Kylie held her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with fear. "Oh, my god."

  "And you're saying I'm one of these vixens?” My temple was starting to throb. “How did I not know about this?"

  Ryan nodded. "Even though James Fauntelroy never produced a son, two of his daughters carried his shifter genes, making them highly desirable vixens. And that gene has been passed from generation to generation of Fauntelroy women – until it came to you. When you come of age, the gene caused you to secrete a unique scent, invisible to other creatures, but powerful to the vulpine. When I stepped into the room, Alex, your scent hit me, and from that moment, we were linked."

  "Excuse me?" This was just getting more and more intense.

  "We are linked, fated to be together," he repeated, his eyes boring into me. "There's a powerful and primal connection between a vulpine and his vixen, Alex, a way to genetically sense the most compatible mate. And, as soon as you entered my property, placed yourself before me, and declared you weren't taken by another, we were bound together. You are destined to be my mate."

  "This is ridiculous," I snapped, standing up and walking to the window. I peered out into the night, hoping I wouldn't see the cool grey eyes of Marcus lurking in the darkness beyond. "You can't just decide I'm going to be your … your mate. I've got my own life, and my own plans, and they don't include being a breeding vessel for an arrogant shapeshifter."

  "You don't have to be so hostile. I'm not exactly thrilled about the situation, either."

  I balled my hands into fists. "Just what about me isn't good enough for the great Ryan Raynard?"

  "It's not that at all." He looked pained. "There's a reason I stay inside my house and away from the world, Alex. I am part fox, and my emotional dynamic is very different from a human man. I crave solitude. I want to be left alone with my paints and my books. I don't want to interact with other shifters, or with humans. I don't want a mate, I don't want cubs, and I really, really don't want to fall in love."

  "Why not?"

  "That's none of your business," he growled.

  "People are breaking into my house, and you just told me we’re soulmates or something. You'd better believe it's my business."

  He glanced at Kylie, then back at me. His mouth was set in a hard line, but his eyes begged me not to make him talk about himself. I dismissed him with a wave of my hand, indicating he didn't have to say more. He'd already told me his reasons, through his art.

  I knew Ryan's whole career, all of his pieces, by heart. His early works were such a celebration of life and colour, but for a few years, around the time he shut himself away in Raynard Hall, they became dark, violent, tortured, pictorial representations of love lost. Ever since, his paintings had evoked a kind of study of opposites, at once both serene and uneasy. All his pieces focused around a central motif of a black-clad woman with come-hither eyes, ruby lips, and a bushy tail. The Fox Woman. Whoever she was, or whatever she represented, she was never far from his mind.

  "Do you have sex with foxes?" Kylie blurted out. "Isn't that, like, bestiality?"

  "Kylie!"

  "Sorry. I'm just trying to lighten the mood."

  Ryan managed a weak smile. "Foxes and vulpines don't interact, although we can sometimes get into fights if we enter each other's territories. They don't see us as part of their species, nor do we welcome them to mix with ours. We do, however, share the call with foxes, so we might sometimes aid each other to fight off an attacker or to avoid hunters threatening our mutual territories."

  I leaned my forehead against the cool glass of the window. "So, let me get this straight. I'm a vixen. My family has carried this fox-mating gene for generations, and now I'm meant to mate with you, and this Marcus is after me … why?"

  "Marcus is obsessed finding a powerful vixen for a mate. It's the only way he can redeem his line from his current mutt genetics. As soon as I made the connection with you, the call revealed you to Marcus, too. He knows you're a Fauntelroy, and he'll stop at nothing to possess you."

  "Possess me?”

  Kylie threw up her hands. “Jesus, Alex. Marcus wants to have wild shifter sex with you, so you’ll give him lots of fox babies.”

  My skin crawled. The idea that the sandy-haired freak who’d just broken into my house had designs on my body and my womb was more than I could take. “That’s barbaric.”

  “I won’t let it happen,” Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “As your mate, I will protect you.”

  “I’m not your mate. Does what I want have nothing to do with any of this?"

