Chapter 15
Getting close to the headquarters building Damon makes Pegasus get closer, he grabs a little bit of Pegasus' mane and as soon as the strands of hair are in his hand I feel us fly through layers upon layers of different kinds of wards, some very very deadly and ancient wards. Once we make it through all the complex wards he releases his grip on Pegasus' mane then explains that to get past the wards you must be touching a Protector or you'll be instantly dead. Getting even close I can feel large amounts of power radiating from the building meaning a lot of high ranking creatures are gathered here, hopefully all that power doesn't belong only to people but also the rare creatures kept safe here.
I take a big gulp when we land in front of the large black gates fighting off the trembling my body wants to do in fright, Damon just blows the gates open with his strong wings like it's nothing instead of patiently waiting for someone to open them for him. Holding his head up high he struts through the gates like he owns the place, well he probably does own the place since he is the leader, the fifty or so guards around the gate quickly kneel to the ground deeply bowing their heads in respect of their leader, the great Damon Light. Pegasus snorts at the display and of course Damon growls at him, I sigh at their bickering. My sigh catches the attention of quite a few guards who give me curious looks because a normal fox doesn't sigh.
Struggling once again in Damon's arms he stops his growling/snorting match with Pegasus, he smiles at me lovingly when I place a furry paw on his cheek then he plants a kiss on top of my head. The guards are all standing now and looking at each other dumbfounded by the display probably trying to figure out if Damon has gone crazy in his absence. Letting out a whimper at him he places me on the ground like I want, when my paws meet the ground I run behind his legs trying to hide myself from all the eyes that are staring at me, which just makes him laugh. When a few mummers are heard Damon turns his head towards the guards and send them a death glare, they all shut up as they start sweating and gulping in fear.
"This white fox creature here is Lotus, she is no normal fox she is-" Damon gets cut off.
"Why the fuck is she a fox right now?" Charlie comes striding up to us as he doesn't know what to think of me hiding behind Damon as a fox. The guards become even more confused wondering why the hell Charlie is asking why a fox is a fox. I do the closest thing I can to chuckle, in a second Charlie walks around Damon and roughly picks me up by the scruff of my neck earning himself a growl from me.
"Hell if I know why she's a fox." Damon throws his arms up in the air clearly aggravated that I'm making seem like a crazy person in front of his men.
"Lotus please don't make us look like crazies right now." Charlie glares at me, I growl at him again and try snapping at his hands. "Do you want everyone who looks up to Damon and follows him to think he's lost his damn mind?"
At those words I reluctantly shift into my true form, I can't stand the thought of all these people that know Damon to think he's crazy. Loud gasps and murmurers fill the almost silence of the area we are in as the guards take in my unique appearance questioning what I am, that they've never saw or heard of anything like me. Whimpering I run behind Damon again but this time wrapping both my arms around one of his and peeking around his back at the guards. Not liking how scared I am Damon yells at everyone to shut the hell up and all their mouths snap shut. I'm pried off his arm as he pulls me to his chest letting his wings slightly wrap around us in a protective manner.
"Everyone this is Lotus, she is a thousand year creature called a Kitsune, I would describe her as a very unique shifter with special abilities, her kind has never been known to exist and she is the last kitsune so she is automatically under our protection. I apologize for not being here for the past few months because I've been with her protecting her. Also I have an announcement to make, some of you may have heard that I finally found someone and she is my someone. Charlie and I found out the day we met that she imprinted me and I happily fell in love with her and accepted her we are now mates." Damon grins in excitement as he says the last part.
Cheers sound out from the guards that have grown in numbers from fifty to about hundred. Being shy at the attention, my face blushes and I bury head in Damon's chest. Charlie laughs at my actions but unfortunately for him laughing at me when your so close to Pegasus is a horrible idea, in less than a second Charlie is flying into the air hitting the gates hard enough to put a huge dent in them an angry Pegasus snorts at him. Everyone laughs at the exchange and praises Pegasus which he eats up the attention absolutely loving being in the spotlight, he starts strutting towards me like he's the hottest thing in the world with his head held high and chest puffed out. Soon my hair is being pulled on by the flying horse so I have to give him attention as well, I giggle at his antics and pet his muzzle. All around us gets silent, all the different beings are shocked to see a mythical creature being so friendly to someone that isn't another Pegasus. Looks like after just a few minutes we've managed to blow everyone's mind. Before they can start asking questions Damon once again addresses them.
