Wicked Fox (Gumiho #1)(8)

The girl placed her hand against the dokkaebi’s heart, her long fingers splayed across his chest.

The beast jerked. The hand holding Jihoon tightened until he felt the sharp pain of hair being ripped from his head. Jihoon let out a yelp and gritted his teeth as he tried to pry open the thick fingers holding him.

The dokkaebi’s legs flailed as if the girl were choking him instead of the other way around. Her eyes were unblinking, dark, and depthless. Sweat beaded over her pale skin.

Around her, shadows danced, like smoke caught in a vortex. The phantom tails wove through them.

The atmosphere thickened, the autumn chill replaced by sweltering heat. There were waves in the air, the kind that rose under a hot summer sun.

The dokkaebi’s fists tore at more of Jihoon’s hair. The heat and pain combined to blur his vision, as white dots danced before his eyes. He watched them coalesce into ghosts that raced through the forest. He watched them fly away and wished he could join them.

Wait for me, he tried to shout. One stopped. A girl? It glanced back at him before sprinting into the darkness.

The howls of the dokkaebi echoed through the trees. The goblin convulsed—leaves crunching and dirt flying—until its body jerked in a final death throe like a fish flopping on a deck.

The smoke dissipated. The girl’s tails faded. The air cleared.

She sat upon the dokkaebi as calm as a child perched on her favorite reading chair. Her hand was still spread over its chest. Then the beast’s body began to crack, fissures racing along its ruddy skin.

The dokkaebi imploded into scattered dust as the girl stood.

“You killed it,” Jihoon sputtered.

“I saved your life.” She stepped over the particles of dead dokkaebi until she loomed above Jihoon. “Make sure I don’t regret it. You will tell no one about what you saw tonight.”

He nodded furiously.

She frowned at the bright yellow paper still plastered to her chest and tried to rip it free. With a hiss of pain she snatched her hand away.

Jihoon stood and reached for it. But she retreated from him, her lips twisting in a snarl.

He held up his hand, palm out. “Can I help?”

She watched him carefully but didn’t move as he reached for the bujeok. The talisman came away as easy as plucking a leaf from a tree. As he wondered what magic had let him remove it when the girl, obviously much stronger than he was, could not, the bujeok dissolved in his hand.

The girl lurched forward and Jihoon barely caught her as she fell. The momentum sent them both falling to the ground.

She convulsed like a person being electrocuted. Foam spilled from her pale lips as her eyes rolled back.

Jihoon wasn’t sure what to do. He’d heard once that if someone was having a seizure, you should put something between their teeth. And while he debated his next move, she stilled.

“Hello?”

No reply.

He leaned in to check her breathing.

She rocketed up, slamming into his forehead as she gagged. Jihoon fell back as something bulleted toward him. It hit him on the cheek before rolling away, and the girl crumpled into an unconscious heap again.

Jihoon, lying in a pile of leaves and dirt, turned his head to glance at the object. It was a bead, small and opalescent as a pearl. Sitting up, he reached for it—then almost dropped it as it pulsed against his palms. His hand trembled as he recognized the pattern of the steady thump, like the beat of a heart.

A silver line speared from the pearl, a thread connecting him to the girl’s heart.

Jihoon’s fingers became numb so quickly, it seemed as if the warmth had been leached from his skin. And the thread pulsed, growing brighter, thicker. A wave of fatigue overtook Jihoon. He almost fell back to the ground when the girl’s eyes flew open, zeroing in on the bead.

Jumping up, she snatched it away. A growl rumbled in her throat. A terrifying, beastly sound. The rage that twisted her face wiped away the clouds of fatigue from Jihoon’s brain and replaced them with fear.

She retreated so fast she was a blur. Leaves spun and branches cracked as she sprinted into the trees.

With nothing but the sounds of the forest for company, Jihoon was suddenly aware he was all alone again. And still lost.

A rustle pulled a yelp from him. Then he relaxed again as Dubu limped over and flopped into his arms with a whimper. Jihoon, hands shaking, pulled her close and buried his face in her fur.





HAVE YOU EVER wondered where the gumiho came from as you lay awake fearing the full moon?

Some say the first gumiho came from the land to the west, traveling down the peninsula to settle in the mountain forests they preferred. Some say the first true gumiho arose in Korea before the country claimed the name. That tale begins as Prince Jumong—the Light of the East—founded the Goguryeo Kingdom.

There lived a fox, already over five hundred years old, who watched the activities of humankind with curiosity. She was strong and sleek, and hunters coveted her beautiful pelt. No matter how fast their bows, they were never able to catch her. Even Prince Jumong, the grandson of the water god Habaek, renowned for his hunting skills, could not catch her. Out of one hundred arrows shot, he hit his target one hundred times, until he came up against the fox.

She wandered into Prince Jumong’s hunting grounds every day. Her reasons were not quite known. Some said she loved the prince. Others said she liked to mock him with her presence. But who can truly know the motivations of the ancients?