A Fox's Family Read online

  Part VI of the American Kitsune Series

  By Brandon Varnell

  Copyright © 2016 Brandon Varnell

  DEDICATION

  I feel like I'm doing dedications every single book—oh, wait. I am doing these every single book. Never mind.

  The first person I would like to dedicate this to is my mom, whose helped me with everything outside of my book. Seriously. Aside from writing, I'm pretty much useless. Were it not for her letting me live with her after I graduated from college, who knows what would have happened. I would also like to thank my dad for supporting my desire to write and giving me advice when I need it, along with my step-mom and my step-dad. Both of them have been a really big help.

  Following this, I would like thank my sister and her husband, who will be having a kid this year. I'm mostly thanking them because I'm gonna be an uncle—and you all know that uncles are the coolest gig ever. We don't have to be strict like the parents, and we don't have to spoil the child like grandparents. All I need to do is thoroughly corrupt their child by teaching them everything they need to know about geek fandoms: Star Wars, Naruto, DBZ, Sailor Moon, Cowboy Bebop, and every new anime that's come out since the old days. It's going to be a blast. My niece is going to be well on her way to nerdom in no time!

  And finally, I am dedicating this story to my readers. When I first started writing, I was frightened and uncertain, but thanks to the people who read my stories and told me that they loved them, I've since gained the courage to try and reach for the stars.

  Without all of you, I would never be where I am today.

  Thank you.

  Chapter 1

  The Passage of Time is Transient

  As was per the norm since her daughter’s disappearance, Camellia found herself sitting on the balcony to her clan’s estate in Tampa Bay. Situated on the table next to her was a hot cup of tea, from which a beautiful fragrance wafted, relaxing her mind, even as the worry she’d been feeling for the past three months continued to plague her.

  She looked down at the garden below, expansive and lovely, filled with a wide variety of well-maintained and beautiful flowers. Even though it was fall, the flowers continued to bloom, courtesy of her maid’s prodigious gardening abilities. They were some of the loveliest blossoms she’d ever seen, and once upon a time, Camellia would have already been down there at this early hour, admiring them up close.

  Despite staring straight at them, she did not see the wondrous array of colorful blossoms and hadn’t for a while now. Unable to grasp the complexities of multiple thoughts at once due to the degradation of her mind, Camellia could only focus on a single subject. Her missing daughter, Lillian.

  On August 4th, Lilian had disappeared from the grounds of this very mansion, vanishing without a trace. While some worried that she might have been kidnapped, the general consensus was that she had run away.

  Neither Camellia nor anyone else knew how the young kitsune had managed to escape without being noticed. Evidence pointed towards excessive use of her Celestial abilities, which could, in the right circumstances, render Lilian all but invisible. Since then, Camellia had done little more than fret.

  She might have had a mind reminiscent to that of a child, but she was still a mother.

  “My Lady,” a voice came from behind her. “You have not touched your tea. Is it not to your liking?”

  “Hmm?” Camellia looked down at the tea, blinking. She then looked at the woman standing by her chair, a female with hair the color of midnight and three fox-tails waving about behind her. “Ah! Sorry, sorry. Camellia got lost in thought. Tee-hee!” After gently knocking her knuckles against her head, the five-tailed kitsune took a small sip of her tea. “It’s very good.”

  Her complimentary words earned a gentle smile from the fox-woman dressed as a French maid. “I am glad to see that you still enjoy my tea. For a moment, I was worried that my skills might have slipped.”

  Camellia felt a small sense of dread well up inside of her at the maid’s mention of “slipping skills.” A shudder coursed through her body for reasons she couldn’t understand.

  The shudder went away, as did almost everything else, when a hand covered in a white glove began petting her on the head.

  “Hawa…”

  “Still so easy to please, My Lady.” The kitsune maid was nothing if not amused by her mistress’ reaction towards something as simple as head petting. It reminded her of, well, it sort of reminded her of a dog, though she would never say that out loud.

