"Thea," Mikhail said again, the slightest hint of a roll in his voice—rolling was that stupid thing vampires did when they hypnotized people. "How long is this going to take? For you to get your magic back, I mean."
"Uh, less than a week?" I said hopefully, because that's how long I had. Seven days to find my ex a wife. Gross. Now I just needed to smell out a mateless vixen that was interested in that asshole. Considering the infinitesimally small number of kitsune left on the planet, that was easier said than done. Why couldn't Fin just modernize, move off Vail Valley Earth property, and marry outside his species like the rest of the canidae shifter world? A nice werewolf girl, hyena shifter, wild dog shifter … what was wrong with that?
"Really?" Mikhail said, leaning forward and putting a hand on either side of me, his long, pale fingers curling around the edge of the bar. Did I mention the piece of shit always had this clean, soapy smell? Every once in a while, I caught a hint of copper and iron underneath it, blood from a recent feeding. But that was rare, as rare as it was to see him without one of his signature coats on, which was, basically, only when he was in the nude. Not like I saw him naked often, but that one time we'd stripped out of bloody clothes after a hit … yes, please. "Because it smells like you're lying to me. I don't much like to be lied to, Thea."
"It'll take as long as it takes, Mikhail. And it's not like magic is the only way to accomplish anything. There are other means."
"Other means won't work this time," he growled, leaning in close to my ear and putting his lips against my lobe. "If you don't get your magic back before Sunday, then you're off the job. I'll take care of it myself."
His smell wafted around me again, that soap and lather scent that was a little surprising considering it was attached to a vampire. Strong and masculine, and completely intoxicating.
Mikhail held that position just long enough to drive me crazy and then stood back up, turning in a swirl of red coat and weaving his way through the packed crowd. I watched him go, the corner of my lip curling up in a low growl.
"Asshole," I said, wondering if our violent tension would one day come to a head in the bedroom … or in a fight. He would win, most likely. Then again, I hadn't seen what my ninth tail could really do yet. Each tail was supposed to be exponentially more powerful than the last, right?
I ordered another drink as Little Miss Vixen took the stage in a crazy swirl of gossamer skirts and a big blonde wig, performing a ridiculously over the top rendition of the classic Spice Girls’ song Wannabe.
“You better werk, girl,” I whispered as I sipped my fruity alcohol and tried not to think about vampires, alpha wolves, jaguars, or asshole foxes.
That was a hell of a lot harder than it sounded.
"Wait, wait, let me get this straight." Chris took a long gulp of his pi?a colada, then tapped his chin. "So you have less than seven days to find your asshole ex a new kitsune mate, or else Mik is going to take the contract hit from you?"
"Yeah," I sighed, picking at the label on the bottle I was drinking.
"And we don't want Mik taking the contract, because ..." He squinted at me, a little drunk and clearly trying to piece things together.
"Because that would be tantamount to a failed hit, potentially punishable by a long-term suspension. Need I remind you that I have a massive mortgage to pay?" Finally freeing the label from the bottle in one piece, I began tearing it into tiny bits of confetti. I said potentially, but I already knew that failing this particular hit would be a cut-and-dry situation. If I failed this one, I was screwed. It was that important to the guild, that important to Mik. Besides, sometimes it felt like he wanted me to quit or get fired, so he could stop worrying so much about me. The man had control issues.
"Ah, which is essentially death. Gotcha. So … we need to find Fin a kitsune lady, huh?" He hummed along to the tune playing over the loudspeakers. "How are we going to do that?"
"I thought you might know of one? Or know where we might find one?" I asked hopefully, giving him my best sad fox eyes.
"Me? Nope, sorry chica. You're yapping up the wrong tree here. You're the only unmated female kitsune I know of, and I'm about ninety-nine point eight percent positive you're probably the only unmated kitsune female of marrying age in the entire damn world right now." He gave me a sympathetic look and patted my shoulder. "Have you thought about just agreeing to marry the damn fox, just to get your magic unbound so you can complete this hit?"
"And then what? Take off again?" I scowled. "If I thought it'd work, I probably would do it. Fin deserves it for this asshole move he's pulling."
"So, it wouldn't work then?" Chris clarified and I sighed.
"No, I doubt it. Those old vixens in charge would find some sort of magic to force me to comply. Next thing you know I'd be barefoot and pregnant, cooking Fin dinner and scrubbing the floors." I shuddered. "No, fucking thank you."
"Have you been to see Bailessa?" he suggested. Bailessa was our president, or as close as kitsune came to a president. I hadn't been joking about our leader turning orange, or about her White House equivalent cabin. It had been her that I'd been hoping to speak to about my tail before going to see the kitsune-tsukai, aka the Ancients.
"Not much point after Trina made her decision. Everyone knows Bailessa is just the political leader. She'll never go against the Ancients’ choices when it comes to magic." I drained the last of my drink, and waved the empty bottle at the bartender for another. After the day I'd had, I deserved a few drinks.
"So why is it so vital you have your magic for this hit on Sunday?" Chris asked, munching on his pineapple garnish and leaving glittery pink smears on the fruit. "You've done how many jobs with just your foxy abilities? Why is this one any different?"
"Because of the target. You know about the rash of shifter deaths lately?" My glamourous bestie nodded slowly in understanding. In the past couple of months, shifters had been disappearing, then showing up dead a few days or even weeks later, and it had the supernatural community in an uproar. Even worse than that, sometimes they didn’t disappear. Sometimes, they just went mad and started attacking everyone around them. I’d had more than a few of these ‘rabid shifter’ hits on my work docket. "Well, there's more to it than that. Someone is blocking the ability to shift."
Chris's face paled under his thick drag makeup, and I knew he got it. "But that's …"
"A death sentence? Exactly." My lips compressed in a tight line as I thought about the amount of innocent shifters I was personally responsible for executing in recent weeks. Once a shifter lost his or her ability to shift, it was a slippery slope into madness, which was totally irreversible. The only option was to execute.
"RADOPA intel says this coyote skinwalker, aka my Sunday hit, is supposedly providing the magic to whoever’s responsible. They hope that by eliminating him, it'll cripple the asshole behind this enough that we can find him and take him out." I groaned and rubbed at my temples to try and hold back a tension headache that was sneaking up on me. "But obviously, it's suicide to take on a skinwalker with no magic of my own."
"Is it?" Chris pondered aloud, and I squinted at him.
"Of course it is. Everyone knows skinwalkers deal in strange magic; their powers are unparalleled in the known world. I need the power of my tails to even stand a chance against him." I frowned at my bestie in confusion. Everyone knew this, including him.
"Yeah, I know that. Duh. I just meant, maybe not having any magic might be enough to give you the upper hand? This dude is probably expecting someone to come after him, so he'll be expecting a strong magical creature. But if you show up, little miss thang, with your tails hidden, looking and smelling like a regular human …" Chris shrugged. "Just saying."
I stared at him for a long moment, thinking over what he'd just said. "Fuck, Fae-Bitch, when did you become such a genius?"