American Kitsune, Vol. 1: A Fox's Love

By Brandon Varnell

The story of a boy, a fox, and a lot of fan service...

Kevin Swift has the worst luck with women. It’s not that he’s unattractive or even unpopular. He just can’t talk to them. He blames it on all of those shōnen love comedies that he enjoys watching. Fortunately, or unfortunately―depending on who’s asking―Kevin’s love life is about to start looking up.

After saving a fox, Kevin discovers that he actually rescued a kitsune, a shape-shifter capable of transforming into a beautiful girl who appears to have popped right out of the pages to a shōnen manga. Her name is Lilian, and she’s decided that he’s going to be her mate―whether he likes it or not!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brandon Varnell
• Release date: Jul 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370526260

Book preview

Chapter 1

Paper Route

Have you ever experienced one of those life-changing instances? An event so momentous that, years later, you’re still marveling at how it changed your life?

Kevin sat there, on the floor, hands behind his back as support so he didn’t fall over. He stared up at the person before him, dazed, shocked, and on the verge of freaking out.

She stared down at him from beneath a curtain of shimmering hair reminiscent of fire—a vibrant red that glistened in the afternoon sun.

Beautiful. That was the only word he could think of, yet even that word seemed incapable of truly describing the gloriousness of her hair—or, indeed, of describing her at all.

I had one of those. It happened a while ago. To this day, through all the changes that have happened, through all the experiences that I’ve had, I still can’t believe how this one moment changed my life forever.

Her appearance would have made angels rage in jealousy. It wasn’t just her hair, which was long enough to descend past her thighs; vibrant emerald eyes gazed upon him with a joy that took his breath away. Lush red lips, the kind that any hot-blooded male would have loved to claim with a kiss, curved in delight, making his arms wobble. Her body, which seemed to have been crafted by the devil himself to represent lust, threatened to steal Kevin of his consciousness.

No matter what came after, our first meeting was something I’d always remember.

Her Cupid’s bow lips parted, and from that deliciously shaped mouth came a single word, one laced with so much sweetness that Kevin could’ve sworn he was in an anime—one of those romantic comedies where the female falls in love with the main character at first sight.

Especially since, at the beginning of this tale, I thought she was nothing but an ordinary fox with, unusually enough, two bushy red tails.

"Beloved…"

Life. It hits you when you least expect it to.

The Swift residence was situated inside of the Le Monte apartment complex located in Phoenix, Arizona.

It was a nice place to live, all things considered. It wasn’t very ritzy, but the grass was green, there were two well-maintained swimming pools—among other amenities—and all of the apartment buildings were clean, modern structures with red roofing and white stucco walls. There were worse places to live.

The apartment belonging to the Swifts was modest in size, possessing two bedrooms and two bathrooms, a moderate kitchen connected to a living room, and an office near the master bedroom. Despite not being very large, it had all the comforts one would expect to find in a well-loved home.

Lining the walls were pictures within frames of various sizes and styles. The images were of a pretty young woman who didn’t look a day over twenty, and a boy who grew throughout each picture. In one, he was a small baby that looked like a tiny ball of pudge, as all babies do. In another, he was a young boy no older than one, with a head full of peach-fuzz hair. In another, he was a preteen with short, spiky hair and a large grin, holding a soccer ball in his hands while standing next to an equally grinning girl with boyishly short blonde hair.

All the pictures showed the boy as he grew up and the young-looking woman, who was obviously the boy’s mother.

The apartment was mostly empty of inhabitants, save for one bedroom where the boy in the pictures peacefully slept―

BEEP!

BEEP!

BEEP!

BE—CRUNCH!

―or at least, where he had been sleeping, until the alarm clock went off, ruining a wonderful dream.

Couldn’t it have beeped just ten seconds later? He had been just about to share a romantic kiss with Lindsay!

Blearily sitting up in bed, and pulling his hand off the now-abused alarm clock, Kevin Swift blinked weary blue eyes, striving to come to terms with the fact that he was now awake. He ran a hand through his tousled, medium-length, light blond hair, brushing several stray bangs out of his eyes. As his mind became more alert, he absentmindedly stared around his room.

It was an average room for a fifteen-year-old boy. Lining the walls were posters of all his favorite bands and sports teams, along with a number showcasing his favorite anime and manga characters like Lala Satalin Deviluke, Erza Scarlet, Spike Spiegel, and Train Heartnet. Sitting against the wall was a large bookshelf, filled from top to bottom with his favorite anime and manga.

Surprisingly enough, there were no pictures of bikini models, hot actresses, or half-naked women in his room. They weren’t sharing Kevin’s bedroom only because of his innate shyness when it came to women.

