Druid Fox Chapter 15

Druid Fox Chapter 15

Fox

“Okay, so you’re the master, and she’s a ... slave? Oh, my God, Artie’s a slave, isn’t she?”

Luke looked at Fox in horror. Luke’s soul was far more pure than Fox’s was. His honor rejected that his friend might have a slave. He couldn’t deal with the idea that another person might need to be less than free.

Fox sighed. The simple answer was yes. Things weren’t simple. Fox didn’t like it either.

“It’s not like you think. She swore fealty to me. I’m honor-bound to protect her. The magic will demand it from me, even if I choose not to act. Your understanding of slavery comes from your high school history books and Gone with the Wind. What Artie and I have is a mutual and binding feudal contract.”

Fox tried to explain it so Luke could understand the difference.

“So, Artie can do whatever she wants as long as it’s okay with you, and you just have to protect her?”

Luke wanted it simple. Hell, Fox did too. It wasn’t. Weak, Fox took advantage of her.

Fox blew out his breath. Maybe the reason he’d told no one else was because it was such a messed up and convoluted tale. Lack of knowledge from that time only added to the confusion. The amount of shocked disbelief and outrage that passed his friend’s face in the last fifteen minutes alone was reason enough to never speak of the situation again.

“I wish it were so simple. After Artie traced and I coaxed her back, she became distraught. She tried to renounce her oath. That meant I’d have to leave her in Lothlian’s service. I couldn’t do that. Had she been a man, I would have removed her head as an oath breaker for treason against his king. It’s outdated now, but the world was far more brutal in my younger years.” Fox laughed bitterly.

“She isn’t a man, and she’s your lifemate. What happened?” Luke needed to know. He feared Fox’s answer.

“I took her honor and forced her to become my body servant. I followed the old ways as she had in swearing her fealty oath. She was innocent. We sealed the oath in blood. She’s my servant in life. I can’t release her. I protect her life and now her honor as well.”

“I’ve killed men twice in the past to maintain her honor as mine. Once, I did murder to avenge her life. The magic bound me to my oath each time. I couldn’t have granted mercy without forfeiting my own life and leaving her undefended, and I wouldn’t have granted mercy even if the magic hadn’t demanded the death of those who’d harmed her. They signed their death warrants. I assisted their end,” Fox explained.

“You turned her into your sex slave to punish her for oath-breaking! Fox, that’s so fucked up, I don’t know what to say…” Luke trailed off, dumbfounded.

“Try not to judge me by this time’s standards. For the last three hundred years, I’ve been working on a solution, as I recognize it as a problem. I know how to release us from the oath, and I have the authority to do it as Ruiri. I haven’t done so for a good reason. Luke, she was dying.”

“I turned her. She shifted and was distraught. When she tried to break her oath, I knew she was trying to flee so she could end herself. If I bound her to me as my body servant, she couldn’t take her own life. I forbade it. The magic binds her to my authority. It’s a powerful ancient Gaelic magic. So far, it’s been stronger than the shifter magic.” Fox tried to make his friend see.

“So you saved her from the insanity by enslaving her as your sex object? So what happens if she disobeys your authority?” Luke asked with a grimace, suggesting he had to know yet feared the answer.

“I’m a man with appetites like other men, my friend. The magic requires I chastise my displeasing servant. I have her honor, so of course, the punishment is sexual. She disobeys, I punish her.” Fox tried to leave out any true details while conveying the situation as it was.

“You hurt your lifemate to keep her from insanity and ending her own life?” Luke was incredulous.

“I’ve never damaged her. She comes to me, not the other way around. I always make it good for her. Give me some credit. I’m over five centuries old. You should think I know my way around my bedroom. I’m certain I’ve quite satisfied my mate. She came to me after Javier and Isabell left this morning. She wanted absolution for her disobedience. I gave it to her. Now she sleeps.”

It insulted Fox that Luke would think he didn’t take care of Artie’s needs. She was his queen, his everything. Fox never denied her anything.

“Okay, I get it. You’re the king of your castle. If this oath bond stops her from losing it and committing suicide, why did you never tell her you turned her? I mean, she has to know she was turned into a shifter. She was only twenty-something when the light traced her into an arctic fox and rendered her immortal. No shifter transforms before twenty-five that I’m aware of.” Luke queried his friend with honest curiosity.

“She knows. They didn’t keep records well. She was a child orphan. Artie doesn’t know when she was born. She guessed her age at twenty-three. She could have been a couple of years older. I guess she was twenty-five or twenty-six when we met. I started celebrating her birthday on the day I turned her. She thinks I chose that day because it’s the day I saw her.”

Fox smiled a sad half-smile of nostalgia. He chose because it was the day his life began. He’d found everything.

“I never told her, because I fear that her knowledge of the event might allow her shifter magic to overcome the fealty oath magic, and I could lose her. She may suspect, but I’ve never sought dominance as alpha from her in animal form. At least, not that she was aware. I left the fealty oath magic as the dominant magic.”

“She saved me, Luke. I was fading. I’d almost decided it wasn’t worth it to continue. My family was gone. My title, my lands, all in someone else’s hands. All I had left was my research. That’s when I saw her bathing alone in a sheltered loch.”

He blushed as he acknowledged he’d admired her from afar. He should have looked away or dared to approach her then. Instead, he’d played the voyeur and made a mess of things. It was still plaguing him four centuries later.

Luke laughed out loud. “I saw Eli in the bath once before we met as well.”

Fox laughed at his friend’s guilty admission. Maybe it was a canine thing to want to watch their mate.

“You asked me if my problems could affect the pack. The answer is yes. If I can free Artie, I will. If she dies, so will I.”

Fox was blunt in this statement. Artie was his life. Without her, no matter how crazy and dangerous their relationship was, he ceased to live as Duncan O’Sullivan alone the minute he saw her bathing in that loch. His entire being belonged to Arturista Jonsdottir.

“I understand, my friend. It’s the same for me with Eli. I can’t face immortality without her. How can I help you? If the pack can be of service, tell me.” Luke was offering Fox the help he needed for Artie.

“I need the pack, Luke. I have to save Artie. If I can’t protect her, then all my research will be for naught. Luke, I want her to come to me because I’m her mate, not because the fealty magic insists I’m her master.”

“I didn’t lie to you before. I think Elliot and Pillsanderz are far more dangerous than anything I’ve ever dealt with. For the first time in centuries, I face an enemy I can’t vanquish alone. Elliot threatens the reason I’m still alive.”

“If the pack can help you protect Artie, then you can continue your research into the magic to free her. It makes more sense considering Isabell also needed help. Will you come to the retreat when it’s completed?” Luke asked.

“Yes. Securing Artie’s safety there would be better than keeping her here.”

“Knock, knock. Duncan, are you in there?” Artie’s soft voice came through the door.

“Come in,” Fox spoke to her through the door.

Artie came into the library, smiled at Luke, and went straight to Fox and sat on his lap, curling her hands around his neck. She kissed him. She was smiling and happy with him.

“Did you rest well?” Fox asked.

“Yes, are you okay?” She asked him in return. It must seem an odd exchange to Luke.

I’m better than fine. You are my mate. I’ve never been better in my life. He thought the words to her. He answered aloud, “Yes.”

His calm was back in place.

Thank you for your support! Welcome to the dream… Sincerely, -OK

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