***
After placing his new guns and the container filled with magazine clips in his bag, Kevin got into Kiara’s car. He then proceeded to scream like a little girl as the one-armed inu drove with the maniacal talents of a psychotic daredevil. It was definitely a good thing that the hospital was only a ten-minute drive—ten minutes because Kiara apparently mistook the gas pedal for the breaks.
It was a windswept Kevin who was dropped off in front of the hospital. The front doors to the large white building slid open to admit him. He stumbled into the waiting room. Several people looked at him as he entered and just as many ignored his existence; some sat on the chairs lining the walls, while others stood, arms crossed and uncaring. Several sick people coughed into their hands. Kevin also saw a number of individuals who were nursing injuries, though none appeared severe.
His feet tapped against white tiles as he walked up to the receptionist, a woman with a cat-like grin and sharp, amber eyes.
“I’m here to see Iris Pnév̱ma,” he said.
“I figured as much,” the woman replied, lips peeling back into a grin. “You’ve been coming and going for the past few days. You don’t need to bother signing in. You remember the way, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then just head on down. No sense wasting time here. Your mate probably wants to see you anyway.”
Kevin twitched at the mate comment, but he didn’t allow himself to feel startled. He was growing used to discovering that the people around him were yōkai in disguise.
He passed through a door next to the receptionist’s desk. Walking down a hallway, he moved past numerous doors on his left, each one numbered. Sunlight sprinkled in through several windows arrayed at evenly spaced intervals on the hall’s other side. Upon reaching the room he knew Iris resided in, he stopped.
Voices were coming from the other end.
“I don’t wanna go!” Lilian shouted.
“Look here, girl, you’re being unreasonable,” a voice that Kevin had never heard before said. “This is an order from your matriarch. You have to go.”
“No!”
“Lilian-sama, please do not be stubborn about this.”
“Quiet, Kotohime. You kept this from me. How could you?”
“Because I knew that Lilian-sama would react exactly as she is right now if she were to learn about where we are going beforehand.”
“Stop acting like a brat,” the new voice said. “I don’t know why you’re so dead set on not returning home, but you’ve got no choice in the matter anymore. Shit’s hitting the fan. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but our clan is officially at war with the Shénshèng Clan.”
Kevin froze by the doorway as he continued to listen in. War? Lilian’s clan was at war? Since when?
“W-what?” Lilian asked.
“Come on, girl, use that head of yours. Did you really think Mom would allow what happened to you to go unpunished? Tensions have been rising between the Shénshèng Clan and our clan ever since that pampered little brat tried to kidnap you. Now that we have proof of the Bodhisattva's intentions to off you, Mom has formally declared war as of two days ago.”
“I-I didn’t know that.”
“Of course you didn’t know that.” Kevin could almost hear the eyeroll in the other person’s voice. “There’s no way you could have, busy as you are enjoying life with your mate. Ha, really, you have it so easy.”
“W-whatever.” He could detect Lilian’s embarrassment through her tone. “I still don’t want to go.”
The voices seemed to trail off. Kevin was about to press his ear against the door and listen in further—
“HAWA!”
“M-My Lady!”
—when two shouts from behind made the hair on his neck bristle.
Kevin spun around just in time to receive a face full of tits. His back slammed against the door, swiftly depriving him of oxygen and forcing the door open. He and the person whose jugs were asphyxiating him tumbled into the room, where he landed on his back, and the person who crashed into him landed on top. His face was still shoved between the pair of massive mammaries, which were quite familiar to him.
It’s been awhile since this has happened.
“Owie…” He heard a familiar voice above him. “That really hurt. Hawa, maybe I shouldn’t run down the hall like that.”
“M-Mom?! What are you doing?! Get off my mate!”
“Hawa?”
The breasts were removed from Kevin’s face, allowing him to breathe again. He sucked in great, gulping heaps of oxygen. The person on top of him sat up and looked down. She tilted her head for maximum adorableness.
“Oh, Kevin-kyun.” Camellia’s bright smile reminded him of rainbows. “What are you doing down there?”