To put it simply, he couldn’t talk to girls to save his life. Any time a girl came up to him, he froze, his mouth unable to move, his mind unable to think. It was an affliction that affected him in more ways than one, and it was the main reason that he still couldn’t ask Lindsay Diane on a date, despite the years they’d known each other.

Thinking on it, Kevin believed the reason he couldn’t talk to women was that he’d watched one too many shōnen love comedies.

After taking a shower and getting dressed, Kevin made a breakfast of eggs, toast, and a glass of milk. Upon finishing, he placed the dishes in the sink and brushed his teeth. Once he finished his ritual, he was awake and raring to go.

Stepping out of the apartment he shared with his mother, who was currently in France for her job, Kevin locked the door and walked over to his bike.

It was one of the nicer cruisers, which had cost him a good deal of money to buy, but he considered it an investment. When on the road, comfort was of paramount importance. The last thing he wanted was for his butt to fall asleep while on the job.

He undid the padlock, grabbed the bike, rolled it down the stairs, and took off, pedaling his way out of the Le Monte apartment complex and onto the main street.

As he rode in the bike lane on the left side of the road, Kevin mused that even in the wee hours of the morning, it was still hot as hell in this state. Arizona had to be the hottest place in the United States, especially during the summer.

Well, technically summer was nearing its end. A little less than two weeks and it would be September, but Kevin had never been one to bother with such semantics. It certainly wouldn’t stop him from complaining.

Mentally whining about the heat, he continued to pedal down the bike lane, all the way to his job.

Kevin’s job was delivering the morning newspapers to the houses along his route. He didn’t like relying on his mom for money, especially since she was rarely ever home. He had started doing this two summers ago, when he was in eighth grade, and had decided to continue doing so after he entered high school.

Since summer was almost over, he would only be delivering the Sunday morning newspaper. He didn’t have time on weekdays now that he had school, homework, and after-school activities. It meant he would make less money, but at least he would still make something.

The newspaper building wasn’t much to look at—just a moderately-sized, one-story, rectangular building composed of drab gray bricks and a flat roof. It looked boring, and the manager who owned it wasn’t much better.

In fact, Kevin preferred looking at the building as opposed to the manager. Thankfully, the big boss wouldn’t be there this early in the morning; Kevin supposed there was some kind of silver lining to that, but he couldn’t see it.

Jerk gets to sleep in while I’m stuck riding in this heat.

Kevin didn’t bother locking up his bike. He set it against next to the front door, which he then unlocked with the key he’d been given.

When Kevin had first started this job, the manager had woken up every morning to unlock the door. He then proceeded to watch Kevin like a hawk, while the young boy loaded newspapers onto his bike. It had been pretty creepy, being watched like that. After nearly six months of this treatment, the manager finally decided that he didn’t need to show up every morning and gave him a key to get in.

Kevin found his papers sitting by the front door, as usual. The box was heavy, but he managed to lift and carry it to his bike. He had grown strong since he had started. Back then, he’d been forced to make six trips, which had sucked.

Once all the newspapers were on his bike, Kevin was off to do his newspaper run.

The paper route he took had him traveling through two different neighborhoods. All the houses were nice but imposing in their ostentatious magnificence. Many of them were two-story homes with white plaster walls and red-tiled roofs. The front lawns were all manicured to perfection, with neatly trimmed hedges, perfectly cut trees, and a large variety of cacti. From time to time, Kevin would see expensive cars parked in front of garages.

He shook his head at the wasteful use of money. Maybe it was his mom’s influence, but he didn’t see the point of buying such extravagant vehicles. They looked nice, sure, but they cost more than they were worth, especially since most of them were custom models that required constant maintenance to keep them at peak performance.

The trip through both neighborhoods took him a little over two hours. By the time he got back to the newspaper distribution building, it was around four-thirty in the morning.

He probably could have finished sooner, but Kevin had decided to make a game of trying to hit cars with newspapers. More often than not, he failed; he wasn’t a basketball or baseball player. He had no talent in throwing anything unless it was a Frisbee, and even then, he couldn’t do so very well.

Kevin re-parked his bike by the front door, went inside, and headed down the first hall on the left. He didn’t have to walk far. The hall was short, and the room he needed to enter was the first door on the right.

The room was a standard office. It contained all the items that were expected of an office: a desk, chair, and file maintenance cabinet. This particular office was very spartan, possessing only the bare necessities and nothing else, not even a single picture hung from the walls. There was nothing in this room to indicate that it was being used—other than the large stack of papers sitting on the desk.

Well, that, and the very large man sitting behind the desk. Though perhaps large was an understatement; gargantuan might have fit better. This man was like a sumo wrestler. Kevin wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that this man had been a sumo wrestler at one point in his life. He was that big.

