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“Hello?” I called out again.

Still no answer.

Leaving the water running, I walked further into the house. Spinach didn’t follow me. He returned to licking soup from the pot. I found the bathroom. It smelled --- holy fuck! I swore under my breath and turned in a circle. Where was he? Where was the fox who lived here? His smell was everywhere, but here in the bathroom without the aroma of food to distract me, his scent was thick. The shower was still damp as if someone had showered recently.

I closed my eyes, leaning one hand against the light blue wall, leaving behind another dirty handprint. I breathed in the stranger’s scent – sweet, furry, magical even and all mine. What the fuck? Had I died? Had I walked through my door of life and death without knowing it? Was I home in whatever in between space there was that dwelt between the living and the dead? Was that how I found my mate’s house instantly? Was the wild fox that led me here part of the welcoming committee of the dead?

I stared at the shower. My mate wasn’t home and no one deserved to see me like this. I smelled like every disease known to foxkind. Surely, the mate of my heart and spirit wouldn’t mind me cleaning up. I stripped out of my boots and then the leathers and furs wrapped around my limbs and torso. It felt strange to be ‘naked.’ I hadn’t even taken my actual clothes off yet. Just my bite-proof armor. I stripped slowly unsure of what would happen next. I needed to clean up. I needed to be presentable for when my omega came home.

I strained my ears before turning the shower on. The only sounds in the house were the running sink, Spinach lapping at the soup pan, and the heartbeat of several wild foxes. So, I turned on the hot water and stepped into the shower. My omega’s scent clung to the humid air. Every cell in my body reacted to his scent that burrowed deeper into my lungs with every breath I drew in. Trying to ignore the fact my dick was hard with something other than morning wood for the first time in recent memory, I scrubbed my skin. I scrubbed with hot water alone at first, trying to get the caked-on mud and grime off me. Then I switched to his body wash that smelled like roses and patchouli.

My heart pounded behind my ribs, hard but steady. How could I be dead when my blood pumped so hard? Where were my ancestors? My friends and family who died under the curse? Were they really trapped in those dragging undead bodies and---

“Stop!” my fox yipped into my thoughts from inside his inner sanctum. “Stop it. Just clean for now. Just clean up. They’ll be time to think about all that later. Not right now. The hot water might not last forever.”

Chapter 6

Leopold

The Hidden Fox Village

Two Months Ago

I tore the door open to find no one. The landscape beyond the doorway was barren. Two seconds after opening the door, I fought to keep it open. Every instinct inside my head yelled for me to slam it shut and run back inside. The odor was foul and rancid! What sort of cruel joke was this? Were Night and Day really my ancestors? Was this a trick of the sort that foxes were so famous for? Tears welled up in my eyes.

“Hello?” I called out through the door, praying my true-mate was anywhere except in there.

“Meow!” A cat sounded off somewhere behind me. I jumped, spinning to face the noise. Pox didn’t budge at all. He stared in through the open door, but my eyes locked on the mud-caked orange cat. He sprinted across the yard, looking a bit too skinny. He skidded to a halt next to Pox and hissed. My familiar stumbled backwards, but the strange domestic feline wasn’t hissing at him or me. He was hissing at whatever was on the other side of the door.

“Shut the door! Shut the door! Shut the door!” Pox sounded off inside my head. “I don’t speak cat perfectly, but I know enough familiars and domestic shifters to know what he is describing is not something I want to fight! Shut the damn door, witch! Shut it right now!” Pox bit me!

“Fuck!” I yelled and Pox and the strange cat scurried out of the way so I could slam the door shut.

“Things that eat shifters and cats!” Pox rambled into my thoughts. “People that eat people?! Cannibals! Cannibals!”

“Shut up, Pox! I’m trying to think!” I snapped and instantly hated myself for it. “Please, just give me a minute to think. If my true-mate is on that world we have to get him out of there!”

“We can’t go in there!” Pox yipped into my thoughts.

“Not alone. We’ll call Philip. I mean, if anyone could fight cannibals and win it would be him, right? Or should we get Cade? Do you think he could bring the Moonscale army? Shit! My phone is inside!”

The whole run back to the house I very purposefully didn’t think about my parents or Uncle Starry or Liam. The last thing I needed was for them to show up and yell at me. They’d probably board the door up and not even let me go looking for my alpha!

I sprinted inside and grabbed my phone from the coffee table where I left it before my shower. I froze mid-reach to pick it up. The shower was running.

“Cannibal in the shower!” Pox yipped into my thoughts. I glanced around for the muddy cat. He’d followed us inside, but he was nowhere to be seen now.

“There is not a cannibal in the shower,” I sighed. “It’s…. One of the wild foxes probably turned it on by accident and scared the piss out of themselves.”

I didn’t even believe the bullshit coming out of my mouth. There probably was a cannibal in my shower with my luck. What did you fight a cannibal with?

I tiptoed through the living room into the kitchen. The sink was running full blast. The orange cat was perched on the brim drinking from it.

“Did you turn that on?” I asked the cat who didn’t even bother to look at me.

I tiptoed through the kitchen and down the hall to the bathroom. Pox followed on my heels yipping into my thoughts.

“If there is a cannibal in the bathroom, I’m tripping you and running away. Just so you know! That’s what normal foxes do! We run away from cannibals! Not towards them! Whatever draconic genes you picked up from your sire are going to get you killed!”