  As the utterly blissed out Camellia enjoyed having her maid’s fingers scratch behind her ears, a familiar presence appeared before them, floating just a few feet from the balcony.

  “Oh. It’s one of my sister’s Kudagitsune.”

  The wraith-like fox-spirit with the pipe-like body couldn’t have belonged to anyone but the maid’s elder sister. The scroll, ghostly and translucent, much like the creature carrying it, told them as much. Kotohime was the only Pnevma clan vassal who still used scrolls to deliver messages.

  Most kitsune made do with simple envelopes these days.

  After the fox-spirit dropped the scroll on the table and vanished back into its ethereal existence, the three-tailed maid unfurled the object and read its contents. Her eyes widening in a mixture of surprise and delight, she rolled the scroll back up, and then looked at the woman she served with a warm smile etched upon her fetching lips.

  “My Lady, it appears Kotohime has found your daughter.”

  “My daughter?” It took Camellia a second or two to get out of the blissful state that her maid’s head petting had put her in. It took another second for her to hear the words spoken, and then one more to process them. “H-hawa! You mean she found Lilian?!”

  “Yes. According to my sister’s report, Lady Lilian is currently living in Phoenix, Arizona.”

  “I can’t believe it… my daughter’s finally been found…” Tears leaked from Camellia’s carnelian eyes, and a smile so joyous and bright it put the sun to shame appeared on her lovely face. “Camellia… Camellia needs to tell Iris that her sister has finally been found!”

  Camellia scrambled out of her chair, stood up—

  “H-hawa!!”

  —And then promptly spilled to the floor when she tripped over her own five tails.

  “M-My Lady!” A very worried maid knelt next to Camellia, who pushed herself into a seated position. “A-are you alright?”

  Like every fall she’d taken this past century, Camellia took this latest one with good humor. “Ah. Don’t worry. Don’t worry.” She looked down at her chest. “Camellia’s breasts broke her fall.”

  The maid felt a small drop of sweat trail down the right side of her face.

  “R-right…

  ***

  “A strong body is a necessary component to becoming a balanced warrior. It doesn’t matter how good your technique is, or how fast you can throw a punch, if you lack the strength needed to harm your opponent. A thousand punches at the speed of light will mean absolutely nothing if each punch has all the power of a fly. There are ways around this, of course, such as using weapons, but that’s not always a viable option. You can’t carry a sword or a knife everywhere you go, after all.”

  While Kiara spoke of warriors and swords and the necessity of being physically fit, Kevin Swift grunted and whimpered as he did push-ups. Doing a couple of push-ups normally wouldn’t be too much of a problem for him, but several extenuating factors were currently making this exercise exceedingly difficult.

  Kiara was making him do 200 hundred of them.

  She was also standing on his back while he did them.

  And there was a floorboard covered in nails directly underneath him.

  Kevin stared at the spiky floorboard, h
is eyes wide and his pupils dilated. Sweat dripped off his nose, splashing against a nail, making it glisten brightly and bringing a stark reminder of what would happen should his arms give out.

  His arms shook from having exerted them so much. It felt like his triceps and chest were being ripped to shreds from the inside out, contracting and expanding painfully each time he completed a push-up. The only reason he hadn’t fallen flat on his face yet was because he feared being impaled by the hundreds of tiny nails.

  He was really beginning to regret asking Kiara to help train him.

  “Please make me into a man!”

  His words were met with an awkward silence. Sitting behind her desk, staring at him with unusually wide eyes, Kiara F. Kuyo looked like someone had just blindsided her. The moment soon passed, however, and the woman gave him a feral grin that caused chills to run down his spine.

  “I could make you into a man if you want me to, but I don’t think your mate would appreciate me taking away her chance to steal your chastity.”

  Kevin gave the woman a vacant stare for several seconds, the time it took for him to realize what she’d said and why.

  His eyes promptly widened.

