Kevin responded to her words with an eloquent shrug. Flying was convenient. That was all there was to it.
“By the way—” Iris looked at his shoulder “—why is your shirt all wet?”
Kevin couldn’t keep from twitching this time.
***
Unlike most airports in the United States, the one in Van had them disembarking via a set of stairs and not a docking station that extended from the building itself.
After grabbing their luggage, a suitcase containing his guns and another bag containing several sets of clothes for them both, he and Iris exited with all of the other passengers.
Warm, dry air hit his skin as he stepped onto the runway. Because he lived in a desert, Kevin was fairly used to this kind of weather. He actually found the heat to be milder than Arizona’s summer weather, and it was therefore easily bearable.
Airport security directed their group into the airport building. It was smaller than any other airport he’d visited before. Unlike most airports where he had to walk through long hallways filled with stores and restaurants, this place had none of that. There weren’t that many people, either, which didn’t surprise him, considering the size of the airport.
Because they didn’t have any luggage beyond what he was already carrying, Kevin and Iris didn’t require going to the small baggage claim station. He’d wanted to travel light. His companion had complained about not having enough stuff, but he had cajoled the devious vixen into submission with his logic.
They headed for the exit, where airport security made them stop. Kevin stood back and let Iris take over.
It was almost amusing listening to the conversation. He knew that Iris was actually speaking in Greek, but to him, it sounded exactly like English. The security guard would be hearing her words in Turkish.
Iris stopped talking, turned to him, and smiled.
“He says that he wants to see our passports and identification. You’ve got those on you, don’t you, Stud?”
“Yeah.” Kevin reached into his pocket and pulled out two sets of passports and two IDs. “Here they are.”
He handed the IDs and passports to Iris, who in turn gave them to the security guard. The man, an aging fellow with wrinkles lining his face like creases on old parchment, stared at the objects with an unblinking gaze. Dark eyes then looked up to stare at him and Iris. Kevin tried not to let how unnerved he felt be seen on his face. He was used to being stared at, but the intensity of this man’s gaze left him feeling vulnerable.
Fortunately, the staring didn’t last long. The man handed their IDs and passports back, and Kevin pocketed them as the security guard waved them through.
***
Despite not having a large airport, Van was a very populated area.
After hiring a cab to take them into the city, he and Iris found themselves walking along a sidewalk. A number of people walked on either side, some going in their direction and others traveling the opposite way. Cars drove along the streets, their chassis cast in shadow from the numerous buildings that loomed over them. Signs hung on these buildings, written in a language that he couldn’t read. It was a bustling place, perhaps not as crowded as Los Angeles, New York, or even Phoenix, but there were still a lot of people.
A lot of those people were staring.
“You’re attracting attention,” he sighed.
“I always attract attention.” Iris winked at him. “But you knew that, didn’t you, Stud?”
He did know that. He just disliked it.
“It’s going to be harder to go unnoticed if everyone’s staring at us, at you.”
Iris shrugged at him, uncaring.
“That’s not really my fault.”
He knew that as well.
Kevin did what he could to ignore the stares. They weren’t directed at him but at Iris. That didn’t really make it any better, but at least he knew the reason for it.
Kitsune were avatars of beauty. He had yet to meet one that was ugly. Even Jasmine, who looked like a thirteen-year-old girl, was enchanting in her own way.
As one of the most perfect examples of her species, Iris attracted more attention than most. It wasn’t just in her looks but also her mannerisms. The alluring sway to her hips was like a magnet. It brought all attention to her magnificent rear end, which shook and swayed as she sashayed her hips. Those in front were treated to a glorious view of her flat stomach, the flawless, milky skin visible because her black tank top only covered about a third of her stomach. And if that didn’t attract attention, then the alluring sway of her chest did. With such enchanting beauty in their presence, he supposed it was only natural that people would be drawn to her.
Unfortunately, that same beauty often drew the wrong kind of attention.
They had been sitting on a knee-high wall before getting up and walking over to them, stopping before the pair, impeding their progress. There were three of them, all boys of the teenage variety. He judged them to be just a little older than him, maybe seventeen or eighteen. Their leader, or at least the one he presumed was their leader, gazed at the vixen by his side with a look that he’d seen plenty of times before, on both men and women.
The young man said something then. Kevin was surprised when he could understand him.
“Hey there, baby,” the boy said, smoothing back his shoulder-length black hair in what Kevin guessed was supposed to be a smooth gesture. “You look new around here. How would you like to join my friends and me? We could give you a tour. Maybe you’d even like to take a tour of my bed.”
The other two boys laughed like children who’d been told a fart joke.
Anger coiled in his stomach like a viper spitting venom. The desire to lash out at these people was there, but he ignored it. They couldn’t afford to start a fight. He instead relied on Iris to deal with this. A simple enchantment should suffice in sending them off.
“Sorry, boys.” Iris’s dark red eyes glowed with unnatural light. “But I’m not interested in your little friends. The only man who’ll be sticking his Excalibur into my Guinevere is the stud over here.” She winked at Kevin, who merely rolled his eyes, and then looked back at the boys. “So do me, and yourselves, a favor: Get out of our way. Now.”
