Fox Chance in Hell (Misfit Shifters Book 3) Read online

  Fox Chance in Hell

  Misfit Shifters, Book 3

  Rae Foxx

  Text Copyright ©2020 by Rae Foxx

  The Series, characters, names, and related indicia are trademarks and © Rae Foxx.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Published by Market Street Books

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For Information regarding permission, write to:

  Rae Foxx at [email protected]

  Production Management by Market Street Books

  Printed in USA

  This Edition, May 2020

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Afterword

  Also by Rae Foxx

  Join Me Online!

  About the Author

  1

  I flung open the door to the Vagile Ajna with a little more force than necessary. Okay, a lot more force than necessary, but I had murder on my mind.

  And not the kind I’ve witnessed. The kind I was about to commit.

  I needed to find Poetry. She had said that something bad was going to happen. She knew all hell was going to break loose. She knew that some motherfucker thought it would be a good idea to fuck with my mate and go and kidnap him. She knew, and she was going to admit it and then I had every intention of strangling her with my bare fucking hands.

  Lucky for me, the Vagile Ajna was not empty.

  Poetry gasped and reached for a flowered sheet to her left, quickly tossing it over the shrine of her favorite wolf, Taylor Lautner, embarrassed that I’d caught her once again worshipping his abs. She was in her nightgown, sheer and lavender colored.

  At least she wasn’t chanting and sobbing over his abs this time.

  I stopped dead in my tracks, blinking at the bit of Lautner abs that she hadn’t quite covered when Evan slammed into my back. He’d been on my heels all morning, not that I blamed him. We had lost Owen and he sure as shit wasn’t going to lose me.

  I wasn’t going to lose him, either.

  “Scarlet,” Poetry gasped like an old lady in church, pressing a hand to her chest. “How did the stake-out go?”

  The stake out?

  She said it like it was nothing.

  “Remember the death Tarot card?” She nodded but her brow drew down. “It should’ve been a kidnapper card. But you already knew that, didn’t you? You and…” I moved my finger up and down, motioning to how she was dressed. “And that fucking nightgown. You’re not fooling me for a fucking second.”

  Fuck, that didn’t even make sense to me. How would a nightgown know about a murder? Poetry looked just as confused, her withering church lady face sliding, because that didn’t make her look less guilty.

  Screw this! I was no longer leaving any stone unturned until I found my mate. Everyone with a heartbeat was a fucking suspect in my brain.

  “Speak plainly, Scarlet. I don’t understand,” was all Poetry responded with. It took everything in my power not to reply with a snarky ‘Join the club. We have jackets,’ and they say, ‘We don’t understand a fucking word Poetry says’. I barely kept the words inside.

  “Owen was taken last night. We don't know who and we don't know how,” Evan explained as his hand tightened around mine, his voice more grim than I’d ever heard it before.

  I was shaking as I stepped forward and scanned my aunt with a new suspicion.

  “Owen was… oh my… and Dawn?”

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t know!” My volcano of pain was officially erupting. “Out with it, Poetry. What’s your role in this? Where’s my mate? What have you done?”

  As I spewed the sentences, my voice rose an octave with each word until I was yelling. I’d wrenched my hand from Evan’s grasp and now both hands flexed at my sides, ready to ball up and clock whomever I needed to—whoever was in between me and Owen.

  “My dear girl, you must be in anguish.” Poetry approached me, coming around the counter to cup my face with her soft hands. I dodged, but the ab worshiper was fast, her warm hands holding me in place as she stared into me.

  She didn’t even seem bothered by my accusations. She just pressed her lips together, nostrils flaring as she looked deeply into my eyes. Like she was trying to read my mind, fuck that! I looked around, choosing to focus on the eighty-thousand scarves wrapped around her neck. Flowery pajamas, flowery quilted robes, and scarves.

  The wardrobe of a killer.

  If she was involved, those scarves would be the last things she laid eyes on as I choked her with them.

  “Look at you. Your eyes are red. Your face is pale. You’re a mess. I would be too. Come, let’s get you some…”

  I didn’t allow her to finish the sentence. This woman and her fucking tea. All the time with the fucking tea.

  “Tea won’t fix this,” I spat at her shaking as I pulled away from those freakishly warm hands. “Where were you all night, hmmm? Why did you do this to him? Just tell me where he is. I’ll deal with you later. Just tell me!”

  I was growing hysterical, but couldn’t stop the stream of words as they flew out of my mouth, the blood vessels in my face pounding as rage consumed me. I wasn’t even sure I was thinking straight, but my anger demanded I find the culprit, whoever in the fuck that may be.

  “Scarlet, please talk me through this. I don’t understand…”

  I couldn't let her talk for long, because she would do that thing where she talked in circles, or maybe played the part of the clairvoyant who knew things she shouldn’t. It was all bullshit. It was all a grand cover for her and whoever had taken my mate.

