Page 27 of Foxin’ Around (Mated to the Monster: Season 3)

Chapter

Twenty-Six

S yrix hung from the manacles that were digging into his wrists, his head drooping weakly. It was the sound of footsteps that made him stir as terror rose sharply and brutally through him. She could not be here! But she was. There was no denying his mate’s sweet scent as it floated over the carnage to him.

“Syrix?”

His mouth worked, but no sound came out as the lamia wearing his image and utilizing his voice stood at the bottom of the steps and spoke instead, luring Krystal down with her deceiving words. He had been fading in and out for hours, his blood drained to the point of rendering him unconscious before the creature had decided that she had taken enough to work her enchantment. Even now, many hours later, he could barely move, and his neck was a burning mass of fire where her teeth had pierced him. At least he no longer burned from within from the effects of her venom. But he was forced to watch and listen helplessly, just as she swore that he would, while the lamia spoke honeyed words and summoned his fox fire by which she finally convinced his mate to descend into the cellar.

His mouth gaped open as he tried to scream a warning, or even to frighten his mate back up the stairs and out of the Mallory cabin, if he was incapable of making intelligible words, but he failed. And he hated himself more knowing that this was all because of foolish pride in his capabilities as a strong and wily fox spirit. He had not believed that a single lamia could have ever defeated him within his own territory, and now the one being who was most precious to him was descending into death’s den.

He watched silently, helplessly, as she came into the light of the fox fire. She stepped willingly, though hesitantly, into the lamia’s arms, and he choked on his soundless scream as the creature wearing his face lowered her head to impart her terrible kiss.

He was certain that was the end. All it took was a kiss for the lamia to hold her prey within her thrall. His steeled himself for what was to come, though there was no stopping the tears that ran freely down his face. The hatchlings within their eggs seemed to stretch eagerly in response as the lamia’s lethal, hungry energy gathered. Terror tapped into the dwindled, nearly nonexistent reservoirs of his energy so that he strained against his chains, his body trembling with the grief that was slowly shattering him.

But then Krystal suddenly jerked away and stumbled back, impossibly breaking free from the lamia’s hold to stare at the creature with horror. “You’re not Syrix.”

From his vantage point, he could see the shock and a hint of fear that crossed the lamia’s true face beneath the web of magic, her tail winding with the smallest betrayal of uncertainty. But then rage rapidly grew from the lamia’s unease and she laughed, rising higher on her writhing tail as a look of revulsion and horror filled Krystal’s face.

“I suppose I shall not be nice, then. I was going to at least allow you to enjoy your lover’s face and form a little while longer until I envenomated you,” the creature mused, “but it seems that you are a less susceptible to my magic compared to those that came before you.”

Krystal’s eyes drifted around the room, and her throat worked from the bile that must be choking her even as her terror grew and flooded over Syrix. His body slumped and shook from it, but the clink of his chains against the wall finally drew her eyes to him and he looked up just in time to meet her eyes and see for himself the anguish in her gaze that he felt rippling through the air between them. He tried a tiny smile, something, anything, to soothe her even the smallest bit, but he failed to even do that much when a sob tore from her as she whispered his name.

“Do not worry, female,” the lamia crooned, drawing his mate’s attention back to her as she crafted yet another spell. Syrix felt the familiar claws of the spell as it closed around his mate. Gritting his teeth in agony, he watched Krystal fight against the magnetic hold of the lamia’s spell issuing from her gaze. The lamia smiled terribly. “Fortunately for him, his pain will be over soon enough, but I’m afraid that yours has only begun, for the last thing you will see within your sea of agony will be the pain in your male’s eyes the moment that I carve out your heart and feast upon it. Your lament of pain has come.”

With a violent hiss, the lamia wound forward, preparing to strike but was countered by a small shadow that streaked forward suddenly into the light with a shrill snarl. Fixi, his fur bristling, attacked, his teeth snapping onto the lamia’s tail with enough force that the creature whirled on him a shriek of anger. She whipped her tail, violently dislodging him so that the small fox went flying, but his attack did its job. Krystal was free from the lamia’s spell but, to his horror, she did not flee back up the stairs. Instead, she looked over at him with a fleeting, wistful look and attacked.

Sorrowed howled through him and he twisted weakly against his chains. His core essence within him churned and gathered with the desperate need that rushed through him as he watched the lamia whirl and slap his mate away with a heavy blow of her tail. She rose above his fallen mate, and though Krystal rolled out of the way in time to evade the sharp, bony tip of the tail from impaling her, he knew that, however valiant his mate’s efforts were, she could not win. The lamia as bigger and far more powerful, and the chilling smile on the creature’s face told the tale of just how much more terrible Krystal’s end would be. And he could not allow it.

His eyes slid closed in grief even as his resolution hardened within him and he continued to summon and focus on his core energy, the true essence of himself within his body. To do this, he would destroy himself completely and erase his right to existence, but he could not bear to watch his mate die, even if it meant that they would never meet again in this life or in the next. He would not have long to do what needed to be done before his fire was snuffed out, but it would have to be enough.

He drew hard on his energy, allowing his body to unmake itself as it did when he shifted between his two-legged and four-legged forms, but this time, he let his body go completely, allowing the last remnants of magic within his cells and tissues and organs to reshape as he took on the one form he had left to him. It was that which rested within every fox.

The fox fire.