Kevin’s right eye began twitching. “You ran into me.”
Camellia’s moé levels reached a new plateau when she placed a finger on her lips. “I did?”
Kevin wasn’t affected. “You did.”
“Oh.” A pause. “My bad. Tee-hee.”
Kevin watched Camellia rap the knuckles of her right hand against her head with a blank look. He knew that letting her watch anime with him, Lilian, and Iris had been a bad idea. At the same time…
She isn’t referring to herself in third person…
“It’s fine.” He sighed. “Would you mind getting off of me?”
“Ah, right. Sorry.”
Camellia climbed off him and stood up. Kevin sat up, only blinking when Camellia extended a hand, which he took, allowing her to pull him to his feet. She then walked over to Iris’s bed, sat down, and grabbed her daughter’s hand.
Kevin ignored the incongruity of Camellia’s actions and turned to face the other people in the room. Kotohime and Lilian stood before him. There was also another person in the room, someone that he’d never seen before.
She didn’t look a day over eighteen, but considering she had three tails sticking out from underneath her outfit, appearances didn’t mean much. And speaking of her outfit, Kevin wondered just why in the heck she was wearing a toga. Was this something that all women in Lilian’s clan wore? Her long silver hair was carefully tied with bandages, ending in a dolphin’s tail near her feet, which were clad in sandals. Her chest was quite small, and there was also…
“Holy crap, you’re tiny.”
This girl was short, barely coming up to his chest.
Kevin received a fist to the gut for his words. He wheezed as the air was violently expelled from his lungs, and then dropped to his knees and curled his arms around his stomach as the fist retracted.
“B-Beloved!”
A worried Lilian knelt next to him, rubbing his back and sending trace amounts of celestial youki to help ease his pain.
“Cocky brat.” The woman who’d planted her fist in his gut crossed her arms and glared at him. “You think you can look down on me just because of my height? Get real! Say crap like that again and I’ll neuter you.”
“But I need that part of him!” Lilian exclaimed. “How else is Beloved supposed to give me kits?”
“Glad to know you care about me so much, Lilian,” Kevin muttered.
“Like I care about that,” the woman said. “No one messes with the meister, especially not some cocky little human brat.”
“Messes with the meister?” Kotohime made an odd face.
“G-gu… whatever.” Kevin stood up with Lilian’s help. That punch really had hurt. “Sorry for calling you short.”
“Apology accepted.” Kevin didn’t like the woman’s smile. Not one bit. “Not like your words matter anyway. You’re just a perverted brat, after all.”
“P-perverted brat?!” Kevin nearly shrieked. “I am not perverted!”
“Say that when your face isn’t getting shoved into someone’s tits.”
“That wasn’t my fault!”
The woman waved her hand dismissively as if swatting a fly. “Semantics.”
Kevin gawked. This woman, she was so—wai
t.
“Just who the heck are you anyway?” he asked as he suddenly realized that he didn’t know this woman.
“I’m glad you asked.” She placed her hands on her hips and puffed out her nonexistent chest. “You should be honored. I don’t normally deign to introduce myself to lowly humans, much less a brat like you.” Kevin scowled, but she ignored him. “Feast your eyes upon the greatest, most beautiful kitsune you’ll ever meet. I am the magnanimous, the all-powerful, the incredible—”
“That’s my aunt, Violent,” Lilian said, causing all the wind to get knocked right out of the woman’s sails. Kevin watched as, somehow, despite standing still, the three-tails tripped and fell, her face smacking against the ground with a loud crunch!
“D-dammit, girl, you’re not supposed to interrupt me when I’m doing my introduction!” The woman stood up. Her nose was bleeding, but she wiped off the blood and snapped it back into place. “And it’s Violet! Vi-o-let!”
“Ufufufu, my bad.” Lilian gave her aunt an innocent smile that wasn’t all that innocent.
Violet growled. “Don’t lie. You’re not sorry at all.”
