The Bunny in the Fox's Palm novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: What Came to the Door

Hazel lets the shaking fox in and finds Soren naked on her floor at dawn; Fenella warns her about the uncle, and a tray of tea arrives that smells of foxglove.

Every bone in my body said run.

I am a rabbit.

A fox on the floor is the oldest story I know, and my legs had already started to bunch.

The fox lifted its head and looked at me with those rolled, swimming yellow eyes.

It did not lunge.

It made a thin high sound in its throat, the sound a dog makes when it has been kicked, and its whole body shook.

I did not run.

I would like to say I was brave.

The truth is, I saw the gauze on its paw and thought, I put that there.

"Okay," I said, very quietly. "Okay. Come in, then."

I stepped back from the door.

The fox dragged itself over the threshold on its belly.

I shut the door behind it and shot the bolt, and the sound was loud as a gunshot.

It flinched at the sound and bared its teeth at nothing.

"Hey. Hey, look at me."

I sat down on the rug with my back to the bed, three feet away.

My heart was thudding hard enough to shake my ribs.

The fox heard it.

I watched its ears turn.

They swiveled toward my chest, and the shaking in its flanks slowed by a hair.

So I held still and let my heart do the talking.

It took a long time.

The fox crept toward me an inch at a time, and the smell of cold pine and woodsmoke got stronger.

It stopped with its muzzle against my knee.

I was shaking worse than it was.

Slowly, slowly, I laid my hand on its ribs.

The fur was hot and damp, and under it a heart was running.

"There," I said. "There. I've got you."

I don't know why I said it.

He had sold me to the Council in all but name, and he'd stood there and let his uncle smile.

But the heart under my palm began to slow.

It slowed to match mine, a beat at a time, and when the fox finally laid its head across my lap and went limp, my own chest loosened at last.

I fell asleep sitting up, with my hand in his fur.

I woke with a crick in my neck and light on the floorboards.

A man's head was in my lap.

Red hair, a pale scar through one eyebrow, and the long back of a naked man curled against my legs.

I did not scream.

I want that on the record.

I made a noise and kicked the blanket off the bed onto him in one move.

Soren MacMahon woke all at once.

He saw where he was, and what he was, and went white under the scar.

"Don't," he said. "Don't say a word."

He snatched the blanket around his hips and backed into the wall.

His bandaged hand left a pink smear on the plaster.

"You came to my door," I said.

"I did not."

"You scratched. You whimpered. You put your face in my lap."

"That is a lie."

"I still have fur on my skirt."

He looked at my skirt.

He closed his eyes.

"It happens," he said, so low I almost missed it. "Sometimes. In the night."

"Since when?"

"Four years."

"Does anyone know?"

"No one." His amber eyes opened and held mine. "And no one will."

I should have felt afraid of the way he said it.

Instead I thought of the pale, shaking creature on my floor, and I felt something I couldn't afford to feel.

"Then I'll make you a trade," I said.

His brows came together.

"I'll keep your secret," I said. "You tell me what it is."

"I don't know what it is."

"Then you tell me every time it happens. And you stay out of my room unless I open the door."

"You're giving me orders in my own house?"

"I'm giving you terms. It's a custom."

Something happened to his mouth.

It was not a smile, but it was in the family.

"Fine," he said. "Done."

A soft knock came at the door.

We both froze.

"It's Fenella," a low voice said. "Please. I have a tray."

I looked at Soren.

He looked at the window, which was three stories up, then at the blanket, then at me.

I pulled the door open.

Fenella stood there with a covered tray in her hands.

She looked at Soren, wrapped in a bed blanket, with sleep creases down his face.

She looked at me.

She looked at the floor, with great care, for about five seconds.

"I didn't see anything," she said. "I'll take the long way back."

Soren walked out past her with as much dignity as a man can have in a quilt.

Fenella waited until his bare feet had gone around the corner.

Then she set the tray on my bed and lifted the lid.

There was a pot of tea, a plate of toast, and a card in a flowing hand.

For the nerves. Welcome to our family. L.H.

Fenella bent over the pot and breathed in.

Her face went still.

"Don't drink this," she said.

"It smells like mint."

"There's mint in it." She lowered her voice. "There's foxglove under the mint."

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