“This is the third night in a row where pop singer Alex Marx the Spot has had to cancel a show on her debut tour, due to terrorism threats made to both the artist and the venue she is set to play, Rajamangala National Stadium. The artist has since issued a statement and apology to her fans on Twitter and has promised to reschedule shows very soon with increased security measures as a precaution. Local authorities are investigating the threats which were sent physically to the singer’s residence and the venue. We’ll report on more updates as this story develops.” The fox cleared his throat and looked directly into the camera with a rather sorrowful look on his face.

The news then switched from a single anchor view to the entire news desk where there were a few anchors seated together. The fox who had just reported on the story turned to his colleague who looked a little too happy considering the subject matter. The brown and cream-colored wolf woman then gave her two cents.

“I think she deserves it,” gasps and looks of concern were all over the newsroom. “What? She makes music like that and doesn’t expect people to obsess over her and do stuff like that?”

“Fuck off, Gayle.” The tigress pointed the remote at the TV that hung on the large and mostly empty wall opposite the king-sized bed she was sprawled out on. Alex had moved into a hotel room for the night after the threats of violence against her and her team reached her private residence. While she initially wanted to stay home, her security team wasn’t having it and deemed it too big of a risk, especially since her residence had never been public information before. Luckily, to the knowledge of her team, she hadn’t been doxed, the perpetrator decided to keep the information to themselves, for now. She let out an exhausted sigh as she moved her head over the white and fluffy pillow under it and stared at the ceiling. She stared at the disc-shaped ceiling light that was turned off for a few seconds before her eyes fell down to the string lights that decorated the curtains in the corner of the room. She felt guilty about canceling her third show in a row and couldn’t stop thinking about how many people’s days she ruined in doing so.

The tigress tossed and turned as she tried to close her eyes and sleep. But with everything that happened weighing on her conscience, there was no way she was going to be able to sleep tonight, that was for certain. She tossed and turned all over the bed for a few hours of the night before she rolled off the bed and pulled the curtains open. As the sunlight-blocking fabric slid to the side to reveal the Bangkok night skyline, Alex realized she was standing naked in front of a floor-to-ceiling window, exposing herself to the entire city that was beyond the glass. She didn’t do anything to cover herself up, though, as there was little to no point in doing so since she was too high up for anyone to see, anyway. She stared out the window at the still bustling city; the lights in the tall skyscrapers, the traffic lights that turned green, yellow, and red, and the cars that flowed across the roads and highways like tiny little bugs. She leaned up against the cool glass and let out a soft sigh, her breath fogging up the spot on the window where her muzzle was pointed. She stood there in silence for a few seconds when a loud ding came from her phone and caused her kitty cat ears to flicker. At first, she thought it was one of those Twitter summaries that popped up whenever your account had a surge in activity, or an email forwarded to her from her mom of a news article that she found through the Google alert she had set up for her daughter’s name. She didn’t want to read any of that, so she decided to continue looking out the window at the city that never slept, hoping that it’d get her tired enough to get some sleep for herself. Then her phone dinged again and they kept coming, one after another, until the tigress’s ears were near flattened against her head. She couldn’t help herself and rolled her eyes before she turned around to grab her phone from the bed.

The notifications on her phone were from the dreaded blue bird application, but they didn’t show anything until the phone recognized Alex’s face and unlocked. She had five notifications from Twitter, all direct messages from an account that she followed; the sex toy manufacturer Bad Dragon. Confused, the tigress tapped on the notification, which was simply a hand-waving emoji, to see what other messages they had sent.

Once she opened up the app and the chat with Bad Dragon, four messages were waiting for her.

11:26 PM Bad Dragon: 👋
11:26 PM Bad Dragon: Still up?
11:27 PM Bad Dragon: We heard what is happening and thought you might need a few familiar friends you might have left at home. 😉
11:27 PM Bad Dragon: Care package is on the way, on us. Thanks for the bangers, can’t wait to see you on tour!

Alex read the messages and smiled as she got down to the last one. The message was like a mug of hot chocolate covered in marshmallows; it warmed her heart so much. She lifted her thumbs up to start typing her response back to the intern that was running the Bad Dragon account to thank them but was stopped by a sudden knock on her hotel room door.

‘Knock, knock!’

“Ms. Marx? There’s a delivery here for you, ma’am.” The voice from behind the door was that of one of her bodyguards that was guarding the door to her room.

In a panic, she dropped her phone back onto the bed, quickly slipped into her robe, and ran toward the door. The tigress peeked through the little hole in the door to be sure it was her security personnel before she unlocked the deadbolt, freed the chain, and pulled the door inward. As the door opened, Alex leaned against it slightly and smiled at the tall black-furred wolf holding a very large box in his hands. “Hey there Nick. Everything going alright out there? No weird suspicious people wandering around?” the tigress joked.

“No, ma’am. Everything’s quiet out here.” The wolf nodded his head at her. “There’s a delivery here for you,” he continued. The tigress’s eyes dropped from the wolf’s face to the box he was holding and she put her hands on it. “Oh awesome, any idea who dropped it off?” the tigress smiled and pulled on the box. However, it didn’t move; the wolf’s grip on it was firmer than the grip his muscle-shirt had on his torso, and that shirt was on the brink of snapping.

“No, ma’am, hotel staff carried it up here, told them I would hand it to you.”

“You’re a real gentleman, Nick, thank you, I can handle it from here, how about you go home for the night yeah? It’s really late.” Alex pulled on the box some more while she smiled at the wolf as innocently as she could. She tried to be charming, but she was running low on sleep, which meant she was also running pretty low on charm.

“I’m going to have to open this with you, ma’am,” Nick said in his stern voice as he still did not let go of the package. “And I can’t go home, I have orders from your label to make sure no one nefarious gets in your room.”

The tiger quickly shook her head at the wolf and leaned in as she tried prying the box out from under his big hands. “No, no! That won’t be necessary at all! I can open this alone!” She grunted a little as she continued to try and pull the box away from her bodyguard. Unamused, the wolf simply raised one of his eyebrows and looked down at the tiger that he towered over so greatly. “Were you expecting this delivery?” he asked.

In what could only be described as a cocktail of restlessness and panic, Alex pulled her hands away from the box and shook her head. “No! I am not expecting any packages.” When she realized her slip up, she quickly placed both her hands back on the package and laughed nervously. “Sorry, I mean, yes, yes, I was expecting this package. So, thank you, Nick, for your service, I will take this box now.” She pulled on the box again, and still, it wouldn’t budge. She looked her wolf bodyguard right in the eye and smiled as wide as she could, showing off all of her big pearly white sharp teeth.

“Ms. Marx, may I know what is in this box?” asked the wolf, very politely. To which Alex shook her head very rapidly. “Nope, you may not know what is in this box, sorry, it’s very confidential.” The striped feline started to laugh nervously, pulling one hand off the box for a moment to rub the back of her head. Once she brought her hand back on the box, she tried to pull it away from her bodyguard again. This time, it felt like it was budging, but it was only for a moment; the wolf’s big hands made that box an immovable object.

“I’m going to have to open it and check to make sure it isn’t anything that could harm you, ma’am,” Nick said with a soft smile. He knew that she would more than likely protest, so he did not give her much time to react and pulled on the big red ribbon that was tied around the box. As the ribbon untangled, Alex’s eyes widened and she panicked even more. “No, no, no! Don’t open it!” but her word salad came out too late, Nick had the ribbon off and opened the lid to look inside.