  “No, no more talking. Just confess already!” She closed her eyes as I continued to barrage her with shouting.

  “Which one is it, dear? Do you want me to talk or not?” She was way too calm about this whole thing. She didn’t fucking get it. Owen was gone. Disappeared. Missing. I wouldn’t say the other words that he might be, but the thought niggled at the back of my brain and threatened to come out of my mouth. There was no way I was allowing that to happen.

  “Don’t be a smartass, Poetry. It doesn’t really go with the hippie motif,” Evan chimed in, pulling me into him, guess he wasn’t quite as ready for a fight as I was.

  “You know where he is! I know you do. Tell me where you were and who was helping you. Who helped you take him from me!” Angry tears, the worst kind of tears in my opinion, came streaming down my face and I reached to violently swipe them away. As I spoke, I lurched at my Aunt, trying to get in her face, trying to force the truth from her, but Evan had a fucking hold on my waist and wouldn’t let me at her.

  If he had, my fox would’ve clawed her fucking face off. That’s how sure I was that I was right.

  “Let go, Evan!” I reached down and tried to release his hold on me, prying him away, finger by finger, but every time I released one, he would clamp down with the others. At one time, I’d appreciated his strength, but now it was simply pissing me off.

  “Scarlet, let ‘s think this through. We’re all
upset.”

  He did not just say upset. “No, Evan! I’m upset sometimes when I don’t have coffee. I’m upset that you don’t replace the toilet paper roll in the bathroom. This is not upset. This is...This is…” I broke off, unable to voice my swirling thoughts.

  That’s when all hell broke loose inside me. If I thought it had before, I was wrong. Embers burned inside my chest and flowed like little fires through my cells.

  Poetry just smiled.

  She fucking smiled at me like something was funny about my mate being taken.

  “All will be revealed. We must be patient,” she said, and red clouded my vision.

  As I reached for the woman’s salt and pepper braids, intertwined with ribbons and God knew what else, my fox perked up. Wulf and Travis had come in but I had no time for them.

  Switching from grabbing to open-palms, I pushed as hard as I could against her chest. I screamed out as her body flew backward, the look on her face something between disbelief and shock as she fell, back first, into the shelves that lined the back wall. Every glass dildo that had been displayed on the shelves came tumbling down around her like cock-shaped hail falling from the heavens. She raised her arms and shielded her face and head from the onslaught.

  “Sparrows into the light, the diamonds shall weep,” she muttered as I heaved breaths in and out.

  “Oh no, no more of her garbled future-spouting shit. Not today.” I lunged for her, my fingers shifting into claws as they zeroed in on the pulse at her neck.

  Right before I made contact, two strong arms wrapped around my waist and heaved my entire body backward as though I was one of those adrenaline junkies and the bungee cord had reached its full extension and wrenched me backward.

  “Wulf, let me go, you fucking asshole!” I wailed at the top of my lungs, beating my fists against the hold he had on me while simultaneously kicking and bucking my body. Anything to get at Poetry and her lying ass. “Don’t make me rip your dick off!”

  He was in my fucking way and anyone in the way of getting Owen back was dead to me—mate or not.

  “Hold her arms behind her,” Travis barked at Wulf after making sure that the lying bitch in the nightgown was okay. Yeah, she was okay, but only for the three goddamned seconds until I got my hands on her.

  “No!” I screamed as Wulf held me at a distance, and as he kept his large fists wrapped around my wrists, I suddenly heard the metallic clanging sound of handcuffs being opened.

  I whirled on my police chief mate, “I’ll never fucking forgive you for this!” I screamed over my shoulder; my murderous intentions now set on Travis as he handcuffed me. He only handcuffed one hand, then had Wulf carry me to where the counter bolted into the ground. Wulf forced me to sit down while Travis hooked the other handcuff to the pipe that held up the counter.

  “You’re both fucking traitors. I can’t believe I ever let you touch me. You don’t know the goddamned meaning of mates. I’ll never let you fuck me again!” I wrenched and jerked against the one handcuff, feeling like a dog on one of those spikes hammered into the ground, chomping and snarling to be released.

  “Scarlet, this is assault. I’m not going to stand around and watch you assault someone in my town.”

  The raw anger that spindled through me at his words made me jerk uncontrollably against him. “Oh, but you’ll just fucking stand around while someone takes my mate! Good job, you fucking sorry-ass cop!”

  Poetry stood, swiping the glass from her nightgown and shaking out her hair while glass continued to plink to the floor all around her. I hope she got some stuck in her ass so that every time she sat down; she was reminded of when she had lied to me.

  She looked at me and tried to smile, making my rage surge again. I lunged for her, kicking at her and swiping in the air, despite the fact that I knew I couldn’t reach.

  “Stop it, Scarlet. Travis, uncuff her. I’m not pressing charges.”

  “No can do,” he said, breathless from fighting me.

  “Fine,” Poetry said, locking eyes with me. “Then will someone explain what in the holy hell is going on?”