  "Fate doesn’t take no for an answer. Once I’ve marked you and our connection is solidified, the only thing that will break it is for him to kill me, and take you for his own. We aren’t marked yet, so we’re still both able to walk away, but it makes you more vulnerable.”

  “Marked?”

  “A male vulpine will usually mark his female with a bite to claim her as his own.”

  “I can't believe I’m hearing this.”

  “It would be safer if you let me do it right now, but I know better than to mark a girl on the first date." He smiled sardonically.

  Oh, how that smile turned my insides about. I should’ve slapped this guy across the face, but instead, a warmth spread through my body, fighting with the fear swirling in my gut. I snapped back a retort, before Ryan could notice that he'd gotten to me. "Especially after you practically fell over yourself trying to escape my presence."

  Ryan shrugged. "Now you understand why, so let us forget about that and focus on the task at hand, which is protecting you from another attack by Marcus or one of the other shifters he’s allied with. He may be a mutt, but he's powerful, and he has resources, so we can't underestimate him."

  "He mentioned someone called Isengrim," I said. "Does that name sound familiar?"

  A dark cloud fell over Ryan's face. "Unfortunately, yes."

  “Who is he?”

  “Another shifter you absolutely don’t want to mess with.” Ryan glanced at his empty glass, and managed a flicker of a smile. “Also, a story for another night.”

  "What do we do?" asked Kylie, hugging her knees to her chest, her face drawn with worry. My own chest was tight with fear, as well.

  "If you won’t let me mark you—"

  “Absolutely not.” I folded my arms.

  “Then, that makes life a little harder, but I can still protect you both," Ryan said. “Even that ridiculous cat. But you have to trust me. You can't go running around with medieval broadswords taking matters into your own hands. I know this world, and we have to do things my way."

  I have to be in charge because I'm Ryan Raynard and I don't take orders from anybody, I thought, but didn't say.

  I didn't like this. I barely knew Ryan, and he was asking me to trust him? I was used to looking out for myself, and I hadn’t trusted anyone in a long time, not since my parents were taken from me. I’d trusted them to always be there, and now they weren’t.

  Maybe some girls liked a man to come swooping in and save the day, but I wasn't one of them. I was also not the kind of girl who believed in fate or love at first sight, or who thought that some arrogant billionaire artist shapeshifter coming into my home at night and professing we were destined to be together was in any way romantic. The whole situation made me feel queasy.

  Except … I looked at those thick shoulders, and those warm brown eyes, and I wondered what it would be like to be in the care of a man like that. Ryan was so unlike any other man I'd dated. He was so … unreadable. He intrigued me. I couldn't match his tough, arrogant personality with the delicate, melancholy artwork that gave me an intimate glimpse into the depths of his soul.

  Now, knowing what he truly was, I saw his work in a completely new way – the love of the forest landscapes, the intricate relationships between his animals, the way light and shadow played such a pivotal role in his compositions.

  I wanted to be inside his head, to see the forest the way he saw it. And, damn me, if I didn't want to press myself against him, to feel the touch of that powerful body, to have his lips devour mine …

  "Are you okay, Alex?" Kylie asked, staring at my face with some concern. "You look all flushed."

  I snapped out of my vision, feeling my cheeks grow hot. "I'm fine," I muttered, staring down at my hands, feeling the blush creep down my neck and touch the tips of my ears. "It's just a lot to take in, is all. Can someone refill my drink, please?"

  As confused as I felt around Ryan after everything he'd said, neither Kylie nor I wanted to stay alone in the house. Ryan offered to stay with us. Reluctantly, I accepted.

  "There's no spare bed," I said. "And that raven tore up the couch cushions even worse than Miss Havisham, so that's no good, either."

  "If you have a few blankets," he suggested, "I could sleep at the foot of your bed. That way, if they try to come in your window, I'll be right there. I'll be in my fox form, of course, so you can sleep soundly knowing your maidenhood is safe."

