Page 39 of Fire of the Fox

He sipped his coffee and kept watch of his phone. He was quiet, choosing not to answer. The anger simmering inside of me reached its boiling point. I was about to shout at him and take the seat anyway when he met my eyes.

“It’s five now. You can sit.”

Mentally reminding myself that stabbing someone wasn’t nice, I sat down with a bitter huff.

He smirked, his amber gaze taking note of my narrowed eyes.

“Why are you smiling?” I snapped.

“Because I find your frustration amusing.”

With a groan, I held my head in my hands. “You are such a freaking pain! Can we please just get on with this so I don’t have to see you anymore today?”

He nodded and placed a folder on the table. Opening it, he pulled out all kinds of photos. He laid them each out, facing me. Every photo captured different people, all looking every bit as gorgeous as Rune.

My mouth parted slightly at the sight of all the beautiful people, or should I say, Fae.

When he was done arranging them, he looked up at me. “These are some pictures of my family. They’ll all be at the party. I’m sure my mom will have some extra guests there, but you don’t need to worry about them.” He pointed to the picture closest to me and said, “This is my cousin, Ardley.”

Picking it up, I studied the photo. It was of Rune and Ardley, both of them in their Fae forms.

I quickly glanced at the people closest to us and hid the photo. My wide eyes found Rune’s, and I leaned in close to whisper, “Are you crazy? You can’t whip out photos of you guys looking like this. What if people see?”

He chuckled, and the sound warmed something low in my stomach. I hated that my body reacted this way to the sound of his laugh. He leaned in close to me, and I held my breath as our faces were now inches from each other. His amber eyes flicked down to my mouth before slowly meeting mine again. “Do you think people would see these photos and immediately think we’re magical creatures?”

Ignoring the way my skin hummed with his nearness, I considered his question. “No, I guess not. They’d probably assume it’s a costume or something since things like Fae aren’t supposed to be real.”

“There you go then. It’s fine. Don’t stress over it.” He leaned back in his chair and sipped from his coffee.

I swallowed my frantic emotions and turned back to the photo. I couldn’t get distracted by him.

Ardley had his arm slung around Rune’s shoulder while Rune stared away from the camera with a blank expression. Ardley, on the other hand, was captured mid-laugh, exposing his two fang-like canines. He had dark curls that matched the black fox ears on top of his head. He seemed to be built much like Rune, tall with wide shoulders and well-formed muscles. The cousins matched in all black, too. Ardley’s forearm was exposed in the photo, showing a tattoo of a fox head.

“You don’t seem too happy in the photo,” I noted.

“I just don’t like taking pictures. Ardley, on the other hand, loves the attention. That’s something you’ll notice about him. He’s a huge people person and a flirt, so be prepared for him to say inappropriate things to you.”

I sighed. “Awesome. Can’t wait.”

“Ardley is probably the one I’m closest to out of my whole family. We’re the same age, so we get along rather well when he isn’t being obnoxious.”

“How old are you anyway?”

Amusement flickered in Rune’s eyes. “I’ll be turning 223.”

My jaw hit the floor as I stared at him in disbelief.

His grin broadened at my astonishment while he sipped at his coffee once more. He didn’t look a day older than 22 or 23, which meant their aging was clearly slowed down. I remembered then that Bassel had mentioned something about not being back to his home in Egypt in centuries. That made a lot more sense now. Fae obviously aged differently than humans.

Go figure.

Looking at him, it was hard to think of him as 222, and I struggled to wrap my mind around it. I guessed it was no stranger than anything else I’d learned about him. I wondered how old the other guys were. Most likely, they were around the same age as Rune.

Shaking my head, I looked back at him and said, “This is so insane. I still can’t believe this stuff is real.”

He shrugged. “Well, it is. You’ve already seen the proof, or would you like me to give you another demonstration?” Something dark and mischievous flashed across his eyes.

I swallowed hard. I didn’t like what he was implying, so I slowly shook my head. “No. That’s okay.”

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