But if that’s the case, then why does my heart feel like it’s melting out of my feet?
“I-is that so?” he asked, trying to ignore how his heart was turning into a puddle of goo. Lilian seemed to have other ideas.
“Oh, yes.”
Before Kevin could even think of removing his unused hand from the table, Lilian placed both of her hands over it. He nearly spit out his drink when he felt her warm, soft-as-silk fingers holding his larger, more calloused hand. He still ended up nearly choking when the scalding liquid went down the wrong tube.
While Kevin coughed and sputtered as the burning latté traveled down his airway, scalding his throat like liquid fire, Lilian raised his hand to her face. Kevin eventually stopped choking on his drink, and it was during this time that he noticed what the girl was doing.
His wide, frightened eyes made him look similar to a rabbit staring down the barrel of a shotgun. And, much like a terrified bunny, he was unable to pull away from Lilian’s enchanting gaze as she pressed the palm of his hand to her cheek. As his calloused hand touched skin that was softer than velvet, a shiver went from his feet to the crown of his head, and then traversed his spine down to his tailbone.
“Nothing brings me greater happiness than spending time with you,” Lilian told him earnestly.
In the face of such sincere, overwhelming emotion, Kevin could do nothing but stare. This girl… how could she make such embarrassing statements so easily?
“Lilian…” His throat felt dry, constricted. He couldn’t speak, but still knew, in his heart, that he had to say something. To say nothing at all when Lilian spoke with such heartfelt and earnest sincerity would be an insult to her. And so, Kevin gathered his courage and tried to speak. “I…”
“I finally found you, Lilian.”
“Yeah, I finally found you… wait.” Kevin paused, his nose wrinkling like a candy wrapper. “What?”
While Kevin felt nothing but confusion, Lilian froze. That voice. She knew that voice. She knew it as surely as she knew her own. But how could that be? There was no way that woman could have found her!
Unable to control the instincts that took hold of her, Lilian released Kevin’s hand and turned her head in the direction of the familiar feminine voice.
Standing before them was a gorgeous woman with proportions that put her own impressive figure to shame. Her long raven hair reached all the way down to her backside, swaying hypnotically in an unseen breeze. Large, almond-shaped eyes the color of dark chocolate stared at her with equal amounts of disapproval and relief.
She wore a dark red kimono made of silk, which stopped halfway down her thighs, revealing long porcelain legs. Flower motifs swirled around the entire garment. They started at the hem and traveled upwards in a tornado pattern, with the flowers becoming smaller and more sparse the further up they went, until they disappeared on her left shoulder.
It was such an odd outfit to see in America, especially Arizona, that it stood out more starkly than if Dante from Devil May Cry had walked into the café right then with guns blazing.
The gorgeous femme drew a lot of attention, and not just from Lilian and Kevin. Whether it was because of her incredible beauty, the fact that she was wearing a kimono in America, or because of the katana currently sheathed in a plain-looking scabbard at her side was unknown. It could have been all three.
No one except Lilian noticed the smaller blade strapped across the woman’s back, partially concealed underneath her pink obi. While someone carrying a wakizashi (a short sword used by samurai) was not inconspicuous, even in Japan, there were far more important things to look at. Like the katana. Or the woman’s breasts.
They were huge. Her breasts, that is.
Lilian felt like a small animal that had been trapped by a much larger and more ferocious predator―or a young yōkai who’d been caught by the pedobear, which was a feeling she hoped to never experience again. It wasn’t pleasant.
In the face of the kimono-clad beauty’s overwhelming presence, all Lilian could do was stare in a combination of fear, shock and just a little consternation. There were so many emotions boiling within her it was a wonder she actually managed to speak.
“K-Kotohime!”
“Hello, Lilian-sama.”
The woman smiled. Lilian shuddered. Inari-blessed, she’d forgotten what it was like to be on the receiving end of that smile. Beautiful and terrifying at the same time, it was a smile filled with unimaginable horrors, the smile of a monster hidden behind the veneer of a traditional Japanese beauty. It spoke of nothing good. It told her that she was absolutely, utterly and uncategorically screwed.
