Iris didn’t respond, and Kirihime eventually left, allowing her to be alone with her thoughts.
Maybe I should apologize.
It would be hard, but she loved her sister dearly and didn’t want Lilian to hate her because of something like this.
She blew out a breath and walked back inside, heading toward the room where her sister would most likely be resting.
***
Lilian and Kevin were lying in bed. Despite the late hour, neither of them could sleep. It wasn’t that they weren’t tired, because they were; they just had a lot on their minds.
“Kevin?”
“Hmm?”
“Have you ever gotten into an argument with someone you love?”
Kevin shifted to get more comfortable. Lilian, who lay on top of him, also moved to accommodate for the new position.
“Sometimes. Back when Mom was going to college, we would occasionally get into arguments. They were never anything big, just the standard arguments that a mother and son get into… I think. They were mostly about stupid things, and I don’t remember them all that much because I was so young. Why do you ask? Did you and Iris get into a fight or something?” Lilian said nothing, but the way she tightened her hold around his torso told Kevin all he needed to know. “I see.”
“I… I don’t really know what to do,” she confessed. “Iris has always been with me, and I can sort of understand where she’s coming from, but things have changed. I have you now, and I don’t think it’s considered acceptable for sisters to bathe together.”
Kevin was silent for a moment.
“I’m kind of surprised you even have something you consider unacceptable. Weren’t you the one who told me that you and Iris used to kiss each other?”
With her face lying on his chest, Kevin could not see the adorable blush creeping across her cheeks, but he could imagine it easily enough.
“Muu, that’s not something you should be saying at a time like this. I’m being serious here.” She lightly slapped his chest. “Stupid Kevin.”
“I’m sorry.” Kevin chuckled. Lilian bit his nipple hard enough to earn a yelp. “Alright, alright, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh at you.”
“You had better be.” Silence ensued, but only for a moment. Lilian rubbed her cheek against his chest, enjoying the feel of her mate’s warmth. “So, what do you think I should do?”
“I’m not sure I’m the best person to answer that question. I don’t have any siblings, so I don’t know what you should do. But, whenever Mom and I had an argument, we would always make up eventually. I mean, she’s my mom. I love her, and I don’t want us to hate each other because we were arguing.”
He looked down at Lilian, who raised her head, bright green irises peering at him from beneath a curtain of crimson hair.
“It’s the same for you, isn’t it? Iris is your sister, and I’m sure you don’t want to remain angry at her for the rest of your lives, right?”
“You’re right. I know you’re right.” Pushing herself up, Lilian straddled Kevin’s waist and graced him with a smile. “Thank you.”
Trying―and mostly failing―to act nonchalant and cool, Kevin shrugged. “That’s what I’m here for… sorta. I-I mean, as your mate, it’s kinda like, you know, I should support you… and stuff.”
“Hm, I suppose. Still,” she whispered, leaning down until her lips just barely brushed against Kevin’s, “I feel like I should show you my gratitude. That’s also something mates do for each other, right?”
“Right,” Kevin muttered before closing the distance, claiming Lilian’s lips in a heated kiss.
Lilian moaned, the noise barely muffled by Kevin’s lips, as a warm tongue filled her mouth. Times when Kevin initiated tongue action were rare, so it never failed to stoke the flames of her passion when he took the initiative.
She allowed him this moment, moaning at the feel of his tongue exploring the inside of her mouth. It was a shy, tentative reconnoiter, like a rookie spy who feared being caught and didn’t want to penetrate enemy territory too deeply. Despite the shyness of his actions, Lilian loved what he was doing, and her own tongue soon joined in, caressing his as saliva was stirred up and shared between them.
Kevin’s kiss heated up, taking Lilian by storm, especially when a pair of hands suddenly and quite unexpectedly landed on her rear. Lilian’s surprised gasp became a lyrical symphony when those same hands decided to caress, knead, and squeeze to their heart’s content. And when those same hands pulled her down until something hard and stiff came into contact with her sensitive lips, the music she sang into his mouth became louder still.