  Oh, now she was going to play the ‘I don't’ know what’s going on game’? I scooted away from the pipe as far as I could stretch and lunged, hoping I was stronger than the handcuff metal or the pipe, despite it being bolted into the ground.

  “Owen is gone! He’s gone and you know where he is!” I screamed so loudly that my throat became raw; as though the emotion were sandpaper that ripped through my windpipe. “You said something like this was going to happen, you knew, didn’t you?”

  “I was here all night. I’ve been here the whole time.” Poetry’s eyes were pleading, but I ignored it.

  Travis put his hands on his hips and rocked on his heels. He was in full cop mode when he did that.

  Fucking bastard.

  “Owen and Dawn were kidnapped last night. We can’t find a trail, and there’s no leads. Scarlet, as you can tell, is quite distraught.”

  Distraught didn’t even begin to cover the anguish inside me. He had no fucking clue.

  The weight of the night before barreled into me like an elephant on steroids and I sat back down, landing on my ass with my legs splayed out. Evan sat beside me and wrapped his arms around my waist, letting me lean against him while the tears came unbidden and unwelcome. Now was not the time for fucking tears. Now was the time for revenge.

  “So he’s back…” Poetry whispered. I barely heard it, but it hung in the air like one of her omens.

  2

  “Just stop, mate. You’re bleeding,” Evan tried to hold me back, rubbing my wrist where I’d just about broken the bone. I had been trying to get at the woo-woo bitch across from me, who was now nursing her wounds like I wasn’t about to make them way worse. I would, too. As soon as Travis let me out of this…

  “Scarlet, stop. I’m just as livid as you, but this isn’t the way to handle things. Killing her won’t bring Owen back. Plus, if she has information, we have to get it from her before shredding her.” The smile on his face told me he wanted to rip her apart bit by bit as much as I did. The flash of his cat eyes told me that he wasn’t far from letting it happen either.

  Travis scrubbed a hand over his face while groaning. I was probably the cause of most of that groaning.

  However, I didn’t give three fucks. He could grunt and groan all he liked.

  When his hand reached the bottom of his face, his eyes pinned me in place, but not for long. “Poetry,” he asked, finally turning his gaze to her. “Where were you the last couple of hours?”

  Why the hell was he so calm? He really should try my methods of interrogation. They were so much better.

  “Is there anything out of the ordinary you heard or saw?”

  “You mean other than her chanting to the Taylor Lautner god? For fuck’s sake!” I yelled and jerked at the binds that held me down, listening to them clink against the metal pole I was attached to, reminding me that they weren’t budging a fucking inch.

  Poetry’s mouth was open like she was about to say something, but she kept looking at my handcuffs instead. “Um...no, nothing out of the ordinary.”

  Ordinary. That’s what we were calling her chanting to a movie werewolf now?

  Travis shuffled from one foot to the other and pulled out the pen and the notebook. Good. It was about time shit got serious.

  “So what were you doing here all night?”

  “On the new moon, I devote my prayers and chanting to Taylor Lautner. That is when he is most susceptible to hearing them.”

  I glanced back at the metal pole and wondered if I smacked my head against it hard enough, would I pass out? Because giving myself a concussion was better than hearing this bullshit. I looked at Evan, expecting some kind of admittance to come back to her, but there was none.

  Losing Owen had gutted us both and I wasn’t sure we would ever fully recover. Even if we got him back. Even when we got him back.

  Wulf leaned to the side to scan the shrine a
nd then shrugged one shoulder. “Can’t blame her. He’s a looker.”

  I followed his gaze to see that the sheet Poetry had tried to throw over the shrine had been disturbed and now lay pooled at the statue’s feet. It probably fell when I had tried to break her in half.

  There was no fucking emotion in Poetry’s confession. She didn’t express any kind of remorse or even remote shit-giving about my mate’s disappearance, and it gnawed at me as I continued to jerk against the handcuffs. The rage re-surged in my veins and I kicked my legs trying to get at her, ignoring the pain in my wrist.

  “Excuse me, Poetry, but you don’t seem very upset about your best friend, Dawn, being missing.”

  Poetry knotted her gown up in her hands and picked at invisible lint. She looked up at Travis, but still no emotion showed on her face. Not even a hint of sadness, or anger. She was a blank fucking slate. “I know about as much as anyone else.”

  The fuck did that even mean?

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?” Travis asked, leaning forward as though he couldn’t hear her, despite being right next to the bitch. If he didn’t stop saying sorry and being so goddamn polite, he would be next on my list.

  Poetry sat up straight, squaring off her shoulders and pulling up one of the straps of her nightgown that had fallen when I had tried to take her out. “I only know as much as people care to share. As much as their auras choose to share with me.”

  I lurched for her, forgetting all about my tether and I faintly heard something crack. My wrist had given in and decided to break instead of putting up with my shit anymore.