Stone Cold Fox Read online

  Maybe that’s what he wants, though, whispered the voice of caution in her head. Maybe he’s just trying to lure you and get you off guard so he can—

  Jo pushed the thought abruptly away. So far, Reese seemed like a decent guy. He agreed to the binding spell, so she ought to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  Speaking of the binding spell, she had to get dressed and go outside to start casting the circle. She took off the puffy towel and hung it over the shower curtain to dry. But her black sundress was tattered and dirty—she couldn’t bear to put it back on over her freshly washed skin. She’d brought very few other clothes with her but a look in her pack showed they were all in pretty much the same state as the dress. Dirty, ragged, smelly . . . and since she’d taken so long in the bathtub, there was no time to wash them.

  There was a man’s button-down, dark blue dress shirt hanging from a hook on the back of the bathroom door. Jo hesitated . . . then put it on. It fell to mid-thigh on her and she had to roll up the much too long sleeves. She hoped Reese wouldn’t be upset with her but she could always promise to wash the shirt later, after her own ragged clothes had taken a trip through the washing machine. And he had told her to make herself at home.

  Jo looked in the mirror, startled all over again at the young face staring back. The shirt looked good with her eyes and her freshly washed hair hung down her back, long and damp and, because it was wet, looking more dark auburn than her usual pale red. She was . . . pretty.

  How long had it been since she’d thought of herself in those terms? Since before the attack in the park so many years ago, she thought. After that, she’d blamed her looks for what had happened to her and had wanted nothing more to do with dressing up or fixing her hair or anything that related to making herself attractive to the opposite sex.

  She wondered if it would ever be possible to reclaim that part of herself—the part that liked feeling pretty and desirable. Could she ever . . . Her eyes wandered up to the clock and she saw it was getting late.

  “Stop it, Jo, you’re wasting time,” she muttered to herself.

  Gathering her things and making sure the bathtub was clean, she went back downstairs and out into the backyard. The sun was much lower in the sky now, almost setting, and there was a chilly light wind whispering through the pines and maples behind the house. Jo sat on the creaky back porch steps and dug in her pack once more, looking for everything else she needed.

  Out of the pack she took a baggie of sea salt, four candles of various colors, her athame, a metal chalice, a small bottle of red chrism oil, and Miranda’s book of shadows.

  Of course, Jo had her own book—but at the time of Miranda’s death, her mentor had been a witch for at least thirty more years than Jo had. Her book was probably the most complete one Jo had ever seen—excluding the Great Book that stood on the cedar stand in the room of wisdom back in Avalon.

  Of course, a protection or warding spell would probably work the best to keep Reese away from her—unfortunately it would work too well. It would force him to stay at least one hundred yards away from her at all times—kind of like a magical restraining order. That would be awkward if she was staying in the same house with him and also, Jo felt it would be rude. Kind of like saying she didn’t trust him any further than she could throw him. No, the binding spell was definitely a better option.

  Thumbing carefully through the book with its cracked leather binding, she came to the spell she wanted—the binding of male to female. Of course, she wanted to bind Reese away from her—to stop him from touching her—but the spell would work for that as well—she only needed to reverse some of the wording. But . . . Jo frowned as she read over the instructions for how to work the magic.

  “Crap,” she muttered. “I can’t believe this! Seriously?”

  “Hi,” a deep male voice said from behind her. “Is everything okay?”

  “Oh!” Jo gasped and turned around, her athame gripped tightly in one fist.

  Reese was standing there, wearing jeans and a light blue t-shirt. He put up both hands in a ‘don’t shoot’ gesture.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. I just—” He stopped abruptly, his entire big body stiffening like a hound on point. His eyes went wide and his nostrils flared, as though he was catching some strange scent on the evening breeze.

  “Reese?” She kept a tight grip on her athame and tucked the book of shadows under her arm. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, I . . . did you . . . did you take a . . . a bath?” he asked at last in a strangled voice.