  Kylie chortled, and Ryan cracked a smile at his own joke. I frowned at both of them. That little crack hit too close to home for me. It had been so long since the black metal boyfriend … so long since someone had loved me …

  Ever since my parents’ deaths, I hadn’t been able to stomach the idea of having a boyfriend. A couple of guys had asked me out, but I always refused. The idea of loving someone again, when they could just be ripped away from me without warning, turned my stomach.

  But being back home in Crookshollow and single made me feel like I’d failed in the real world, and it made me keenly aware of all the reasons I’d left in the first place. The close-minded people who thought art was a waste of time, the subtle jabs from well-meaning friends that my biological clock was ticking away, the sense that I’d reached the last outpost on earth and there was nowhere to go now but off the edge into nothing.

  Maybe that's why you keep looking at Ryan like he has potential? Maybe that's why you don't feel as skeeved out by his "fated mates" story as you otherwise would? Because secretly, you want it to be true? You want the sexy, mysterious artist to sweep you off your feet and take you back to his castle …

  No. I had to stay focused. Ryan was a shapeshifter, and now some other evil shapeshifter was after me. Nothing was what it seemed anymore, and the last thing I needed to be thinking about was some silly fairytale fantasy about being with my idol. Ryan was looking out for me because he felt responsible, and that was all. He was an artist, a weaver of dream worlds – this fated mates thing was just his way of framing the situation.

  "What about me?" asked Kylie, staring at Ryan with round, puppy-dog eyes, as she tugged down the neck of her revealing slip.

  "It's Alex they're after," he said sternly, not even meeting her gaze. "Don't worry. I'll stay awake the whole night, and I have excellent hearing. If anyone steps a foot – or a paw – on this property, I will hear them."

  Why does that statement make my body ache with something like need?

  "Have it your way. Goodnight, Ryan. It was a real pleasure to meet you. Don't let Alex tire you out." Kylie winked at me as she passed me on the stairs, sashaying her hips for Ryan's benefit.

  Great. Now I was alone with Ryan Raynard, who was staring at me intently with his beautiful dark brown eyes, a curl of red hair falling over the edge of his face. I could feel my cheeks burning as images of his naked body flashed before my eyes. I’d never be able to forget his body as long as I lived.

  "Um … well … follow me," I mumbled, heading for the stairs. Miss Havisham bounded up ahead of me. Ryan followed behind, and I resisted the urge to sashay my own hips. I wasn't going to play that game, not when he was going to continue with this crazy notion about us being fated to be together. No matter how much I might want it.

  I went to the linen cupboard and pulled out all the spare blankets, then dumped them on the floor at the foot of the bed, on top of the pile of clothes I had pulled from the wardrobe. "Go to town with those," I mumbled, trying to avoid looking at him as he tugged off his shirt. I still didn't know how I felt about Ryan being in my room, even if it would be in his fox form.

  My eyes fell on the portrait of my parents that hung beside the window. Yearning clenched my already nervous stomach. I wanted so badly to talk to them about all this, to ask their advice. But of course, I was on my own.

  Mum would freak if she found out I let a man who transforms into a fox and broke in through my window to fight off another fox, sleep in my room. Which is kind of exactly why I’m letting him sleep there, isn’t it?

  I went to the bathroom, pulled out my toothbrush, and frantically brushed my teeth, wondering as I did why I was brushing my teeth when I had already done it before I'd gone to bed earlier in the evening. I stared in the mirror, noticing for the first time my hair matted against my face, my skin flushed and sweaty, and a big pillow crease across my forehead. Yep, I was ripe for seduction.

  Stop it, Alex. You don’t want to be seduced. That’s your story and you’re sticking to it.

  I splashed cold water on my face, brushed my hair, and returned to my bedroom. My heart stopped when I saw Ryan standing in the centre of the room, flipping through one of my art journals, his brow creased in amusement as his eyes flicked across the pages.

  I crossed the room and snatched it away, my face burning with shame. "Don't touch those," I snapped.

  He looked up at me then, and his face looked different, softer. The arrogance had fled it. "They're quite good," he murmured. "You're quite good."

  "These aren't mine." I shoved the journal back into the box under my bed. "I just keep them here for a friend. Don't touch them, Ryan, I'm serious."