Her panties soon became damp, and the wet article of clothing clung to her skin and brushed against her folds. Perhaps it was simply due to the novelty of the act but, like ripples created by a stone as it hits the water’s surface, a delicious and inescapable sensation spread through her insides.
Lilian decided to reciprocate the gesture.
“Hnnn!” Kevin’s hips jerked against hers as he slid between her legs. The feeling of her, well, her rubbing against him in such deliriously pleasurable ways made whatever self-restraint he might have possessed evaporate. All that remained was his desire for the fox-girl on top of him.
Lilian’s world spun. She could not see this, as she had closed her eyes, but the feeling of someone rolling her over was unmistakable. Her back hit the soft memory foam mattress, and Kevin’s weight bore down on her, pushing against her. Tiny squeaks mixed with low notes escaped her mouth as Kevin ground against her overly sensitive nub.
And then it happened. Something unexpected. Something that had never happened before in all of their previous make-out sessions.
Her mate’s left hand, which at some point had cupped her right breast, slipped underneath her shirt. The warm skin on skin contact caused her entire body to light up like a live wire. His thumb flicking over her stiffened peak made her body shudder and writhe in indescribable pleasure.
Lilian’s breasts had been always sensitive, perhaps because of how large they were, and the act of Kevin fondling them, of his hand touching the bare skin of her breast, proved to be too much for her to handle.
“K-Kevin…”
Kevin stiffened when a pair of legs locked around his waist.
“Please…” It wasn’t a word. It was a moan. Kevin thought he would die of sexy. “I need you… please…”
Before they could go any further, the door burst open with a loud bang! reminiscent to cannon fire. Kevin and Lilian froze. Their necks slowly craned over to see Iris standing in the doorway. With her hair overshadowing her face and her crimson eyes glowing with vicious malignance, the incredibly gorgeous kitsune looked like Sadako Yamamura—a very hot version of Sadako Yamamura, but still kind of The Ring-like.
“You… you two…”
“Uh.” Kevin thought fast. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
Iris stared. Lilian stared. Kevin felt the combined weight of their stares and blushed a deep scarlet.
“… Okay, so maybe this is what it looks like.”
Iris ground her teeth together.“I can’t believe you would do this to me! See if I ever decide to apologize to you again!”
The door slammed shut behind Iris, who they could hear stomping down the hall. When the sounds of her angry footsteps faded, they looked at each other.
“Sooo.” An only slightly blushing Kevin raised an eyebrow. “Any idea what that was about?”
“Not a clue.” Lilian shook her head. “Wanna start making out again?”
“After what just happened, I think we’d better not.”
“Hawa.”
“Don’t steal your mother’s catchword!”
***
Maddison used to be a member of a very small clan of Water Kitsune located at the edge of the Bodhisattva’s territory—until her family sold her into slavery because the son of the Bodhisattva, Jiāoào Shénshèng, had decided that he wanted her for himself.
He
r clan had been forced to sell her as a slave. Oh, they called her a vassal of the Shénshèng Clan, but she knew that was a very loose concept as far as Jiāoào was concerned. While everyone else in the Shénshèng Clan treated her with the respect deserving of a vassal, Jiāoào treated her like a toy.
She knew the reason Jiāoào wanted her. With her long red-haired, green eyes and lovely curves, she looked somewhat similar to Lilian Pnevma. Of course, Jiāoào made sure to inform Maddison of her deficiencies at every opportunity; mentioning how her hair didn’t have Lilian’s otherworldly luster, how her eyes lacked the brilliant vibrancy of emeralds, and how her body didn’t possess the luscious curves of the real Lilian Pnevma. She didn’t know what made it worse, that he told her these things to begin with, or that he was usually degrading her during intercourse.
She walked through the second home of the most powerful clan of Celestial Kitsune. Located next to the Tianmen Mountain, the Shénshèng Clan’s second home held the appearance of a mansion from the Han Dynasty.
