A Tail of Woah: A Reverse Harem Academy Tail (The Fox and the Hounds Book 1) Read online

  "What are you doing?" He snarled in anger.

  "Um… Saving you?"

  "I don't want you to! Stay away from me you fox freak." He let his eyes trail over me from nose to toes and gave me a disgusted look. I felt the top of my head and my ass. I was still in my human seeming.

  "Huh? What are you talking about?" I played dumb. I was like expert-level at that shit. I had yet to meet my equal. But when I did, our battle would be glorious!

  "Shut up. I can see you. I can see everything. I can't stand it anymore!"

  His rant spoke volumes. The plain-looking, blond guy had spirit sense. He could see spirits and he didn't know how to deal with it. I sighed. There wasn't anything I could do for him. He could either learn to live with it or let it drive him insane. "I won't beat around the bush then."

  He stopped staring and rubbed his eyes frantically, trying to focus on me again. "What are you?"

  "A kitsune. Japanese fox spirit."

  "Are you here to kill me?"

  "Would I have saved you if I were?"

  "Why did you?"

  Not wanting to seem imposing, I sat down on the rooftop, ignoring the dirt, grime, and bits of roof tar that stuck to the back of my legs and my butt. "Because I don't want to see you end up a spirit."

  "Like a ghost?" He took a step back, a little closer to the edge than I liked, but I could always pop in next to him if I needed to.

  "Not like a ghost, an actual ghost. If you kill yourself, that's exactly what happens to you. The regret keeps you from passing on."

  "It would be better than this," he answered sadly, sitting on the edge of the roof.

  "No. It wouldn't. If you can see them, you can hear them. Ask them if they like being an apparition."

  "I try to ignore them. They just won't go away."

  "I know. What if I told you we could help you?"

  "Who?"

  "Other spirits…like me. We could teach you how to control your gift."

  "Gift? This isn't a fucking gift. It's a joke. A nightmare. A mental condition."

  "No. It's not. You can do wondrous things just by being able to see the other side."

  He stood up and gave me a doubtful look. "No offense. You seem like a nice girl…spirit…whatever. But I really just can't do this anymore," he said and then fell backward over the edge of the rooftop.

  "Fuck!" I popped to the edge of the building, looking over the edge. "Sorry, Hiroki," I said and popped again, coming out next to the jumper and wrapping myself around him. We fell for a moment until I could right myself and look where we were going.

  Pop. We were on the ground in the middle of the police and firefighters, who were too stunned to do anything but stare. I looked over their shoulders at a very angry looking Hiroki. Pop. I appeared next to him, grabbed his hand and ran. I spared a moment to glance over my shoulder at the jumper. Two of the quicker cops already had him in their arms and were cuffing him as he stood there, staring after me. I wanted to think I had done him a favor, but the look of pure hatred he was giving me told me I probably hadn't. At least he would live long enough to learn to deal with it.

  Chapter 2

  A tabi covered toe poked me in the nose. I brushed my fingers across my face, blinked, and started snoring again. The covered toe poked me again and this time I snarled in outrage, sitting up and glaring at Hiroki. He was dressed in a plain gray yukata and was wearing tabi socks, but the expression on his face let me know I was in trouble. He only woke me up when my parents wanted to yell at us.

  "What we do now?"

  "I really wish you would not use the word we when asking what you did this time. Get dressed. Your mother and father both wish to speak to you."

  "Berate, you mean."

  "This time… This time they are well within their right."

  "What?"

  "I will let them explain," he said and turned around, letting me slip from beneath my covers, knowing full well I wasn't wearing anything beneath them.

  I rolled off my futon and stood up, making faces behind his back, even an obscene gesture toward his butt.

  "Kaede-sama, now is not the time. Please dress quickly."

  "You're no fun."

  "I am when the situation dictates. I have never seen your parents so…angry before."

  "What the hell happened? This isn't the first time I've come home drunk off my ass. Hell, I was mostly sober after the rooftop bullshit."

