Page 22 of Foxin’ Around (Mated to the Monster: Season 3)
Chapter
Twenty-One
K rystal scrunched her nose at the sensation of something tickling it before finally scratching the tip with her finger. That accomplished, her hand fell back into the grass, and she sighed contently, a smile curling her lips. Giving an itch a good scratching was definitely the most satisfying feeling. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so relaxed. Not only did she release enough tension to make her limbs feel like limp noodles, but she was comfortably warm from the sun and Syrix’s body sprawled partially over her.
Something large and incredible soft brushed against her hip and she mumbled sleepily, her brow knitting faintly. What an odd sensation.
“What do you have there?” she mumbled, and her eyes fluttered open to stare down at her hip that was presently draped with a very large, red fox tail.
The fur lifted slightly and relaxed before the tail dragged from her hip to her thigh. Her eyes followed the length of the tail until it disappeared behind Syrix’s thigh. What? Was Fixi asleep on the other side of him? She skimmed her palm over the top of the fur, expecting the fox to bound up out of hiding, eager to play, but the tail merely lifted as if following the movement of her hand. That was a strange reaction. Perplexed, she very gently wrapped her fingers around the tip of the tail and gave it a very gentle, but firm, tug.
The tail tensed in her hand and Syrix moaned loudly, sending a rush of heat through her to pool low in her belly. That desire, however, was muted as everything came to a screeching halt within her mind as it focused in on the fact that he was reacting to the tail being pulled. A tail that had to be attached just above his muscular ass… not to Fixi.
“What the fuck?” she shouted.
Syrix shot up with a look of groggy surprise, his head twisting as he glanced around and giving her an excellent view of the fox ears pushing out from hair that appeared denser and softer, almost like fur. Seeing no threat, his head turned toward her, and for the first time she felt like she was truly seeing his face. Its planes were sharply defined, and his eyes had an inhuman shape that reminded her of her first glimpse of him. She’d thought she imagined everything, and yet his glowing red eyes were focused on her as she stared up at him in shock.
“What the fuck,” she repeated, this time at a whisper. “You’re… you’re not fucking human.”
His eyes widened and he looked down at the clawed hand he lifted until his gaze shot to his tail which he immediately snapped away from her leg. His lips twisted and he winced as he met her eyes.
“Sweetheart, I can explain,” he began as he hastily reached for his robe laying beside him and drew the edge over his leg and tail.
“Don’t sweetheart me! What the fuck are you? And why are you covering up now? It’s a bit too late for that!” she snapped.
Sighing, he released the material so that it draped over him, only partially obscuring his inhumanity. “This is not as bad as it looks.”
“That’s funny because it looks pretty outrageous from my perspective. How did you make yourself look… look?—”
“Look human?” he finished, his lips tipping wryly. “It is called glamour, and it is a useful trick that many races possess.”
“You lying, deceitful—” she seethed.
“Utterly adorable little fox?” he interrupted with such a cheeky smile that her lips twitched involuntarily.
Krystal blinked and shook her head with a reluctant chuckle but stubbornly bit it back. No, she couldn’t let herself become distracted or charmed by him.
“I don’t understand,” she muttered.
“It is what I am. Or rather, a spirit fox,” he clarified. “This is merely my two-legged form, but like many magical species, I’m able to conceal certain features with glamour as a defense mechanism to blend in.”
She took in his vivid red hair and tail and his black tipped ears as her mind quickly put the pieces together, producing a picture that angered her further. If he had a two-legged form, she had zero doubt that he also had a four-legged form. “You’re Jasper,” she whispered in shock. “All this time and you never gave me the smallest clue that it was you. It was just Jasper who followed me around and slept with me.” Her brows slammed downward in anger. “ And slept with me ,” she repeated, grinding the words out furiously. “You were lying with me practically every night and never told me!”
An abashed look crossed his face. “I wanted to tell you. You just looked so afraid when you arrived, and I did not wish for you to be frightened further by something so small.”
“Small?” she echoed. “That seems like a pretty big lie.”
He grimaced. “It was not a lie. Not once did I lie to you and claim to be human. While I may have made my appearance more familiar, I never concealed my magic and everything I shared with you regarding my past and my feelings was nothing less than the truth.”
“You knew that I thought you were human,” she countered, but her outrage dwindled as he cocked his head at her curiously.
His brows rose, amusement glittering in his eyes. “Do humans summon fire to their fingertips and do plants answer to their magic in such a fashion? I did not realize that there were any powerful mages left among your people.”
He had her there. She wanted to pick at something, anything, that he had done or told her to directly deceive her into believing he was an exceptionally powerful human being, but he was right… outside of his illusion, he never spoken in a way that suggested he was human. She tried to think back if there had ever been a clever twist of words but, fuck, who was she kidding? All the signs had been right in front of her that he was not human, and she had ignored them and simply gone along with everything because she had been comfortable in the story she told herself about him rather than questioning it.
She drew in a deep breath in an attempt to think clearly. “Ok, so you felt it was necessary to hide what you are when we met. What about all the days and nights since then? At any time, you could have come clean instead of… this.”
