Page 37 of Foxin' Around

The tears flowed and with a sob, Krystal dropped to the ground, her head bowed with the enormous weight of her sorrow and loss. Fixi’s soft little muzzle nudged her, and she gathered the little fox into her arms, grief racking her as she bitterly wept for all that the lamia had succeeded in stealing from her.

Eventually the tears slowed, and she released the fox as she rose shakily to her feet. She glanced down at him sadly as he tipped his head back to regard her.

“Come on,” she sighed. “Let’s go home.”

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

Syrix stood on the edge of oblivion, his fox fire muted in a golden red mist around him as he drifted there. An empty longing consumed him, but he had no right to ask favors of the goddess standing and regarding him within the expanse of the void.

“I am curious. Do you have any regrets in these last moments?”

He shook his head, his lips tipping in a sad smile. “None one,” he replied, his voice echoing so hollowly that it sounded strange to him.” His gaze lifted and met hers. “My mate lives and will now carry a part of me within her forever so that even if she does not remember me, she will never feel alone.”

The goddess’s head tipped with consideration, a small smile playing on her lips. “Clever, my little fox. You truly do love her.”

“Forever,” he rasped. “Even scattered across the universe, every particle of my energy that becomes one with it will always love her.”

Her lips rose with a genuine smile. “Then go home, little fox.”

The darkness expanded before him, but he went into it without fear. He held the memory of his mate close to him andhe stepped into the endless void. Reality surged and energies twisted around him so brutally that he felt as if he were being torn apart. He screamed in pain, pain that eclipsed that which he had distantly felt when he unmade his flesh to rise within his fox fire. The heat searing through him was far more brutal. It tore through him, breaking him apart into nothing and then… moonlight?

He blinked and coughed where he lay, moonlight gleaming down on him and illuminating his bare limbs. Slowly, painfully, Syrix lifted his head and sat up, his eyes sweeping uncertainly around him. He was… home? He had assumed the goddess had simply bidden him to return to the universe from which all things had sprung, but she had really sent him home.

Shooting to his feet, he glanced down at himself and laughed to see his flesh whole and unblemished. He did not even bear any of the lacerations or bites that the lamia had delivered to him. He turned in a slow circle in the midst of his garden, his eyes wide as he took in its simple beauty and breathed in its perfume.

He laughed again as he spun in the direction of the cabin he shared with his mate, briefly bursting into flames as he assumed his true form. Running faster than ever before, his legs ate up the ground beneath him, the moon riding high above him, bathing him in her mercy and divine line as one of her children. He turned his face up to the light briefly as he ran, but when the cabin came into view, his pace slowed to a trot as his chest heaved with exertion and excitement. He could see even from the edge of the woods the silhouette of his mate staring forlornly up at the moon, her face wet with tears. It was a knife to his heart to see her so sad.

Without hesitating, he broke from the edge of the woods, making enough commotion to scare half the rabbits in his territory as he crossed the small clearing. Fixi and Fata spilledfrom the house with excited yips upon scenting him and only then did his mate turn toward him, her eyes widening with disbelief and then lightening with joy as a smile broke across her face.

“Syrix!” she screamed, and she raced from the porch to sprint toward him.

He laughed and with another burst of fox fire, he took his two-legged form, his arms opening wide as his little mate barreled into him. She threw her arms and legs around him as she laughed and cried all at once in his arms and he hugged her as if he would never let her go.

“How is this even possible?” she whispered raggedly into his neck.

He tipped his head toward the moon and smiled. “Because the universe and all the gods above are, at their core, love.” Dropping his head, he lifted her chin so that he could see her beautiful face. A face that he had feared he would never see again. “Love unmade me and then love made me again and sent me home,” he replied in an equally ragged voice.

“Don’t leave, again,” she pleaded frantically. “Don’t ever let me go.”

“Never,” he rasped, his head lowering as he claimed her lips in a kiss.

Although he had never imagined or dared to dream of such love when he made his spell so many weeks ago, now that he had found true, pure love with his mate, he was never letting go.

Epilogue

MANY YEARS LATER

Krystal watched with amusement as Syrix sat between his foxes in the clearing, his head bent attentively toward them. The kits were long since grown and had taken off to explore and have adventures of their own, but Fixi and Fata had more litters over the years, ever expanding their family. And now she and Syrix were ready to do the same. She ran a hand over her swollen belly, her smile widening when her mate finally stood and prowled toward her with a peeved look.

“Why are you looking so cross?” she teased. “Weren’t you just saying the other day how much better they were becoming these last couple of years in their communication with you? Advanced beyond any mere mortal fox, I believe were your words.”

He grimaced and shook his head. “They are excellent guards, which is also why I used my magic to expand their lives, but that is not the problem.”

“Oh?” Her eyebrows raised playfully. “And what is the problem? It had better not be anything that is going to suddenlycome with demands that we abandon our trip to the village. I’m not having this baby without a few more things.”

His lips twisted with amusement, momentarily distracted by her complaint, and he ran a hand along her distended belly. “I do not believe you are capable of controlling when you whelp,” he teased, “but no, I would not so deprive you of your simple pleasures in shopping. Though you have squeezed quite a lot in our little cabin.”

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