“Your hands are so warm,” Erik observed when they stopped spinning.

  “Did I hurt you?” Lynette’s breathless joy shuttered.

  “No. You kept my fingers from freezing. It’s impressive. But you’d better put your gloves on before we try out the sled.”

  He was a protective alpha in training. I could see it in his body language, in the way he made sure Lynette was bundled up before they folded their bodies onto the sled together.

  Then he was just a kid, cheeks flaring as Lynette’s arms clenched around his middle. A murmured apology from her. A sidelong glance from him. A quiet back-and-forth I pretended not to hear.

  It was sexy in an innocent way. A way Lynette could handle.

  She laughed out her joy as they slid away from us down the path the evacuees had followed, the candle wax we’d rubbed onto the runners making the sled move so fast I kept expecting the kids to hurt themselves.

  They didn’t. They were laughing and whispering when they puffed back up the hill to reach us. Those sidelong glances had turned into long, lingering clashes of the youthful gaze.

  I fully expected their teenage mating ritual to continue unabated for hours. Instead, Lynette sidled over to me, leaving Drake and Erik to go down the hill together.

  “Can I talk to you?” Lynette asked, voice more tentative than I’d heard it in a long while.

  “What’s up, kid?” I brushed hair out of her eyes and tucked it up under her hat. “Are you mad that we’re going to put Erik back into the cell tonight? It’s for his own safety.”

  “No, I get it.” She scuffed her feet in the snow, clearly wanting to say something but not able to summon sufficient courage.

  “You know you won’t scare me away with whatever you’re thinking.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  Drake’s vow not to be cruel to Erik had unlocked Lynette’s joy hours ago, but she’d known her first guardian ever since her first imprisonment. I didn’t expect such easy acceptance of my promise now.

  After all, I’d come into Lynette’s life only a month ago, our connection beginning as an oath to protect her. As a kitsune, the words had bound my behavior. Quite understandably, Lynette hadn’t trusted that magic at first.

  Since then, though, I thought we’d become friends. My feelings for her had definitely grown to influence my actions far more than the oath did. I cared what happened to Lynette, but she was clearly uncertain about sharing her secrets with me now.

  “I’m here for the long haul,” I murmured, trying to put everything I felt for her into the simple words. Then I held my breath, hoping I’d said enough but not too much.

  And it worked. The girl’s face turned up to mine, open and trusting. Then she forced out the words that had stuck in her throat.

  “I want to kiss him. So-o bad. Do you realize I’ve never kissed anybody? Sweet sixteen and never been kissed isn’t funny when you’re living what’s not your best life.”

  What would Okaasan have said if I’d broached this subject at Lynette’s age? I didn’t know. Couldn’t remember our time together. I did, however, recall the rules I’d learned growing up.

  A lady was modest, cautious of her body until marriage. A lady wouldn’t kiss a boy she’d met less than twenty-four hours prior.

  And who cared what was lady-like? This was another century and Lynette had been unable to take part in her peers’ romantic experiments due to hands that scorched anyone she touched. She’d been working so hard to overcome that impediment and she now deserved every ounce of joy she could suck out of life.

  So I made sure my smile rose all the way into my eyes, ensuring Lynette wouldn’t notice my ambivalence. Then I gave her the permission she clearly craved. “So kiss him.”

  “You think it’s that easy?” Another boot scuff. “You guys are watching Erik like a hawk and I can’t have my first kiss with an audience. Total cringe-fest! Are you serious?”

  Then I got it. She was thinking ahead to when Erik was locked back into his cell and she was cuddled up against the bars just barely able to touch him. Last night, they’d started to whisper then Lynette had glanced my way and words had squelched into silence.

  I’d thought I was there on the cot to keep Lynette’s spirits up, but instead I’d apparently become an unwanted chaperone. “You want me to make myself scarce tonight,” I guessed.

  “Do you mind?”