"Lotus has spent her entire thousand year life living in the woods and avoiding any and all supernaturals if possible so she is incredibly shy and scared of new people so please don't overwhelm her, if she passes by say hello at most til she gets more comfortable around everyone and she's okay with talking."
From nowhere I hear a happy yip, knowing who the voice belongs to I frantically search the crowd for the unruly cub Charlie brought. Afraid he might be scared and hiding I shift back into my white fox and run through the crowd of people who look at me with different expressions, shock, awe, curiosity, wariness, happiness, etc. The yipping gets closer but I'm still not able to see the cub so I let out a howl for him to follow my voice and come to me, soon a low thudding of tiny paws is heard as the wild cub comes running to me at full speed with his tongue lulling out the side of his mouth. Relieved that he is safe I meet him halfway then pick him up by the scruff of his neck, swiftly carrying him out the crowd towards Damon and a now conscious Charlie that's glaring at Pegasus. Watching my every move as I emerge from the sea of bodies Damon comes overs and takes the cub out of my mouth, letting me shift back, one neat thing about my shifting is somehow my clothes don't shred and they disappear when I'm a fox then reappear when I'm in my normal form.
Taking the cub out of Damon's arms and into my own I see some people eying the cub oddly. Bad fucking move. I go on defense mode, clutching the small animal close to my chest with one arm, growling and snarling at the people staring at the cub I summon a ball of fox fire into my other hand. People gasp with wide eyes and look a little scared, before I have the chance to do anything Damon is wrapping his arms around my waist placing a kiss on my cheek and whispering to me that it's okay no one wants to hurt the cub, they are just curious about a normal animal being here. His husky voice relaxes me enough to make the fox fire vanish.
"Just so you all know, she was created to protect foxes so please stay away from that cub if possible, he is very unruly so if he wonders off somewhere and you see him whatever you do don't pick him up immediately alert me, Charlie or Lotus to his whereabouts. Lotus is an incredibly nice girl but when it comes to foxes her instincts are to protect them at any cost which includes fighting and even killing for them." When he gets done talking to everyone their fear vanishes and is replaced with understanding. "If you want to be in fox form for awhile around everyone here then it's fine if it'll put you more at ease." Damon whispers into my ear only loud enough for me and Charlie to hear. Placing the cub on the ground I shift back into a fox and stand protectively in front of my little friend.
"Sir, in your absence a lot of work related things need to be reported." One man pipes up from the crowd.
"I know, I'll head to the office right away." Damon sighs then he looks down at me. "Sorry babe but I have some work to do, go with Charlie." Then he goes into the crowd and disappears from my sight, I desperately want him with me but he's been neglecting his work for months because of me so I can't be selfish.
I trot over to Charlie and paw at his leg whining wanting him to pick me up and carry me because I'm afraid someone in this ever growing crowd will step on me. He rolls his eyes and picks the cub up in one arm and me in the other, as he begins walking Pegasus grabs onto his shirt halting him. Turning his head at the moody creature he raises a brow making the flying horse snort and stomp his hooves not happy I'm being carried away by Charlie.
"Listen here you asshole of a beast, I'm taking her inside where she'll be safe. You can prance your arrogant ass around here soaking up all the attention til one of us comes to get you." With that Charlie storms off leaving behind a pissed off Pegasus. If it wasn't for me Pegasus would've kicked Charlie or head butted him, for some reason whenever the two are together sparks fly and not in a good way.
The crowd slowly begins to dissipate as Charlie carries me and the cub towards the entrance to the giant building that is the headquarters. Some people scurry away from Charlie because of how angry he looks, who knew a flying horse could piss him off so much? The doors to the intimidating black building are huge they are about ten foot tall and five foot wide to accommodate whatever beings need to enter which makes me wonder what beings are this huge is there giants here or something? People standing by the door nod at Charlie in greeting as he brushes past them determined to take me wherever.
"We're going to the main living room first, I've drove non stop for a day and a half with no sleep so I'm very tired, we'll relax a little then I'll show you around."Since I can't talk to him as a fox I just rub my head on his arm letting him know I heard what he said.
