Page 13 of Foxin’ Around (Mated to the Monster: Season 3)
Chapter
Twelve
K rystal threw a log on the fire and slowly straightened, her hands going to her back as she winced a bit at the ache. It was raining again. For three days it had rained, and it was slowly driving her insane. Or perhaps it was the way that Syrix was looking restlessly out the window so frequently. It would be enough to make her live in a constant state of nerves if it weren’t for the fact that whenever she started to feel afraid, it was magically plucked from her. That was also making her uneasy, even if the fear itself was difficult for her to cling to. It wasn’t natural.
Not that she didn’t appreciate it at times. She certainly wouldn’t have enjoyed driving herself mad with worry. But it was strange, nonetheless. Or perhaps it was the weather making her jump at shadows. The cabin was certainly filled with dark recesses that the fire in the hearth and the meager few candles they had couldn’t quite illuminate.
“The weather certainly came upon us quickly,” she muttered. “I forgot how damp and chilly it got so close to the mountains this time of the year.”
Syrix hummed in agreement as he stood in front of the window, peering out in the deeply gray world just outside the door. He clasped his hands behind his back as he stared into that nothingness, and Krystal wondered what exactly he was searching for. He frequently took position at the window as of late, as if looking for something… or waiting.
She peered at the window uncertainly. “Do you think Jasper is okay out there? He is always gone for so much of the day, but I have thinking of him stuck out there in that.”
The corner of his mouth hitched. “I quite certain that he is nearby and perfectly dry. Foxes possess a certain ingenuity, and he is not quite like other foxes.”
Her lips pursed thoughtfully. He was not wrong. She had noticed herself that he seemed especially cunning and intelligent.
“Yes that’s true,” she replied after a long moment but Syrix showed no sign of reaction. He was more than a little distracted, and if it wasn’t Jasper worrying him then she had to wonder if it was due to the lamia. Did he believe that she was close?
A shiver of apprehension swept over her as she slowly straightened to join him at the window. “Is she there?” she whispered.
His eyes had that strangely reddish cast again when he glanced down at her. It caused an instinctive drive to flee, as if she were glimpsing the eyes of some sort of terrible creature of nightmares.
“No, I do not think so,” he murmured, his gaze shifting back to the window. “I do not sense her, anyway. But it is difficult to know for sure in this weather.”
“And you cannot do anything about it… like you did with the garden?” she asked quietly.
He shook his head. “I can meddle with plants without causing too much far-reaching consequences, but the gods do not like significant foolery with the weather. I can direct it away from us so that it travels along another route, but unless it poses an immediate threat, it is better to just let it run its course.”
She nodded in acknowledgement, but wrapped her arms around her middle as the chill settled more firmly around her heart. “So, she could be out there, staring right back at us at this very moment and you would have no way of knowing with absolute certainty.”
He hesitated, as if he perhaps wished to leap to the defense of his magical abilities, then grimaced unhappily. “If she were close enough, I would catch the glow of her eyes,” he grumbled, “but otherwise you are correct. On a quieter night I can pick up traces of her energetic body surrounding and infusing her being, but there is too much energy going through the atmosphere currently to be able to distinguish it clearly.”
“Well, that’s just peach—” She froze as a human scream rose above the sound of the rain, her words dying on her lips. Her brows lowered as she took a step closer toward the door. “What the actual fuck?”
Syrix’s hand gripped her shoulder when she attempted to pass him, and she turned her head toward him questioningly. Her brows beetling with confusion, she peered up at him. “Syrix, what are you doing? Someone is out there hurt; you cannot possibly mean to just abandon them out there. We have to help them.”
He shook his head silently, his jaw clenching. Krystal’s brows dipped at his response. No? What did he mean, no? There was someone out there alone, terrified and in pain. It could be anyone who lived around these parts trying to make it to the relative safety of one of the cabins. Or even?—
Gasping, she tried to shake off his hold. “Shit, Syrix, let go!” she snapped when his fingers bit deeper into her clothing as if hooking slightly into the material with enough force to lightly prick her skin beneath her sweater. “We have to save them! That could be one of my cousins out there.”