“So, what were you guys talking about?” Kevin asked, taking absent note that Kirihime had joined them and now stood by her mistress’s side. Camellia was still holding Iris’s hand, not paying attention to anything else.
“We were just discussing travel arrangements, Kevin-sama,” Kotohime informed him. “We’ll be leaving shortly for—”
“I’m not going,” Lilian interrupted before her maid-slash-bodyguard could continue. She crossed her arms and sent everyone her most powerful pout, complete with jutting lower lip. Kotohime and Violet looked resigned and annoyed respectively.
“Going where?” asked Kevin.
“Back home, of course,” Violet said.
“You mean back home to Greece, don’t you?” He looked at Lilian, then Kotohime. “The Pnév̱ma Clan’s home?”
“Indeed.”
“Heh, give the brat a cookie. That’s right, we’re heading back to the Pnév̱ma Clan’s ancestral home. It’s getting too dangerous for our family to be out in the world at large. The men of our family are staying where they are, but you guys have been ordered to come back.”
Kevin raised an eyebrow. “Am I included in this group?”
Violet gave him a look that made Kevin wonder if he’d just asked a stupid question. “You are Lilian’s mate, aren’t you? Of course you’re coming. Mom wants to meet you.”
At the mention of Violet’s mom, Lilian hissed and wrapped her arms around one of his. Kevin studied her for a moment, then addressed Violet. “I’m guessing your mom is the matriarch of the clan?”
“That’s right.”
“I see.” Kevin slowly turned around and walked toward the door, pulling Lilian along with him. “Excuse me, you two, but I’d like to speak with Lilian alone for a moment.”
“Of course, Kevin-sama.” Kotohime bowed her head.
“Whatever.” Violet waved them off. “I don’t care what you do, though I hope you can make this stubborn child see reason.”
“I’ll show you stubborn.” Lilian scowled.
Kevin didn’t allow Violet time to retort. With Lilian’s hand in his, he walked out the door and down the hall, taking several turns until he found a small waiting room off to the side.
Several chairs sat in the center of the room. A TV hung overhead, playing the news, which featured a report on the destruction of Sonoran Junior High. There were two vending machines resting against the wall. One of them sold drinks, the other snacks.
Kevin studied Lilian, whose agitation showed clearly on her face. Even if he hadn’t known her as well as he did, he would have still been able to tell that she was displeased.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“No, I’m not all right,” Lilian’s reply was short, showing just how bothered she was. “I don’t wanna go back to Greece.”
“Because you don’t want to see your family.” Kevin nodded. He knew the story. Lilian had never really gotten along with her family, or so she always said. “Are they really that bad?”
“Yes,” Lilian said quickly. “They are. I’ve never gotten along with my relatives. Ever since I gained my second tail, my family members have treated me and my sister like we’re pariahs. Every day that we lived there, Daphne would treat me like I was a burden. She took every opportunity she could to let me know how fortunate I was that the great, wonderful matriarch was benevolent enough to let myself and Iris stay with them, of how lucky we were that we hadn’t been banished from the clan. The males of our clan treated us like crap, and the women pretended we didn’t exist. It was horrible there. I don’t want to go back.”
Kevin noticed that she only really spoke about Daphne specifically. He wondered if the others treated her better. They might have. Surely not everyone in the clan treated her and Iris like crap. While Lilian was no liar, he also knew that she sometimes exaggerated when it came to stuff she didn’t like.
Lilian had never spoken about her life in Greece at great length. He knew she disliked remembering those times, and so he went out of his way not to bring them up. Also, if he was being honest, he never really believed her past would become relevant. It had nothing to do with her life now—or so he thought.
It’s funny how life works out sometimes.
Kevin pulled Lilian into a hug. He felt her body melt against his. Her arms came up and wrapped around his waist as she tucked her head under his chin. He took a moment to relish in the feel of holding her against him. It felt right somehow, like this was how things were supposed to be.
