Fox Spirit Vows

Her gaze flicked over him. She was beautiful in a way that made the market seem suddenly cheap and bright around her. Her eyes were dark, but a thin amber ring glimmered around each pupil.

“You should not have followed me.”

“That makes two of us.”

Footsteps splashed at the mouth of the passage.

She rose too quickly and swayed. Lin reached for her elbow. Her sleeve was cold beneath his fingers, colder than the rain.

“Don’t touch me,” she whispered.

He released her at once. “Fine. But if you fall, I’m still going to catch you.”

Something changed in her expression. Surprise, perhaps. Or irritation at finding his answer difficult to dismiss.

The men entered the passage.

“There!” one shouted. “The fox woman!”

The woman flinched.

Lin stepped in front of her. “She went toward the river,” he said.

The nearest man grabbed his jacket. “Move.”

Lin smelled alcohol on his breath. Behind him, the woman made a small sound, almost inaudible. Not a plea. A warning.

Lin pulled free. “I said she went toward the river.”

The man raised his hand.

Before it struck, the woman seized Lin’s wrist.

Heat flashed through him. The alley vanished beneath a rush of white light. For half a second, he saw a vast red moon, snow falling over a forest, and nine pale tails sweeping through the dark.

The man’s hand stopped inches from Lin’s face. His eyes went blank.

“Go home,” the woman said.

Her voice was soft, but it carried through the rain like a bell.

The men turned and walked away. One stepped directly into a stack of crates, knocked them over, and did not seem to notice.

Lin stared after them. “What did you do?”

She let go of him. A faint tremor passed through her fingers.

“Nothing you need to understand.”

“That was not nothing.”

“You wanted them gone.”

“I wanted you safe.”

The words came out before he could soften them.

She looked at him then, truly looked. Rainwater traced the line of her jaw. Her lips parted, but no answer came.

A shout rose from the market entrance. More footsteps. More than three this time.

Her face tightened. “They have found us again.”

“Who are they?”

“People who believe I belong to them.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the only one you can afford.”

She turned toward the deeper alley. Lin caught sight of blood on her pale coat, a narrow stain spreading beneath her ribs.

“You’re hurt.”

“I can walk.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

Her eyes flashed amber again. “And I did not ask you to save me.”

“No,” Lin said. “You only ran into the one place in Shanghai where a stranger might be stupid enough to try.”

For the first time, her mouth curved. It was not quite a smile, but it weakened him more effectively than one.

The market pressed around them as they emerged from the passage. Neon signs buzzed overhead. Scooters nosed through the crowd, their mirrors grazing shoulders. A child cried near a candy stall while two tourists argued over a string of counterfeit handbags.

Lin took off his jacket and held it out.

She stared at it.

“If you’re bleeding,” he said, “people will notice.”

“I am not cold.”

“I am not offering it because you’re cold.”

The hesitation that followed was strangely intimate. Finally, she accepted the jacket. Her fingers brushed his palm, and the cold in them seemed to sink through his skin.

She pulled it around herself.

The scent of rain and something faintly sweet - plum blossom, perhaps - rose between them.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“Somewhere they can’t see you.”

“You have such a place?”

“I have a rented room with one broken lock and a landlord who thinks I’m still twenty-two. It’s not impressive, but it’s private.”

“You invite strange women home often?”

“Only the ones being hunted through food stalls.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You make jokes when you are afraid.”

Lin glanced at her. “You give orders when you are afraid.”

They walked shoulder to shoulder, though she kept half a step away. He guided her around puddles and through the thickest parts of the crowd. Twice, she caught his sleeve before he could turn down an alley. Twice, she seemed to sense something he could not.

The third time, a black sedan crawled past the market entrance.

She stopped.

The headlights washed over the wet pavement. Inside the car, a man in a gray suit lifted his face toward them.

The fox spirit pressed close to Lin.

Her hand slid beneath his, palm against palm.

“Do not look at him,” she breathed.

Lin felt her nails against his skin. “You’re asking a lot from someone who still doesn’t know your name.”

“Then call me Yue.”

“Is that your name?”

“It is the name I am giving you.”

“And what do I get for trusting it?”

“Nothing.”

The sedan rolled forward.

Yue’s grip tightened. A sharp pain struck Lin’s chest. He staggered, and she turned toward him, alarm breaking through her guarded expression.

“Lin Qiang,” she whispered.

He had not told her his name.

The car’s engine growled. The man in gray stepped out.

Yue shoved Lin behind her.

The movement was so sudden that he nearly laughed from disbelief. She was bleeding, being hunted, and still placed herself between him and danger.

“Stay behind me,” she said.

“You can barely stand.”

“I can stand long enough.”