The man in question was his boss, Davin Monstrang. He was a beefy man, with a head of short brown hair, two small brown eyes, and a girth that made it look like he could eat six cows and still be hungry. He had no neck, somewhere around ten chins, and fat that practically rolled out of his ugly, khaki-colored, button-up shirt.

I finished my newspaper route, Kevin informed the man.

Davin grunted, still not looking up from whatever paper he was working on. And I suppose you want your paycheck?

Yes.

Another grunt was the answer he received. Davin wasn’t one for words.

The chair creaked ominously as Davin rolled it away from his desk. Kevin wondered how long the chair had before it broke under the strain of keeping that man seated. Rummaging through his drawers, his boss eventually pulled out an envelope and slapped it onto the desk, which shook from the force.

Here. Try not to spend it in all one place, brat.

Kevin resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the man. Even after all this time, his boss still seemed to think the worst of him. He wasn’t like those spoiled rich kids, who spent their money frivolously on extravagant garbage he didn’t need…

Okay, so maybe he didn’t need all that anime, and perhaps the six hundred volumes of manga he’d collected were excessive. But at least he didn’t spend it on drugs like a lot of kids at his school did. Surely that had to count for something.

Grabbing his paycheck off the desk, Kevin thanked Davin and hurriedly left. He didn’t enjoy being in his boss’s presence any longer than necessary.

It was all that fat. Whenever the man moved, his fat seemed to come alive. It made Kevin feel like he was staring at an eldritch horror that might eat him if he stayed too long.

H.P. Lovecraft has nothing on those fat rolls.

Grabbing his bike, Kevin was about to leave when a noise caught his attention. It was muffled and difficult to make out, but he would recognize that sound anywhere.

That’s the whimper of a pained animal!

His eyes widened.

Kevin had two weaknesses—one well-known, the other not so much. The first was a weakness towards women, which everyone and their mother knew about, and all his friends endlessly teased him for.

His second weakness, one known only to his best friend and crush, was his love for—no, his obsession with—animals. Kevin had loved animals since his mom had first taken him to the zoo when he was five. He’d gone into the petting pen and played with all the animals there. They seemed to like him, unlike some of the other kids who’d been bitten, and he’d had a great time. That had been the start of his animal obsession, which rivaled his anime addiction.

When he was younger, he would occasionally bring strays or even wild animals home. It had caused a lot of problems with the people in charge because of the apartment complex’s no pet policy. After he’d rescued an injured bobcat cub, his mom had put her foot down and made him promise to stop bringing animals home.

Since then, he hadn’t brought a single animal into the apartment—except for one time when he’d found a stray cat. He hadn’t been able to help himself then. It had just been too cute!

I should go. I should just grab my bike and leave.

His mom would be upset if he brought an animal home.

That’s right. Just ignore the sound, Kevin. You don’t want to cause any more trouble.

Another whimper sounded out. Maybe it was merely his imagination, but it sounded almost like whatever made it knew he was there.

Oooh! I can’t do this! It sounds like it’s hurt!

His decision made, Kevin rushed around the corner of the building, where the whimpers were coming from.

He stopped.

His eyes widened.

Oh-my-gosh-it’s-a-fox!

Kevin squealed in a manner eerily reminiscent of a fangirl who had just bumped into her favorite pop idol. Of course, there was no pop idol here. Lying near the dumpster was something far cooler.

A fox with bright red fur.

Less than a second after letting loose with his inner fangirl, Kevin slapped a hand over his mouth.

Idiot! What the heck is wrong with you? Squealing like some kind of prepubescent little girl?

Worse still, he had squealed in front of a fox! It was a well-established fact that foxes didn’t like humans! They shied away from human contact and would bite whatever frightened them!

If he wanted to have any hope of even getting near it, much less petting it, then he would need to be quiet. Quieter than Elmer Fudd when he was hunting wabbits quiet.

Luckily, the fox didn’t seem to have heard him. It hadn’t even moved from where it lay.

Calming himself down, Kevin prepared to sneak up on the fox. He would become one with his surroundings. He would blend in with the shadows. He would be like a shinobi.

Nin nin.

Making a weird sign that looked like a cross with his fingers, Kevin slowly crept toward the fox. As he did, he wondered how it got into the city. There were foxes in Arizona, of course, but they all lived in the desert, far away from any human habitat.

Although, with the recent expansion of city limits, the fox’s natural habitat was getting smaller. Maybe it had been forced to come here because it had nowhere else to go? Kevin scowled at the thought. No one seemed to care about how people were destroying the natural habitat of animals like this fox anymore.

As he neared the creature, he observed its appearance. The fox was very small, nothing more than a tiny kit that could easily fit in the crook of his arms. It had a flattened skull, upright triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned muzzle, and red fur that resembled an ardent flame.

