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A tender place.

A soft, secret place.

The place my teeth would one day mark to claim her forever.

I could feel it swelling for me.

The mating mark was the oldest promise a kitsune could make. A vow written in blood and bone that even the gods could not undo.

Once my teeth closed on that soft place at the back of her neck, every creature in every realm would smell my devotion on her skin and recognize her as claimed.

Any mystical being—vampire, ghost, demon—would know she belonged to a fox spirit old enough to have watched empires rise and fall. None would be stupid enough to test her.

I held in a deep growl, so I wouldn’t scare her.

Then, I smelled her slick—that liquid dripping from her surely warm pussy, preparing itself for her alpha and making sure my cock fit.

Mmmm.

I could smell that slick through her fucking clothes, and it made me even more crazy.

Fuck.

I lowered my head into her wet dreadlocks and breathed her in.

All of her scents began to deepen.

That was our bond doing its work. Every hour that passed with her in my orbit, her scent would bloom further.

I closed my eyes and my kitsune’s four forms surged beneath my skin at once.

My male form held the seat of my mind and the most logic. It was the strategist, the most disciplined, and also the face this century’s world knew. This form was the only thing keeping her safe from my other forms who were deliriously craving to taste her.

Stay calm. She is not ready. We must give our mate time.

My female form coiled behind my sternum, a warm, liquid pressure that ached to press the full length of her curvy body against Gabby— to feel the soft give of her thighs, the rise and fall of her belly breathing against mine. She wanted a hand gripping Gabby's hips, pinning her in place. She wanted their soft lips meeting, unhurried and open, tasting each other. She wanted the other hand sliding beneath the soaked silk of Gabby's gown, one finger tracing slow circles over Gabby’s wet pussy until our mate's hips lifted for it.

She yearned to strum Gabby’s clit in a rhythm that would make her thighs shake and her body rock.

I licked my lips.

My kitsune spirit lived between my shoulder blades, and my tails wanted to unfurl—wanted to wrap around her waist, her hips, the bare skin of her thighs where the wet silk had ridden up. They wanted to drag her deeper into the seat, deeper into my scent, until her nose pressed against my neck and Gabby had no choice but to breathe me in. Until her thighs parted around mine, and she felt the ridged length of my kitsune’s cock against the slick heat of her.

The beast craved to fuck her raw from the back.

Bucking and bucking until she screamed and moaned.

Deeper into me.

And beneath my jaw and along my forearms, the beast warrior pressed hardest of all.

The protector.

The form built to kill anything that tried to touch her.

It wanted her the way a blade wants a sheath—to be inside her, surrounded by her, kept warm by her. It wanted to feel her thighs clamp around its hips while it pinned her wrists above her head. It wanted to drag one long claw down the wet silk of her gown and watch the fabric part, then do the same to her skin, slow enough that she felt every inch of it and moaned.

The form that wanted, right now, to break through my skin and cage her against my chest with claws long enough to shred the roof of this car open if any breath of danger came through it—and then, once she was safe, to turn those claws gentle and trace them over her nipples until she squirmed in its grip.