  He shrugged. "I'm sorry. I was admiring the art on your walls, and I saw a palette and easel in the corner, so I assume you paint. I was arranging my bed and I happened to see the box there. Who is your friend? Does she exhibit locally? I'd love to meet her."

  "You're a recluse. You don't want to meet anybody. Besides, what makes you so sure it's a her?" I breathed.

  He took a step closer, his bare chest gleaming under the harsh light. He stared down at me, his eyes so dark they appeared almost black. When he spoke, his voice was low, soft. "There's a sensuality about the lines that only a woman can create. Even though some of the images are quite jarring – almost painful – to view, all have a sense of striking beauty and fierce, quiet resilience. The woman who drew them is a survivor, and someone I would dearly …" He stepped closer, placing his hand on my arm, his fingers sending an electric charge through my body. "…love to meet."

  I opened my mouth to say something. Part of me knew I should force him away, to tell him to leave my house and never come back. But the part of me that had loved his artwork since my university days, that felt the pull of the forest as much as he did, that craved his touch and his wild eyes … that part of me wanted him to touch more than just my arm.

  "Alex …" he whispered my name and bent his head closer, his lips opening as they moved toward mine. His fingers gripped my arm tighter, his body tensing, moving in for the kill.

  My whole body went rigid. Is he doing this because he wants me? Or is he doing this because he believes we're meant to be together, that I'm meant to be the mother of his cubs?

  I wrenched my arm away, turning my head so his cheek glanced off my shoulder. "She doesn't talk to strangers," I said, my tone icy, covering the regret I felt. I really, really wanted to kiss him, to know what it was like to be with Ryan Raynard. But I couldn't, not when he only wanted me for one purpose.

  I was not going to be used.

  Ryan turned away, not even having the gall to look embarrassed. He rattled the latch on the wardrobe door. "Is this where you're keeping my paintings?"

  "It seemed safe enough at the time. I didn't know I had to protect them from crazed fox shifters and raven people, as well as regular old thieves and thugs …" But Ryan had already moved on, his eye focused on a small framed photo in the corner by the window. My parents and I, when I was a girl, on the broadway.

  “Your parents?” He pointed to the people in the picture.

  I nodded. “They’re both dead. They were killed in a hit-and-run five years ago.”

  “I’m sorry, Alex.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah … so am I. I miss them like hell.”

  Ryan studied my face, his eyes searching, his expression unreadable. I held his gaze, trying not to let him see how much their loss still affected me. I folded my arms, hiding my trembling hands in my armpits. Ryan’s gaze shifted to something over my shoulder, and a thin smile drew across his face.

  I spun around, my heart racing as I realised what had caught his eye – the artwork that hung above my bed. A Ryan Raynard print, an early piece pre-Fox Woman period titled Cunning. It was not one of his most famous works, but it was the one that spoke to me the most.

  In the image, a rabbit chases a butterfly around a grove. A red fox waits in the shadows, its face glued on the rabbit. Its paws are poised, ready to strike, but still it waits, until the rabbit is practically in its grasp. Ryan's brush strokes created a tension in the scene, drawing you into the battle within the fox's mind, poised between the instinct to pounce, and the desire to wait for the bigger payoff.

  But, of course, I didn't say any of that. "I like that painting," I mumbled. "Sorry, I couldn't afford the original."

  Ryan Raynard stood shirtless in the middle of my bedroom, and he'd just figured out that I was a fan of his work, and I couldn't say anything that made me sound even remotely intelligent? So much for his fated mate.

  "A billionaire fund manager in Tucson bought it from Simon last year," he said quietly. "I actually shed a tear when it left. I think it's one of the finest pieces I've ever done."

  "I agree," I said. He stared at me strangely, and I quickly added, "I mean, of your work I've seen. The colour is just so … good. The way the fox seems to suck in the light as it filters through the leaves, it's almost the opposite of the typical forest scene, where the light streams down on the creature like a spotlight. And it doesn’t have the Fox Woman in it. I like that it’s different. Why do you paint her, anyway? Is she a real person?”

 

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