"Agreed to what?" Hiroki sounded confused.
"We're having dinner with the twins."
"Did you lose a bet?"
"No. David pouted."
"You are a sucker. Did he make puppy dog eyes?"
"Yes!"
"Is that her weakness?" David asked Hiroki.
"Hai."
"I'll have to write that down."
"It only works once. After that I become immune. You wasted it. Now you'll never get to see this cool trick I can do with my tongue, three jolly ranchers, and a rubber band."
"That sounds dangerous."
"But it feels good." I felt him shudder behind me as I piled meatloaf on top of my mashed potatoes.
"Damn it!"
I filled my glass with juice and set it on my tray, turning and waiting for Roki and David to finish. "Do the twins know about this dinner date?"
"It was Remy's suggestion. Rome, I don't know."
"But no Sabine, right?"
"No. I value our relationship and my twig and berries."
"Smart man. I wouldn't say twig though. More like a thick branch."
"Thank you." He grinned like a schoolboy.
I grinned at him and let him lead the way. He seemed to instinctively know which way to go and found the twins in the back corner, already eating at a large circular table.
Rome looked up and his forkful of wound spaghetti stopped halfway to his mouth. His eyes narrowed, focused on me for a moment before shifting their icy gaze on his brother. "Now I know why you wanted the bigger table."
"I know not of which you speak, brother." His grin gave away his obvious attempt at lying.
Rome motioned us toward the three empty seats, acquiescing with a deep sigh. I sat down next to Remy, putting an entire table between Rome and me. I figured I could pop halfway across the hall before he got over the table. Not that I wanted to, or planned on, testing that theory. But sometimes, shit just happens. My mouth was the usual catalyst, but I figured it was some sort of birth defect or genetic disorder. My parents pissed me off whenever they talked, too.
Remy gave me a small smile as I shifted in my seat and unrolled my silverware from my napkin. David sat next to me, putting Roki between him and Rome.
"So…How are you, Rome?" I said to break the ice.
He paused eating again and narrowed his eyes, trying to see if I was baiting him. "Never been better. We shall see how long that lasts."
I smiled at him. At least he wanted to be at the same table as me as much as I wanted to be there with him. About the same level that I wanted to be disemboweled with the snippy side of a pair of rusted toenail clippers.
"Thanks for saving my ass this afternoon," I said to Remy softly.
"I tried to warn you."
"She said something nasty and my mouth is a licensed first responder."
He nodded. "I watched the scene unfold."
"You were guarding me?" I grinned and spooned some meatloaf, gravy, and potatoes into my mouth.
"No. You got lucky. I just happened to be running behind her."
"I'll talk to her," Rome said, giving me a little shock.
"Thank you?"
He nodded and continued eating. Feeling like we had a breakthrough moment, I smiled at him which just caused him to frown at his food.
"See?" David said softly, giving my leg a stroke with his left hand, stopping just at the hem of my skirt. The heat of his hand felt so warm, I sighed at his comforting touch.
"We wanted to thank you," Remy said, taking a sip of his drink.
"We did?" Rome couldn't help but ask.
"We did."
"For what?" I was just as confused as Rome.
"For staying away from the cave like you were asked."
"Told," I interjected.
"That as well. Sorry to involve the headmaster. For your safety, I thought you might listen to him. He is quite imposing."
"Uncle Tatsuo? Hardly. He can be scary, but I've seen him in…his…dra–" I trailed off. They were all staring at me, except for Hiroki, who was rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"Uncle?"
"Not by blood. Old family friend."
"You're his kitsune niece!" Rome stared at me wide-eyed and open mouthed.
"Me? No. What's a kitsune?"
Remy started chuckling beside me. David squeezed my knee.
Sighing in resignation, I put my spoon down. I deserved it. "Guess you guys are getting some extra credit." My last hope is that I was only half-kitsune. Maybe it wouldn't count if they guessed half-right.
"Since Headmaster Tatsuo has been telling us about your antics since we were children, we will not submit a guess," Remy said and then looked to his brother.