“I’m in trouble, aren’t I?”
Such an obvious question should have never been asked.
“Yes.” The woman’s voice, lyrical and beautiful in a way that caused all the people present, regardless of gender or sexual preference, to swoon. “Yes, you are.”
As a clearly befuddled Kevin watched her and the katana
-wielding femme, Lilian slumped in her seat.
And this day had been going so well, too.
Chapter 3
The Maid-slash-Bodyguard, Kotohime
Kevin didn’t think the situation could get any more awkward than this.
Actually, that was a lie; he could think of plenty of things that would make this situation more awkward—but, as most of those things involved whipped cream, bananas and his mother showing up at the most inopportune moment, he didn’t believe they were worth mentioning.
… Anyway, the point remained that this particular predicament had quickly gone down the drain, and was getting more awkward by the second.
After Lilian’s maid-slash-bodyguard, Kotohime, found them at the small café, the two kitsune plus one human had traveled back to the Swift residence.
Sitting at the table, her back straight and her bearing similar to those samurai he often saw in anime and manga, Kotohime cut a surprisingly imposing figure. Surprising, because the woman was drop-dead gorgeous, with her perfect white skin, dark raven hair, large doe-like eyes, and a bust even bigger than Lilian’s. When most people thought of imposing samurai, they didn’t think of a woman who looked like a pinup model.
At least her clothing helped present the image of a traditional Japanese beauty—if not a samurai—but really, who the heck wore kimonos in this day and age? And to wear one in America, of all places? Talk about weird.
Kevin thought about mentioning the woman’s odd choice in clothing. He wanted to ask why she was wearing something so outdated. Two aspects of her appearance prevented him from doing so: her katana, and the strangely terrifying gleam in her eyes. Those two characteristics made Kevin feel like she would slice and dice him if he so much as opened his mouth. So he did the smart thing and kept his mouth shut.
“Let me see if I understand correctly, the series of events that led to you living here.” Kotohime paused to take a sip of the tea Kevin had prepared, which he didn’t even know he had until he’d searched the pantry. He didn’t drink tea. Maybe Lilian had bought it. He supposed it didn’t matter. They had some, and he would be forever grateful for that small miracle. Now maybe he and Lilian could get out of this situation without being skewered.
Setting the cup back down, the femme fatale took to staring at Lilian with those unfathomably dark eyes. Kevin felt for her. The redheaded kitsune was practically quaking in her seat.
“After running away from home, you hitchhiked from Tampa Bay all the way to Phoenix?”
That was another thing he had learned; Lilian’s immediate family―plus two maids―had apparently been staying at one of their vacation homes in Florida when Lilian had run away. Kevin didn’t know why, but he assumed the reason had something to do with family issues.
Lilian squirmed uncomfortably as she sat across from the woman, looking like a child that had been caught stealing gum from a grocery store. It was undeniably cute, but Kevin felt bad seeing her this way, even if she had sort of brought it upon herself.<
br />
“… Yes.”
“And after hitchhiking across the country, you ran into an inu yōkai on the one night she lost control of her lust for battle?”
A little known fact about female inu was their susceptibility to losing control over their battle lust one night out of the entire year. Kevin thought of it as a sort of annual PMS, except that the female in question was less liable to cry and more prone to rip one’s head off. He didn’t say anything about that, though, because he had no desire to be gutted by this Kotohime woman’s katana.
Consequently, Kevin had learned that this didn’t happen to male inu. They had no annual night of battle lust, mainly because they always had a lust for battle and bloodshed. It was a 24/7 thing for them.
Lilian didn’t say anything this time. After shrinking further into her seat, she simply gave the older woman a submissive nod.