Only Jiāoào used this home. Here, away from the eyes of his father and sister and brothers, he could debase his servants—slaves—to his heart’s content.
Maddison eventually reached the room that served as Jiāoào’s private chamber. She knocked upon the extravagant door, with its depiction of orchids and a nine-tailed kitsune sitting under a tree, and then she waited.
The person who greeted her was not Jiāoào, but another woman who, like her, had been enslaved to serve Jiāoào. Like all kitsune, she was quite beautiful, with purple hair, blue eyes, and a voluptuous body. Her three tails hung limply behind her.
She wasn’t wearing any clothes.
“Yes? Can I help with you something?” Ling asked, and Maddison nearly shuddered. Ling Mei was a “vassal” who had served Jiāoào for far longer than her. The woman’s eyes were dead, emotionless in a way that dolls would envy. How many decades had she been forced to endure under Jiāoào’s yoke to have eyes like that? Maddison pitied her.
“Yes, could you inform Lord Jiāoào that a spy living in Arizona has uncovered the location of Lilian Pnevma?” Maddison thought she saw a flicker in Ling’s eyes, but that could have just been a trick of the light. “It appears that she and her immediate family have traveled to Phoenix, Arizona.”
After taking a moment to absorb this information, Ling bowed to Maddison, who returned it. “I will hand this information to Lord Jiāoào at once…”
She trailed off when a cry of pain reverberated from within the room.
After a second of awkward silence, she amended her statement.
“Correction: I shall hand this information over to Lord Jiāoào once he has finished satisfying himself.”
Maddison shuddered again. She thought Ling also shuddered, but she couldn’t be sure. Either way, she had done her task and, seeing how she had no desire to become Jiāoào’s plaything, she decided to leave before he became aware of her presence.
“In that case, I shall leave you to it.”
With one final bow, she left, walking down the hallway as quickly as her legs could carry her.
Chapter 4
A Teacher's Closure… Sort of
The next day was an awkward one. Iris tried to pretend that what happened last night had never happened, and Lilian helped by claiming ignorance. There were still some problems, especially between the two sisters, but Kevin decided not to interfere for fear of exacerbating the issue. That, and Iris didn’t seem to like him very much, so he thought it best to avoid her for the time being.
That morning Kevin rode his bike to Mad Dawg Fitness, which was only a few miles from his complex.
He really did love how everything was so close to where he lived: the mall, the gym, school, the park, the grocery store. Literally, every place he might need or want to visit was between ten to twenty minutes away.
The air that morning was crisp, cool and refreshing. It was still fairly early. The sun had risen but wasn’t that high. It sat low on the peaks of a mountain range in the distance, barely a third of it peeking up from sharp spires painted in oranges and pinks.
As he pedaled, he thought about Kiara and his training. He trained with her four days a week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. He had actually wanted to do more, but Kiara told him that four days would be more than enough. She further explained that if he trained any harder it might actually damage his muscles, which would hinder his attempts at becoming strong enough to stand against yōkai. He complained in the beginning, but after their first week of training, he understood why she refused to train him more.
Kiara’s training was tough. Really tough. Brutal even. Kevin never went home without feeling like someone had tried to tear his muscles apart from the inside out, like he’d been skinned and had his body dunked in rubbing alcohol. After experiencing her routine firsthand, Kevin was glad that he didn’t have training with Kiara more than four days a week.
Mad Dawg Fitness was one of those gyms that could be considered truly gigantic. Not just huge, but monstrous. Spanning nearly 12 acres of land, the fitness center looked like a sprawling metropolitan mall instead of a gym.
The building itself had three stories. Having been there plenty of times in the past―especially recently―Kevin knew that each level consisted of different recreational activities. The entire second and third levels were dedicated to fitness classes like Zumba and stuff. It had all of the normal sports rooms that people expected from a gym: basketball court, tennis rooms and a swimming pool. Anything people could think of that dealt with exercise, it was probably there.
