A Fox's Family (20 page)

***

Tension.
Thick, cloying tension that threatened to suffocate her was what
Lilian felt as she walked alongside her sister. Mad Dawg Fitness
wasn’t that far from where they lived, but at that moment,
Lilian could have sworn it was hours away.

She
wanted to say something, anything, if only to rid herself of this
strange pressure that surrounded them, choking her like a tail around
her neck.

Unfortunately,
Lilian was having one of those rare occasions where she just couldn’t
think of anything to say. Thus, she remained silent.

She
did, however, peer at her sister out of her peripheral vision. Iris
walked by her side, black hair fluttering like elegant streamers in
the wind, shining and lustrous as the rising sun’s rays struck
each strand and captured them within its luminescence. Her hips
swayed from side to side with every step taken, moving with a natural
sexuality that Lilian had never been able to accomplish, no matter
how hard she tried.

Her
sister’s ability to do anything and make it look
extraordinarily sexy had always amazed her. Unlike Lilian who, for
one reason or another, had never managed to gain that kind of
sexiness, her sister made everything she did look like something out
of a teenage boy’s wet dream. She was eroticism in motion.

It
was actually kind of scary.

Iris
noticed Lilian glancing at her out of the corner of her eyes, and the
redhead quickly turned her head to look at something else.

I
am not turned on by my sister’s swaying hips,
Lilian
told herself.
I’m
not. And I’m definitely not aroused by the way her breasts are
bouncing. No way.

“I
want you to know that I still don’t approve of you and Kevin.”

The
words made Lilian snap her head back toward her sister. “What?
But why? Is it because he’s human?”

“Don’t
be stupid. I don’t care about that. It wouldn’t matter to
me if he was human, kitsune or any other kind of yōkai. He could
be an alien and I still wouldn’t care.”

“Then
why?”

“Because
you’re too good for him.” Lilian wanted to look
surprised, but somehow, she knew her sister would say that. It still
embarrassed her, though. “You’re too good for everyone.
None of these people are worthy of being your mate. Not Kevin. Not
that idiot, Jiāoào.
No one.”

“Iris…”

“The
only person deserving of your attention is me.”

And
just like that, any warmth she might have felt at her sister’s
compliment died a horrible, horrible death.

“You’re
wrong,” Lilian tilted her head down, long locks of shimmering
red hair overshadowing her eyes and hiding a portion of her face from
view.

“What
was that?”

“I
said you’re wrong.” Like a curtain, Lilian’s hair
parted when she looked at her sister, her eyes narrowed and her lips
set into a thin line. “You’re wrong about Kevin. He is
worthy of being with me. You just don’t understand because you
don’t know him like I do. And besides, who is and isn’t
worthy of being my mate isn’t your call to make. It’s
mine.”

Iris
frowned, but didn’t refute her sister’s words—at
least not out loud.

We’ll
see about that.

***

Kiara
was right. Midget, despite looking weaker due to his shorter stature
and large front teeth, was a much better fighter than Tall. His
strikes were faster, more sure and packed a hell of a lot more punch.
Kevin had tried blocking one of Midget’s punches at the
beginning of their spar. Now his right arm was numb and dangling
uselessly at his side.

“Come
on! Is that all you’ve got?!”

Midget
came in hot. Two steps and he was in Kevin’s guard. The air
seemed to whistle as he extended his left hand in a punch, the fist
corkscrewing as it rushed toward Kevin’s stomach. It was dodged
when Kevin stumbled to the left, but he soon discovered that the
punch had only been a distraction.

“Gah!”

Kevin
took two staggering steps backward after finding himself on the
receiving end of a vicious headbutt. His vision blurred for a moment,
the edges darkening as pain exploded in his nose. Something warm and
wet trailed down his skin and onto his lips. Blood, he realized. His
blood.

Blinking
several times, he tried to rid the spots from his eyes—

—And
promptly wished he hadn’t when he saw another fist filling his
vision. He managed to duck the attack, but ended up taking a knee to
the face when Midget took one step forward and raised his left leg.
The attack slammed into him like a fat man body-slamming an ant.

