Out Foxed Read online

  Out Foxed

  From the Kadenburg Universe

  By

  T.E. Ridener

  Copyright ©T.E. Ridener, 2020

  Author’s Note

  These stories are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright ©T.E. Ridener, 2020

  Cover Photo: Double J Book Graphics

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedications

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  The End

  Acknowledgements

  Dedications

  This one’s for the guy who not only encouraged me to pick up the pen and get back to it, but who also happens to be the love of my life.

  For Jason (my Lorcan)

  I love you, forever and for always.

  In Loving Memory of Deborah Davidson

  Chapter One

  “I’m breaking up with you, Henley.”

  Her heart plummeted into her empty stomach and nausea began to rise in her throat from the words her boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—said.

  It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be!

  She was having a bad dream, right? Things like this weren’t supposed to happen to her, ever.

  “Excuse me?”

  She felt so dizzy. The bile was thick in her tightening throat as she gripped the edge of the table and willed her body to calm down. The last thing either of them needed right now was a scene; frightening humans would be bad.

  Very, very bad.

  That’s probably why he wanted to do this in public, she thought angrily. He knew I wouldn’t kill him in front of a crowd. Jerk!

  “I’m not in love with you. I’m not sure I even love you. Things have always been weird between us—surely you can admit to that.”

  She couldn’t believe what he was saying. There he sat, her perfect, gorgeous boyfriend, and he was dumping her.

  It just wasn’t possible.

  “We’ve been engaged since before I was even born, Trace. We’re supposed to get married and keep the peace between our people. How can you do this?” She hissed between clenched teeth. “This has to be illegal. You can’t just break up with me. It’s...I...”

  Words escaped her as her throat closed and the tears began to burn her eyes.

  God, she wasn’t going to cry, was she? She didn’t want to cry, damn it.

  “Look, I know this is hard, but I’m not going to get married to someone I don’t care about. I want to be happy, Henley. We both deserve that much.” He frowned and dropped his crystal blue gaze to the barely-touched plate of food before him. “You should find someone who’s going to make you happy. Find someone who will love you for who you are, not for the peace pact made between your family and mine.”

  God, this was not happening! It felt like someone had punched her in the chest and they were playing with her heart as if it were a ball of play-doh. It wasn’t fair.

  “I am happy,” she whispered. “I’ve always been happy with you, Trace. I...I love you.”

  “No, you don’t.” He shook his head slowly, meeting her teary gaze. “You’re in love with the idea of loving me. I mean,”—he smirked—“I know I’m quite the catch: handsome, rich, and ridiculously powerful—but I’m not the one for you. You’re not the one for me. I want to explore my options before I settle down. I’m sorry, Hen, but this ends now. It’s over.”

  She couldn’t move.

  As her brown-haired mate-to-be placed a few bills onto the table to pay for their meal and disappeared from the restaurant, she was frozen in place. The weight of agony and heartache threatened to suffocate her as the realization of what had happened finally began to sink in.

  “It’s over,” she whispered beneath her breath. “My soul-mate doesn’t want me. He doesn’t love me.”

  He doesn’t love me.

  That was a tough pill to swallow. Never in the history of diplomatic betrothals had either party terminated the relationship. Her father didn’t dump her mother—his father didn’t dump his mother. How in the hell had this happened?

  “I’ve gotta get out of here.”

  She glanced down at her knuckles. They were whiter than the fancy tablecloth currently tangled between her fingers. She could feel the whirlwind of emotions surging through her heated veins and she knew she had to get out of there—quick.

  I can’t shift in front of all these people.

  Her heart skipped a beat as her eyes shifted from table to table. Those poor unsuspecting humans! It wasn’t that she thought of herself as a dangerous creature, but shifting in front of humans would definitely be dangerous in itself; exposing what she was would put her family and friends in danger.

  It wasn’t a risk she was willing to take.

  The small sting of claws threatening to break through her fingertips sent her into a frenzy of panic as she jumped up from her seat and nearly knocked over a waiter.

  “Sorry!” She managed to say before exiting the small café.

  Her legs carried her quickly, but not too quickly, towards an alleyway. If she could just make it there before the change happened...

  Keep it together, Henley. Please!

  She begged her body to relax, but as razor sharp teeth raked over her tender bottom lip and the flavor of blood filled her mouth, she knew she was doomed.

  “No, no, no,” she sobbed, rounding the corner and darting towards the end of the alleyway. “No, Henley! Stop!”

  What would her parents think of this? Surely they would understand she was upset. Surely they would sympathize with her. No one had ever been broken up with by their mate-to-be.

  No one except me.

  Of course, it would happen to her. If bad things ever happened to anyone—it was her.