“I know you don’t want to return home,” he said. “Believe me, I understand where you’re coming from, but I’m not sure we have a choice anymore. We can’t stay here. If we did, we’d just be bringing our friends more trouble. What if the next assassin who comes after us decides to use Lindsay or one of the others as a hostage? We’d be helpless.”
“I know,” Lilian’s muffled voice spoke against his chest. “I know that. I just…”
“You don’t get along with your family, but you don’t have to worry about them. I’ll be with you, and I won’t let Daphne or anyone else talk down to you, okay?”
Lilian’s grip on him tightened. “Daphne can be pretty scary, you know.”
“Pfft!” Kevin scoffed. “After the things I’ve seen, I doubt anything can frighten me anymore, and even if it did, you’re my mate. As your mate, it’s my job to stick by your side and help you out.”
“I guess,” Lilian mumbled. She paused. “I’m being silly, aren’t I?”
“A little,” Kevin admitted. “But that’s just a part of who you are, and if you weren’t the person that you are now, then I wouldn’t love you as much as I do.”
Lilian looked up, her captivating emerald eyes peeking out from beneath a curtain of shimmering crimson hair. A soft smile caused her lips to curve so beautifully it reminded him of a painting.
“I see. Thank you, Kevin.”
Kevin returned her smile with an easy one of his own. “You’re welcome.”
***
After returning to the room with a more compliant Lilian in tow, Kevin informed everyone that they would be going to Greece with them, much to the amusement of Violet.
“Heh, sounds like someone’s been whipped by their mate. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around, girl?”
After he prevented Lilian from strangling her aunt, the group prepared to leave. Several doctors came in and tried to place Iris on a stretcher—tried because Lilian nearly threw one of them out of the window when he attempted to cop a feel of her unconscious sister. After kicking the doctors out, he and Lilian set Iris on the stretcher, and Kevin pushed Iris out of the hospital.
They were directed toward the back of the hospital, where two cars waited for them. One of them, a limousine, sat in the parking lot with someone who Kevin could only describe as a bishounen standing by the already open door. He soon disc
overed that the pretty boy was actually one of Violet’s many half-siblings.
“Wait, so there are male kitsune?” Kevin asked in shock. The young man twitched.
“Of course there are male kitsune,” the bishy snapped. “How do you think kits are made? Do you think we just spring up from holes in the ground?”
“Sorry.” Kevin shook his head. “Let me rephrase that. I meant, there are male kitsune in this story?”
“Bastard!” The bishy growled, then paused to look at him in shock. “Wait, you can break the fourth wall?”
Kevin blinked. “The fourth what now?”
“The fourth wall! You know, the wall that separates our world from reality?”
“I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, for the love of—what a useless human!”
“Oi! You take that back right now, Sparkles! I’m not useless, you third-rate side character!”
“A side character, am I?! You clearly don’t know who you’re talking to, brat! I’m the great—”
“No one cares who you are,” Violet interrupted them. She then gave Kevin an appraising look, as if she suddenly saw him in a whole new light. “Not bad, brat. Not bad at all.”
Kevin sent her an expression so dry that deserts looked wet in comparison. “Hearing you pay me a compliment fills me with dread for some reason.”
Violet just laughed.
Iris was placed into the ambulance that they had somehow acquired—Kevin suspected enchantments were involved. Lilian had wanted to travel in the ambulance with Iris, but Violet gave her an emphatic no. This would have probably ended in another fight had Kotohime not intervened.
“Do not worry, Lilian-sama. Camellia-sama and I will travel with your sister and look after her in your stead.” Her dark eyes gleamed sharper than the katana in her hand. “I am certain that if any perverts are in the vehicle with us, my blade will convince them to keep their hands to themselves.”
He and Lilian climbed into the limo after that, followed by Violet and Kirihime. Kevin had never been in a limo before, but he had to admit that the one they rode was nice. The interior was spacious and all the seats were made of dark leather and felt really cushy. He and Lilian sat on one side, while Violet and Kirihime sat on the other. He noticed that the woman dressed as a French maid looked uncomfortable.
A Fox's Revenge (American Kitsune Book 7) Page 18