  “Well . . . yes.” Jo wondered if he was angry. “You told me to make myself at home and I hadn’t had a chance to get clean in two weeks. I’m sorry about your shirt,” she added hastily, plucking at the dark blue fabric with the hand not holding the athame. “But all my clothes are dirty. I promise I’ll wash it and iron it and—”

  “No . . . no, it’s okay.” Reese gave a forced-sounding laugh and took a step back from her. “Keep the shirt—it’s fine, really.”

  “Are you sure?” Jo raised her eyebrows at him.

  “Sure I’m sure.” He cleared his throat. “I’m, um, glad to see you’re getting comfortable.”

  “I appreciate that,” Jo said sincerely. “I was, uh, just about to call the circle.”

  “Call . . . call the circle?”

  “It’s the start of most Wiccan spells,” Jo explained.

  “Okay. Um . . .” He coughed. “Excuse me. I need glass of water before we, uh, get started.”

  “Sure.” Jo nodded. “And while you’re in there, I need some wine. Do you have any?”

  “Wine?” He frowned. “Not much of a wine drinker myself—beer is more my style. But I might have some. Let me go see.” And he fled into the house, almost stumbling in his haste to get through the backdoor into the kitchen.

  Jo frowned as she watched him go. What had that been all about? He’d seemed perfectly fine when he first walked up behind her and then he had become . . . flustered somehow. But why?

  She didn’t know and anyway, she was more concerned with getting this spell right. Looking at Miranda’s Book of Shadows again, she frowned.

  This was going to be more complicated than she’d thought.

  * * *

  Reese nearly ran in the kitchen and grabbed the edge of the countertop with both hands, squeezing so tightly his knuckles turned white.

  Her scent! Oh God, her scent!

  Now he understood what his Fox found so damn attractive about the little red-haired witch. She was a Juvie—a Rejuvenated female.

  A woman could be born with the Shifter Gene, but it would be dormant all her life as long as she had a man who claimed her and made love to her regularly. But once she reached her forties or fifties, the age of Rejuvenation, if she had no mate or if her mate had neglected her sexually for at least six months, the hormonal changes would start.

  Her body would return to the physical state she’d been in during her early twenties and a state of hyper-fertility would be induced. And since Lady Moon wanted to ensure that there were always more Shifter babies to continue the race she had created, the newly Rejuvenated female would start emitting a Juvie scent that was like pure sex—a siren call to any male Shifter in her immediate vicinity to mate and breed her.

  That was the scent that Jo was putting out right now—Reese couldn’t understand how he’d missed it earlier. Maybe it had to do with the strange, gray dust she’d smeared all over her skin—it had acted as some kind of camouflage and masked her Juvie scent. But the gray dust was gone now and Jo smelled like a female in heat, ripe and ready to be mated and bred. Ready to be claimed by an Alpha who wanted to fill her belly with his babies.

  Get a grip on yourself. Reese told himself angrily. He looked down at the hard bulge in his jeans—his cock was standing at attention and throbbing with need. You have to get control. You can’t go out there like this—you’ll freak her out and scare her off!

  He also couldn’t tell her what she wa
s—not yet, anyway. It was clear to him that Jo had no idea she had the Shifter Gene. Hell, she hadn’t even known what Shifters were—she’d thought they were Skin Walkers before he’d told her otherwise. And right now, when she was about to cast the spell, was not the time to start laying out revelations. Especially when the revelation was, ‘Hey, did you know you’re a Shifter female and you’re going to need sex from a Shifter male really soon and oh, hey look—I just happen to be a Shifter male, how can I be of service?’

  Reese winced. That made him sound like an opportunistic bastard. No, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t tell her.

  Just get through this, he told himself. Get through tonight and tomorrow you can ask her to go see Fiona with you, like Keller suggested. Fiona can explain everything.

  It was a good plan—much better than the one his Fox suggested, which was that they go and claim their mate this very instant.

  We have to take it easy, he told his other half. She’s been hurt before—we can’t scare her off.

