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Rhys

My attention zeroed in on Dove as the medicine lulled her to an unconscious state. The battle had done a number on her, bruises blossoming like morbid flowers. All I wanted was those big milk chocolate eyes gazing up at me again, to tuck the loose strands of white hair behind her ear.

To know that she’s okay.

Weeks ago, her blood tests had come in matching her with us and I had rushed back to Foxfire Academy, the top demon-slaying school in the country. When I bumped into her in the shrine, it was like the goddess herself teaching me a lesson for not believing. Like it was Fate.

I wanted her instantly, how beautiful she was, how delicious she smelled. And I knew she was mine, my Fated.

Her tragic past had been reduced to only a few paragraphs in her file—which I read at least a hundred times, feasting upon the words obsessively to become acquainted with my Fated. But once I saw her, I wondered how she had been able to survive after everything that had happened to her. So fragile and young, her strength hidden behind her soft features and sharp tongue.

I had thought she was just a bratty academy student, not a hardened blade forged by the fires of her turbulent past. Keeping myself away once I was near was the hardest part, but it was for her own safety. If people knew how powerful she was, how her very presence commanded us…

I had called her into my office that day only to stare at her for an hour. A painting of perfection that I couldn’t take my eyes off of. To curb my infatuation, I ordered her to bow so she wouldn’t see my possessed state. Her alluring scent made it hard to control myself around her. But that made it all the more exciting.

I forced my eyes away from her, onto the three men who shared my Fated.

First on Seven, who I considered my brother, though we shared no blood, his scowl more prominent than normal, his red eyes fixated on Dove. Tattoos covered every visible inch of his skin except his face. Sometimes I wondered what he was covering up. His deep pink scar stretched across one cheek to his temple and close to his eye, a visible reminder of what he had been through. His black hair was darker than the Shadow. Demon blood remained splattered on his wrinkled white shirt causing acidic holes. He hadn’t changed since the battle.

Enko, the big one that struggled with anger issues. He wore a green academy jersey, his brown hair messy from the stress since Dove was hurt. His brown eyes remained on the slow rise and fall of her chest, as though that was the one thing keeping him from another rampage. The last thing I needed was having to tidy up his mess again.

And then there was Kairos, the one who glared at me like I was the enemy. Maybe I was. His blue eyes were a clouded storm, his glares struck like flicks of lightning. His golden hair somehow had remained styled during the battle and the night of no sleep. His dark gray suit made him look like he was already running his father’s business, though he was only twenty-four.

The four of us surrounded her bed like a pack of demons while she slept like an angel. Now I knew about the deep injury she had hidden from us. Through the quiet of the room, every sound echoed, Enko’s heavy breath, Kairos’ footfalls as he paced, and the lack of Seven’s constant quips and jabs at everyone for everything.

Unable to bear it any longer, I broke the weighted silence. “I should start working on her. While she’s medicated and her wound is still open.”

I stepped forward, pulling the thin sheet down. Her bare skin ignited something in me, and I wasn’t the only one. Enko, Kairos, and Seven rushed between to stop me. Kairos tugged the sheet back into place, while Seven and Enko blocked my view of her, pushing me away from the bed.

“My little fox never agreed to you seeing her naked.”

Enko grabbed my wrist, holding tightly. His strength could easily snap my bones, even though I had more tails than him.

“I’m a medic. I was trained to handle these situations maturely,”

I said, desperate to pull that sheet back down and see her fully. To caress her skin, kiss her—

“Yeah? That’s why you have that crazed look in your eyes? Because you’re so mature?”

Seven snapped.

“She needs to be healed,”

I argued, that feral instinct taking over my rationality as I tried to step forward, but Enko’s arm barred my way.

“Not by you.”

I growled like a feral teenager unable to control the pull of the foxfire. “I am the strongest Life kitsune alive!”

“The most pompous one too,”

Kairos chuckled, his arms crossed over his chest, his perfectly shining loafers tapping against the clean white tile floor.

The three of them had no respect for my position as the Archfox. Now that Dove knew my importance, I would have to reign the three idiots back into place. “I can order the three of you out of here in a heartbeat. She is my Fated mate and I have every right to bond with her!”