Kevin
rolled backwards, moving with the blow, and somehow landed back on
his feet. He barely had time to regain his bearings, though, as
Midget came in quickly, offering no reprieve and closing the distance
between them in the blink of an eye.

A
low kick aimed at taking out Kevin’s left knee was avoided, but
he could not avoid the follow-up, the brutal backhand jab that popped
him across the face. Saliva mixed with blood flew from Kevin’s
mouth as his head snapped to the left like he’d just suffered
whiplash. He did not fall, but that probably wasn’t a good
thing, because it meant Midget could still attack him.

A
loud ringing entered Kevin’s ears as another fist clocked him
on the temple. Everything started to teeter. The world spun and
strange spots appeared in his vision. He didn’t have time to
contemplate the oddity of what he was seeing because less than a
second later, a pair of hands grabbed his head in a clinch and his
face soon met another knee.

Kevin
could have sworn he heard, as much as felt, his nose breaking. A loud
crack!
issued
from his nose, echoing ominously within his mind. The pain escalated,
becoming unbearable. Kevin imagined this is what it would feel like
if Thor, Norse God of lightning and thunder, used his mighty hammer
Mjölnir to bludgeon someone in the face.

Everything
grew wobbly. Kevin’s world began to spin. He barely even felt
his back hitting the mat as his vision started fading…

“Beloved!”

Kevin’s
vision snapped back into painfully sharp focus as a familiar voice
penetrated his ear canal.

A
lovely face filled his vision seconds later. Perhaps it was because
he felt slightly delirious, but Lilian looked even more gorgeous than
usual. Her soft, unblemished skin shone with a healthy vitality,
surrounded by glimmering strands of fire. Viridescent eyes gleamed
with concern, calming his mind and somehow soothing the aches and
pains in his body, as if just having her eyes on him made him feel a
thousand times better. She was, without a doubt, an angel.

“Lilian…”

“Shh.
Don’t talk.” Lilian shushed him as she set his head on
her lap. The difference between the hard surface of the blue mat and
the gentle softness of Lilian’s thighs was like heaven and
earth.

Kevin
absently noticed through his darkening vision that Lilian’s
ears were out. A second later, two white-tipped fox tails appeared
before him, their tips glowing with an iridescent golden light that
soothed his wounds better than any healing balm.

“You
can heal his bruises, but don’t heal his muscles,”
Kiara’s voice said from somewhere out of his line of sight.
Lilian looked up at where he assumed his trainer was standing, her
eyes burning like imploding twin stars.

“What
did you do to him?”

“Just
training.”

“Training?!
You call this training?! Look at him! Kevin looks like a horde of Oni
trampled him!”

Kevin
felt a rapid decline in his HP gauge.

Ugh,
way to make me feel good about myself, Lilian.

A
feminine snort sounded out. It was not Kiara. “He definitely
isn’t looking too pretty right now. Not that he ever did.”

“Be
quiet, Iris!”

Ah.
So Lilian’s sister was here, too. Did that mean they had made
up?

“That’s
the price one pays to acquire strength.” Kevin could almost
imagine Kiara’s uncaring shrug as she spoke. “You think
gaining the strength and skill necessary to fight against a superior
foe is easy? Don’t be ridiculous. It takes hard work and
effort. You’ve got to put your all into training, breaking your
body down by putting it through hell, shedding blood, sweat and tears
in the process. That’s the only way to get stronger.”

“I
don’t want to hear that from you, dog!”

“You’re
spouting some awfully harsh words to someone who’s helping your
mate get stronger.” An amused chuckle. “You do know that
Kevin was the one who came to me for help, don’t you? He came
in knowing full well what I had in store for him.”

“But
that’s…”

“It’s
alright, Lilian.”

Lilian
peered down at him. Kevin tried to give her a smile, but from the
grimace on her face as she looked at him, he realized that his smile
probably didn’t look too good.

“Beloved…”

“Kiara’s
right. I knew this would be hard the moment I asked her to train me.
I accepted that, so try not to blame her for my condition.”