  Taking a deep breath, he straightened up and began hunting in the cabinets for the bottle of wine Jo had asked for. Everything would be all right—he would keep his distance, keep his hands to himself, and try to hold his breath when the wind was blowing her scent in his direction. They would get a good night’s sleep in separate rooms and tomorrow he would take Jo straight to Fiona.

  Everything was going to be fine, just perfectly fine . . . he hoped.

  Chapter Five

  “Okay, this is a little awkward, but . . .” Jo took a deep breath and looked at Reese. He was shifting uncomfortably just outside the circle she’d drawn using handfuls of the sea salt she’d brought with her.

  “But?” he echoed.

  “I, um, for this ritual to be effective, I need to do it sky-clad.”

  “Sky-clad?” He shook his head, not understanding.

  Jo bit her lip. “Naked,” she said in a low voice. “The spell requires that I cast it naked.”

  “Um . . .” He shifted again and frowned. “Why?”

  “It’s about getting closer to nature to draw the necessary power for your spell to you. Look . . .” Jo stepped closer to the edge of the circle she was standing within and showed him Miranda’s book of shadows.

  Reese immediately took a step back, as though he was trying to put distance between them.

  Jo frowned. It wasn’t like she was naked yet. She was still wearing his dark blue shirt—she wouldn’t take it off until it was absolutely necessary.

  “It’s all right,” she told him. “I haven’t called the circle yet—you can come a little closer. I just wanted to show you the spell and try to explain a little bit. See?” She held up the book of shadows.

  Reese stepped closer again, reluctantly, she thought.

  “What’s that?” he asked. “Some kind of cookbook for all your spells?”

  “That’s exactly what it is. It’s a book of shadows, which is like a recipe book for spells. Every witch keeps one of her own—a kind of magical diary and how-to book. This one belonged to my mentor, Miranda. She . . . she’s gone now but she left it to me.”

  She blinked back sudden tears, overcome as she often was by her mentor’s loss. Miranda had been so wise and patient. Jo had felt lost since her death a year ago.

  “Hey . . .” Some of Reese’s unease seemed to fade and his brown eyes filled with compassion. “You really miss her, don’t you?”

  Jo nodded. “She helped me through a really hard time in my life. I don’t think . . . don’t think I’d be alive today if she hadn’t.”

  “Sounds like a special lady,” Reese remarked gently.

  “She was.” Jo nodded. “She was the closest thing I had to a mom, since my own mom died so young. Anyway . . .” She brushed tears from her eyes with the back of one hand. “I found this spell in her book of shadows and I think it’s as close to a sexual binding as I’m going to get.”

  “Hmm . . .” Reese was reading from the book now, his eyes flicking rapidly over Miranda’s thin, spidery script. “My breasts shall you cup . . . my thighs shall you part . . .” He cleared his throat and looked at Jo. “Uh, excuse me for saying so, darlin’, but this doesn’t exactly sound like a spell for keeping a man away from you.”

  “It’s actually a spell to bind a man to you sexually,” Jo explained, feeling her cheeks getting hot. Why had she showed him the book of shadows? But she’d felt compelled to explain what was going to happen, lest he get the wrong idea. Which, from the look on his face, he already was.

  “But . . .” Reese shook his head. “I thought you wanted to bind me away from you—to keep me from touching you.”

  “I do but there’s no specific spell for a sexual distancing in the book,” Jo explained. “So I’m going to improvise. I’ll conduct the spell as it is written in the book and then, after I’ve sealed it with a sip of the herbed wine . . .” She held up the chalice she’d filled halfway with the red wine he’d given her and added a sprinkle of the dried herbs she’d gotten from one of her storage pouches. “After that I’ll say the words, ‘All shall be opposite to what I have told, so the sun shall be silver and the moon shall be gold. The night shall be day and the day shall be night and never upon me thy hands shall alight.’”

  “Um . . . okay. So you do the whole spell and then tack on the opposite thing on the end to reverse its intention?” Reese raised an eyebrow at her. “And what are the herbs you put in the wine?” he asked.