  "That is precisely why they are so upset."

  "You told them about it?" I stared at him in disbelief, pulling on my T-shirt and sweatpants.

  "No. Action Five News did."

  A hazy image of a news van skidding to a stop beside emergency vehicles popped into my head. So did a replay of me popping through a hundred feet of open air to rescue a suicidal spiritually sensitive guy. If they had filmed me using my supernatural powers… I was in deep tawagoto. "Fuck."

  "Precisely. Are you ready?"

  "Yeah. We might as well get this over with."

  "I wish you luck," he said and stepped aside, letting me lead the way.

  The only thing we were missing was ominous music as I opened the sliding door from my bedroom and marched down the hall. "Where are they?" I asked over my shoulder.

  "In the dining room. They felt it best to discuss your indiscretion over breakfast."

  "What time is it?"

  "Nearly nine."

  That was later than I expected for a fuck up of my magnitude. They must have been plotting something special. The door was closed, and with a soft sigh, I slid it open and entered.

  My parents were seated around the low table, sipping tea. Next to my mother was an ancient man in a black business suit. I stared in shock. "Uncle Tatsuo?"

  "Kaede! My…how you haven't grown."

  I squealed and ran over to him, dropping to my knees and giving him a hug. "Why are you here?"

  He coughed and nodded toward my mother.

  I looked up to see amber fire flare in her eyes, threatening to scorch me where I knelt. "Good morning, Mother," I said to her, giving her a weak smile. She huffed and elbowed my father.

  "You are a disgrace." He shook his head. I'd heard many, many, many times over the years that I had brought disgrace to my family, my parents, my races, and even my ancestors. It was the first time he had skipped the recipients and just flat out called me a disgrace.

  "I love you, too?" Blue fire flared in his eyes.

  Uncle Tatsuo calmly put a hand over my arm. I gave him a worried look. My parents had been pissed at me countless times. There were seven days in a week, I might go one or two, never consecutive, without incurring their wrath, but this was the angriest I had ever seen them. My father reached down beside him, grabbed a newspaper, and tossed it on the table in front of me.

  SUPERHERO IN SACRAMENTO?

  I giggled at the headline. If they knew me, they wouldn't have asked such a stupid question. I just didn't want to see the mortal go splat. He might have ended up stealing my sake.

  The picture beneath it wasn't a source of mirth, though. Whoever had been pointing the camera up, took a superb photo of the two of us falling, getting a clear shot of our faces. I was looking a little to the left and the suicidal guy was staring at me with a look of intense shock and anger. It would have looked like two people falling to their deaths except for my ears and tails, which were quite predominately displayed in the black and white photograph.

  I squirmed as I read the caption. Whoever wrote the article had done their research and actually called me a kitsune with a question mark. A man, apparently attempting suicide, was miraculously saved by some sort of creature. Police stated he was falling when the girl appeared out of thin air and then reappeared with the jumper on the ground next to them before disappearing again. She appeared to have fox ears as well as multiple tails. Could this possibly be a kitsune? Investigations continue.

  "Well, at least they got what I was right."

  "Daughter…" My mother's voice sent chills up and
down my spine. "You have exposed us to the world."

  "Oh, please. They don't know who I am. They probably had to google what I even am. I was in the right place at the wrong time. I couldn't let the guy die."

  "Why?" my father chimed in solemnly. "If it is as the newspaper says, he wished to end his life. You have exposed us all by denying him that right?'

  Okay. Now I'm getting pissed. "Denying him that right? He could see us. He sees ghosts and spirits. It was driving him insane. He didn't understand that if he killed himself, he'd become what he hated! Now he has a chance. I won't apologize for that."

  "No. You will apologize for being seen. For putting us all at risk. For your ways, your slovenly drunkenness, your utter lack of respect, your…ways!" Father stood up and the fire in his eyes spread to his hands and swirled around him. He was officially pissed.

  "No. I won't."

  "Then you leave us little choice. Since you cannot seem to keep yourself from the world of the mortals…maybe you should learn how to blend in a little more."