He gave her a faint smile. “Have you ever got so caught up in a secret that finding a way to reveal it proved to be impossibly challenging?” He sighed when she wrinkled her nose at him. “Not only was there your fear of me to contend with, but then the lamia appeared. You have been existing in a state of fear that I could not bring myself to compound. Believe me, that I wished to tell you. It is tiring for me to always be expending my energy on the glamour. It takes its toll on me, especially after so many nights when the light of the moon was concealed by the storm.”
Her brow furrowed. “What does the moon have to do with anything?”
“The moonlight is a regular energy source for foxes,” he explained. “There is another method but one that I would never use now that I have you. Allowing myself to weaken was a small sacrifice.”
Krystal frowned in response. She refused to feel guilty when she was the one being influenced by his ridiculousness, but she couldn’t help but feel a little sympathetic. She still hated that she found out by being rudely hit with it—quite literally—but she couldn’t disagree that it had been a difficult handful of weeks and that it might have been difficult for him to interrupt what peace she’d found. And he had tried to tell her before lying with her, but she’d been too impatient, and perhaps too afraid, to hear it. She couldn’t entirely blame him, but nor could she entirely excuse it. She was still annoyed… but mostly she was now embarrassed at how clueless she’d been. She’d just accepted everything. If Syrix had intended her harm, something horrible could have happened to her before she even realized it.
That was frightening.
She licked her lips nervously. “What else are you hiding?” she whispered. “When I asked you if you were making me feel calm and relaxed—have you been influencing the way that I feel?”
He hesitated and her heart plummeted.
“No, do not,” he pleaded, his hand grasping hers. She shook it away and he withdrew his hand with a sad expression that tore at her heart. “It was me,” he admitted, “but it is a side effect of when my kind find our mates, we grow… close… which makes us sensitive to each other’s moods and feelings.”
She recoiled. “Did you manipulate me to feel things?”
She immediately felt ill. The possibility that every good thing she had felt had been manufactured by Syrix made her sick. If that was the case, she would have no way to know what feelings were real and what weren’t.
His eyes widened as he realized her meaning and he shook his head. “We cannot do that. We can heighten desire, which a fox might use when hunting to feast from pleasure, or we can dull certain feelings, but we cannot produce something that does not already exist,” he assured her, and some of the tension eased from her.
“I don’t understand, aren’t you contradicting yourself? How can it be something formed between mates but also a skill that you use so casually?” she asked, and he laughed tiredly.
“There is a nuance,” he admitted. “With strangers, it is very short term, for as long as we keep the influence directly engaged with them. But with mates we are able to reach along our energetic connections to soothe each other. That is why I said that you were meant for me, and I was meant for you. It is part of my nature. When I feel you hurting or afraid, I instinctively react the only way that I can. I cannot take your fear away—and nor would I if I could because fear is necessary to some degree, but dull it so that you are not overwhelmed by it. That’s all.”
She shook her head, bewildered. “Mate? That is the second time you’ve said this but I’ve never?—”
He gave her a small smile. “It is just on my side. You are not required to be my mate, but I have already given all to you. I have ever since I cast my magic into the ether, to call for the one meant for me.”
Krystal’s heart sank. There was no call that pulled her, just practical reasoning. That meant whoever he had actually called was still out there. What if she arrived a day, a week, a month or even a year from now? Krystal would lose him, and that realization brought more despair and pain that suddenly made all of her anger and embarrassment leading up to this moment feel insignificant. She was going to lose the man—monster?—spirit?—that she had fallen in love with.
What a tragic way to discover that she was in love and somehow it just fit with how her dumb luck was running.
Syrix tipped his head and peered at her. “Krystal? What is it?”
Now that she was aware of it, she could feel the brush of him reaching for her and she mentally thrust him away, throwing off the touch of his presence within her. Syrix jerked back in response, his eyes widening with pain and shock but it didn’t make her feel any better.
“Sweetheart?” he whispered, but she shook her head and swiped away a tear before it could fall.
“It’s not me,” she whispered. “I wasn’t called to you, Syrix. As I told you before, this is my family’s home. Whoever you sent your magic for—it’s not me.”
His look of confusion melted away and to her surprise, he laughed. “Oh, my sweet, adorable human. Magic often looks for the route of least resistance and it found you, who not only was a match for me as a suitable mate, but who already had a tie established to this place to assure that you would hasten to my side all the quicker. Blind summoning spells are seldom easy, but trust me, you are the one.”
She shook her head. “You can’t possibly be sure.”
“But I am,” he murmured as he took her hand and flattened it against his chest. She left it there, wanting the closeness despite everything. “It was you since the day you arrived, and now you are so under my skin and such a part of me that there will never be another. My kind mate for life, you see. There is no other I will ever accept. Even if you insist that I leave and you find another to live your life with, there will never be another for me. That is how I can be sure. That is why I am certain.”
Her fingers withdrew from his chest, and she pulled her hand away, grateful that he didn’t try to push the matter. “I just need time to think about all of this. It’s a lot. I never imagined that after what we just shared, everything would suddenly be thrown into chaos.”
He looked sad but he nodded. “Take whatever time you need—I will remain by your side for as long as you want me here.”
Krystal murmured her thanks and pushed to her feet, gathering her clothes awkwardly around her in the process. She didn’t look at him as she pulled her things on. She couldn’t when her foolish heart was demanding that she throw caution to the wind and keep him with her forever. She needed time to figure out what all this was going to mean for her life going forward first.
“Thank you for understanding,” she whispered, and she walked away.