Things That Go Hump In The Night (31 page)

The room fell silent. Ryan's brown eyes met mine, and as I fell deep into those dark brown pools, my head spun, my mind growing lighter as if it might at any moment float away. Some invisible energy coursed between us, swirling around inside of me, calling up strange images in my mind; forgotten memories of my childhood spent roaming in the woods alone, of how the forest called me back, no matter where I was. It took a few moments for what he said to register, and when it did, it hit me like a freight train.

"Um … what?"

"You are related to James Fauntelroy."

Kylie stared at me with interest. "Who's James Fauntelroy?"

"He was a magistrate in the village about two hundred years ago. He brought in all kinds of reforms, including making the forests off-limits to hunters. He was also a defender of witches, and he saved several women from being burned at the stake. There's even a statue of him in the Market Square."

"Fauntelroy was also a vulpine." said Ryan. "He came from an ancient fox line – the Fauntelroy clan used to dominate this area. That was, until James Fauntelroy fell in love with a human woman – a witch, in fact. They had three children together - all women, and all human. That was the end of the Fauntelroy shifters, but not the end of the Fauntelroy genes."

"I don't understand."

Ryan picked up a legal pad from the mess on the floor, withdrew a pencil from the pocket of his jeans, and scribbled a design. "This is about as simple as I can make vulpine genetics for you," he said, tossing the pad in my direction, and sitting back with a smug smile on his face. I turned the pad around, staring at the doodles of foxes and humans, with lines running in all directions.

"I think I get it," said Kylie, peering over my shoulder. "This is simple, high school biology – punnet squares and all that."

Ryan nodded. "The gene for shifting is dominant, passed down along the Y chromosome. This means that vulpines are usually always males, although there are some anomalies that have produced female shifters. But mating females - whom we call
vixens
– carry a unique gene of their own. Only the mating of a vulpine and a vixen will produce shifting offspring. If a vulpine mates with an ordinary, everyday female, like you," he nodded at Kylie, his tone implying she was little more than a bug. "Any male offspring they have will most likely become completely human, or they may end up with a strange genetic makeup, a kind of half-shifter state, where they are neither completely human, nor completely fox. We call these anomalies
mutts.
Marcus is a
mutt,
which makes him extremely dangerous. He is one of the shifters who has been attacking humans, biting people. I'm sure of it."

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? 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 causes you to secrete a unique scent, invisible to other creatures, but powerful to the vulpine. When I stepped into the room today, 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. "And, 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. 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 his pieces off 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, all focused around a central motif of a black-clad woman with a bushy tail. The
Fox Woman
. Whoever she was, she'd hurt him bad.

"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 ours. We do, however, share the call with foxes, too, so we might sometimes aid each other to fight off an attacker or 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 thinks you gave me some artefact, even though you didn't, and now he's 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."

"Does what I want have nothing to do with any of this?"

"Once the connection is made, the only thing that will break it is for him to kill me, and take you for his own. That's why he came here tonight - he wants to steal back my ring, and then he could kill me and claim you as his own."

"Your ring?"

Ryan lifted his finger, flashing a gold signet ring. "This ring is passed down through my family," he said. "When I take a mate, I will give it to her, and then she, in turn, will pass it on to my son. Marcus thinks I must've given it to you, but I know better than to give a ring to a girl on the first date." He smiled sardonically.

Oh, how that smile turned my insides about! 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."

He 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 might have 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."

"What do we do?" asked Kylie, hugging her knees to her chest, her face drawn with worry.

"I can protect you both," Ryan said. "And 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. 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 in to 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 before. 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…

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 OK, 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?"

***

FIVE

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 Alex can sleep soundly knowing her 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…
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 normally would?

"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."

"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.

"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 had 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 closet. "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.

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 face flushed and sweaty, and a big pillow crease across my forehead. I was ripe for seduction.

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. His 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 wanted to 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 catching the artwork that hung above my bed. A Ryan Raynard print, 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, pulling its more skittish mate deeper into the grove. Ryan's brushstrokes 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."

"You seem to know an awful lot about my work."

"Not really." I lied. "I mean, I had to study up on you for the exhibition. I'm really more into suprematism, op art, and post-painterly abstraction. You know, art that doesn't look so much like stuff."

"Oh yes," he grinned as his gaze circled the impressionist prints hanging from every inch of my walls. "I can see that."

"If you're going to stay in my bedroom, you are meant to be in your fox form, remember? That was the agreement." I folded my arms across my chest. "Either change now, or get out."

"You could turn away," he growled.

"I want to watch," I insisted. Before, when I saw him shift in the moonlight, I was too shocked to really take in what I was seeing. But now, I was able to experience the whole event.

Ryan sighed. "Very well." He took a step back from me, and stared straight ahead, his eyes unfocused, his hands open, palms facing forward. He took a deep breath, and his body started to change.

It began in his face. His cheekbones protruded, his nose forming a long snout, his lips lengthening, and long canine teeth growing from his mouth. His ears seemed to slide up the sides of his face, and his beautiful rust-coloured hair grew over them. I stared down at his crotch, watching with interest as his pelvis twisted, the bones cracking as they formed an entirely new shape. His tackle changed into that of a dog, and his knees bent in a strange angle as they became hindquarters designed for running and leaping and climbing. A bushy red tail shot out from his tailbone.

Reddish-brown hair grew from the skin on his shoulders and arms, spreading across his body like a strange, quick-growing carpet. Greyish-white hair sprouted on his neck and chest, like the beard of a wizard gone horribly wrong. His body squeezed and contorted, his muscles twitching as they morphed from human to fox. Ryan fell to the ground, landing on his hands, although they weren't hands anymore, but thin, muscled front legs, with five toes containing strong, sharp claws, ready for action.

In less than a minute, Ryan Raynard no longer stood in my bedroom. Instead, a giant red fox sat on the rug, its head level with my hips. Ryan arched his back and used his back legs to scratch behind his ears. I knelt down beside Ryan, and reached out a tentative hand. He bent his snout forward and nuzzled it, burying my fingers in his soft fur. He pressed his head against my chest, his wet nose nudging my chin. His eyes met mine, and I saw Ryan there, the same intense gaze and lazy arrogance. I scratched behind his ear, and his expression changed to one of complete bliss.

"You know," I said as I scratched harder and his eyes rolled around in his head, his bushy tail twitching back and forth. "I think I like you much better in this form."

He whimpered in protest.

I pointed to the nest of blankets he'd made at the foot of the bed. "To bed with you, Ryan Raynard, before I change my mind about this whole thing."

His tail dragging along the ground, Ryan curled up amongst the blankets, using his snout to push them around to get comfortable. I flicked off the main bedroom light, pulled back my covers, and crawled into bed.

Moonlight streamed over Ryan's back through the bedroom window, and his red fur shimmered, as if it were a bright jewel. He flicked his tail at me, and cocked his head, as if to ask what I was looking at.

I shook my head, laid my head on my pillow, and tried not to think about the man inside the beautiful fox sleeping at the foot of my bed. Feeling happier and more secure than I had in a long time, I turned off the light, and fell into a deep sleep.

***