  “Ah!” He squeaked like a rat trapped by a cat—or a small fox kit trapped by a great dane. “T-that’s not what I meant!”

  “Ho?” Kiara’s eyes glinted with an animalistic viscosity. “Then what did you mean, boya?”

  “I-I m-m-m-meant that I wanted you to make me s-stronger!”

  “Stronger, eh?” Kiara rubbed her chin and studied Kevin, who did his best not to look away, even though his face was about ready to explode. “Tell me, boya, why do you want to become stronger?”

  The question sobered him. Embarrassment gave way to solemnity. Kevin looked down at his feet, unable to hold Kiara’s gaze. “Because I’m tired of being weak,” he confessed, his voice a soft murmur that made Kiara’s ears twitch.

  “What was that?” she asked, even though Kevin was sure she’d heard him. “Speak up, boy!”

  “I said it’s because I’m tired of being weak,” Kevin practically shouted. “I’m tired of having to rely on Lilian for protection. I’m tired of not being able to help her when she needs me. I want to be able to stand by her side as an equal. I want to be able to help her. I want her to be able to rely on me.”

  “So you’re doing this for Lilian?” Kiara raised an eyebrow at Kevin, who shook his head.

  “Not just for Lilian. I’m also doing this for myself. I made a choice. I chose to become Lilian’s mate, and that means I’m now a part of the world you and she belong to, but I’m… I’m still just a human,” he choked out, as if admitting this fact physically hurt. “I don’t have any supernatural abilities that would let me stand up to a yōkai…”

  Kevin looked at his hands, clenching them both into fists, before looking back up to present Kiara with his determined glare.

  “I don’t want to be weak anymore. I’m sick of it. That’s why I want you to make me stronger.” He then bowed to the woman, a formal bow at the waist. “Please help me get stronger.”

  Kevin clenched his eyes shut and didn’t look up, which was why he nearly squealed like a little girl when a hand landed on his shoulder.

  He looked up to see a grinning Kiara staring down at him.

  “All right. I’ll help you get stronger,” she said, causing hope to swell within Kevin’s chest. “Come back here tomorrow morning and we’ll begin your training. Be sure to dress for the occasion. You’re gonna want something that you don’t mind getting ruined.”

  Kevin would have wondered what she meant by that, but was honestly too happy to care. “Okay. I’ll do that. Thanks!”

  “You’re welcome, boya.”

  As Kevin left, he never noticed the devious grin that nearly split Kiara’s face in half, nor did he hear her diabolical chuckling.

  “Ku ku ku… training a human to fight yōkai, huh? Sounds like fun.”

  A grunt escaped Kevin’s lips when Kiara dug her heel into his back. “Come on! Keep going, boya. You’re not even close to being done yet.”

  “I don’t.” Grunt. “See how.” Whimper. “You can.” Kiara dug her left heel into his shoulder blade. Kevin nearly squealed. “Expect me to.” Kevin’s face became a deep scarlet when something hard ground into his back. “Do push-ups.” Sounds reminiscent of a dying cow escaped his mouth when his chest scraped against the bed of nails, drawing blood. “With you on my back!”

  Even though he couldn’t see her, Kevin could practically feel Kiara’s grin. “It’s all part of your training.”

  Kevin would have cursed, but since he didn’t swear, he settled instead of spewing insults within the confines of his mind. Due to his mild nature, they weren’t particularly mean insults.

  Despite the fact that his body ached like nobody’s business, as if he’d been chewed apart by an inu yōkai, Kevin continued doing as many push-ups as possible. Oddly enough, his current exercise was one of the easiest Kiara had given him thus far.

  He didn’t know whether that should please him or not.

  Kevin still remembered some of the exercises she’d had him do these past two weeks. Hellacious did not even begin to describe them.

  “Um, are you sure this is a good idea?” Kevin asked as he stood outside with Kiara. His new trainer in the ways of badassery had strapped a harness to his torso, which was attached to a tire that she sat upon soon after. In her hands was a whip.