  I didn’t. I wanted Lynette to be happy so badly. Even more, I wanted her to feel safe enough not to need me beside her while she slept.

  “Not a problem,” I promised, meeting Drake’s gaze as he strode back up the hill, one arm draped laxly across Erik’s shoulders. I got the distinct impression they’d been talking about something very similar to what had passed between me and Lynette. Erik was nodding, his shoulders squaring as if he wanted to model himself upon Drake.

  “Great! Thanks!” And Lynette was running away from me toward the other teenager, grabbing the sled and slamming onto it with her belly so she shot off down the hill solo. She whooped out joy and Erik yelled encouragement. Meanwhile, Seth came out of the trees, unscrewed a thermos of hot cocoa, and handed around cups of sweet warmth, putting extra marshmallows in the one he handed Lynette when she trudged back up after her wild flight.

  For the rest of the afternoon, we sledded and threw snowballs and laughed at each other, and only once did I think I might have felt unknown eyes pass over me. But Kami didn’t show herself and eventually the day wound down to the conclusion Lynette so much anticipated.

  We locked the teenagers in the prison and Drake settled down outside for another cold night standing sentry. Seth was due to spell him partway through, so when I woke within Lynette’s cottage hours later to the scent of lemon wafting toward me through the darkness, I smiled sleepily.

  “Drake,” I murmured. “Come in.”

  Chapter 16

  Tru

  Drake prowled into my room without turning on any light. He must have been there many times before—after all, this wasn’t only Lynette’s cottage but also his when he spent overnights in the Strays’ encampment. Still, he picked a doodad off the dresser, turned it over, set it down, then trailed one finger across the embroidered runner underneath.

  The sense memory of his thumb between my lips spun through me. I could imagine his index finger tracing a path over my side and hip instead of exploring the texture of fabric. I could imagine…

  I shook my head to clear it. Despite a catlike part of me wanting to stretch out like Neko and assume Drake had crept into my room in the middle of the night to stroke my skin, I knew that wasn’t the case. Drake wouldn’t cross the line I’d drawn without permission. Only I could scrub it out.

  And if he hadn’t come to my room for the sake of seduction… A thundering heartbeat of fear slapped me fully awake in an instant.

  “Is Lynette okay?” I demanded.

  Drake nodded but didn’t provide any additional information. Instead, he crouched down beside the chair atop which I’d folded the clothes Kira gifted to me. Then he lowered his face into the pile.

  Was he sniffing my underwear? I was glad of the dark when my cheeks flared hot.

  I didn’t know this Drake who prowled through the darkness and invaded my personal space. Or perhaps I was imagining things. Without light, I couldn’t be sure he’d been sniffing my clothing. I couldn’t be sure of anything.

  Still, my skin jittered in a way it hadn’t in his presence for weeks now. I needed him contained and far from my most intimate items of apparel. “Please,” I managed, “have a seat.”

  The room was large with a second chair ready for him to sink into. He didn’t. Instead, he padded closer, feet silent even though he was fully dressed and likely had shoes on also. His weight on the bed indented the mattress and tilted me off balance. Unprepared, I fell against his side.

  And the scent of lemon-meringue pie exploded around me. It took so much energy every day to hold myself back from indulging in what I wanted. Indulging with whom I wanted.

  But now we were flush up against each other, my arm pressing into Drake’s hard muscles. Night’s gentle hand cupped me halfway between sleeping and waking and my reasons for maintaining distance, both physical and emotional, appeared weak and strained.

  “Drake.” His name slid across my tongue like the cold sweetness of lemon custard. “Kiss me.”

  Rather than obeying, he brought his hands to my shoulders, turning us both so we were face to face rather than side against side. “Your name?” he murmured, a mere breath of sound.

  Over the last month, I’d learned so many facets of Drake’s voice. The pained rasp when he’d spoken too much too quickly. The harsh growl when he slapped down wolves gone AWOL. The deep purr when he was gentle around me and Lynette and Rosa.

