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Mat looked at me with wide eyes, clearly surprised at my condition. “Dinner?”
“Yeah, you know, the meal most people have at night? That people share to get to know one another better, sometimes? With me?” My cheeks blazed in a blush, the lump in my throat threatening to cut off my confidence along with breathable air. God, whowasI right now? Asking a guy out? AskingMatout?
He raked a hand through his hair, giving me a broad grin that was genuine, this time. “Yeah, I’m familiar with it. You’ve got yourself a deal, Ms. Brown.” His hand fell from his hair towards me and I shook it with the hand that wasn’t holding the box, feeling giddy and silly all at once. The feeling only intensified as he turned my hand in his grasp, bowing to press a kiss to the back like I was a princess before winking up at me. “Text me when you get home safe?”
I nodded and slipped into the driver’s seat, placing the important, mysterious box safely between my thighs as I reached for the seatbelt. Mat gently closed the door behind me, walking backwards a few steps to keep smiling at me as he headed to his own car.
I waited until he was out of earshot to squeal with triumphant excitement. I’d let tomorrow-Bailey mentally argue with the ghost of my ethics professor.
Mat had called me apretty girl.
Mat
Unseelie.Worse, barely-glamoured Unseelie, out here inmyrealm, flaunting themselves without a care in the world and trying to intimidate in the sacred space of a conveyor. It stank of disrespect, the fox in me baring fangs at the insult of it: conveyors were neutral ground, that was a rule older than even the eldest nine-tail.
I also wasn’t sure I’d be able to erase the fae tongue they’d so boldly spoken inmyteahouse from Bailey’s memory. My magic was primarily that of subtle influence, stoking of a fire already kindled, the turning of a head or the interpretation of a word. I suggested, I coaxed, I did not oftendodirectly, but that might have to change now. Ihatedchange.
I didn’t know where their exile prince had gone, much less what on earth Unseelie royalty was doing in this realm. Their clipped, angry questioning puzzled me, as did the insinuation some leached trail of magic led them to the doors of the shop. I certainly would have noticed a damned fae prince popping in for a latte. I was a three-tail, for Gods’ sake. I had eyes.
I’d have to reach out to a more connected conveyor than myself tomorrow to see what on earth was going on, this was far more drama than I was used to. Bailey had held her own in the face of some of the roughest Unseelie I’d seen, seething with menace that could have easily tipped toward her if I hadn’t pressed the issue. She was a stronger woman than I’d given her credit for; she wouldn’t have seen the more grotesque features of the two enforcers as I did, but something in her human hindbrain definitely should have been compelling her to flee their dark presence.
The Unseelie enforcers’ muttered promise about taking my foxfire if I didn’t produce the prince sent a cold bolt of fear through me, making me irrational. Yes, Bailey was a member of the theoretical “ruling house” of my once-teahouse, and therefore we shared a connection, but to trust her with what essentially amounted to my soul was risky. Still, better to be held in thrall by a strong, sweet human like Bailey than endure whatever those Unseelie ruffians had planned for me.
I smirked as my glamoured ears twitched, hearing the high-pitched sound of excitement even through Bailey’s closed car door. So the little vixen wanted to court me? So be it. Her current—albeit hopefully temporary—possession of my foxfire rendered her immune to my influential magics, so she must actually be attracted to me. The feeling was certainly mutual, though I’d refrained from pursuing her out of deference to the Browns, in the name of kitsune/house etiquette. A bad in-house match had the potential of causing a great deal of friction for bound conveyors like myself, but Bailey was a grown woman now. Her well-balanced aura, and frankly, her proximity, had roused more than my interest: my own extremely selective tastes had saddled me with a cold bed for years now. I’d barely had a day of forewarning before Dana had phoned from India, letting me know that Bailey was coming home, and when the owners’ daughter returned, it was with far more curves than I’d remembered, and a smile that begged to be kissed. Now, I’d resisted mischief as long as I could, but if she was going toaskfor me directly, well—I was only so strong.
I grinned to myself, mentally waffling about where I’d take Bailey for dinner as I unlocked my apartment door above the shop. I’d just turned the key when the earthy smell of moss and damp sent my hackles bristling.Unseelie.