Flames gathered before and around his awareness. He no longer had physical eyes made of flesh, but he could still see as he reshaped into a massive fiery fox. Such a form was not permitted in this world, not without divine benevolence. He could feel the weight of it against him as his essence reshaped, and time slowed down, and his mate’s struggles with the lamia moved in an impossibly slow dance as he witnessed it. Just to the left of the battle, light gathered, and an essence of divinity filled the space as it took on the shape of a crowned goddess, her robes swirling around her legs with the ever-moving power and vitality of her higher essence. Elegant, coifed, and dripping with jewels over her saffron robes, she peered at him, weighing him, judging him.

“So, this is your decision?” she murmured. “You would seek this destruction, and sacrifice your very existence for this female?”

“I would,” he rasped.

“You would allow her to walk without you? Her heart yearning and incomplete?”

He bowed his head, knowing that his mate would hate him for making this decision on his own, without her. “Anything, if she will only live.” He swallowed down his pain. “She will love again, and find joy again, even if it is without me.”

“That is very noble of you,” the divinity observed, a hint of mockery in her voice. “Or should, I say selfish that you would wish her pain to spare your own pain of watching her die.”

His eyes narrowed on her. “As you like. I am not ignorant of the fact that death is but another journey, nor am I doing this to spare myself from the pain of watching her die. But… I love her. I would rather unmake my entire existence than allow her to suffer the terrible pain from such a death as the lamia would give her.”

“Love.” The goddess regarded him gravely. “And if I removed every bond you forged with her so that not even a memory of you remained, as the price that I demand? Would you be willing to make the same claims of devotion knowing that to her, you will never have existed at all beyond this moment?”

Pain lanced deeply within him, but he nodded, his fiery vulpine head bowing in assent. Her brows rose and then… she laughed and disappeared as energies compressed and exploded with the rush of time and space once more realigning in a burst of activity. The lamia rose in front of him, her tail whipping as she sprung from her coils, her mouth opening impossibly wide so that her long fangs descended. Krystal stared up at her, her eyes widening with the knowledge of her coming death, when Syrix acted.

Summoning the massive roots deep within the ground, he drew them forcibly up so that they broke through the foundation and floor, tearing upward with long, numerous fingers. The first web of roots ensnared the lamia and the fear of anger and fear from her was almost gratifying. His power rolled around and through him as he continued to bid and command the roots, one after another winding around the creature, dragging her violently to the floor and safely away from his mate. He prowled toward his struggling, writhing prey but stopped just in front of her to glance toward his mate with concern, needing to reassure himself that she was well.

Krystal stared up at him, her lips parting as she took in the magnitude of his true essence and form as he had never dared to reveal himself. A look of wonder filled her eyes, but then her gaze turned toward the lamia, and her expression hardened as she struggled to her feet. The creature thrashed against the hold of the web she was caught within. Bending, his mate picked up a large blade from the ground and glanced over at him, conveying her intention. He bowed in assent but his eyes followed her every movement with relish as she approached the helpless female held within his enchantment and looked down at her pitilessly.

“You relish the pain of others, don’t you?” she lightly murmured as she gently ran the flat side of the blade along the lamia’s cheek. “Every life you destroyed, you’ve fed on it like a disease. And that is what you are. Lamias are plague bringers, creatures made from death and destruction.” Her lips twisted bitterly. “You would have gleefully torn me apart just to make the male I love—my mate—suffer.”

Lifting the blade, she sank it slowly into the lamia’s abdomen, just beneath her ribs so that the female screamed her pain that only grew louder as Krystal began to slowly saw upward while Syrix contained the lamia within his magic’s hold. The female writhed, blood pouring out of her, covering his mate’s hands and pooling at her feet. She did not seem to notice it, however. She only paused for a moment to give the lamia a cold, hard smile.

“You wanted my heart? Well, now I’m going to take yours,” she whispered vehemently as she continued to work her blade higher.

Syrix smiled and sent roots to assist her. They burrowed through the wound she made as the lamia screamed, slowly splitting the flesh wider, and cracking the ribs once his mate’s incision was complete. The female’s grotesque organs were on display, but pride filled him when Krystal went unerringly for the putrid heart and cut it from the lamia’s body. She held it up before the dying creature’s eyes for a long moment before tossing it to the ground. He watched the bloody organ hit the floor with satisfaction, but he glanced eagerly back at his mate as she turned to sweep her gaze over the cellar, his eyes lingering on the contorting eggs, the hatchlings screaming their anger deep within them where they were helplessly bound. Slowly, at last, she turned to him and gave him a weary smile.

“This is the real you, huh?” she asked, her eyes wide with awe, and he dipped his head in agreement. She laughed softly. “Wow.” She breathed deeply, her shoulders lifting and falling with her breath. “What do you say we burn this fucking place to the ground?”

He flashed his sharp teeth in a vulpine grin and his fire spread out from around him. It ran across the floor, slowly consuming everything it touched. Because it was his fox fire, he had complete control of it. Not only would it devour everything within the cabin, regardless of what it was made out of, but it wouldn’t harm the forest… or his mate.

Silently he moved toward her, his flames caressing her harmlessly as he brushed his muzzle against her arm and then her cheek. She laughed in awe, her hands running over him and he shivered with pleasure. If only he had been able to do this with her before. Lowering to a crouch, he silently nudged her with his muzzle, bidding her to mount him. She did not question it but climbed onto his shoulders, seating herself comfortably there while her hands tangled within his thick, long ruff.

Syrix rose, delighting in his mate’s weight seated upon him, and turned toward the exit. A small sound caught his attention, and he glanced down with relief as a small fox struggled to his feet. Fixi peered up at him for a moment, his tail bushing up happily before he took a few wobbling steps to regain his balance and then raced out of the burning room with an excited yip. Syrix grinned after him and followed suit, his fiery stride carrying them out of the cabin as the flames spread, devouring the cursed building whole.