4. Ryewood #2
Beautiful, sure, but that’s not what hooks me. The room fades around her, noise dulling, the crush of bodies meaning nothing. People shoulder through each other everywhere else, but she doesn’t fight the crowd. She slips through it effortlessly, like the crowd knows to make space.
Men turn to stare at her, of course they do, and she either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.
Something pulls in my chest. Something I can’t name and don’t like not understanding.
My eyes track her automatically, following those pointed ears bobbing through the crowd, and then—
Gone. Just like that.
My chest locks up, which is stupid. I don’t even know her name, but the thought of losing her in this chaos has me shifting forward in the booth.
Finally, I spot her—
Relief hits harder than it has any right to.
She has reappeared at the far end of the bar and claimed a stool in the most out-of-the-way corner of the room. It doesn’t make sense. Women who look like her don’t hide. They let the room orbit them.
The bartender clocks her immediately, leaves a line three-deep without hesitation, and walks straight to her. He leans in, like the rest of the room doesn’t exist.
I know that move. I’ve used that move.
My jaw grinds before I realize it.
Of course, she knows him; that explains the corner. The way she’s settled in like it was hers to claim.
He smiles and she leans closer.
Fuck.
I don’t like the way that lands. Don’t like the heat curling low in my chest, dark and possessive and completely unearned.
I don’t even know her.
She laughs at something he says, soft and easy.
The feeling in my chest tightens.
Then she stands. I stop pretending to be interested in anything else as she moves away from the bar and toward a table of guards. Low-level from the look of it, with cheap leathers, the kind who scrape enough coin together for one good night and regret it in the morning.
She slides into conversation like she belongs there, too, but she’s different now, lighter, almost shy. Something about it doesn’t add up.
I’m done watching. It’s time to meet my little fox.
I push off the booth—
“Hey.”
Finn’s hand clamps onto my shoulder, and I stop, dragging my attention back to the booth.
He’s mid-story, been going for a while from the look of it, and I haven’t heard a single word. “So we’re posted near the outer gates, with the crowds going feral, everyone thinking they can sneak closer to the Woods—”
I blink. The booth’s watching me now, expectant and smiling like I owe them something.
“Yeah,” I say, because that’s easier than thinking. “Trials.”
My eyes slide past them without permission, back to the corner, back to my fox.
She’s not there. Fuck.
I scan the bar, quick and sharp. There—a flash of fur, her fox tail, slipping through the door like she was never really here at all.
I’m already standing. I clap Finn on the back, hard enough to count as an apology. “Next round’s on me.”
I don’t wait for a response, just cut through the crowd. Bodies blur past me, merchants laughing too loud, guards already drunk, someone spilling ale on my sleeve. I don’t care.
The cold air bites sharp the moment I’m outside. The streets are alive, people drifting between taverns while vendors hawk nonsense to anyone willing to listen. But no fox.
The disappointment lands heavier than it has any right to. I don’t know her name. I haven’t even seen her face.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
Then a sound catches me, low and sharp, a grunt from the alley, and I’m already moving. The alley swallows me whole, and I stop.
She has him pinned.
The guard from the bar is plastered flat against the wall, breath coming fast and shallow, with his hands scrabbling uselessly at her arm.
She’s smaller, noticeably so, but it doesn’t matter.
Her forearm is locked against his throat, elbow angled just right, with practiced precision.
One knee is pressed between his legs, the pressure exact and merciless.
He’s struggling, but she’s completely in control.
My first thought hits hard and hot. He touched her, grabbed her, tried something stupid in the dark because he thought he could.
My second thought is calmer. He’s totally fucked.
Then I see her other hand, a coin purse, dangling loose between her fingers. It’s light, embarrassingly so.
The tension snaps into something else entirely. She’s not defending herself. She’s robbing him.
A sound pulls out of my chest before I can stop it, half-laugh, half-relief.
For a heartbeat, she freezes, eyes flicking to me, wide and calculating. Then she moves.
Her knee comes up with brutal efficiency, slamming into his groin. He makes a broken sound and collapses, sliding down the wall into a miserable heap at her feet.
She turns toward me fully, calm and controlled, her weight balanced and ready for whatever I decide to do next.
I’m smiling before I realize it.
“Well,” I say, voice easy, like I didn’t just watch her dismantle a man twice her size. “You’re not innocent at all, are you, little fox?”