>
I spun as an invisible, viscous wave of dark magic choked me, yanking away my glamour like a ripped-off shirt. My vision sharpened as vulpine pupils narrowed, my animalistic ears and nose scenting and placing both fae as they blocked my only way out, back down the stairs. Inside my apartment was a dead end, and deadbolts didn’t hold much meaning for magic users. I’d never shielded the apartment after Candra had gone to her ashes and moved on to another realm: any enemies she’d had “died” with her, so there was no need to.
I flexed my hands, blunt talons gliding out of my fingernails, rocking to the pads of my feet as my tails whipped with irritation. At least the back stairwell opened out to a dark, empty parking lot—it was risky to be out so openly, and it would take me hours to piece my torn glamour back together. “I don’tknowwhere your misplaced royal is, and you are violating innumerable rules and laws with your disrespect. Leave this sanctuary at once, or else.”
It was a bluff, and one I couldn’t really even puff up, unable to douse myself in intimidating flames without my foxfire nearby. At least it was safe: whatever they did to me, they wouldn’t be able to kill me while Bailey held it, and in turn it would shield her location from them: my last act of enchantment while I had it in my hands.
I was an excellent swordsman with a rapier of wit in my hands: but an actual warrior, I was not. When the shorter fae swung a surprisingly solid fist at me, I flinched instead of ducking, going down like a sack of coffee beans. The metal landing creaked in protest as I landed hard, banging the side of my tender fox ear against the railing on the way down. My head rang unpleasantly, vertigo tilting my perception as they closed in, a hard kick to my stomach forcing me to curl with a loud yip.
They weren’t shy about ratcheting up the violence as they continued to question me angrily, and each emphatic answer I gave them—I didn’t know—seemed to enrage them further. I was tired and sobbing in pain by the time I heard metal of a knife, dragged threateningly along the railing beside my head. I had more fight left in me than I realized, the knife clattering loudly to the landing floor as foul Unseelie blood flooded my mouth off the points of my teeth.
>
Through the swimming vision of my abused eye, the short fae sneered at me, using his uninjured hand to pass the knife to his taller companion. Moments later, a searing, unearthly agony unlike any I’d ever known spread across my lower back, my aura crumpling in on itself in pain. Howling with all the breath left in my exhausted lungs, the night rushed in to soothe my shattered spirit, consciousness slipping from my claws.
Bailey
The radio godswere very kind on the way home, giving me an endless series of my favorite songs to sing loudly and off-key in celebration. I had a tentative date with a hot guy, and yes, it was complicated but every time I thought about it my brain just drifted back to dirty boss/employee role play whether I wanted it to or not. I guess if I was shrugging off ethics my daydreams were going to as well. Whoopsie.
Oh Mat, it looks like you asked for a raise. Maybe you should get under my desk and earn it.
I burst into a fit of giggles as I parked, sliding out of my car and nearly dropping Mat’s important mystery box in the process. I breathed a sigh of relief as I caught it, unlocking the house and flicking the lights on. In the darkness of the parking lot, I hadn’t really gotten a good look at the strange little box, but now I could see it was clearly Asian in origin, inlaid with beautiful mother-of-pearl accents at the corners. Hell, maybe the box itself was the valuable thing, it certainly looked like art.
I plopped down on the couch, tugging mom’s afghan over my legs, turning the box side to side and upside down in my examination. Nothing clunked, so whatever was inside was either roughly the size of the box or heavily padded. And…warm? No, I wasn’t imagining it, the box was putting off heat. Mat had asked me not to open it, but what if it was some kind of machinery that was breaking?
I stared at the warm box in my lap with a lump in my throat.What if it was drugs? Mat wouldn’t give medrugs, right? Whatever was in here was small, too small to make me an unwitting drug mule. Maybe like a drug…ferret. Were drug ferrets a thing?
Okay. I hadn’t gone through boarding school and college and everything else to end up in jail as adrug ferret. Plus I was supposed to have dinner with Mat tomorrow, and I didn’t want to accidentally date a drug lord. I didn’t want a plate of bolognese bought with dirty money, right? Ihadto open it, really. My burning curiosity was just incidental.
I expected more resistance, I was genuinely only trying the lid to see how tightly it was sealed, but the hinged top went flying open with the slightest touch, leaving me staring at fire. I yelped, kicking off the afghan and clambering to my feet on the couch, the box audibly bonking off the edge of the coffee table on its way to the carpet. I yelped again, diving for it before it caught mom’s take-your-damn-shoes-off-Bailey imported rug on fire.
