A Fox's Revenge (American Kitsune Book 7)

by Brandon Varnell

  “And everyone knows that when one guy is living with a bunch of sexy women like us, it’s because he’s a Harem King,” Iris continued adding fuel to the fire.

  “That’s not how that works at all!” Kevin glared at everyone present before turning pleading eyes on Lilian. “Everyone’s being mean to me again, Lilian. You don’t think I have a harem, do you?”

  “Of course not.” Lilian smiled at him. “Don’t worry, Beloved. I won’t let any woman I don’t approve of join your harem.”

  “What?”

  “I said I won’t let you have a harem.”

  “Kay.” Kevin sniffled. “Thank you, Lilian.”

  Lilian’s eyes were two warm pools of emerald love as she stared at her mate. “You’re welcome, Kevin.”

  “Lilian.”

  “Kevin.”

  “Lilian!”

  “Kev—”

  “I swear to all eight million Shinto gods that if you two start hugging, I’ll murder you dead,” Christine threatened. Kevin and Lilian pouted at her, but their attention was diverted from Christine by a loud shout.

  “There he is, girls! Get him!”

  It was a familiar shout. Kevin had heard it many times in the past. It was the angry screaming of women who’d had their purity tarnished and were out for revenge.

  The Horde had arrived.

  Everyone turned as several dozen angry teenage girls seeking blood rushed their table. Eric squealed like a little girl, leapt to his feet, and bolted as though a shinigami was nipping at his heels. The girls ran past the table and followed the salacious young man. They caught up to him in record time. They surrounded him on all sides, hemming him in.

  Then came the screams.

  “WHATEVER HAPPENED, I DIDN’T DO IT!”

  “DON’T LIE TO US! WE KNOW YOU SNUCK INTO THE GIRLS’ LOCKER ROOM AND STOLE OUR PANTIES!”

  “NO, I DIDN’T… AT LEAST, NOT THIS TIME!”

  “LIAR! WE CAN SEE THEM HANGING OUT OF YOUR POCKET!”

  “MY POCKET—WHAT THE HELL?! HOW DID THESE GET IN HERE?!”

  “KILL HIM, GIRLS!”

  “NO! WAIT! THIS IS ALL A MISUNDERSTANDING, I SWEAR! I—OH, GOD! NOOOOOOooooo…!”

  Kevin and the others sat there as The Horde proceeded to physically demolish Eric, whose agonized screams rent the air like nails on a chalkboard. Cries of pain echoed from the mass of bodies. Kevin thought he saw blood arcing through the air, but that could have been his imagination. The screams eventually tapered off into incoherent gurgling. Then they stopped altogether.

  “What… what just happened?” Lindsay asked the question that everybody wanted to know.

  “Ha…” a sigh came from behind them. “Really, Apprentice, how do you expect to raise your peeping level if you allow yourself to get captured and beaten by girls of this caliber?”

  Everyone turned around. Heather stood before them, hands on her hips, an expression that epitomized disappointment plastered all over her face. Her blonde hair remained in its usual bob cut. She was wearing a gym tracksuit with the white and blue school colors. The PE assistant coach shook her head and sighed, right before she noticed that everyone was staring at her.

  “Oh. Hello, everyone.”

  After everyone greeted Heather, Lilian asked the question that was on everybody’s mind. “Was all that you're doing?”

  “Shishishi, of course.” Heather grinned. “It’s an important part of my apprentice’s ongoing training. To become a Master Peeper, he must learn how to react to a horde of angry women, no matter the situation.”

  “I see.” Lilian paused. “And those panties, did he really steal those?”

  “Naw.” Heather waved a dismissive hand through the air. “That was my doing. I stole the girls’ panties while they were having PE, and then slipped a few into Eric’s pocket when he wasn’t looking.”

  In the wake of hearing something so incredibly stupid, Kevin and his friends simply went back to eating their food. It wasn’t like Eric getting the crap beaten out of him by a horde of angry women was anything new. Heather doing something dumb and potentially life-threatening to her so-called apprentice in the name of training wasn’t anything new either.