  “Stop, stop,” she repeated over and over.

  It was her new favorite mantra as she pleaded with the beast inside. It couldn’t show itself right now. It couldn’t put her family in danger. If humans ever saw what her kind was capable of...

  “Henley.”

  The sound of her best friend’s voice was so far away.

  “Henley, snap out of it. Take control,” he instructed. “Come on, Hens. You can do this. Listen to me. Come back to me!”

  “I can’t,” she whimpered.

  The dark black nails were extending from her fingertips and she didn’t need to look in a mirror to know pointed ears were protruding from her dark red hair.

  It was too late.

  “You’re going to have to kill me, Deck. Everything’s ruined.”

  “Ruined? What are you talking about?”

  His cool hand
s touched her heated cheeks and she flinched. Was he insane? Didn’t she just ask him to kill her?

  “Henley, talk to me. We can get through this together.”

  She struggled to see him through her tears and could barely make out the softness of his pale green eyes.

  Stacey Decker had been her best friend for as far back as she could remember; he was such a good friend. If only she could stop herself from shifting. If only she could convince Trace he was wrong...

  “He broke up with me.”

  The words slipped past her quivering, bloody lips and she watched his eyes widen. He seemed to be just as surprised by the possibility of mates breaking up as she had been.

  It just wasn’t supposed to happen.

  “W-what? Really?”

  “Yes, really!” She snapped. “He just dumped me in the middle of a fancy dinner with a lot of people around to witness it. My life’s over, Deck. Just kill me.”

  The slight sting of his claws biting against the skin of her wrist hurt, but her inner beast quieted. She released a breath of relief as her body returned to normal.

  “Sorry, Hens. I had to get through to you somehow.” He tilted his head to the side, his eyes studying her closely. “Just because he broke up with you, doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. Plenty of fish in the sea, you know.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,”—she scowled—“Nobody’s depending on you to breed with a canidthrope and birth perfect little warriors to strengthen our bloodlines. But okay—let me just go find another one in the sea.”

  “You know what I mean.” He frowned and lifted his hands to her shoulders, squeezing gently. “So what if Trace dumped you? It makes you available to someone better than him. A jackass like him doesn’t even deserve you, and you know it.”

  Her upper teeth sank into her bottom lip as she allowed his words to echo in her mind. It was no use.

  “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but it’s not going to work. My mate-to-be doesn’t want me and I’m good for nothing now, Deck. I’m just another unnecessary female in the skulk.”

  She pushed off from the brick wall and limped towards the street. It was always painful to shift, and even a partial-attempt hurt like hell. Her bones were still mending back into a humanoid state when he ran to catch up with her.

  “Don’t talk like that!”

  “Like what?”

  “Like an idiot.” He gripped her wrist and forced her to turn enough for their gazes to meet. “Henley, you are a wonderful person and you have a purpose here. Maybe it’s just not with Trace, okay?”

  “Trace was my purpose.” She blinked back fresh tears. “I am nothing without him, Deck. I’m useless to everyone else. He was my reason for being. What am I going to do now?”

  “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do.” He grasped her hands between his much larger ones, staring her straight in the eyes. “You’re going to go back home and tell your parents what happened. Let them deal with Trace breaking the agreement, Hens. That’s not your problem. I get that you’re hurting, but you’re going to hold your head high and be proof that vixens don’t need tods—and they especially don’t need some damned pansy-assed panthrope to show they’re worth something.

  “You are so much more than your relationship status, Henley Crevan. You’re going to show everybody that, okay? You don’t need to pop out any weird little hybrids to show people how amazing and important you are. Just keep being you.”

  Maybe it was exhaustion from her near-shift, or maybe it was simply because she was hurting, but she found herself burying her face against his chest, and she was comforted as his arms wrapped around her.

  “I l-love him,” she sobbed against his shirt.

  “I know you do, Hens. I’m sure he loved you on some level, too. Guys are just weird. We’re dicks, you know? Take it from me.”

  “You’re not a dick,” she said, her voice muffled against his chest.

  She breathed him in and tried to forget what had happened in that stupid restaurant. She would never visit another Italian restaurant in her life. It was a shame, too, because Paolo’s was the best little joint in Foxley.

  “You’re one of the good guys.”

  “Yeah,” he said after a pause. “I try to be. Let’s get you home, okay?”

  She lifted her head and met her best friend’s kind gaze, nodding slowly.

  “Okay.”

  The hardest part was over.

  Facing her parents and breaking the truth to them, however, was an entirely different story.

  Chapter Two

  He was trying to wrap his head around what had happened as the front door slammed and his younger brother stormed off into the night.

