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“They got to love. Year after year, I watched these bloodlines find their soul mates right at eighteen or nineteen, no later than twenty years old. Beautifully fated. Happily-ever-afters over and over. It was fucking disgusting and wrong.”

I leaned back.

“The villages I picked had the most of these bloodlines. They had to go.”

“Why?”

“I was tired of fucking seeing them. Happy kissing little weak things. Having babies. Singing to the sky of their love. Bragging.”

Well damn.

A ripple flowed along Yoichi’s skin. His eyes stopped glowing, and then she was gone.

Yoichi frowned. “She turned the shogun against them. Had his army killing as many as possible—babies, pregnant mothers, old, young. It didn’t matter. She hollowed these bloodlines out. The few that survived remained scarred, ready to pass down curses for future generations.”

“Damn. And I thought my ancestor was psychotic for cursing our bloodline.”

“Inari left the spirit realm and cracked her hold on the shogun.”

“Oh. Shit. She pissed off a god.”

“Pissed was an understatement. Inari loved these two bloodlines most of all. They’d given so many sacrifices just to make the world a better place.”

“Fuck.”

“Inari shifted control to me.”

At the god’s name, the fang pendant at his throat glowed white.

“Are you saying the kitsune form or your male form gained control?”

He grinned. “You’re catching on.”

“A little bit.”

“My male form.”

“Yoichi gained control.”

“Yes.” The fang brightened.

“Is that a charm that keeps you in line?”

“Inari made it, and this keeps my tails hidden, because. . .from time to time they like to just pop out, especially when I’m horny, angry. Any intense emotion.”

“Oh. While you’re in this form?”

“Of course.” Smiling, he lifted the charm off his neck and set the charm on the rocky edge. The fang pulsed white once, then dimmed.

The water behind him churned.

Then all eight tails rose and fanned out around us.

Oh shit.

Steam drifted from their wet fur.

“This is. . .” I took them all in. “Amazing.”