  As if to shatter the sense of normality, Eric’s dad, the Principal of Desert Cactus High School, appeared before them. He rushed toward the horde of teenage girls who were still beating the crap out of his son.

  He was wearing nothing but his underwear.

  Kevin and everyone else stared in horror as the rotund man raced forward, his flabby gut bouncing in the air like a uniboob, and his bald head gleaming in the light. Oddly enough, while the only article of clothing he was wearing were those ugly white undies, he also had his sunglasses on. He leapt at the girls like a tiger pouncing on its prey—or a really fat and perverted old man pouncing on a horde of young girls.

  “Give me some love as well!” he shouted at the group of girls, who all turned their rage on him.

  Everyone remained silent as the Principal followed in his son’s footsteps. The mob of teenage girls proceeded to unleash unholy hell and massive bodily harm on his person with various locker room implements. The sounds of bat smacking flesh, rake smacking flesh… and claymore smacking flesh rang out across the courtyard.

  “This is good too!” was all the Principal shouted as he was pummeled into a mass of bleeding meat.

  “Is it just me, or is the Principal even more perverted than usual?” asked Lindsay.

  “It’s just you,” Alex said.

  “Totally just you,” Andrew agreed. “The Principal was always like this. I think he’s just finally become unrestrained.”

  Christine turned a deadpanned stare on Iris. “I feel like we somehow have you to blame for this.”

  Iris’s unrepentant grin told everyone present that Christine’s accusation was right on the money. “Do you really think that I would use an enchantment on our wonderful principal to unleash his normally restrained lecherous tendencies, turning him into a raging idiot of lust and stupidity?”

  “Yes,” Kevin said while everyone else nodded. “Yes, I do.”

  Iris gave him an amused glance, her eyes glimmering with an ominous light that spelled nothing good for him. “Huhuhu, it seems you know me too well, Stud.”

  Kevin had nothing to say to that. However…

  “Lilian?” Kevin said in a voice so solemn that everyone paid attention. The curious glance on his mate’s face was only matched by his friends leaning in, as though expecting him to share his most embarrassing secret.

  “Yes, Beloved?”

  “If I won the Holy Grail War, could I ask for a new soul? I think mine’s been tainted.”

  Lilian looked uncertain. “… I don’t think so.”

  “Tch!” Kevin slammed his head on the table. “Figures.”

  ***

  The end of school couldn’t come fast enough for Fan. She absolutely despised being forced to attend classes. There was nothing duller than sitting behind a desk and listening to some fool lecture her on a subject they didn’t know half as much as they thought they did. She hated it even more because she was surrounded by lesser beings, these filthy humans who thought they were at the top of the food chain, even though that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

  Humans were scum; they were nothing but a group of hairless monkeys. They mistakenly believed that they were the most powerful species on Earth, but the truth was that they were just the most populous. Were it not for their large numbers, humans would have been killed off or enslaved centuries ago.

  Everyone stood up from their seats as the bell signaled an end to class, the many students packing their bags and slinging them over their shoulders before rushing out of the classroom quicker than a nekomata being chased by a spray bottle. Her eyes eventually locked onto one particular person in her class, a girl whose childlike body and all-black outfit made her look like the classic definition of a lolita. Their eyes met. She became amused when the girl glared at her befo
re huffing and stalking out of the room.

  According to her observations, that girl was Christine, one of her target’s friends. She was also a yōkai. Having not seen her powers, Fan couldn’t say which type of yōkai for sure, but judging from the cold feel to her youki, she believed that Christine was a creature with control over ice. She was betting on the girl being a yuki-onna. The famed snow women were one of the best-known manipulators of ice in the entire world.

  Though just what a yuki-onna is doing here of all places, I’ll never understand.

  She grabbed her own bag, a small sack made from the threaded fibers of an onikuma, slung it over her shoulder, and proceeded outside.

  The bright sun hit her eyes as she waded through the crowd of people. The stench of humanity made her nose wrinkle, but she tried to ignore it. A number of boys stared at her as she walked by them, lust obvious in their eyes. These boys were like raging sacks of hormones.