They laughed at my comments, Seven saying, “Not when she’s sleeping, you don’t. We have every obligation to protect her. And how is kicking us out going to help your stilted relationship with Dove? She doesn’t know anything about you. If she wakes, she will feel most comfortable with us here.”

Seven, honoring our brotherhood, tried to help.

“Not that you would understand that, having spent the last several weeks treating her like a rebellious student,”

Kairos said as his eyes zapped me again.

I inhaled deeply a few times, hoping to calm myself down, but all I could smell was her sweet fruity scent, like a drug fogging my brain with crazed lust. Finally, I shoved the instincts down. “Then blindfold me. I need to heal her.”

Enko and Seven looked to Kairos, who stared at Dove for a long moment before nodding. “He’s right, the injury is on her back. He doesn’t need to see anything more than that. And we’ll be here to keep an eye on him the entire time. In case he loses control,”

Kairos said finally.

Me? Lose control? Did he have any idea who he was speaking to? Of all of us, I was the least likely to lose control. I had been forced to grow up before he even had his first tail.

I shoved the angry thoughts back down as she came back into my sight. I had to stop myself from smiling as my eyes grazed her. Her white hair framed her round face, her dark pink lips parted slightly with a breath, her breasts rose and fell under the sheets. Kairos and Enko gently turned her onto her side, revealing her back and the severity of her wound.

My lust quelled and my jaw dropped as I saw the damage under the fresh slash from the Tier V archdemon’s blade. How had she even been walking? She would have been in pain the entire time—a year ago—since the burning of her temple, long before her newest injury. Why hadn’t she told me?

And I made her bow for almost an hour.

No wonder the others had been so mad at me. I should have been focusing on her needs, not on my own hubris and desire. Guilt crept up on me as I stepped forward, sitting in the chair at her side and letting my fingers rest on the freshly opened wound.

“I’ll need sterile water and cloth,”

I ordered, my brain reverting to my time spent as a medic, determined to get Dove out of pain as quickly as possible.

My eyes closed, and without even trying, the pulse of magic surged to my fingertips and into Dove. The green-tinged light flowed into the opening.

She moaned in her medicine-induced sleep and my eyes snapped open as I took her pain into myself, unraveling the tightened knots of char wrapping around her nerves and muscles.

Enko rushed to the other side of the bed, kneeling to face her, stroking her hair, cupping her cheek. “Is she in pain?”

I nodded, not wanting words to distract from the work of my magic. I’d seen the gigantic man’s temper before, but now he appeared only as a scared puppy, worried for his Fated. Our Fated.

“The removal of hellfire char requires a skilled practitioner. Even the slightest mistake can leave the patient paralyzed for life,”

the Life kitsune who worked for the university said. She set the cloth and sterile water on the table beside me. “It’s why Dove refused the treatment for so long.”

“He might paralyze her?”

Kairos stepped forward, hands outstretched toward me as he readied himself to pull me away.

Seven blocked the controlling Storm kitsune, for once acting like he should. “Rhys wants what’s best for her, just like all of us, Kairos.”

I worked for many long hours, the others finally relaxing in the chairs around the room while I pushed myself late into the night. The yearning to get her out of pain kept my mind sharp and my hands steady. My own weariness was nothing in comparison to her prolonged agony.

Dove moaned again as I cleaned away another trail of black goo secreting from her wound. I turned to drop the dirty cloth into the bucket at my side, my head going dizzy after hours of work.

When she reentered my sight, her brown eyes stared up at me, moving over my face in a hazy allurement. She winced in pain at each movement as she twisted around to see me. “Am I dreaming?”

“You’re in the medical wing. Your meds have worn off. I’ll grab the healer,”

I told her, grabbing a wet rag to wipe off my hands.

Her eyes moved down to my white shirt and sleeves which were dotted with blood and char. Confusion registered on her face, then shame. She pulled the sheet up urgently, “I’m so sorry, your Holiness. I didn’t mean to cause you any trouble.”