Walking through the building which is more like an actual house on the inside I take in every detail of the beautiful decor. The outside looks so sinister but the interior is super fancy, white marble floors, chandeliers, white walls, expensive paintings and sculptures placed tastefully all over, to me this place looks like a mansion that a rich aristocrat in the 1600-1800s would own to hold balls. The whole place gives off an elegant vibe, it feels as if everyone should be wearing expensive gowns and tuxedos the exact opposite of a dirty sleepy Charlie carrying two foxes. A lot of people look at him like he's insane as he mumbles to himself while carrying us around in his arms, he's holding onto both of us like we are the most precious treasures of the world, if he dropped one of us it would be disastrous, I'm dropped he'll have to deal with Damon and if the cub is dropped he'll have to deal with me. Turning left we enter a room that has white couches and matching chairs, grey rug under a black coffee table and a huge TV mounted onto the wall. Charlie goes to the only couch that's not full and growls at the one person sitting there, the person must be a teenage boy and he looks absolutely frightened of Charlie so he quickly scrambles off the couch almost tripping on the coffee table in his rush to get away. Gently I'm placed on the couch then the cub is put next to me, Charlie then plops down in a huff almost bouncing me off the couch.
"Geez man don't scare off the poor kid so you can hog up a whole couch." Some young man says.
"I'm not hogging up the couch, I needed room for these two." He nonchalantly motions with his head to the small cub and I. I really need to name the cub instead of calling him a cub all the time.
"That's a shitty excuse for wanting the couch, and why did you put two dirty animals on the couch? Who knows what nasty bugs or diseases they might have?!" A red head shrieks, I growl at her for those insulting words, both the cub and I have extremely clean fur that we take great pride in.
"If I were you I would shut my mouth right now." Charlie sighs out riling up the woman even more.
"That disgusting animal just fucking growled at me!" The makes me even madder, how dare her call me disgusting!
Charlie's face contorts to one of pure anger. "Hey I'm serious! You need to shut up or all hell is going to break loose!" He sits up shouting at the red head.
"Fuck you! I'm getting these gross rabid animals out of here." My blood starts to boil.
She starts walking close to us, I hunker down baring my teeth ready to pounce at any second and hopefully rip her voice box out. "Lotus, please calm down." Charlie is still angry but he's trying to calm me worried of what I might do cause right now she's considered a serious threat to me and the cub.
"You fucking named that dirty beast?! It nor it's pup will have a name once I throw them out into the woods to be killed by a bear or something."
As soon as she says that she is close enough to almost pick the cub up. Bad fucking move bitch! In less than a second I shift into my true form and tackle the red head to the ground. I elongate my claws and quickly slash them across her face drawing blood, Charlie is shouting at me but I ignore him in my fit of rage. The girl under me starts screaming and crying from the shock of me shifting and attacking her plus she now can feel how just how powerful I am, she's no match for me. Using my other clawed hand I slash her chest ripping open her shirt in the process putting the deep wounds on display for everyone around to see, I roar in her face as she becomes consumed in panic, my sharp canines make contact with the skin on her neck and I bite down hard making blood ooze out of her neck, but it's not enough to stop me, I want her dead. Strong arms are wrapped around me trying to pull me off the woman but all I see is red right now so I fight the arms as hard as I can to continue my assault on the red head. The room begins to fill with the strong metallic scent of blood as I rain down punches, slashes and bites instinct driving me to kill her because of how much of a threat she is to the cub and myself. Laughing like a maniac I sit up on her lifting one of my hands and summoning fox fire ready to finish off the bitch, her eyes widen in horror knowing she's about to die.
"Stop her now!" Someone shouts in panic, there are already several men trying to move me off the red head but I won't budge, at least not until she's dead. Making the blue fire bigger and dance around in my hand I prepare to disintegrate her with it but before I get to release it I hear a loud whimper. Quickly I jerk my head up looking for the whining cub, searching the room with my eyes I spot the cub hiding under one of the couches whining because he's scared of what's happening. Don't worry little one there won't be anything to be scared of soon. Turning my attention back to the red head who's laying in a giant pool of her own blood I evilly grin then next thing I know I'm going flying across the room with something strong and heavy wrapped around me. Bracing myself for the impact of either the hard floor or a wall I shut my eyes tightly, I feel a slight thud and a loud groan comes from under me, looking down I see that Damon is underneath me, he must've been the one who knocked me off the woman. That disgusting woman! My head turns in her direction and I let out a snarl so loud the walls shake, I try to rip free of Damon's arms but his grip tightens the more I struggle. Sharp teeth tug on one of my tails, it's the cub wanting me to calm down, I stop my struggling and begin whimpering at the cub apologizing for scaring him. Slowly Damon releases me and I immediately get up and grab the cub clutching him to my chest.