“Do you know how dangerous that was?” Though her voice was still calm, still collected, Kevin couldn’t help the shiver that ran down his spine. There was something dangerous lurking beneath that voice. Lilian must have sensed it as well, because her entire body shuddered from tails to ears. “Hitchhiking rides from strangers without a clue as to who they are might just be the least intelligent decision I think you have ever made. Lilian-sama, you could have easily been kidnapped, or worse. Had any of those drivers been yōkai, you would have been—”
“I know!” Lilian interrupted. Kotohime’s eyes narrowed, causing the beautiful two-tails to look away. “I know it was stupid, but I…” her eyes flickered over to Kevin. It was only for a second, but Kotohime still saw it.
“I see.” Kotohime regarded the two silently for a moment. She took another sip of her tea. It wasn’t bad, but it was clearly packaged. These Americans knew nothing about the proper preparation of tea, it seemed. “Regardless of your reasons for traveling all this way, what you did was dangerous, reckless and selfish. Camellia-sama and Iris-sama have been worried sick.”
Lilian’s gut clenched.
“I didn’t mean to worry them,” she said softly, still not looking at Kotohime. “But I had to do this. I wanted…” her eyes flickered to Kevin again. Shaking her head, she looked back at the woman who’d had as much a hand in raising her as her own mother did, if not more. “You always used to tell me stories about the human world; how humans are free to make their own choices, how they aren’t bound by outdated traditions set down several millennia ago. I wanted to experience that for myself. I wanted to see the human world for myself.”
With a slight frown marring her face, Kotohime sighed.
“You have always been rather fascinated with humans and the concept of freedom, but it doesn’t change the fact that what you did was dangerous. Nor does it change the fact that you were never supposed to be exposed to human society. You are an heiress to the Pnév̱ma clan and—”
“Don’t you dare go there, Kotohime!” Lilian snarled. For the first time since this highly peculiar meeting had begun, the younger kitsune glared at the swordswoman, her eyes alight with fire. In all the time Kevin had spent with Lilian, he’d never seen her like this, never seen her with that expression of indecipherable rage. That look, it was the most inhuman thing he’d ever seen from her. “I am not some glass figurine that needs to be protected from humanity! And I’m not some commodity that the matriarch can barter favor with! I refuse to let myself be used that way!”
Several seconds of tense silence passed as Kotohime and Lilian stared at each other. The swordswoman’s gaze remained placid, a sea of calm within a turbulent storm. Lilian’s viciously narrowed eyes contrasted sharply with the other woman’s. It was fierce and unpredictable, out of control and blazing, like a forest fire during the dry season.
Kevin watched as a strong gust of wind suddenly blew the door open and a tumbleweed flew in to roll across the kitchen floor. It made a trip around the table, then went back out the door, which closed behind it.
He blinked.
“That was weird.”
Kotohime’s gaze was compassionate, or at least, it seemed to be. Kevin couldn’t tell, as he didn’t know her very well, or at all, really. Even Lilian seemed to be having trouble determining the sincerity in Kotohime’s expression.
“I understand how you feel, truly I do. However, you and I both know that you cannot continue to defy Pnév̱ma-denka like this. If you do, then she will surely…”
“She will do nothing.” Lilian’s tails were a rictus of wrathful activity, waving about furiously behind her. “You and I both know that she can’t afford to lose me. She won’t do anything to jeopardize her precious little bartering chip.”
The way she said that, so bitterly, so full of anger and frustration, startled Kevin. He couldn’t help but be surprised by the sheer amount of rage and hurt in her voice. In all the time they’d known one another, he had never once heard her sound so broken up.
“You make it sound like Pnév̱ma-denka doesn’t even care for you.” Kotohime’s eyes were filled with sorrow as she spoke, like she couldn’t help but be saddened by Lilian’s words.
“Pnév̱ma-denka…” Kevin mumbled to himself, his nose crinkling at the use of the Japanese suffix, which meant “his/her/your highness” in layman's terms. Not that the two had heard him anyway. He was more or less being ignored at the moment. It seemed the presence of one human did not matter in the face of the topic these two yōkai were conversing about.
