Ren grinned. “Have I mentioned how glad I am you can’t talk?”

Whether Kuro was in fox or human form didn’t matter. Since Ren had delivered his plan, Kuro hadn’t been able to pick his jaw up from the futon.

Somewhere in the castle, demons shuffled and the old wood structure creaked. None of that mattered. Even the rest of the room didn’t matter. Only Ren did.

Onmyouji kept familiars. Gods kept familiars, like the Eastern Shrine’s rabbit spirits and Inari’s Celestial Kitsune. Humans couldn’t — but Ren wasn’t fully human. The Sun Goddess’ blood warmed his veins. He was part deity.

But there was a vast difference between possible and desired. He wasn’t — no god would have made that offer to him. Without white fur, Gods saw him as scum. With black fur…

Ren set the blade to the side and held up the leaf, twisting it back and forth by the stem. “I know, the great and powerful soon-to-be god Kuro would never stoop so low as to become a familiar. But it’s all I have to offer you.”

Yet it was still too much. Kuro’s tail tucked between his legs.

“When I’m enthroned, I will build you your shrine and name you my patron deity. Your shrine will rival Inari’s and the Sun Goddess’ at Iga.”

Then Kuro could rub his mother’s nose in his success. He’d be a god, and better than the deity she devoted herself to.

Kuro lunged for the leaf in Ren’s hand. Ren lifted it away, and unless Kuro wanted to crush Ren with his weight, he had to slide on his hunches to a stop. He snapped his jaws at Ren’s hand, but he tucked his hand and the leaf behind his back.

“So, do you agree?” Ren asked. “I asked Yumi how to forge the bond.”

Kuro dropped his muzzle to stare Ren in the eyes. Was he joking? He leapt to the side and shoved his muzzle in the gap between the wall and Ren’s lower back, but he switched hands.

“Answer me now, and I’ll give you the leaf,” Ren said.

He bared his teeth.

Ren wagged a finger in front of him. Arrogant little prince, assuming Kuro wouldn’t bite his finger off to prove a point. “Nod your head for yes, shake your head for no. No need to say anything else, although I see you have a bellyful to berate me with.”

Kuro whirled and marched back to the futons. He laid down with his back to Ren, pointedly closing his eyes and resting his muzzle on his paws.

“Don’t be so stubborn,” Ren said.

“Don’t be so reckless,” Kuro snapped back, but of course Ren couldn’t hear him.

He would if Kuro became his familiar. Kuro jerked his muzzle further away from Ren, cutting off that line of thought. He didn’t even know that for sure, since usually those who could take familiars could already hear them in whatever form.

“Kuro.”

If Ren didn’t want to listen to him, then he didn’t want to communicate with him.

“Fine.”

So he gave up. Ren rose, his kimono rustling. Kuro’s ears swivelled in his direction, and he clenched his jaw. Stupid ears. Ren had better know that the sound caught his attention, not that Kuro wanted to pay attention to him.

A leaf pressed down between his traitorous ears. “There you—”

Kuro transformed into his human form in a puff of smoke.

“—go,” Ren finished.

Just as Ren started to chuckle, Kuro whirled back, cutting him off. “I have never, ever heard such a stupid plan. Even Yumi’s sounds genius compared to yours.”

“It’s the best—”

Kuro clapped his hand over Ren’s mouth. “You’ve had your time to speak. Now it’s mine. What are you thinking? I’m a Dark Kitsune.”

Ren stared at him evenly.

“A Dark Kitsune,” he repeated. “A Dark — I will destroy you, whether or not I want to. Whether I’m your familiar or not. Especially if I’m your familiar. You don’t even—”

Kuro clenched his jaw before he said that dreaded word, ‘like.’ Nothing had changed since the execution ground. Kuro had caused his family to be eaten by demons. He’d plotted with the Shogun against Ren. Ren had lost the Kusanagi trying to save him. Kuro had stolen everything from him, and when he’d tried to give him the sword back, he’d broken it. Ren must despise him.

This was what Nekogami had died for? A mongrel fox who’d destroy her precious human?

Stolen novel; please report.

Ren licked Kuro’s palm. Shoots like static rippled up Kuro’s spine and he snatched his hand back.

“I do know,” Ren said. At least he was oblivious to what Kuro had actually been about to say. “I knew the moment your tail peeked out.”

“You thought I was a pet — a demon hunting dog you could send against the demons,” Kuro said. “Don’t deny it.”

“You’re not an empire-destroying maniacal demon lord like in the histories.” Ren scraped his gaze up Kuro. “Definitely not.”

“I don’t have to be. I destroy the world by existing. Existing. Do you know what that means? It means, me just living will destroy you.”

“I need your powers.”

“There’s no,” Kuro held his hands out in front of him, like he carried a pot, but there was nothing there, and his hands shook, “using my powers. I have no control over them. There’s just me, existing.”

Ren flicked his eyes over Kuro again, then raised a brow. “You’re right.”