“It is not your cousin,” he murmured.
“You don’t know that?—”
He tapped his nose. “Wait here,” he growled, and he walked toward the door and opened it slowly to sniff the air outside for just a moment before slamming the door shut with a scowl. “As I said, it is not your cousin. The human scent doesn’t bear even the faintest resemblance to suggest kinship to you.”
She stared in disbelief. He couldn’t seriously be making a determination just based on sniffing the air outside their door. She opened her mouth to argue with him but jumped when another scream ripped through the woods—louder and closer.
“Fuck this, I’m not going to stand here debating it. Whether they are my cousin or not, no one deserves to be murdered by that thing out there. I can’t even believe that you are okay with this,” she grumbled as she tried unsuccessfully to circle around him to the door once more, only to have her path blocked yet again. She threw up her hands in frustration and glared openly at him when he caught her arm in his viselike hold once more. “What the hell, Syrix? Get out of my way. You may not want to help, but I’m not staying in here when it could be my family out there being slaughtered.”
He leaned down then until they were practically nose to nose, his eyes glittering with anger to such a degree that their red cast appeared even brighter than before. “And what would you do? Offer yourself for the lamia to eat instead?” he snarled. “Even if you rushed out there now, you would be of no help to her prey. He is dead.”
“He is screaming,” she yelled as another scream broke the silence, this time shriller and pitched with the sound of agony. “I can’t just stay in here safe, and you shouldn’t be able to, either. Not when your great magic supposedly protects everything here. This is your fucking forest, remember?”
She jerked her arm disdainfully and this time he released her, a pained look crossing his face before reluctantly nodding in agreement.
“You are right,” he replied, sweeping past her so as to take the lead. “The lamia is seeking a response—of that I have no doubt—but we cannot just hide within here while she does as she likes.” He paused at the door and glanced back at her uncertainly. “I mean what I said, though. Whoever this male is, he will not be alive by the time we get there. Be prepared.”
Krystal nodded miserably as he opened the door and slipped outside. Wordlessly, she followed him out into the freezing cold rain. She could deny the truth of it as much as she liked, but she was enough of a realist to know that the likelihood of anyone being alive by the time they got there was slim to none. She trembled as the screams continued in an unendingsound of suffering, but then the forest fell completely silent as she stepped off the last porch step onto the hard, packed ground. Sheswallowed sickly.
He was dead.
She stood there for a moment, the cold rain plastering her hair to her head, and Syrix stopped a short distance ahead of her and turned to look back expectantly at her. She shivered, the cold seeping deeper within her. This was a terrible idea and yet she forced her feet forward and he waited until she was nearly at his side when he resumed walking again and entered the tree line.
The farther they walked from the cabin, the more she began to regret her decision. The forest was absolutely silent as if Death was waiting for them to join him. The only thing that kept her feet moving was the knowledge that if it was her cousin, she couldn’t just leave him out there to be consumed or rot in the woods without a grave.
Krystal glanced up at the tree branches above them, noting the way they formed skeletal arms even among the foliage that clung to them. The rain made them rustle with a quiet whisper as if ghosts were conversing around them, waiting for them to find the grisly remains that awaited them.
Syrix came to a stop just ahead of her and she managed to notice in time to keep from crashing into his back, but she blinked the water out of her eyes curiously as he looked back her sympathetically.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?”
Nodding, she wiped uselessly at the water streaming down her face from her hair. Her lips quivered with the cold, but she clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering and nodded. “F… fine.”
The look he gave her was doubtful, but he didn’t challenge her. His head turned once more to the direction in which they were heading, his eyes narrowing speculatively as he sniffed the air again, an expression of frustration on his face.
“She is not here,” he muttered, and Krystal couldn’t tell if he was annoyed or relieved by that. It was quite possible, of course, that he didn’t know either. He rolled his shoulders and let his breath out in a loud huff. “Not much farther. The stench is getting thicker. He should be just up ahead.”
“Right,” she mumbled, and she gave her arms a brisk rub. The shawl she wore was soaked through. She should have had the forethought to grab her hoodie. She was freezing. “Lead the way.”
Let’s get this over with.