  She snorted. Teenage boys are so easy. You don’t even have to show them a little skin before they become drooling sacks of flesh. Honestly, do none of these boys know the meaning of the word restraint?

  Not that she could blame them for lusting after her. A woman as beautiful as her would obviously attract attention. She had a body that was to die for, and when combined with her lolita face, it made for an irresistible combination. She was the best of both worlds, as it were.

  She walked past buildings that shielded her eyes from the sun, hideous blocks made of drab colored bricks. There was no sense of aesthetics to these structures. Every building looked exactly the same, with only minor differences in shape and size.

  That was another thing she disliked about humans. Their uninspiring architecture. They simply lacked ability to create aesthetically pleasing structures. Everything was too uniform, too plain, too bland.

  Hopefully, our mission here will be over soon, and we’ll be able to finally go back home.

  As she walked into the parking lot, she immediately caught sight of Li. It was hard not to. He towered over everyone there with his nearly seven feet of height. His expression, stern and uncompromising, made for an intimidating sight. Several students looked at him, but they quickly turned their heads when they met his unwavering and serious gaze.

  Unlike most members of the Shénshèng Clan, who had blond hair and blue eyes, he had dark brown hair and eyes, which made sense. Unlike the immediate members of the family, Li and Guang were branch members. They served as her bodyguards, though ever since Father had given her this mission, they had acted like a combination of parent and superior—well, Li more than Guang. Her other bodyguard was merely dumb muscle. All brawn and no brain.

  “Lady Fan,” Li greeted as she walked up to him. “I hope your day at school was eventful.”

  “Please be serious,” she said as Li opened the door to their car, a red Porsche Boxster. She sat in the front passenger seat, then waited until Li had closed the door and entered through the driver’s side before continuing. “You know how I feel about attending this farce of a school. The people are boring, the school is dull, and I’m surrounded by a bunch of filthy humans. Being near this useless species of feces throwing apes is almost more than I can bear.”

  “You should not be so quick to dismiss humanity,” Li warned her in his usual, serious way. “Humans might be frail creatures, but they are also intelligent and crafty. The many technological advancements they’ve made in the past century, advancements which have forced all yōkai to create laws against revealing our existence to them, proves that the primate race is not to be underestimated.”

  Fan clicked her tongue, but she didn’t argue. Even she knew that human technology posed a threat to their existence. She remembered seeing the aftermath of several nuclear explosions when China had been experimenting with nuclear weaponry. Just recalling the sight of those mushroom shaped clouds, of the intense blast from the detonation, of the fierce winds the explosions had kicked up, sent chills down her spine.

  The car’s engine thrummed to life as Li pulled out of the parking lot, using his unique talent to avoid people and other cars while continuing to accelerate. It didn’t take long before they passed the light blue gates of the school and began traveling down the road.

  She watched the wildlife that passed her by in boredom. There wasn’t much to see in this state. Its flora and fauna, much like humanity’s architecture, was uninspiring and dull. She missed the bamboo forest that surrounded her home, with its beautiful lakes, colorful plants, and various wildlife.

  “Do you remember the plan?” Li asked after they had traveled for several miles.

  “Of course.” Glad to have something that took her attention away from her boredom, Fan turned from the sight of cacti to look at Li. “My job is to take care of Lilian, her human mate, and her sister. They’ll be going to a soccer game later today, which means they’ll be out of the reach of their bodyguards.”

  Li nodded approvingly. “Meanwhile, I will take care of Kotohime and Kirihime. I have no doubt that Kotohime will sense any massive youki emissions, especially since none of us specialize in the creation of barriers. They currently pose the greatest threat to our plans and will need to be taken out, or at least kept distracted, until you can complete your mission.”

  “And while we do that, Guang will take out the dog.”

  Fan wrinkled her nose in disgust. They’d found out early on that the human mate of Lilian was apprenticed to Kiara F. Kuyo, a disgusting inu who was well known in the human world. She didn’t understand how that stupid girl could let her mate spend time around a filthy mutt. She didn’t want to understand.