"Did you really blow up a school?" For the first time since I'd met him, Rome actually sounded impressed.
"Maybe. You a cop?"
"What?"
"Five-oh. You gonna bust me? Because there is a gag order on that case."
"No?"
"Okay. Then yes."
"The flaming hamsters?"
"Just the one."
"Confetti fire extinguishers?"
I chuckled and nodded. "I'd forgotten about that one."
"It was all true?"
Rome was starting to scare me. He was gazing at me with something akin to hero worship in his eyes. Shifting in my seat, I answered him with a simple, "And those were just the ones I got caught doing."
Remy started laughing. "You should have introduced yourself sooner. Rome might not have wanted to maul you when he first met you. He might have even asked for your autograph."
"Shut up, Remy."
I grinned at him. "See? Even annoying people can be cool."
He huffed. "I never said you were cool."
"I was talking about you." I winked to let him know I was kidding. He didn't speak sign language. His quickly reddening face was either leading to an outburst of animosity or an aneurism. "Lighten up, Francis. I was kidding."
His eyes narrowed, but he didn't flip the table. He chose wisely. I could tolerate a lot of things; threats, beatings, snide comments, but don't fuck with my meatloaf.
Then I noticed his eyes weren't focused on me. Neither were Remy's or Hiroki's. David was looking at them trying to figure out what was going on when I felt the heated presence behind me.
"What the fuck is going on here? You're eating with this bitch now?"
"Oh. Hi, Sabine," I said over my shoulder, not deigning to turn around. I didn't need to. If she tried anything, I would have seen it on the faces staring at her.
"Yes. We are." Rome told his sister evenly.
"You want to join us? I can scoot over," I said and slid my chair closer to David. Just in case she decided to. Mine.
As soon as Rome's eyes widened, before he could even utter a word of warning, I popped across the table, rematerializing beside him and watching as Sabine's swing met nothing but the empty air of my chair. She tumbled forward, stopping herself just before she faceplanted into my meatloaf.
"Get back here, you fucking bitch!" She snarled and a pure miasma of malice wafted over the table just as she squatted and launched herself at me.
There was a wall behind me, and I waited until the very last possible moment and just as I was about to slip back to my seat, Rome's hand shot out and grabbed a fistful of her blazer, stopping her dead in her attack.
"You will stop!" Shivers ran up my arms as Rome's voice echoed in my head.
I didn't have a single sibling. The relationships between brother and sister were a complete mystery to me. However, I was pretty sure that spitting in your brother's face was generally frowned upon. Especially when he threw her halfway across the alcove of the dining hall where our table was.
"Nice throw."
"Not funny. You should go. I'll calm her down."
I thought about arguing. I still had a half a plate of meatloaf… But, he was being nice to me and defending me. I'd listen. This time. "Come on, Roki."
"Hai.
"
Sabine was untangling herself from two students and the three chairs she had slid into, and picked herself up off the ground, staring at her brother incredulously. Expecting a string of obscenities, I nearly covered my ears as a primal, enraged scream erupted from her mouth.
I popped across the table, grabbed my plate of food, touched David on the shoulder, and popped the entire way across the room. Without looking back, I stepped through the doors and spooned food in my mouth as I walked.
"That went about as well as I expected," Hiroki said as he appeared beside me.
"Better. I thought it would be Rome trying to kill me tonight."
"True."
"Want some meatloaf?"
"No. I ate enough. Thank you, Kaede-sama."
"Let's stop by the Home Ec room. I'm out of rice."
"Hai."
Chapter 13
"I'm bored."
"Want to go watch a movie?" Hiroki was standing by the window in our room. With our dinner interrupted, we had gone straight back there. I'd been content for the first five minutes until I realized we didn't have a fucking thing to do.
"No. I want to go do something."
"You want to get into trouble."
I poured some sake into my stolen coffee mug. "You sure you don't want any?"
"With as well as you have been getting along with the indigenous life, I think I shall remain sober. It is better to keep you safe."