"What the fuck happened?" Damon shouts as he pulls himself off the floor, he knows I wouldn't get in a fight without good reason and he wants to know the reason.
"She insulted what she thought was two normal foxes so I told her to shut up but she continued insulting them and even said she'll put them somewhere they'll killed by a bear then made the grave mistake of going too close to the cub so Lotus attacked." Charlie sighs running a hand through his blond hair.
"I take it nobody in this room happened to be outside earlier to hear my annoucments?" Everyone in the shakes their head no while staring at me wide eyed at me scared that I might attack again. "Okay well long story short, this is Lotus who is a kitsune, a being that shifts into a fox and is a protector of foxes so it's her instinct to attack when someone seems like a threat to a fox, don't go anywhere near the cub or insult him. Also Lotus imprinted on me and I accepted her so I guess normal shifters would call us mates, if you have any questions then ask Charlie."
Damon leaves no room for argument as he turns away from room full of people to look at me and I'm so glad his eyes don't show any type of anger or disappointment towards me. I hear the noise of dripping in the now silent room and look down only to see the large amount of blood dripping off my mouth and claws. Noticing the cub has blood on his fur from my attack my stomach drops as guilt sets in for getting his beautiful coat soaked by a vile woman's blood. Charlie comes over holding his hands out for the cub, reluctantly I pick up the little guy and give him to Charlie so he can clean the blood off. Damon pulls me close petting my ears as tears threaten to fall down my blood stained face.
"Shhh it's okay babe, the cub is fine and so are you, don't worry about that woman she won't hurt the cub I promise."
"Um excuse me Mr. Light I'm sorry for interrupting but you might want to get both of these women and yourself washed up and clean the floor, a few vampires are getting restless at the strong scent of fresh blood." A tiny woman meekly says as she enters the room eying the huge trail of blood that leads from one side of the room to the other. Stepping back from Damon I realize he has blood on him as well.
"Come on let's go get you cleaned up, you look like you've just slaughtered an entire village." He gives me half smile which I return with my own half smile.
Not liking the feeling of several pairs of eyes on me I shift back into my fox form that is no longer a beautiful white but covered in dark red splotches. Damon unexpectedly chuckles at me then picks me up rubbing his nose on mine giving me an Eskimo kiss, I lick his nose before he pulls me away. He wraps one arm around my body and one under me so I'm able to lay down, as we walk out of the room I peek between the space of his arm and torso to see all the men and woman looking absolutely shocked at the interaction between Damon and I as well as the fact he didn't seem to care the least bit about the bloody woman being lifted off the floor.
Being carried down a long hallway I notice the number of doors and wonder if all those are bedrooms and just how many people live here and how many I'm going to have to interact with, my mind fills with questions about the beings here. My ears lay down and I purr as Damon begins scratching the top of my head like you would do if you were holding a pet dog or cat. Soon we reach a room at the end of the hall, I'm placed on the floor as Damon opens the door ushering me to go in.
The room smells heavily of Damon so this has to be his room, from what little I can see from my height the room looks like a mixture of woodsy and modern decor, he must've had it changed to suit my tastes a little better, I've learned he isn't all that fond of nature decor. My duffel bags are sitting on the floor unopened while Damon's bags have already been put away. Stepping into the middle of the large room I notice there's a couch and TV on one side of the room, there's a king sized bed, two night stands and two dressers on the other side. I bark when I see a super plush dog bed that I know is for my little cub I'm happy that Damon thought enough about him to get a bed. There's two doors which I'm assuming is a bathroom and closet, sniffing the air I smell the scent of water and go to that door knowing it's the bathroom. Pawing at the door I look to Damon and whine he raises a brow at me.
"Not going to shift back?" He smirks in amusement.
I shake my head no continuing my pawing at the door that's about to turn into scratching if he doesn't hurry and open the door, he takes his time walking over then opens it for me. Spotting the bath tub I run over and place both my paws on top of it then look at Damon and whine.
"Don't tell me you want me to give you a bath?" He looks at me in disbelief, as a reply I bark and wag my tail. He groans running a hand down his face. "You've got to be fucking kidding me." The words are murmured so low I barely heard them, my eyes narrow at him. "If I give you a bath right now will you also be clean in regular form?" In response I yip. "Bathing a naked woman is every man's dream but I don't know what to think about bathing a fox that just so happens to be my mate." He smirks and I growl making him chuckle. Coming over to kneel down beside me Damon turns on the hot and cold water adjusting it to my liking then lets the tub fill so he can give me a bath.