  “I’m glad to see you know the plan. I’m quite proud of you.”

  Fan rolled her eyes and went back to staring out the window. Such a boring, dreary landscape.

  It’ll all be over soon. I’ll be coming back home to you. Wait for me… my beloved Jiāoào.

  ***

  Because Lindsay had a soccer game and they had agreed to go see it, Kevin, Lilian, and Iris didn’t return home that day. Instead of hopping on the bus and heading back to their apartment, they remained at school with Christine. The idea was to wait around until the game began.

  Alex and Andrew had left. They weren’t interested in watching a soccer game. Kevin knew that Eric was still around somewhere, but he didn’t know where that lecherous jerk was.

  “Probably trying to peep on the soccer girls while they’re changing,” he muttered under his breath.

  “Did you say something, Stud?”

  “I asked, why are you hanging off me? You’re too close.”

  Iris, her body draped over Kevin’s back and her chin resting comfortably on his shoulder, took a moment to seriously ponder the question. She hummed and shifted. Kevin knew she was doing it on purpose. Her nipples were touching his back through their shirts. She was also groping his pecs. Soft hands were slipped underneath his shirt, blatantly trying to play with his nipples in public. Kevin had, for a time, slapped her hands away, but he had stopped several minutes ago.

  He didn’t know what was worse: the fact that Iris was groping him in public, or the fact that he didn’t even care anymore.

  “Because I want to,” she said at last.

  He sighed. “I shouldn’t have bothered asking.”

  “That’s right. You shouldn’t ask such obvious questions.” Kevin could see Iris’s sexy smirk out of the corner of his eye. “It’s good to see that you’re learning, though it’s an awfully slow process.”

  “I almost feel like I should be insulted by your words,” Kevin mused.

  He and Iris were wandering down one of the many aisles in the library. This aisle was dedicated to manga. He scanned the various titles, most of which he had already read. It was kind of disappointing, but the school library just didn’t have a wide manga selection. He thought they were discriminating against manga because it used images instead of words to tell a story.

  “You should read this one,” Iris suggested, momentaril
y stopping her groping of his chest to grab a manga from the shelf and present it to him.

  Kevin eyed the front cover illustration before shaking his head. The cover had one guy and two girls. One of the girls was a blonde-haired beauty with blue eyes, while the other was a brunette cutie. The title was Nisekoi.

  “I’m surprised they have this manga, but Lilian and I have already read it.”

  “Hm, how about this one?”

  “Read it.”

  “That one?”

  “Read that too.”

  “It seems like you’ve read all the ones here.”

  “I’m beginning to think I have.”

  “Too bad they don’t have any hentai.”

  Kevin twitched. “Why would I want to read a hentai?”

  “So you can gain some ideas for when you, myself, and my sister start screwing like vixens in heat.”

  I won’t facepalm. I won’t facepalm. I won’t facepalm.

  “Of course, if you wanted to, you could also add Mom, Kirihime, and Kotohime, though the latter two might kill you if you try to sex them up. Maybe we should just add Mom to our orgy, then. That would be hot.”

  The sound of Kevin’s palm smacking against his face echoed throughout the library.

  He and Iris soon emerged from the aisle. Kevin had managed to find a manga that he hadn’t read. It was the first volume to a series called The Heroic Legend of Arslan. The series was actually based on a Japanese fantasy novel. It even had its own anime adaptation, though Kevin had yet to watch it.

  They went over to where Lilian and Christine were sitting. Kevin’s mate had a pencil and sketch pad out. She was nibbling on her pencil’s eraser as she poured over a book titled So You Wanna Be a Mangaka? Christine had a book in her hand as well, the cover of which made him think it must be some kind of romance story. He couldn’t see it well, but the cover, with clearly manga-style artwork, was probably a shōjō romance of some kind.

  He sat down next to Lilian. Iris looked at him, and then at Christine, who sat on Lilian’s other side. She huffed and sat down on the opposite side of the table.

  Lilian looked up to greet him.