He recognized the species—a red fox, the most common type. Strange, he didn’t think red foxes lived near Phoenix. Their habitat was supposed to be the northeastern portion of the state, up in Flagstaff.

As he neared the fox, Kevin saw something else that was unusual. It had more than one tail. Lying limply behind the tiny critter were two bushy red fox tails with white tips.

How unusual. Kevin had never seen a fox with two tails before. He was pretty sure that foxes weren’t supposed to have more than one.

Could it be a government experiment?

He couldn’t see why the government would experiment on a fox to give it two tails, but there were always conspiracy theories about the government committing inhumane experiments on humans. Why couldn’t they do one on a fox as well?

Another whimper escaped from the fox’s mouth, and Kevin remembered it was injured. Also, while he hadn’t noticed before because its fur was so red, a more in-depth observation caused him to notice that a portion of its thick fur was slick and shiny, like someone had splashed liquid on it. It was most definitely blood.

Now that he noticed it was injured, he also saw the expanding pool of blood underneath it, along with the carnelian trail that showed it had dragged itself to this spot before collapsing.

Kevin dropped all sense of subtlety and sneakiness and rushed toward the fox. It must have been horribly injured not to notice his approach. Foxes were supposed to possess keen senses. Even injured, he would have expected it to try to run away the moment he made too much noise.

Kneeling beside the injured animal, Kevin realized why it hadn’t run away from him. It was unconscious. Growing even more concerned, Kevin gently scooped the small fox into his arms and stood up. A whimper escaped from the tiny animal as the movement jostled its wounds.

Sorry, Kevin whispered, though he knew the fox couldn’t hear him.

He rushed back to his bike and, after a moment’s thought, divested himself of his shirt, using it as a makeshift pillow for the animal.

Placing the fox into the basket along with his shirt, Kevin took off toward his apartment, his thoughts focused solely on helping the small creature suffering in front of him.

After hauling ass back to Le Monte Apartments, Kevin dashed up the stairs, through the door, and into his bedroom. He didn’t know how long the fox had before it bled out, but judging by the blood soaking his shirt, it wasn’t long.

After placing the still unconscious fox on his bed, Kevin ran into his mom’s bathroom, where all the medical supplies were kept. Crouching down, he opened the cabinet door and peered inside. There, he found the first aid kit sitting between a large bottle of Zzzquil and a box filled with various feminine products.

He grabbed the box and tore through the short hallway once more into his room. Sitting on his bed, Kevin opened the first aid kit and made a quick inventory check. There was disinfectant, cotton balls, gauze, and bandages. Nothing seemed to be out of place. Good.

Quickly pulling out the supplies, Kevin got to work. He first grabbed a cotton ball and poured some disinfectant on it. Rolling the fox over onto its back revealed where Kevin guessed the injury was. He couldn’t be sure because the entire area was covered in blood and grime, hiding any wound it might have from view.

The fox whimpered in pain as Kevin rubbed the ethanol-covered cotton ball over its skin, killing off whatever harmful bacteria surrounded the wound. Being an alcohol-based disinfectant, Kevin knew it stung something fierce, and he was quick to apologize despite the fox not being awake to hear it. As the blood and grime were wiped away, Kevin finally caught a clear glimpse of the injury.

His stomach churned.

Its flesh had been torn apart. The edges were ragged and frayed, split apart to reveal pulsing pink muscles covered in carmine fluid. Kevin was reminded of when he’d been bitten by a grumpy old man’s pitbull after trying to pet it. Its jaws had been strong, its teeth stronger still, and the flesh on his hand had been ripped ragged. He’d needed over half a dozen stitches to heal it.

That was the only time any animal had ever bitten him. He still had a memento from that time in the form of a white scar on both sides of his hand near his thumb, which stood out starkly against his light tan.

The longer he continued cleaning the wound, the more he realized just how horrible the injury truly was. It was more than just a ragged gash. Whatever had done this had torn into the fatty tissue and ripped apart its muscles. He didn’t even know if stitching the wound could help save this fox, but even if it could, he didn’t know how to sew wounds shut.

Not knowing what else to do, Kevin kept cleaning the wound until he felt it was good enough to bandage. He went through eight cotton balls to clean up all the blood and dirt. Truth be told, he had expected to need more.

It was right after he grabbed the bandages, but before he began wrapping the wound, that he caught sight of something startling out of his peripheral vision.

What the heck…?

He blinked several times, then rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. When he’d convinced himself that, no, he was not suffering from any kind of hallucination and that, yes, what he saw really was happening, his eyes widened. The wound was healing!

Slowly but surely the large gash on the fox’s torso was closing up.