  His timbre now was entirely different in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on. But the incongruity was irrelevant when his question had landed on my head like a bucket of ice water. He was reminding me why I couldn’t sleepily beg for a kiss without it meaning much more than that.

  I should have pulled away from the heat of his hands, but I couldn’t quite talk myself into doing so. Instead, I sagged in his grip. “You’re right,” I admitted. “I know I haven’t even given you permission to use Tru on documents more permanent than a driver’s license.”

  Because, weeks ago, Drake had offered to forge an identity for me the way he did for Strays who needed to exist in the modern world without ties to their former lives. And I’d been sorely tempted to take him up on that offer, to become official enough so I could land a job where I wasn’t paid under the table.

  But when the moment came, I couldn’t quite commit to a name that my nemesis had created out of nothing. I couldn’t quite commit to being Tru.

  And if I couldn’t commit to a name, how could I commit to a person? Or, rather, to a wolf who wouldn’t be able to divorce a spouse-turned-mistake as humans might.

  If I made a move too fast then had to walk that decision back, I’d be breaking Drake forever. Werewolves who lost their mates were never the same again. I refused to risk harming Drake in that way.

  Harming Drake…and in turn harming Lynette. Our ward was blossoming into young womanhood but she could so quickly retreat back into traumatized brittleness. She needed both me and Drake at the moment, and the only way to ensure she could have both of us was to keep things exactly as they were.

  “I get it,” I murmured. “It’s not fair to ask you to kiss me when I can’t offer all of myself.”

  His head cocked as I fought gravity to scoot back toward the pillows, severing our contact. The room hadn’t felt cold before, but now the air between us was pure ice.

  Still, maintaining distance was the right move. Drake himself had reminded me of that fact by asking about my name.

  So I was surprised to hear the thud as one shoe then the other struck the floor, falling off feet Drake then drew up beneath him cross-legged. He was forming a lap just like I often did for Neko. He was pulling the extra blanket off the foot of the bed and layering it across his thighs.

  “Shift,” he suggested, voice a mere whisper.

  The invitation was so simple, the connection he was offering even less than what Lynette was likely indulging in with her caged crush right at this moment. Plus, that bitter cold suffusing my body meant being left alone in an empty, dark bedroom was no longer feasible.

  So I shifted and curled up in Drake’s lap while he stroked my fur ever so cautiously. There was no heat in the gesture. Just comfort and the promise that his strength would wrap around and protect me from any monsters in the closet.

  It soothed me down to my bones.

  I only half woke when he lifted my fox form and slid out from beneath in response to footsteps in the hallway. Outside my door, the ensuing conversation felt like part of a dream.

  “What are you doing here?” Drake demanded, his rasp nearly as harsh as when he spoke to wrongdoers in his role as Executioner. “Have you forgotten about the first of the month?”

  The other voice was oddly familiar but my half-asleep brain couldn’t place it. Male. Deep. Underlain with humor. “You rubbed my pelt. Like the genie in the lamp, I appeared.”

  “I rubbed your pelt? Are you sure you’re not confusing me with a member of your harem?”

  “There is no harem. You know that was a phase.”

  “How would I know when I never see you?” If I didn’t miss my guess, Drake’s cheek would be twitching. He was furious, and also perhaps a little sad.

  “You told me to go, now you’re upset that I went. Also, if you’ll notice, upset that I came back. With such a warm welcome, can you blame me for keeping my distance?”

  Drake huffed out the exasperated snort I’d only heard him use around Lynette. “I’m always glad to see you, but now isn’t a good time.”

  “Not a good time? You’re almost mated and she doesn’t know I exist?”

  “It’s complicated. Come.” Drake’s voice receded as he drew the other man away down the hall. “I don’t want to wake her.”

