Page 33 of Foxin' Around

“You killed many,” he growled, and his fury rose when his statement was met with laughter from the creature.

“Naturally. There was a nice little number of them when I arrived, and so I allowed those males to live for a while, expanding their little collection for me, until I grew tired of their presence and decided that I had other uses for them.”

Drawing back her coils, she gestured back behind her and Syrix stared at the eggs that filled the darker recesses of the cellar where the lamia had been coiled.

“I had eaten well and had a ready supply of food still available to me chained to these walls, so it was only natural that I make the choice to briefly overcome my revulsion so to breed and bear my daughters. Are they not lovely?”

They were not. Each pale, muddy green egg was nearly large enough to contain his mate if she merely crouched down, and translucent so that he saw the hatchlings, each of them already resembling half-grown females in their upper torsos. They twisted in their eggs, their mouths gaping as they pressed along the skin of the shells which bulged and shifted with them. The lamia gave them a fond look, a thoughtful smile on her lips.

“They are hungry and nearly ready to enter the world,” she observed. “One more is all it will take. And this last feast will be even more glorious as I savor your despair. You will watch as I fuck your female repeatedly among them, driving into her sweet cunt so that her nutrient rich bodily fluids splatter on them. She will writhe and scream on my barb, but I will not let up until her nectar has coated each and every single one of them. And then… then I will feed and spray her blood everywhere so that they may consume that as well while I gorge myself on her flesh. And all this I shall do while you watch, and unlike the others, she will know great pain so that your suffering will extend further for your interference.”

Pain lanced through him, driving a blade of agony through his heart at the lamia’s cruel words. She spoke this way as part of his torment, he understood that, but he also knew that she spoke true as to her intentions. Syrix’s head bowed with the weight of grief that her words conjured within him, and within the privacy of his heart he mourned heavily, his heart breaking as grief encompassed him. His future had not only been stolen,but the lamia was determined that his mate would die and suffer terribly.

And then, you little fox,” she rasped, drawing near to him, the tip of her tail nudging his chin and forcing his head up so that he had no choice but to meet her eyes. “Then you will die. My children will devour you and whatever is left of you will remain to rot right here on these chains.”

Her tail dropped away as her cold laughter filled the space around. His head fell, his eyes closing in grief, wishing to block out all reality and surrender himself to unconsciousness where he might be comforted by the memory of his mate, but the lamia’s laughter allowed him no such peace.

“Poor little fox,” she murmured, and her lips brushed his cheek, her breath brushing over his skin as she trailed her lips toward his neck. “Now you see that ultimately it is I who have won. But first, to finish this game, I just need a bit of your magic.”

She struck, her fangs sinking deep as fresh agony burned through him and awakened once more in his veins. Pain and sorrow were all he had… and a prayer that his Krystal would survive what was to come.

Chapter

Twenty-Five

Syrix didn’t return that day, or the next. Krystal had paced the cabin anxiously and even walked as far into the forest as she dared before Fixi grabbed a hold of the hem of her tunic and tugged her back to the safety of the cabin. But the nights yawned like a chasm, the moonlight streaming through her window bringing tears to her eyes.

She couldn’t see the moon and not think of him, nor could she walk the forest garden to their little meadow. That was when she could manage to leave the cabin at all because she was terrified that if she did, she might miss him if he briefly returned. She couldn’t bear for that to happen. She needed to tell him that she wanted him and that she needed him, not just for the safety he provided, but because he completed her and made her want to embrace that happiness he had spoken of. She wanted to pursue and steal every moment she could with him. She wanted to tell him the truth, that her anger and fear had been rooted in the fact that she had fallen in love with him, and she was afraid of what the truth could mean for them, and whether he could love her the same way. There was so muchshe wanted to say, and those words were now caught within her, forming a heavy, dark pit as they consumed her with regret.

She should have told him before he walked out of the cabin. But he had returned and left her the roses that were now wilting and slowly dying where they continued to sit on her dresser. She stared at them in the weak light of the lamp, her heart aching that this was one place she didn’t have a memory of him to comfort her. She considered crawling into his bed instead, where she could at least drown in his scent, but the thought didn’t offer her much comfort because he wouldn’t be there either. Not that it truly mattered in the bigger scheme of things. Those places in the cabin that were inhabited by her memory of him didn’t bring her any less pain and often made her weep when her emotions ran high, beyond her ability to control them.

He was everywhere. He was there in the kitchen, cooking and eating with her. He was sitting in the living room in front of the fire with one of her uncle’s books. He was beside her on the couch, a fond smile on his lips as she’d cuddled into his side. Even looking at the worn copy ofDunestill sitting on the small table by the couch made her burst into tears. She couldn’t sleep. She could barely force herself to eat more than a few mouthfuls of food because she knew that he was supposed to be sitting there beside her at the table, his eyes glittering with delight as she sampled the food he’d made for her, or when he gamely tasted her slowly developing cooking efforts. Not even her bedroom provided escape from his presence in her memories as the phantom of his fox form followed curl and curled upon the bed beside her. All it did was leave her with an empty, hollow feeling, which is why she was lying there in the dark with her pillow and cheeks stained from her tears.

“When do you think he’s coming back?” she whispered to the pair of foxes curled by her side with their kits.

Fixi lifted his head and regarded her soberly, his ears flattening as he yipped a sad little warble of sound that tugged miserably at her heart.

“Yeah, I can relate,” she mumbled, turning her cheek back onto her pillow.

Her heart weighing heavily, she reached for her lamp, ready to extinguish it. Without Syrix there, the generator had already stopped working, though she still had the ice box and the fridge, but she cared little about the inconvenience. All she wanted was him, and at least, if she managed to sleep, she might be able to catch a glimpse of him in her dreams. She turned the small nob, lowering the light, but froze when she heard a faint, far-off sound that seemed to be gradually growing louder as if something was coming closer. And the closer it came, the clearer she could hear it, until it became apparent that someone was calling her. Not just anyone, but Syrix!

Excitement enlivening her with vitality and a great sense of urgency, she jolted up in bed and threw off her blanket with hastily mumbled apologies to the fox family who quickly scooted away with barks and yips of surprise. Feet hitting the floor, she ran to her window and threw the curtain wide.

“Syrix,” she whispered, her eyes fastening on the lone male standing in the moonlight at the edge of the forest.

Trembling with happiness, she tore away from the window and flew through the cabin. She didn’t even bother to stop and put her shoes on before she was sprinting out the door, Fixi’s anxious yips following after her. She didn’t understand what his problem was. Syrix was home at last!

She laughed as she ran toward him, her arms rising in greeting. He smiled at her, his lovely red eyes glowing with an unmistakable glitter of happiness. But then he retreated into the forest before she could fall into his arms, dancing playfully just outside of her reach as he beckoned to her to follow.

“Come, my love. This way,” he called.

Krystal’s brows knitted in confusion, but she hurried after him, following him ever deeper into the woods, not wanting to be separated already after finally being reunited with him.

“Syrix, wait. You said to not go so far into the forest at night,” she shouted, but he laughed in response and shook his head as he slipped among the trees,

“Do not be silly. The lamia went to ground, remember? There is something important I must show you. It is the reason I have been gone for so long. It cannot wait,” he insisted.

Krystal frowned and hurried after him. What could have possibly kept him away from the cabin? She was certain she knew Syrix well enough that he would never intentionally stay away and leave her there alone. She doubted any discovery or anything at all would have kept him away from her.

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