“Does she?” Lilian’s voice was filled with bitterness. “Would a person who truly cared for someone else force them to do something they didn’t want to?”
Kotohime appeared untroubled by the spiteful question. Kevin didn’t know if she was masking her feelings or honestly didn’t care. The kimono-clad woman just calmly sipped her tea.
“If it was for the sake of her clan, then yes.”
“I’m just as much a part of her clan as anyone else!” Tears were beginning to leak out of Lilian’s eyes as her emotions boiled over. Kevin could almost feel the girl’s inner turmoil, like a dagger knifing him through the chest. “I am just as much a part of the Pnév̱ma clan as Daphne! Yet you don’t see her being pawned off like some cheap trinket!”
“Daphne-sama is also going to become the head of the clan, and she does not have Lilian-sama’s rebellious nature,” Kotohime tried to reason with Lilian, as if this would somehow calm the two-tail’s stormy emotions. Fat chance of that happening. Kevin was beginning to learn that kitsune were illogical creatures by nature.
Lilian’s face took on a truly frightening visage as she gritted her teeth in frustration. Kevin could actually see her whiskers appearing as the control she possessed over her transformation slipped.
“Um, excuse me,” he finally interrupted, trying to prevent this precarious situation from degrading any further, “but could someone please tell me what the heck is going on? What are you two talking about?”
When Kotohime’s sharp gaze landed on him, Kevin’s entire body froze as if he’d been violently dumped in the Arctic Circle. An indescribable feeling washed over him, chilling him to his very core. He would have called this feeling fear, but that wouldn’t have done it justice. Terror would have been more accurate, but still an understatement. Being underneath that leering, predatory gaze made him feel like an insect that the woman was about to step on, something so beneath her notice that he wasn’t even worth the time it would take to purposefully kill.
“Do not speak out of turn, human. While I have nothing against your kind, we are discussing clan matters, of which you have no right to know about.” Kotohime scoffed, as if the very thought of her indulging his curiosity was preposterous. “Know your place.”
“Do not talk to my mate like that!”
Kotohime twitched. Her gaze shifted from Kevin to Lilian. With her penetrating, dagger-like stare no longer pinning him in place, Kevin heaved a deep gasp and slumped in his seat.
“Lilian-sama, you cannot possibly mean to say that this… this boy is―”
“That
is exactly what I’m saying.” Once more, Lilian interrupted the woman, whose frown grew very prominent. “Kevin is my mate. I chose him of my own volition, with my own free will, and I will not allow you or anyone else to keep me from him.”
“Lilian-sama, you are the heiress to one of the Thirteen Great Clans, one of the most powerful clans in our world. Someone like yourself needs a mate worthy of her stature.”
“Just what are you trying to say?” Lilian’s eyes flickered, her pupils shifting from their rounded shape to black slits.
“I am saying that you cannot be with a human,” Kotohime replied bluntly.
Eyes narrowing dangerously, Lilian bared her canines, which Kevin noticed were very sharp. “Who are you to tell me who I can and cannot be with?”
“The matriarch―”
“The matriarch can go to hell! Do you think I care what that old hag wants? Do you really think I’ll allow someone like her to use me? She doesn’t care about me. She just wants someone she can train to become the perfect little doll in her power plays. I’d sooner mate with an inu than whatever pompous jerk she sets me up with!”
“You do not have a choice in the matter.” Kotohime’s voice grew colder than a breeze created by a yuki-onna’s ice powers. Kevin shivered. Lilian did not appear to be affected. She continued glaring at the woman, her dangerously narrowed eyes and bared teeth reminding Kevin that she was not human despite her appearance.
“Very well then,” the redhead said, her voice now grave. “If this is how you want to play, then you leave me with only one choice.”
Lilian stood up, back straight, ears pointed toward the ceiling and her tails unwavering and still. She looked at Kotohime with a surprisingly formal gaze. Kevin wondered what she was doing.
Kotohime’s eyes widened.
A Fox's Maid Page 6