The man in gray lifted a small black object. It looked like a phone, except its screen showed no light. The market noise thinned around them. Voices blurred. Rain seemed to stop in midair.

Yue’s face went white.

Lin saw the fear she had hidden from him.

Not fear for herself.

For him.

She pressed her hand against his chest. “When I tell you to run, run.”

“What is that thing?”

“A binding token.”

“What does it bind?”

Her eyes met his. “Anyone who helps me.”

The device clicked.

Pain tore through Lin’s wrist. A red mark appeared beneath his skin, curling like a thin thread around his pulse.

Yue cried out and seized his hand.

The mark stopped spreading.

The man in gray smiled. “Too late. The vow has recognized him.”

Yue pulled Lin toward a side street. “Now.”

They ran.

The market became a maze of umbrellas, carts, hanging laundry, and slick stone. Lin’s lungs burned. Yue stumbled twice, but each time she recovered before he could catch her. Behind them, the man shouted. The black device clicked again, and every red lantern along the alley went dark.

In the sudden darkness, Lin lost his footing.

Yue twisted back and threw herself against him. Something struck the wall where his head had been. Stone cracked.

She held him upright, her body pressed to his, breath hot against his cheek.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“I’m fine.”

“Lin.”

His name in her mouth sounded less like a question than a promise she had not meant to make.

He touched her face. “I’m fine.”

For a moment, neither of them moved. Rain ticked against the awnings. Her wet hair brushed his knuckles. He could feel the tremor running through her.

“You protected me,” he said.

“I protected what was mine to protect.”

“I’m not yours.”

“No.” Her gaze dropped to his mouth, then lifted again. “Not yet.”

The words struck deeper than the pain in his wrist.

A siren wailed somewhere beyond the market. The man in gray cursed. Yue pulled Lin through a half-open metal gate and into the back courtyard of an abandoned theater. They crouched behind a delivery truck while footsteps passed on the other side.

Lin’s hand was still in hers.

When the footsteps faded, he whispered, “Tell me what’s happening.”

She closed her eyes.

“I am a fox spirit,” she said. “I have lived among humans for a very long time. I have survived by keeping my promises and avoiding theirs.”

Lin looked at her pointed ears, which had appeared through her wet hair. Behind her, nine pale tails unfolded silently, trembling in the darkness.

His breath caught.

She watched his face, waiting for disgust.

Instead, he reached toward one of the tails, then stopped. “May I?”

Her expression broke open with something painfully young.

After a moment, she nodded.

The fur was softer than silk. Warm now, unlike her hands.

Yue lowered her gaze. “The people chasing me belong to an old household. My mother made a bargain with them before I was born. A fox spirit would guard their bloodline, and in return they would shelter us. The bargain was written as a marriage vow.”

Lin’s fingers stilled.

“Your mother married one of them?”

“No. She escaped.” Yue swallowed. “The vow passed to me.”

“And they want to force you into it?”

“They want to collect what they believe they are owed.”

The red mark around Lin’s wrist pulsed.

Yue looked at it with tears shining in her eyes.

“When you stepped between us,” she said, “the vow changed.”

“How?”

“It chose you as my escort.”

“That sounds less romantic than you think.”

“I am not trying to be romantic.”

“Then why are you crying?”

She wiped her cheek quickly, almost angrily. “Because if you take me beyond this gate, the vow will bind your fate to mine.”

Lin looked toward the street. The men were searching the next alley. His rented room was still several blocks away. He could walk out now, leave her in the courtyard, call the police, pretend the fox tails and impossible light had been a fever.

Instead, he looked at her hand in his.

“What happens if I don’t?”

“They will find me.”

“And you?”

“I will be taken.”

The answer was quiet. Certain.

Lin thought of her standing between him and the blow. Of her cold fingers closing around his wrist. Of the way she had asked whether he was hurt, as if his pain mattered more than her own.

He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles.

Yue went still.

“I don’t understand your world,” he said. “I don’t trust your vow. I don’t even know if Yue is your real name.”

“It is not.”

“But I know you saved me.”

Her lashes trembled.

“And I know I’m not leaving you here.”

He stepped through the gate, pulling her with him.

The red mark burned once, then settled into the shape of a ring around his wrist.

Yue stared at it. Tears slipped down her face without sound.

“Lin Qiang,” she whispered, “you have just promised to walk beside me until one of us dies.”

He looked at the darkness ahead, then back at her.

“Then you’d better tell me,” he said, “what I’m supposed to call the woman I might die for.”

For a long moment, she did not answer.

Then she leaned close, her lips brushing his ear.

“My true name,” she said, “is the name a husband is meant to discover only after the wedding.”

The vow tightened between their joined hands.

Somewhere behind them, the men began shouting again.

End of chapter one. 4 more chapters in the full book.