“But…”

“If
this is what it takes to get stronger so that I can stand by your
side, then I will gladly accept whatever Kiara dishes out without
complaint.” He paused. “Well, without too much complaint.
Anyway, I want to become someone you can rely on to have your back
when things get rough. I don’t want to be that human who
constantly needs saving.”

“Oh,
Kevin…”

“Someone
gag me, please.”

Lilian
glared at someone outside his field of vision, Iris, Kevin presumed,
before she returned her focus to healing him.

“Okay.”
She sighed. “I understand that this is what you want, so I
won’t say anything more. Just… try not to injure
yourself too much, okay? I hate seeing you like this.”

Kevin
revealed bloodstained teeth when his split lips peeled back into a
grin, “I’ll do my best.”

***

Ms.
Vis stood in line at Starschmucks. As per the usual, a fairly long
line of people kept her from getting to the cash register and placing
her order. Fortunately, it was early in the morning and school
wouldn’t start for another hour, so she had some time to
herself and could afford to be patient.

Waiting
in line didn’t bother her. It might have three months ago, but
having nothing better to do than stand around in a line gave Ms. Vis
the opportunity to do some productive thinking. And she had a lot to
think about.

Most
of her thoughts centered around a certain trio of students. Her mind
kept trying to figure out how Mr. Swift and that blasted redhead kept
getting out of trouble. Just the other day she had given the class
detention, yet somehow, those two managed to get out of trouble
again. To top it off, that little educational disruptor’s
sister and Ms. Diane had avoided detention as well, and she didn’t
even know how it happened!

“Hawa…”

Ms.
Vis blinked. What a strange sound.

“Hawawa…”

She
blinked again. It sounded like a person, but what kind of person
said… whatever this person was saying?

“Hawan…”

Turning
to her left, Ms. Vis caught sight of a very pretty woman with long
midnight hair. Adorning a figure that she most certainly did not feel
envious of was what appeared to be a toga, or something similar. Ms.
Vis found it to be a most unusual form of dress. It looked like
something straight out of ancient Greece!

“Hawa…”

The
woman, who was the source of the strange noise, stared up at the
board, her expression reminding Ms. Vis of a little girl who’d
been allowed to go shopping with her parents for the first time.
Except this person wasn’t a child. She was an adult, which made
the expression on her face that much more disturbing.

Ms.
Vis turned back to face the line. There were only two people in front
of her now. She ignored the woman. Whatever this female’s
problem was had nothing to do with her.

“Hawa…”

Her
right eyebrow twitched.

***

It
took a long time to find Camellia, much longer than it should have.
She and Kirihime checked everywhere they thought their mistress might
have wandered off to—everywhere except the most obvious place,
apparently. Only after exhausting every other option and concluding
that she must have left, did they travel back to the front of the
store, where they saw the woman in question standing next to the
Starschmucks.

“My
Lady!”

At
the sound of Kirihime’s voice, Camellia turned, the sweetest of
smiles blossoming on her face. “Hawa! Kirikiri! Koto! Hello!”

Kirihime
stopped in front of her mistress, worried eyes gazing at the childish
woman with barely masked relief. “M-My Lady! Are you alright?
Why did you run off like that?”

“Run
off?” Camellia looked honestly confused. She put a finger to
her lower lip, boosting her cuteness by a factor of 12. Several men,
and even a few women, were felled by massive blood hemorrhaging, as
dark liquid blasted from their noses like the tail ends of several
comets.

“You
left us,” Kirihime tried to look stern, but her demureness was
such that she appeared more whiny than anything else. “We
didn’t know where you were. Did you know how worried I was?”

“Ah!
Sorry, sorry.” Camellia had the decency to look embarrassed. “I
saw something shiny and decided to follow it, and then I ended up
here.”

While
Kirihime merely seemed relieved to have found the five-tailed
kitsune, Kotohime felt exasperated. Perhaps having Camellia travel
with them while grocery shopping had not been the best of ideas. Then
again, letting her stay at home by herself with all those amenities
and other breakable objects would have been just as bad.

“From
now on, please remain by our side, Camellia-sama. It would not do for
you to get lost in a place like this.”