"Safe, shmafe." He had turned his gaze back outside our bedroom window, looking down at the ground level. "Whatcha lookin' at?"
"Keeping an eye out for danger."
"It will come through the front door, not the window."
"When it is centered on you, it will come from all directions."
"I do have that effect on people."
"Hai."
"But not you," I said thoughtfully.
He turned his head and narrowed his eyes. "You know I would never hurt you."
"Yeah. But you don't do anything to make me feel good, either."
A frown touched his lips. "My apologies. But you have a boyfriend now. That falls into his realm of expertise."
"What about you?"
"What about me?"
"Why don't you have a girlfriend? Or a boyfriend?"
He laughed. "You are a fulltime job. I would have little time to devote to someone else."
My heart cracked a little. Not because he was being mean, but because he was being truthful. It hurt a little. "Yeah. I'm a big pain in the balls," I said and set my mug down. "I'm gonna go to the bathroom."
"I shall foll–"
"No. I'll be fine walking down the hall and back. Be right back," I said and nonchalantly grabbed the jar of sake, tucking it into the blazer jacket I had never taken off. With my arm tucked inside, I walked out the front door. When it clicked closed behind me, I popped to the stairs and then down to the first floor, not looking back as I strode through the double doors leading out of Breckenridge Hall.
Just to be sure, I made a series of jumps, popping across the campus and not walking until my feet touched the trails leading from the school grounds. Just wanting to be alone, I picked one at random and drank straight from the jar as I left everything and everyone behind.
The moon peeked between the overhead trees illuminating the path needlessly. But I still smiled up at the cool glow overhead and sniffed the air around me. While the temperatures were low, the jacket and the sake kept me warm enough. I did, however, wish I had some pants on. My ass was a little chilly and I rubbed it as I walked.
Walking for almost a half-an-hour, I realized I was quite lost and sat down on a frigid outcropping of rock to drink some more. The clearing seemed somehow familiar even to my rice wine dulled senses. Then an overhead cloud moved past the moon and a gleam of light illuminated the entrance to a very familiar cave.
"Huh. Looky looky. How'd that get there?"
Grinning as I stood, I downed the last of my drink and set the jar gently on the rock ledge, frowning as it fell when I let go and shattered against the ground.
"Shhh!"
Looking at the entrance to the cave, a large brownish black dog the size of a Volkswagon stepped from the entrance and looked around. It was smaller than the two black ones that had been there the other day and not nearly as frightening. That might have just been the sake flowing through my veins.
"Fluffy puppy," I whispered and foxed out. Not fully, just ears and tail. I popped in front of it, not the wisest thing I had ever done, I admit. But the look on its face made it totally worth it. "Hi, Puppy!"
It growled and tried to bite me, its giant head tilting as its jaws snapped around my waist. I popped ten feet to the left just as they snapped shut. "Bad puppy!"
Its fur looked totally soft and I wanted to touch it. It began bucking as I appeared on its back, straddling it like a mechanical bull and maniacally cackling as I stroked the fur on its neck. It wasn't very soft. An utter let down.
"Scruffy puppy," I said disappointedly and appeared on the ground behind it, slapping it on its ass.
It bucked again, and spun, its huge paws landing on the ground in front of me. Launching another attack, I reappeared beside it, but too close. It swiped me with a paw, and I flew across the clearing. Just before I impacted against a rock wall, I popped to the ground, but my forward momentum carried through the transition and I rolled to a stop on the dusty, dirty ground staring up at the star filled sky.
"Ouuuch." Gingerly, I sat up, my eyes widening as the giant canine tore across the clearing, intent on swallowing me whole.
I screeched and popped over to the entrance to the cave, reappearing just in time to see the six-hundred-pound canine slam into the wall that I'd narrowly missed being splatted against. It wasn't as lucky. Its head impacted with a sickening thud and it dropped to the ground.
"You dead, puppers?" I kind of felt bad. I didn't mean to kill it. I reappeared next to it and poked it with my toe, sighing in relief when I saw the rise and fall of its chest. Then, I screamed when it erupted in a violent pillar of black smoke. Jumping backward, I watched in fascination as the smoke twisted and dissipated in the cool breeze, leaving a prone girl lying unconscious on the dirt.