  “Let’s see . . . Yerba Mate for faithfulness, Violet for love, lust, and luck, and Holy Thistle for purification and protection.”

  “That still sounds like you’re binding someone to you—is this spell actually a love charm?”

  “It’s a sexual fidelity spell,” Jo admitted. “But since I’ll be reversing it—”

  “It won’t make me want to run out and, uh, get with a bunch of strange women, will it?” he demanded. “Because I don’t want that. I’m not that kind of guy.”

  “No, no,” Jo assured him quickly. “It will just keep you from, uh, wanting to get with me—that’s all.” She could feel her cheeks heating. “Goddess, saying that out loud makes me sound kind of conceited—here I am working an entire ritual just to—”

  “Make yourself feel safe,” Reese finished for her. “It’s all right, Jo—I understand why you need to do it. I just want to be sure it doesn’t have any weird side effects.”

  “It shouldn’t do anything but keep you from touching me sexually,” Jo assured him.

  “Well then . . . guess you’d better get started. Oh, one more question though—is it reversible?”

  She opened her mouth to ask why she would want to reverse it . . . but found herself answering instead.

  “It is but I’d have to find the right herbs to counteract the ones I used in the wine.”

  “You don’t have them with you in your pack?” He looked at all the implements she’d laid out inside the circle. “You seem to have everything else.”

  “I’d have to look,” Jo said. “But multiple herbs have multiple uses. Look . . .” She gazed at him earnestly. “I don’t want you to worry about me casting a malicious spell on you—I only work white magic and I live by the rule of three.”

  “The rule of three? What’s that?” Reese frowned.

  “It was the first thing my mentor, Miranda, ever taught me about being a witch.” Jo closed her eyes and recited. “Bide the Wiccan law ye must, in perfect love and perfect trust. Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill: An ye harm none, do as ye will. What ye send forth comes back to ye, so ever mind the Law of Three. Follow this with mind and heart, merry ye meet and merry part.”

  “So . . . anything you do to me comes back to you times three?” Reese asked.

  “Exactly. So you can feel comfortable knowing I wouldn’t try to hurt you—I’d be hurting myself three times as badly if I did,” Jo explained.

  “Okay.” He nodded. “Thanks—that does make me feel better, actually.”

  “Good. Then I
’d better get started—the sun is beginning to set.”

  Jo looked up to where the sun was sinking behind the mountains, darkening the woods beyond Reese’s backyard and shivered a little. She was fairly certain the shadow creature couldn’t pass the barrier from the wilds onto tilled soil—a place settled and civilized by people—but she would just as soon get this spell over and done with so she could go inside and feel comfortable and safe.

  “You okay?” Reese asked her.

  “Hmm?” Jo dragged her attention from the woods to see that he was looking at her with concern.

  “The woods—you keep staring like you expect to see a monster out there.” He nodded at the pines and maples that edged the border of the forest.

  His words were so astute they sent a shiver down Jo’s back. She had to fight to keep from wrapping her arms around herself and shaking with fear.

  “I’m fine,” she whispered, not liking how thin and frightened her voice sounded. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I just . . . don’t like the woods at night. That’s all.”

  That was an understatement but it was all she was prepared to say—at least for now. She took a deep breath. It was time to get the ritual started, before complete darkness fell.

  Walking to the center of the circle, she unbuttoned the dark blue shirt and let it fall to her feet. She kicked it to the edge of the circle and raised her arms above her head, ignoring the low, hoarse noise she heard from Reese. Let him look—in a moment he wouldn’t want to touch her even if she walked around naked all day. She would be perfectly safe in his house no matter what.

  A little voice whispered in her head that she would probably be perfectly safe with him even without the spell. He truly was a nice guy—his aura, his house, and especially his Fox said so. But with the horrors in her past, she just couldn’t be sure. She needed to feel not just mostly safe, but completely safe. It was the only way she could spend the night in the house of a strange man—even a man she was beginning to like very much.