  Their footsteps were equally light as they carried the conversation out of earshot. Whoever Drake was speaking to, the silence of their retreat proved the stranger was also a shifter. A shifter who thought I should know about him before Drake and I crossed over that line I’d drawn in the sand.

  Was that why Drake had been so willing to wait through my indecision? Because he had a complicated past he wasn’t ready to divulge either?

  The puzzle drew me the rest of the way out of sleep just in time to see Neko leap from the top of a wardrobe into a newly opened portal of light.

  Chapter 17

  Tru

  “You have terrible timing, cat,” I muttered, returning to humanity as quickly as I could manage. Neko’s tail was already flicking out of sight and the portal edges were starting to recede inward. If I wanted to talk to my mother, I had to seize this chance.

  And I wanted to talk to my mother. For practical reasons, and impractical ones also.

  So I grabbed the century-old newspaper fragment and stepped into the cylinder of whirling light.

  Last time I’d left the present and fallen into the past, I hadn’t known what was happening. This time, I was able to note the wrench in my gut, the tweak of pain at my right temple. Then my feet were settling onto the gentle give of reed matting, the room I’d seen before resolving as my vision cleared.

  Well, no, the room wasn’t quite the same. During my last visit, it had been as clean and bright as a showroom. Now, the air smelled musty. A blanket folded in one corner appeared frayed.

  A twinge of worry niggled at me, but I had eyes only for Okaasan. She welcomed me not with words but with an open smile. Well, that plus a kimono then, once I was dressed, a delicate porcelain teacup.

  The kimono was mere clothing but the teacup… The memory it provoked made me forget the hint of shabbiness suffusing the space.

  I traced my finger across the painted image along the outside of the cup while remembering aloud. “You said the fox looked like me.”

  I’d been a laughing child then, younger than Lynette and with none of her traumatized caution. Okaasan had packed a picnic to take out into the woods with us and we’d built a little fire to boil water atop. After lapping up a few tonguefuls of tea in fox form, I’d danced from my mother’s shoulder to a nearby branch then dove right back down onto her hair.

  In response, she’d laughed out a cascade of pure joy before wrestling me to the ground and tickling my ribs. Simple fun. Loving family.

  And memory. A grounding in my past that I’d never thought to have again. Warmth infused me, and not just from the cup I held between formerly chilled fingers.

  I’d intended to beg for information about finding Kami, but instead I found myself asking for something else entirely. “What’s my name?”

  “You’ve lost that?” Okaasan reached up to finger my hair just as she had the last time, but now she ran her hand over my right temple rather than my left. “Threads of white here now also. You’re grounding yourself there. Is that what you want?”

  There meant clothes shopping with Lynette, picking out items that didn’t appeal to me just because they made my ward happy. There meant untangling the mystery of Drake, who had depths I was only just learning but whose core essence I knew better than my own.

  I wanted that…but I wanted this also. My mother. Our past. A shared future.

  “What do you mean by grounding myself?” I asked rather than committing.

  Okaasan retied my kimono as if I was a little girl. “A time kitsune has choices,” she told me as she worked. Her knot was tighter than mine, more even. The gesture warmed something deep inside me that had been so chilled it had gone numb. “I’ve sent past-you away for both of your sakes, which means you are welcome to return to this now. We could live as we always have…but grounding yourself back here would steal away your second life.”

  That pain at my temple as I’d passed through the portal after Neko, had it created white hairs on the side that had formerly been dark? Was that a visual indicator of what Okaasan was warning about? “I’m already losing some of that second life just visiting,” I guessed.

  Okaasan nodded. “Because you’re nearly grounded in your own present. Every connection you form makes it harder to travel back in time.”

  “My name?” I hadn’t forgotten the point that had started us on this explanation.

  “Astute,” my mother praised me, as if this back-and-forth was how we interacted. As if words and puzzles were our familiar way of showcasing affection. No wonder that cold spot inside me warmed further despite the conundrum of the choice Okaasan presented. No wonder I leaned in closer as she continued to speak.