  Sometimes Trace was incredibly overdramatic, but Rane felt justified in the yelling match they’d just had.

  “Stupid boy,” he muttered, running his palm down the length of his face.

  His fingertips traced over a day’s growth of stubble as he closed his eyes and tried to calm his mind.

  “Stupid, stupid boy.”

  He had made a promise to his parents that he would do whatever it took to ensure the continuation of their line. The panthropes in Foxley, Kentucky had dwindled significantly since the attack of ’81 and it was his duty to his parents—and their kind—to help his particular tribe of cougar-shifters repopulate.

  When he was just a small boy he realized, early on, that he was different from the children he attended school with. He was faster, smarter, and he could do things they couldn’t. Being able to hear a conversation on the other side of the room wasn’t normal and he soon learned why.

  He wasn’t necessarily shocked to discover he wasn’t fully human, but at times it was hard for a kid to understand why he couldn’t go to a friend’s birthday party. He missed out on a lot of normal ‘kid things’, but he knew his parents had a reason behind it.

  “You always have to keep your distance from humans,” his father would say. “Always put the safety of your tribe first.”

  That’s what he was trying to do. His grandfather, and one of the Canidthrope leaders, a fox-shifter, had agreed to unite their children in marriage in an effort to keep peace between their people, as well as breed stronger shifters to protect all of them from the ruthless hunting of lycanthropes.

  Werewolves were distant cousins of the Canidthropes, and everyone knew that, but his grandfather always took comfort in knowing the foxes were on their side.

  Arranged marriages were nothing new; he himself had once been engaged to a very sweet fox-shifter named Elsie. He only had fond memories of that girl...

  “Nonsense,” he spat, shaking her memories from his mind.

  Now was not the time to think of Elsie; he needed to focus on being angry at Trace.

  “Ungrateful little brat.”

  Trace was their last hope.

  With their parents gone, Trace had to follow through with his union to a fox-shifter. It was the right thing to do.

  Henley Crevan was a nice girl. Even though he had only met her a handful of times in the past, he knew for a fact there was nothing wrong with the vixen. Trace had no reason to dislike her, or break off their engagement.

  What went wrong?

  There was only one way to find out, and that’s how he ended up in the quaint little neighborhood of the fox-shifters half an hour later. Things had gone awry and it was up to him to fix it. His bloodline had no hope without Henley in the picture.

  I’ll take care of Trace later. That selfish little punk.

  He loved his brother—he really did, but sometimes he made stupid decisions.

  It wasn’t like he hadn’t made his share of idiotic choices, but breaking off an engagement that promised new additions to the family? Trace must’ve hit his head and gone stupid.

  The promises of spring swept through with the wind and he inhaled deeply. Spring was his favorite time of year and with it came new beginnings. Cubs were conceived in the spring, at least for shifters like him,
and that put an extra kick in his step. He had to fix this mess, quickly, and reunite the happy couple.

  Though as he knocked on the door and it suddenly flew open, he wasn’t exactly expecting to come face-to-face with an angry mama fox.

  “YOU!” She bellowed. “This is your fault, isn’t it?” She asked. “Get in here and explain yourself right this instant, Rane Warrick.”

  Blinking rapidly, he hesitantly stepped inside the small room, what he suspected was meant to be a living room, and winced as the door slammed shut.

  “Now,” the woman said. “Explain what happened today.”

  “Pardon me, ma’am.” He turned around to stare at her. “I was hoping I could speak with Henley. I’d very much like an explanation of what happened today, from her.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so! You aren’t speaking to my daughter.”

  Yep. That was a mama fox if he’d ever seen one. Even the most fierce, deadliest warrior couldn’t hold a candle to an angry mother.

  His mother had been as protective as she, albeit a bit more frightening.

  Don’t think about that right now.

  Or ever, really. He could do without a trip down memory lane.

  “Mrs. Crevan,” he began, shaking the image of his mother’s face from his mind. “I honestly have no idea what happened. The only thing my brother told me—”

  “Your brother is a moron!” She declared. “If I saw that boy right now I’d...I’d do bodily harm—I can promise you that! Henley has grown quite fond of him over the years, and for him to just break her heart...Oh, I won’t have it! I won’t, do you understand? You bring him back here and you make him apologize. They are getting married, and that’s that.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Crevan, I couldn’t agree with you more, but—”

  “Mama?”

  He turned his head to see her then, standing in the doorway. He hadn’t expected to feel the air leave his lungs, or feel his pants tighten. This girl, this beautiful...amazing girl...was doing a number on him.

  Her fiery red hair rested against her shoulders and those big blue eyes, bloodshot and watery from tears...

  His brother really was a moron.