Kevin expected them to leave. That was what most people did when Iris enchanted them. Few could withstand her enchantments.
That was not what happened this time.
He felt mildly alarmed when the trio of teens refused to leave. Their leader placed a hand on Iris’s shoulder, his lips curling into a gruesome grin filled with malicious intent. Kevin could practically feel the boy’s desire for Iris permeating from him like a physical thing.
“Sorry, baby, but I’m not the type who takes no for an answer. Don’t worry, though. I guarantee that you’ll be begging for the D after I’m finished with you.”
The other boys began crowding around Iris. Through the gap between their bodies, he could see her eyes widening in alarm.
In most other instances, Iris could have taken care of herself. While not much of a fighter, she knew a little combat just like her sister. Illusions were out of her reach without her tails out, but reinforcement was still possible.
However, Iris was still suffering from when she’d been in a coma. The celestial youki, so anathema to a kitsune with an affinity for the Void, may have left her system, but it had done its damage. She would recover in time, but she would be weak for a little while.
Which meant getting these boys to leave would be up to him.
How troublesome.
“Excuse me.” Kevin placed a hand on the shoulder of the boy nearest to him. The teenager’s shaggy brown hair bobbed when his head turned. “But get your hands off my friend.”
The boy sneered at him. Dark gray eyes narrowed in a fierce expression as lips peeled back to reveal sharper than normal teeth.
“Get lost, punk! This chick is ours now. If you think we’re going to let a weakling like you step onto our turf, then you’ve gotta another thing—”
Kevin didn’t allow the idiotic teen to say anything else. Loud crunching echoed around them as his fist met the boy’s face. He didn’t consider himself a violent person, but he couldn’t deny that there was something cathartic in feeling some pretentious fool’s nose breaking under his fist.
The boy stumbled back, a hand held up to his nose. Blood leaked from between his fingers, dripping down his face. Wide eyes stared at him in shock. Kevin didn’t know why. With the way he and his friends were acting, he should have expected this outcome.
Because he didn’t want to give them any time to react, Kevin launched himself forward. The boy barely had time to take a single step back before the hard, metallic case in Kevin’s hand slammed into his temple. He crumpled to the ground in a heap, senseless, glazed-over eyes staring listlessly at the sky.
More shouting was heard. The other two boys surged forward. Kevin met their charge head on, falling back into the stance that he’d adopted for dealing with yōkai.
The first one, the leader, attacked in a straightforward manner. His left fist lashed out, aimed at Kevin’s face. It was dodged.
As he stepped to the left, Kevin used his right hand to push the boy’s left hand away from him, then took a single step forward, bringing himself into the taller boy’s guard. He slammed his open palm into the boy’s jaw. Teeth clacked shut with painful reverberations. The boy’s head snapped back like he’d been smacked with a steel bat. He then doubled over when Kevin slammed the metal case into his stomach, which was followed through by that same case slamming into the underside of his chin. The boy dropped like a sack of bricks, his body crumpling in a broken heap upon the ground.
The last of the group hesitated when his eyes landed on Kevin. The boy stopped in his tracks, body frozen as though he’d been hit with a yuki-onna’s powers.
“Take your friends and leave,” Kevin told him, his voice holding an authoritative tone that he never really used. It wasn’t in his nature to display authority of any kind. He often left the task of ordering others around to the adults.
The boy looked from Kevin to his insensate friends. The other two boys, the ones with shaggy brown hair and shoulder-length black hair, lay on the ground like broken dolls. He then looked at Kevin again. Seeing the hesitance still there, Kevin took a single step forward, which seemed to freak the other boy out and caused him to grab his friends by the scruff of their shirts and drag them away. Moving as fast as his legs could carry him, the boy disappeared down a side street.
Kevin turned his attention to Iris.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Of course.” Iris tried to smirk, but he could see how her body shook. Her legs were trembling. “You don’t think a little something like some foolish boys trying to come onto me is enough to shake me up, do you?”
Kevin shook his head.
“No, but a trio of yōkai who are immune to minor enchantments might.”
Kevin could see how his words bothered Iris. He took her hand and began walking again. Iris allowed him to take her away from the sight of the short skirmish.
“Thank you for that.” He glanced over to see the normally confident kitsune biting her lip. “I’m still not feeling much better yet, and without my tails, all of the enchantments I can cast are subpar and won’t work on yōkai.”
Kevin nodded. He knew about kitsune powers and how it all came from their tails. They could still cast enchantments without bringing their tails out, but their powers were greatly weakened when they were in a completely human form.
“Could you tell what kind of yōkai they were?” He wove past several people, keeping a tight grip on Iris’s hand so they wouldn’t get separated.
Iris shook her head, clearly aggrieved about her inability to determine their species. Then again, there were more types of yōkai than there were types of food.
“Unfortunately not. While my powers are excellent at sensing life, it is nearly impossible for me to distinguish one type of lifeform from another.”