"Sabine's buddy? What the fuck are you doing here?"
My head shot up, looking around for her friend, but she was apparently alone. I slipped my foot under her shoulder, flipped her over on her back, and winced at the bright red gash across her forehead. "You're gonna have a wicked headache…"
Looking up at the entrance to the cave, I realized she'd been saddled with guard duty, and the object of my innermost desires was currently quite open for my perusal. With a grin, I let sleeping dogs lie, and practically skipped inside.
It wasn't a cave. It was a fucking temple.
And there was a god enshrined within.
The hair on the back of my neck rose as I tiptoed quietly within and looked around. The Inari half of my fox was roiling in the massive amount of spiritual energy, even if it wasn't the Inari-kami's. To it, a god was a god. I wasn't the most reverent of Inari, either. When I was little, I took great pride in helping my father at the temple. As I grew older… I only thanked him when I made sake.
The energy inside the cave was unlike anything I had ever felt before. Anger rolled through it in waves, the urge for destruction, but at the same time it felt…related. It felt like me. It was angry at the world and those who had brought it into it.
Whatever it was, it was beneath me. Every trace of energy was pounding up at me from below. I fell to my knees and put my hand on the ground, wanting nothing more than to soothe its pain. The flames in the bowls of oil perched on the stone ledge lining the inside of the temple flickered around me as a breeze swept through the square shaped room.
A soft caress of understanding grazed the edges of my consciousness. Whatever god had been enshrined, it was slumbering in a fitful nightmare. The soft touch became a pool, not of rage, just overwhelming as it completely submerged me.
Old didn't even begin to describe the entity holding me in its mind. Ancient. Always. Lupine to my vulpine. It whispered words I couldn't hear and wouldn't have been able to understand if I had.
"Who are you?" My voice sounded oddly muted, even in the stone chamber. Like I was under water.
Fenrir.
I'd have to have been a fool not to know the name. Fenrir, the wolf of destruction. The Norse god who was supposed to devour the world at the end of times. I'd read the story so many times as a child, it was engrained in my memory. Ragnarok. In fact, it was Uncle Tatsuo who had first told me the story. The three children of the trickster god, Loki. Fenrir, Jormungandr, and Hel.
Who are you, Child?
I was in deep shit. My decision to walk into that cave suddenly didn't seem like the brightest idea I'd ever had. I wished somebody would have warned me.
"Sabine," I lied.
Trickster…just like my sire. I can see your name, though it is unusual. Kaede…
A normal person of sound mind and body would have run. I popped the fuck out of there, running when my feet touched the hard-packed dirt at the mouth of the cave, kicking up dust in my efforts to put as much space between me and the god of destruction.
"Uncle Tatsuo is gonna kill me," I chanted repeatedly as I ran the entire way back to campus.
∞ ∞ ∞
"Are you sure you're okay?"
I nodded at Hiroki, tired of him repeating the same damn question over and over again. It had started last night, when I got back to the room after my little meeting with Fenrir. I'd just nodded then, not daring to elaborate, and crawling into bed after a long shower. When he woke me up to go to class, it had started again, almost as if he could smell the trouble clinging to me like the stench of defeat. Maybe it was the stench of I fucked up.
"Yeah! Totally fine. Why do you keep asking?"
"You seem rather subdued. Experience has taught me that usually equates with you doing something you shouldn't have and are afraid to tell me. What did you do?"
"Nothing, Roki. I went for a walk, drank a little sake, froze my ass off. I wasn't in the mood for company is all," I said with a smile and hoped he didn't notice.
We almost made it to Home Economics when he narrowed his eyes over my shoulder. "Then why is your boyfriend and your two new friends barreling across the quad like you buried their sister in a shallow grave?"
A Tail of Woah: A Reverse Harem Academy Tail (The Fox and the Hounds Book 1) Page 11
