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Miko-chan ?” Yui said softly when she picked up. “ Is everything all right ?”
    The worry in her mother’s voice made Miko sick with guilt. She never called unless something was wrong, and immediately she felt like a jerk. It wasn’t her mother’s fault that Miko had issues reconciling her fox half. It wasn’t her mother’s fault that hunters had moved into the area. It wasn’t her mother’s fault that Miko hadn’t known about Hayami. Her mother had tried, and Miko had interrupted her, accusing her of matchmaking. She sighed. “ Hello, Mother .”
    Yui’s voice was mild, tentative. “ I worry about you, Miko-chan. Are you well ?”
    “I’m fine,” she said softly, in English.
    “ You do not take good care of yourself, daughter .”
    “I know.” Miko grimaced and leaned against the wall. “Look, Mother, I’m sorry. I know I should keep in touch more. I just get…caught up in things.”
    “ You want control over yourself. I understand these things ,” her mother said in a wry voice. “ When I was your age, I fought hard to be a normal human girl so I could please your father and make him happy. And in the end, I had to realize that I could not fight my nature. It is who we are, Miko. We are kitsune. It does not make us wrong. It just makes us different .”
    She sighed. Normally she would roll her eyes at her mother’s teachings, but for once they had a ring of truth. She was so tired of fighting her attraction to Jeremiah and Sam. Would it be so terrible to choose one? To bring him to her bed and end this awful war with herself and her hormones? But even as she thought it, she knew that wasn’t the answer.
    The fox wanted  both  men, of course. And that was the part she kept getting stuck on. Even if she could pick just one…how fair would it be to try to build a relationship, only for him to discover that he wasn’t enough for her after all? That she’d crave more than one man to sate her restless fox side?
    That was the tricky part.
    “Thank you, Mother,” she said softly. “For sending them this week. They’ve been a big help.”
    Her mother gave a soft, knowing chuckle. “ I sent you more than one strong man, Miko-chan. Your kitsune would be quite happy with two men in your bed, you know .”
    Oh jeez. How quickly they went from a truce to TMI. “Thanks, Mother,” she said dryly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
    “ It would do you good to embrace your fox side, Miko-chan. Trust your mother .”
    Embrace her fox side. A horn blared in the distance, so faint that human ears would never catch it. Miko stared out the window. She could embrace her fox side. Once and for all. “I will, Mother. Thank you. I’ll come by tomorrow.”
    Yui made a pleased noise of surprise.
    “Gotta go,” Miko added quickly, before her mother could say anything else. “Love you.”
    She hung up the phone and stepped back outside onto the porch. In the distance, her heightened senses picked up the faint sound of a horn again, and her hands tightened into fists. Who was it the fox club was hunting now? Hayami again? One of the other foxes? Or was her mother next?
    No matter who it was, she couldn’t sit idly by and wait for something to happen. It was sweet that her two protectors were concerned for her safety, it really was. But her fox form had a human brain, and she didn’t intend to end up as prey.
    She could take care of this if she embraced her fox side, like her mother said. Fighting the inevitable only meant hiding from the world, and she was tired of hiding.
    Putting her hands to the window screen, she peeked through the glass to the interior of the house. The men were speaking in the kitchen, neither looking in her direction. Perfect. Now was an ideal time to carry out her plan. Miko began to head back to the kitchen and then stopped. This conversation needed to be private. She slipped her cell phone out of her pocket and began to dial, walking down the porch to get away from the windows and