Kevin nodded noncommittally. He still didn’t know much about the Void, the sentient hunger that afflicted Iris and other Void Kitsune, but he knew that its only desire was to consume all life. It didn’t differentiate between lifeforms because it didn’t care. Everything would eventually be consumed.
“By the way…” Iris continued, making him look at her again. The smirk on her lips, one that reeked of amusement, made him almost stumble. “I’m not the one people are staring at now.”
He needed a moment to comprehend her words. Only after he understood what she’d said and its meaning, did he notice that everyone around them was now staring. Not at Iris, but at him. They gawked and pointed and whispered in each other’s ears. He couldn’t understand a word of what was being said, and it wouldn’t have mattered if he could because most were too far away for him to hear, but he didn’t really need to understand what they were saying to know they were talking about his short fight with those disguised yōkai.
He looked back at Iris, at the sensual smirk adorning her face, which seemed to be accusing him of calling the kettle black. He turned his head away, his cheeks heating up and embarrassment coloring his voice.
“… Shut up.”
This was yet one more thing that he would never live down.
***
Lilian awoke to a dull ache in the back of her neck. The pain was akin to background noise, a sort of static aftershock that remained after receiving an injury.
As she opened her eyes, she had to blink several times to clear spots from her vision. Her eyelids felt heavy and the desire for more sleep was hard to ignore but ignore it she did. Her vision was muddled, distorted, like she was looking through a tainted window that had been partially melted. She needed to shake her head several times before her eyesight sharpened and remained clear.
The large red canopy that hung over her head was unfamiliar to her. A glance to her left revealed walls decorated in red and lined with gold. Large posts stood in intervals, and between each post sat a window that revealed a blue sky. Sparse decorations of furniture in rich dark woods and the nightstand and dresser led her to guess that she was in a bedroom.
How did I get here? And just where is here?
In an effort to find out more, Lilian turned her head… and shrieked in surprise when she found a face inches from her own. She jerked her body back in shock and tumbled over the side of the bed. In an effort to keep herself from falling, she grabbed handfuls of the thick red quilt, but all that did was cause the bedspread to go with her.
Her head cracked against the carpeted floor. She became a tangled mess of limbs and sheets as the blanket wrapped around her while she squirmed and struggled. The struggling just caused the sheets to entangle her even more. It took nearly two whole minutes of laboring under thick, heavy sheets before she finally managed to get herself untangled.
She stood up and glanced down at the figure lying on the bed, a boy who was clearly not her mate. Long blond hair shimmered like silk against red sheets of satin. Resplendent robes that looked awfully uncomfortable to sleep in adorned a thin frame. The fox ears and two tails, golden in color and tipped with white fur, denoted this boy’s origins. He looked familiar, though it took her a while to put a name to his face.
“This boy… Jiāoào?”
“Indeed, it is,” a calm voice spoke up.
“Gya!”
Lilian nearly tripped over the blanket as she spun around to face the person who spoke. He looked a lot like Jiāoào, an older, more mature, nine-tailed version of Jiāoào. His long blond hair fell down his head like a waterfall of silk. Stately purple robes, ornately decorated with swirling designs and gold piping along the hem, covered his effeminate frame. He was handsome, to be sure, but it was the bishounen kind of handsome, where he could easily pass for a girl at first glance. Nine tails swayed behind him, popping out of his clothes, their motions beautiful and elegant in ways she could scarcely imagine.
“Lilian Pnév̱ma, the young
kitsune who spurned my son’s desire to mate with her,” he said. Lilian tried to mask her fear, but she could not quite contain the shudder that ran down her spine. “It has been many years since we last met. I see that time has treated you well, unlike my son.”
Perhaps it was the utterly calm expression on his face or maybe it was that unfathomable gaze, those blue eyes that seemed bottomless and vast, but Lilian felt fear trickle into her gut.
“Have you nothing to say to me, the father of the son whom you ruined?” he asked.
“W-why am I here?” she croaked.
“Ah, a question.” The Bodhisattva nodded his head, sitting calmly on a chair made of crystal several meters from the bed. “I should have expected questions like this from one such as you.” He spread his arms in an all-encompassing gesture. “In case you have not figured it out yet, you are currently within my home. I had you brought here for the purpose of curing my son.”
Lilian’s mind had trouble comprehending his words, or maybe she just didn’t want to comprehend them.
“What?”
“Confused? My words were very straightforward, I believe. You are going to cure my son of his vegetative state. I have heard from several sources that people whose minds have shattered can be brought back by being in the presence of people who mean a lot to them.” He paused as though to give her time to absorb this knowledge. “You have always been on the forefront of my son’s mind, despite my disapproval once it became clear that you were an uncouth individual unworthy of my son’s attention. Because of this, I have come to believe that if you are constantly in my son’s presence, he will eventually get better, which is why you shall be remaining here for the foreseeable future.”
Lilian had a few choice words to say about that, “hell no” being at the forefront of her mind. She didn’t say that, however, partly because she knew that speaking out of turn in front of this man could get her killed, but also because of the pressure his presence exerted over her. Even though he was just sitting there, the urge to kneel before him, to submit herself to his majestic presence, the presence of a king, was nearly overpowering.
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