Muffled shuffling carried from the far corner. He whirled, squinting into the darkness. A leather slipper adorning a toned, feminine leg stretched out from the shadows.
Right. The fuzz cleared from his brain. The Matchmaker had sent him on a Lotus League mission to rescue…aw, fuck.
The Queen of the fox spirits.
Price peered toward the elderly regal lady. Rumor had it, she wasn’t exactly approving of his sexual partners. Namely, her subjects. She probably wouldn’t be too happy to discover he’d come to rescue her.
The tendrils of her thick, glossy braid caught the beams of light as it swayed past her waist. She lifted one bare arm, her skin supple and smooth. Not wrinkled.
Huh.
He strained for a closer glimpse. Maybe he’d charged into the wrong tunnel?
The gunk binding her wrist ripped as she sliced a claw through the webbing. As soon as she freed herself, she glided past him, still too in the shadows for him to observe her face.
“Hey, mind giving me a hand?” He jerked his chin at his cobweb-coated arm.
“Why would I do that?” She spun, stepping fully into the beam of light.
Whoa.
He straightened. Definitely not the Queen, but a fox spirit all right. Nothing could hide the silky, tanned skin or the thickly lashed, expressive eyes and full, pouty lips of a fox spirit.
Pouty lips that had probably never pouted a day in her life. Not with those gorgeous molten copper eyes batting thick lashes at her prey.
He could make her.
Hell yeah. He would make her
beg
.
Price inhaled and her sweet, floral scent dried his mouth and tightened his groin.
Mmm, like ripe cherries.
Although he never let himself be distracted during a mission, there’d be plenty of time to party after he freed the Queen. This vixen was just the kind of celebratory reward he craved, too. While not typical, fox spirit skimpy, her rose-hued dress hugged curvy hips emphasized by the thick gold band tied around her slender waist. Even though her top wasn’t overly low-cut, her plump breasts strained to spill out.
Her attention focused on a patch of the earthen wall to his right. He sent a little prayer that she would find something of interest on the dried-straw floor and bend over, so he could sneak a glimpse of what had to be a worship-worthy tight ass.
“Name’s Price. What’s yours, sweetheart?” He flexed his arms, grinning despite the scrunching of his bindings. Just as he found fox spirits irresistible, one wicked look from him and they swooned at his feet.
Like she would in the next minute.
Only, she didn’t. Instead, her tone was detached as she murmured, “Naya.”
He shrugged off her distraction. “A pleasure, Naya.” As her gaze shot back to him, he flexed his bicep again. Her lips quirked.
Finally, progress.
“I’m on a mission.”
She blinked, seeming unaffected by his continued attempt at seduction. “What kind of mission?” The arching of her finely shaped brow was new. This would be more work.
“Top secret,” he winked, “but if you come closer, I’ll fill you in.”
Her body edged forward, like she would approach, but a screech shattered the air. She clasped her hands over her ears, winced, and spun for the wall.
“Hey, wait! You can’t leave me in here.” A heavy thud thumped above. Dust and debris rained down from the canopy. Whatever lived in this shithole had come home.
She brushed aside the patch of leaves and grass she’d been studying, revealing a dim tunnel.
“You leave me here like this and I’m dead.” What the hell was her problem?
A creaking echoed as the creature overhead settled. “I’m here to save your Queen.” The words hadn’t come out as impressive as he’d intended, but he was starting to get the feeling this one wasn’t like the others of her race.
“Are you now?” She twisted to face him, one hand twirling in his direction. “Is this part of your grand rescue?”
“Well, it was, but I hadn’t anticipated being knocked out and bound.”
She tilted her head and planted a hand on her curvy hip. “It’s the neurotoxin in the silk threads. The poison usually renders Kun Peng’s prey immobile. You are fortunate to have awoken before it chose to devour you.” The sparkle in her eyes made him think of other things he’d like to devour.
Her
.
“You know what that is?” He bobbed his eyebrows toward the beast.
“You don’t? Not much a white knight.”
True enough, the Matchmaker had handed him a map and he’d sprinted into the marked tunnel without a game plan. But that was his style. On the edges of his brain, he recalled running smack into a snare of fibers. He must have blacked out while the creature had deposited him in this nest of sorts. “Hey, I’m just the infantry.” He winked and the slight flush in her cheeks made the game that much more tantalizing. He’d love to stay here and banter with her for hours…if a giant, ferocious creature wasn’t waiting to tear him apart.
Price twisted his arm to reveal the lotus tat on his inner left wrist. “I don’t call the shots or handle the intelligence. I just show up and kick ass.”
Her lovely gleaming eyes narrowed. “You’re a Lotus? Did the Matchmaker send you?”
He nodded.
She cast her face aside and muttered some foreign, lilting words that sounded an awful lot like the curses fox spirits often screamed when he… well, yeah.
“Fine. I’ll set you free, but as soon as I do, we part ways.”
He tensed as she neared, her honey-sweet scent driving Horse into a frenzy. “How did you end up here? Are you searching for the Queen too?”
“No, someone else, who is no longer here.” With a quick slash of her claws, she cut through the cobweb-like bindings.
Grimacing, he lowered and flexed his hand, then rolled back his shoulders. He lifted his gaze, but Naya was already at the opening, crawling through it. A sudden, gnawing realization cut into his chest. If she went through that passage without him, he’d never see her again. And to both himself and Horse, that was…
Unacceptable.
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