  “Of course it’s a good idea,” Kiara said, talking down to him like he was some kind of idiot. “You wanna get stronger, don’t you, boya?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “The fastest way to get stronger is through intense physical training,” Kiara interrupted. “It is only when a warrior pushes their body to the brink, when they take themselves to the edge of their physical limits, and then shatter those limitations, that they gain the strength they so desire.”

  “Um, if you say so.”

  “I do say so. Now…” Kiara’s eyes gleamed as she pulled the whip back. “Start running!”

  The sound of a whip cracking, followed swiftly by a number of girlish squeals, echoed throughout the city. Rumors would eventually spread about a masochistic young man who let his mistress tie him to a harness and pull her around while she whipped him. Eric would not be happy when he learned that someone had beaten him in the masochism department, and no amount of denial would convince him that Kevin was only letting Kiara do this so he could become stronger.

  In the end, Kevin couldn’t get to 200 push-ups. He couldn’t even break past the 100 mark.

  “Eighty-eight,” Kiara muttered, mostly to herself, though Kevin heard her all the same. “Not bad, boya. It’s definitely an improvement from the twenty push-up limit you had when you first started.” She looked down at the young man laying on his back, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he gasped for breath, and his body covered in a thick layer of sweat. “Good job.”

  “Gu… ugh…”

  Kevin could not answer. For obvious reasons.

  ***

  After taking a shower, Kevin, having donned his outfit of faded leather jeans, a white T-shirt and sneakers, left Kiara’s mercilessly untender hands.

  He didn’t ride his bike back home, mainly because he couldn’t ride his bike. His body was in too much pain for that. His arms were sore, his legs were burning, and his chest felt like someone had injected acid straight into his muscles.

  And yet, despite the pain, he felt good. Maybe not physically good, but mentally, emotionally, Kevin felt incredible. Accomplished. It wasn’t noticeable yet, but he felt like he was getting stronger.

  Arriving home and grunting his way up the stairs, Kevin entered his apartment to find Kotohime cooking breakfast. He knew it was her before even looking in the kitchen, as he could smell the Japanese cuisine being prepared. Lilian rarely made Japanese food these days, preferring to try new dishes each time she cooked. She had a predilection for American breakfasts
.

  “Good morning, Kevin-sama.” Despite her greeting, Kotohime did not look up from her task of setting the table.

  “Um, good morning,” Kevin muttered a tad shyly. Even after two weeks, he still couldn’t get over the new suffix she had added to his name. He remembered asking her why she’d decided to switch from using “-san” to “-sama” once. Her answer had been rather enlightening.

  “Because you have officially become Lilian-sama’s mate. I must afford you the respect that comes with such a position, even if you are not quite deserving of such respect yourself.”

  Kotohime was a very traditional woman, believing that respect must at least be afforded to the position, if not the person who held it.

  “I hope your workout with Kiara-san was productive,” she continued as her tails reached into a cabinet and pulled out several plates.

  “Uh, yeah, I like to think it was pretty productive.” Kevin rubbed the back of his head, and then winced. It seemed even the simplest of movements hurt. “Kiara’s tough, but thanks to her, I think I’m starting to get a little stronger.”

  “That is good. You’re going to need that strength if you plan on standing by Lilian-sama’s side.”

  “Believe me, I am already well-aware of that,” Kevin said with more than just a hint of dryness.

  “I’m sure you are.” Kotohime’s demure smile held an amused gleam, and her eyes glimmered in ways that still bothered Kevin. He felt like she was taking pleasure from his predicament.

  After he had decided to become Lilian’s mate, Kotohime had taken him aside and informed him of the dangers he would face—some of them anyway. She had not been pleasant about it either. There had been no reassurances, no “don’t worry, I’ll protect you” speeches or anything of the sort. Just straight up, brutally honest information given to him in a way that made the whole issue seem almost mundane.