Her eyes catch the low light through the mask and stop me cold. Rings of color, amber and violet bleeding into teal and green. I’ve never seen eyes like that in my life.
Her gaze flicks down to my leathers, King’s Guard, or at least that’s what they look like, then back up to my face, or what passes for it tonight with the dumbass wolf mask still tied on. Probably for the best.
I can see it happening, her weighing the risk, the distance, the exit, whether she can take me too. She doesn’t answer me; she just moves, trying to slip past me toward the mouth of the alley.
I don’t touch her, just step sideways, just…existing in the space she needs.
She stops short.
I lift my hands slowly. “It’s okay.” I pause. “I just want to meet you.”
Her eyes narrow, clearly not believing me. I wouldn’t either. Her hand shifts, subtle but unmistakable, and silver flashes in the dim light. A blade.
The grin breaks wider across my face before I can stop it, as something reckless like admiration blooms in my chest. She’s dangerous, clever, and armed. Stars help me, I’m already in trouble.
She closes the distance in one sharp step, so close the air shifts between us, and silver flashes again.
I jerk back on instinct, hand flying to my cheek, but there’s nothing.
A moment too late, the wolf mask drops to the stone ground between us.
She wasn’t aiming for me; she was aiming for my disguise.
Her eyes widen behind the fox mask. I can see her reassessing me.
Does she recognize me?
“Bit far from home, aren’t you?” Her voice pulls everything about her together. It’s smooth and self-assured, and I need to hear it again.
Then the words actually land.
Stones. She knows.
No, wait, that doesn’t make sense. We’ve done this dozens of times, going out in guard leathers in the city, never with masks, and no one’s ever recognized us. She can’t know.
I keep my expression easy, let a lazy grin spread across my face like nothing’s wrong. “Oh yeah?” I say lightly. “And where would that be?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she says, voice dripping with false innocence. “Somewhere with beautiful grounds, from what I hear.”
This cunning little fox has me. Fuck, why do I like it so much?
“Little fox, show me your face,” I say, and I hear the want in my voice.
“Oh, Ryewood,” she says sweetly, feigning innocence. “We can’t have you running to Daddy about tonight’s happenings, now can we?”
My name. On her lips.
Everything in my head goes blank.
She spins away so fast it’s all I can do to reach out and grab something, anything.
She clearly thinks she’s gotten away until we both stop at the same time.
Our gazes fall to my hand holding her tail, stretched taut between us.
Her expression is shocked and fucking adorable.
“So that’s it?” I say. “You just disappear. At least give me your name.”
I wiggle her tail. I can’t help the grin that follows. A smile plays across her face too.
There she is.
“Oh, sweet spare,” she says lightly. “I don’t owe you anything. But you owe me a new tail.”
Before I can even process what she means, silver flashes, and the fabric of her skirt falls away, severed in a single slice, left dangling uselessly in my hand.
Fuck me. No hesitation, no second thought, just precision. My heart is racing, and it has absolutely nothing to do with fear.
I look up. She’s standing there in fitted pants now, knives strapped to both thighs, posture loose and ready like this is the most herself she’s been all night.
“Aren’t you full of surprises?” I say, my gaze dragging slow and unapologetic. “And knives, apparently.”
“What can I say? I like to be prepared.” She shrugs, easy as anything. “Never know when the Spare Prince might try to corner you in an alley.”
Something about that confident ease draws me forward, and I take a step toward her. Panic flashes across her face, and she bolts deeper into the alley, away from me.
She plants a foot on the guard’s shoulder and uses him like a step, vaulting upward in one fluid motion. Her fingers catch the window ledge, feet finding stone like it knows her. She climbs fast, with an impossible ease.
“Wait—”
She doesn’t slow. Not until she’s looking down at me from well over a story above.
How the fuck did she get up there that quickly?
“Better get back to the castle,” she calls down sweetly. “Wouldn’t want King Eldric wondering where his Spare Prince has wandered off to.”
Then she’s swinging herself onto the roof. She peeks over the edge once more and gives me a small, taunting wave.
“Goodnight, Ryewood.”
And just like that, she’s gone.
I stand there longer than I should, staring at empty stone like she might reappear if I wait long enough. But she doesn’t.
I look down at my hand. The fox tail is still clutched in my grip. The only proof this actually happened.
I don’t know her name or her face, and I have no idea how to find her in a city this big. But I will. How can I not?