Already dressed in his workout clothes, Kevin arrived in the room that Kiara had dedicated to his training. Spacious and more than a little spartan, the large room’s only real decorations were the large blue mat that covered nearly the entire floor and a mirror that spanned the entire northern wall.
Kiara was already there, standing in the center of the mat, waiting for him.
She also wasn’t alone.
“Ack!”
The three jabronis who had tried to beat the crap out of him with little success just over a month ago grinned at him.
“Wh-what the heck are they doing here?!” Kevin’s voice sounded quite shrill as he shouted, pointing to the trio of tall, taller and… midget. Seriously. Kevin had never seen someone so freaking short.
He’s like a pint-sized meathead.
The fanged grin on Kiara’s face did little to settle his nerves. In fact, it just made everything worse. “I called them here to help train you.”
“T-train me?”
“That’s right.” Kiara crossed her arms, the smirk on her face widening. “I think your physical fitness is at a level where you can begin learning how to fight against opponents stronger than you. You’re actually lucky to reach this point so quickly, but I think we can attribute that to you being on the track team.”
“B-b-but why are these three here?! They’re just a bunch of side characters with no real purpose!”
While Midget and Pimples scratched their heads with a witless look on their faces, Tall got angry. “Hey! Did you just insult us?”
“YES!”
Kiara looked amused. “You’ve been hanging out with those foxes way too much.” Kevin glared at her, but she just chuckled. “Don’t give me that look. You knew this was going to happen eventually. The only way you can learn how to fight properly is by fighting other people.”
“I know that.” Kevin’s scowl did not leave his face. “I just don’t know why I have to spar against those three. Why can’t I spar against you?”
“Because even if I were to hold back, just a single punch from me would probably kill you. At the very least it would put you in a hospital and cripple you for life.”
… An unsettling silence descended upon the room. Several crows cawed somewhere in the distance, which Kevin found strange because they were inside… and Arizona didn’t have crows.
“Okay, you make a very good point,” Kevin admitte
d reluctantly, “but I still don’t understand why it has to be them.”
“Aw, don’t be like that, bud.”
“Yeah, we won’t hurt you… much.”
“And I certainly won’t break your teeth in for what you did to my tooth.”
While the three jabronis cracked their knuckles, Kevin gulped.
Kiara did her best to reassure her disciple. “Don’t worry, boya, I’ll stop them before they do too much damage to you.”
“Your words are like a bastion of safety in this sea of fear and uncertainty.” Kevin deadpanned.
“Really?”
“NO!”
“Oh, well,” Kiara shrugged, “can’t say I didn’t try. Now let’s get to work. Boys?”
As the faces of Midget, Pimples and Tall split into wide grins, Kevin whimpered.
I knew I should have stayed home this morning.
***
That morning, Lilian went about doing everything she normally did. However, while she went through the motions of daily life, she was still very conflicted about what happened last night with her sister.
She remembered Kevin’s words before they went to bed. She knew her mate was right. While there were several things about Iris that she neither liked nor approved of, Lilian really did love her sister. So, she planned on apologizing.
Unfortunately, apologizing proved to be more difficult than expected, especially since she didn’t know how.
Sitting around the table with her family, Lilian’s mind worked furiously on trying to think up the best way to apologize. Sure, she could just say “sorry” but, in all honesty, she really didn’t know what she should be sorry for. The fact that she and Iris got into a fight? That she walked out on her sister while they were taking a bath? What about how she didn’t think it was okay for her and her sister to bathe together in the first place? Two of those three were things she didn’t really feel all that sorry about, and the last one wasn’t even her fault.
As she sat there, gazing at the table in silent contemplation, Kotohime served them breakfast.
“You should have told me you were cooking breakfast, Kotohime,” Kirihime said as a plate of broiled salmon and a bowl of rice was set in front of her. “I would have been more than happy to help you.”
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