that is exactly my thought,” she chortled, her tail twisting around her. “Adult males have a foul taste to them that ruins the palette for months before it fades. I would sooner eata beast than consume an adult male. The flesh of adult females, however,” she hummed with obvious pleasure, “it is nearly as sweet as that of a child and their bodies far more amusing to satiate myself with in other ways. Whereas with males—it just disgusts me to think of them that way. Thankfully, the pair of fools that I came upon dwelling in these woods were useful to me in acquiring what I need. They had perverse tastes and had been locking hapless females down here for quite some time. The fall of their world just gave them more freedom to pursue that particular vice.”

Syrix froze as the full ramification of her words hit him. She had not arrived in pursuit of Krystal as he had assumed. She had been there the entire time, before even he arrived to the forest. Had she been drawn to the evil of the Mallory cabin? If so, she clearly took advantage of it, settling her own taint deep within the bowels beneath the cabin as she feasted. But that meant that it was his magic that unwittingly brought his mate into danger. It was his fault.

“Does hearing this disturb you?” she queried, her head tipping inquisitively as a cruel smile spread across her face. “Do not waste your sympathy on things that do not matter. The females served their purpose and I was far kinder fate than their end at the hands of those males. I made sure that they were envenomated and feeling nothing but pleasure in their final moments.”

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