  I stopped and stared at him. Then shifted my gaze to my mother, who flashed me a wicked smile over the edge of her cup of tea. It was at that moment I realized why my Uncle Tatsuo was seated next to me.

  Uncle Tatsuo wasn't. My uncle that is. He was one of those really old friends of the family who you ended up calling "Uncle" from the time you could talk. It was a little difficult to be related directly to a fox when you have scales and horns. Uncle Tatsuo was a dragon.

  He was also the director of an academy for supernatural children. A boarding school whose focus was primarily controlling one's powers and blending in with the world of humans.

  I turned and scowled at my mother. "You are not shipping me off to some fucking boarding school in the middle of the mountains of Iceland because I screwed up!"

  Her nine tails flared behind her, writhing like snakes as her eyes narrowed. Even my father reached a hand over to calm her. I guess I shouldn't have dropped the F-bomb while speaking to her.

  "Akane, calm," he whispered, giving me a sidelong glance of unadulterated disdain.

  "Calm? Our reckless child would expose us to the world and then would tell me what I can and cannot do? The time for calm has long passed, Yasahiro."

  "May I speak to her alone?" Uncle Tatsuo's calm voice broke through the moment, calming both my parents and giving me a sigh of reprieve. Talking to him would be infinitely better than being reduced to a quivering five-tailed lump of flesh any day of the week.

  And there was no doubt about it. I could and would lose tails over this. When kitsune are born, it is usually with one tail, maybe two if their parents were extraordinarily gifted. As we aged, we received more for every lifetime we lived. Sometimes it was fifty-years, sometimes a century. My nine-tailed mother had married an Inari fox. Their combined power had blessed me with nine at my birth. It was, as far as I knew, completely unheard of. But as the saying goes, they who giveth, can taketh away. I'm sure it would involve a cleaver or sharp knife, but they could do it. Then I'd have to earn them back. At the rate I was going, it would probably take a couple thousand years just to replace one.

  They nodded at Tatsuo, done with my antics and at the end of their ropes. "Please," they said in unison.

  "Come, Child," he said and stood, offering me his hand. I wasn't stubborn enough not to take it, either. I could tell it was better to tread lightly in present company.

  I should have listened to Hiroki last night when he warned me of their temperament.

  I flashed the nogitsune a helpless look as Tatsuo led the way out of the room, out onto the engawa, and into the central garden. He motioned me to sit on the stone bench beside the fountain.

  "I screwed up pretty bad," I said aloud, though not particularly at the dragon.

  He chuckled, and it rumbled from his chest soothingly. As a child I would often sit on his lap, ear pressed to his chest, just to hear it. "Yes, Niece. You have."

  "I'm going to end up stuck at boarding school for the next three years, aren't I."

  He sighed and looked at the fountain. "It might not be as bad as you think."

  "It's a boarding school. In the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by nothing. I don't see how it could be much better."

  "Why are you so troublesome?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "Your mother is a queen. Your father serves the Inari-kami. You lead a life of luxury, wanting for nothing. Why are you so hard on those who have given you everything?"

  I sighed. I wanted to deny that they did, but I couldn't. Even love, they had poured on me until I started pushing it away. "I don't know."

  "I think it is because you are bored. You can only go out every night, drinking yourself into a stupor for so long before even that begins to grow old."

  "True. It was fun for the first five years or so."

  "You do not have many friends?"

  "You mispronounced any. Hiroki is my only friend."

  "Why have you not made friends in town? There are other fox families here. Other supernaturals, yokai."

  "Because they treat me like the fucking princess that I'm not. I hate it. They practically kowtow whenever I walk by. It's fucking annoying!" I growled for emphasis.

  Uncle Tatsuo chuckled again. "Then come to my school."

  "Why? Would things be any different there?"

  "You have no idea."

  "Enlighten me."

  "The only thing you have at Aesir Academy is a name, and nobody who would know it. The entire goal of the school is to train you to be more human, hide what you are. In fact, there are consequences if anybody should discover exactly what you are."

