Inviting the Sinner Home

I watched a flake of my own skin turn to white ash and wash down the drain.

Another cluster of ghostly blue sparks erupted under the flesh of my left wrist.

Fox fire.

I clamped my right hand over it, digging my nails into the agonizing burn until the glow smothered out.

My bloodline was ancient. A Kitsune exiled from the East, surviving in New York.

Every twenty years, the cycle demanded a soul replacement.

We didn't take normal lives.

To survive and grow a new tail, the body required a sacrifice soaked in pure, unapologetic sin.

My time was running out. Ten days. If I didn’t feed by then, the fire would consume my nervous system entirely.

I needed a monster. Fast.

An hour later, Julian sat across his heavy glass desk, adjusting his cuffs.

"A remarkable piece, Miss Vance," he said.

He was the city’s premier art appraiser. Tailored charcoal suit and soft eyes.

He lowered his jeweler's loupe and placed my fabricated family antique carefully on the velvet mat.

"A girl as young as you shouldn't carry such oppressive debt alone. The creditors are threatening you, I assume?"

"I have nowhere else to turn," I whispered.

I pulled my shoulders inward, letting a single tear slip down my cheek.

"Hey," Julian’s voice went incredibly soft. He stood up, walked around the desk, and gently handed me a handkerchief. "You don't need to be afraid anymore. I'm going to help you."

He smiled. It was the kind of smile that made you feel completely safe.

That was when the smell hit me.

Beneath his expensive, woodsy cologne, a heavy metallic stench crawled straight into my sinuses.

Blood. Fresh blood. A woman's.

My empty stomach clenched. The hunger tore at my ribs into a violent, physical cramp.

I pressed the handkerchief to my face to hide my reaction.

For the next week, he proved just how perfect he could be.

He didn't push boundaries. He opened car doors and pulled out my chair. When a sudden downpour caught us outside a restaurant on Tuesday, he held his umbrella entirely over me, letting the rain ruin the shoulder of his three-thousand-dollar suit just so my hair would stay dry.

On Thursday, a homeless man shivered outside a Chelsea gallery, sitting beside a stack of amateur water-damaged canvases.

Julian stopped walking. He crouched down in the freezing wind, so he was at eye-level with the man. He pulled a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills from his money clip and pressed it into the man's frozen hands.

"Don't stop painting," Julian murmured.

When he stood back up, his eyes were genuinely wet. "Their talent is eaten alive by starvation. It’s simply unbearable."

He looked so incredibly kind. If my sinuses weren't filled with the sickening stench of copper and butchery, I would have fallen in love with him right there on the sidewalk.

Under my coat, a new patch of blue sparks gnawed at my ribs. I smiled at him, swallowing down the blinding pain.

Night seven.

We sat in a private, heavily soundproofed VIP booth above the city. The jazz music outside was entirely muted.

Julian slid a crystal tumbler across the dark leather table.

"To your debts." He raised his own glass, looking me dead in the eyes with absolute warmth. "I bypassed the auction house and secured a private buyer. Your slate is clean. You are entirely free."

"Julian... I don't know what to say." I picked up the glass.

My hand was shaking—mostly from the fox fire burning my nerves, but it looked like gratitude.

"Drink." He clinked his glass against mine. "Tonight, I will show you true art."

I tipped my head back and swallowed the dark liquor.

Three seconds.

The glass slipped through my fingers. It hit the heavy carpet without breaking. The city lights outside the window smeared into jagged neon streaks. The muscles in my neck failed. I slumped back into the corner of the booth.

Julian didn't rush to catch me.

He calmly placed his drink on the table and then he pulled out the phone.

"Bring the truck around to the freight elevator."

Total darkness.

The aggressive reek of industrial bleach and formalin choked my lungs.

I couldn't move. Heavy nylon belts bit deeply into my wrists and ankles.

A thick layer of moisture-barrier plastic wrapped tightly around my torso, pinning my arms. Wide medical tape sealed my mouth shut.

The metal floor vibrated with the steady drone of a heavy-duty engine. A refrigerated transport truck.

Voices drifted through the air vent from the driver's cab.

"Supply is never an issue," Julian's voice came through the speaker. "I told you I found a perfect material. Total isolation. Sinking in debt."

"The Russian buyer specifically requested a young, live prep," Julian’s tone turned heavy with naked greed. "With this bone structure, I am billing him two million. Wire the deposit before I make the first incision."

The tires crunched over rough gravel. The engine died.

Freezing wind tore into the cargo hold as the heavy rear doors swung open. The scent of pine needles and damp earth pushed through the bleach.

Adirondack mountains. Miles from anyone.

Julian climbed into the back.

He snapped a pair of crisp white surgical gloves over his wrists. He grabbed my jaw and ripped the tape off my mouth.

"Julian... please," I choked out, forcing hot tears to spill over my cheeks. "Just let me go."

"Let you go?"

He crouched. He scraped his gloved thumb hard against my cheek.

"Why would I throw away a masterpiece?" He reached to his belt and pulled out a heavy-duty skinning knife. "Soon, you will be the most beautiful live specimen in a billionaire's living room."