  "Consequences, that sounds kinky."

  "You are an incorrigible child."

  "Oh, I know. My parents remind me of that fact every day."

  "As well they should. Come. Do not fight them. Let them believe they are doing some good toward your life."

  "Do I have to go to classes?"

  "That is the point of school, yes," he said with a draconic grin.

  "Can I bring Hiroki? I don't think I could do this without him."

  He sighed heavily. "That depends on your parents and him. If he survives the next few minutes, he might not wish to spend any more time as your guardian."

  I gulped in fear for him, his tails, and his manhood. But more importantly, I was deathly afraid of losing the one thing in my life that mattered to me. Him.

  "At least you have the decency to feel sorry for him after what you have subjected him to."

  "They can't punish him. He tried to stop me."

  "But he didn't."

  "Can we go back inside? Yes. I'll go to your school."

  He nodded and stood. "This is a commitment. There will be no showing up to appease your parents and then leaving. You will be in attendance for all three years."

  He saw through my little ploy. "I know," I lied through my little foxy teeth.

  "Should you not fare well in your classes, you might also be subjected to repeating a year or term."

  This just kept getting better and better. "I understand."

  "Very well. Let us rejoin your parents and what is left of your guardian."

  "Uncle Tatsuo…"

  "Headmaster. There is no more Uncle for the next three years. In fact, you might be better off pretending you do not know me. I am not exactly…popular." He grinned again, forked tongue making him look positively evil.

  "I find that hard to believe…"

  "Eloquent. Just like your mother."

  He held out his hand again and I took it, lifting myself from the stone bench and vaguely wondering what the hell I had just gotten myself into.

  Hiroki was on the floor in front of my parents as they stood over him, orange and blue flames dancing around them, foxfire lashing out at him.

  "Stop it!" I threw myself in front of him.

  Hiroki's hand grabbed my ankle. "No. It is what I deserve."

  "Shut up. It was my fault I got photographed–
"

  "Recorded. Although I have yet to see the video," my father interjected. I shot him an apologetic look.

  "Hiroki tried to stop me, but I didn't listen. It isn't his fault, it's mine. Leave him alone and punish me."

  "Oh, we shall."

  "No, you won't," Uncle Tatsuo interjected. "She is now a student of Aesir Academy. All punishments shall be meted out by the disciplinary committee of said establishment," he said with a grin.

  Both of my parents stared at him in shock. "You got her to agree?" My father tried to keep the excitement from his voice but failed miserably.

  "On the condition that her attendant," he motioned at the still prone Hiroki, "would also be able to attend."

  "That is acceptable," my mother answered. She didn't even ask him. He was my attendant, my bodyguard, my babysitter. She didn't give him a choice.

  "Then all that is left is the binding contract," Tatsuo said, and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a scroll that was ten times too large to fit inside any suit coat pocket. When he unfurled it, he pulled it apart into two exact copies and with a flick of his wrist, provided a golden quill. "Ladies first," he said to me and put a copy down on the table.

  I took the quill from him and touched it to the paper before scratching a ragged line across the parchment. "Uh… Your pen. It has no ink."

  "I said it was a binding contract. You must sign it in your blood."

  "My blood?"

  "Yes. For it to be binding."

  "Can I use Hiroki's? I don't like blood. Especially mine."

  "Unfortunately, no."

  "I have a red ink Bic pen in my room…"

  "Kaede," my mother's tone left little room for argument.

  I sighed and held out the quill, bringing the index finger of my left hand to the extraordinarily sharp tip and pricking it against the nib. My blood welled up, instantly soaking into the tip. Before it had a chance to dry, I hastily scribbled the name Donald the Duck across the bottom. It flared. I smiled. And then the signature rearranged itself across the line into my name and instantly dried to a ruddy brown. A wax seal welled up from the parchment into the image of nine fox tails in a circular pattern.

  I was officially fucked. And a student of Aesir Academy.