“Great, now—” Kuro couldn’t finish that sentence. He didn’t know what to finish it with. What happened to him then? He definitely wouldn’t get a shrine, but Ren would probably find a sword and— Kuro’s heart pounded against his ribs.

“Your existence destroys empires,” Ren said. “But this isn’t my empire.”

Kuro fell back, landing on his bottom.

“I lost it,” Ren said. “Perhaps even before I was born, I started to lose my empire. But now the empire is his, from the frozen island in the north to the jungles in the south. And why?”

“The Shogun defeated your father and stole the government, leaving your sisters to beg on the street.” Oops, perhaps that wasn’t the best thing to remind Ren of if Kuro wanted to keep his head a few hours longer.

“He found you,” Ren said. “He used you to end the Tendo dynasty.”

That was worse than reminding him of his dead sisters.

“But now we’re reversed. Gorou will become emperor, and I’ve become the usurper. That’s why I need you.”

Kuro bowed his head, his neck muscles prickling at the stretch. Ren had thought this plan through better than he had the others. He’d learned. “So you want me and the Night Parade to destroy the Empire. I thought you cared about your human subjects.”

“War demands sacrifices.”

“War doesn’t mean you loose the Night Parade onto your people, because that’s what they’ll do. They’ll attack homes and eat humans. And I… I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Ren bobbed his head back and forth. “You’ll berate me, lecture me, call me an idiot every five sentences.”

Kuro lifted his head, leaning close to Ren so he couldn’t miss how he narrowed his eyes at him. “You won once against the Shogun. Barely once. Not even once. Maybe a half, and that was only by luck.”

“I know,” Ren said. “I have a lot of work ahead of me. Reshaping the Night Parade alone will be—”

“Impossible?”

“—difficult. That’s why I need you and Yumi.”

“Ha! Good luck with that one.”

He tilted his head. “She’s still here.”

Kuro widened his eyes until his eyes bulged. If he could wrangle that, then perhaps everything else wasn’t so impossible. Just one straw short of impossible. “The Shogun controls the human empire, with samurai and resources and money at his disposal. Even the gods must play nice with him. And he’s a master of war. You should know, you’ve lectured me enough.”

“He’s a proven general,” Ren agreed, “but I’ve studied my whole life for this.”

“Then you’ll definitely beat him, so long as the battle is an exam.” Kuro shook his head. “Even if the Night Parade deigns to submit to a human, the Shogun destroyed the Demon Lords. The Demon Lords, the strongest, most powerful demons in the Empire.”

“Yet Gorou hasn’t been able to destroy them yet.”

Kuro jerked his hands. “Because he was waiting to get the Kusanagi.”

“Which he still doesn’t have.”

“You honestly think that will give you a chance?” Kuro demanded. “He killed the Demon Lords without it, just like he’ll destroy the Night Parade now that he’s not biding his time. He has armies. He has experience. You have a group of demons who won’t obey you, and some ratty humans who have never held a weapon.”

“They did all—”

Kuro pressed a finger to his lips to cut him off, then quickly retrieved it before Ren did anything too interesting in response.

“You’re my best advantage,” Ren said.

His best advantage. The thing that will destroy him as soon as he regained his throne. Kuro picked at the blanket. But until that moment… Ren needed him.

“So will you become my familiar?” Ren held out his hand.

There’d be no shrine or divinity waiting for Kuro. He’d have to be a half-drowned kit again to believe it this time.

Ren believed it. He wouldn’t lie like that, unlike thousands. But Ren’s intentions didn’t matter. When Ren died fighting for the throne, Kuro would have nothing but the Shogun’s wrath. And if Ren managed the impossible, familiar or not, before Ren’s enthronement, Kuro had to die.

He released his hands at his side and nodded.

Ren clasped his hand in his, then pulled Kuro closer. Kuro shuffled next to him on his knees.

“Yumi told me the ritual was very simple.” Ren brushed Kuro’s cheeks with his fingertips, then clasped his hand at the back of Kuro’s neck.

Kuro’s chest tightened, his breath coming in short gasps. Their eyes met, Ren’s liquid brown eyes bright. Alive and merry, compared to when the Shogun had claimed the Kusanagi. As if Ren was happy about more than obtaining a weapon. As if Ren still desired him.

Impossible. Only a wish Kuro dared to make.

Ren pressed his lips against Kuro’s. The press was so soft, like petals touching the surface of a pond. Ren shifted closer and pulled Kuro in tighter, his lips pressing harder. His lips moving, and Kuro’s moving against his, until Kuro’s mouth opened beneath Ren’s lips.

Then the bond sparked between them, electrifying Kuro like he fell through the barrier again. But instead of the world dissolving into pain, he felt like Ren swaddled him, like their own cosy den pressed around them, safe and warm.

Kuro jerked back, squeezing his eyes closed. Any expression he saw on Ren would stir up hopes. Hopes he couldn’t afford to have. He would have fled farther than three inches, but Ren hold him there with his hand on Kuro’s neck. Puffs of air stroked Kuro’s cheeks as Ren breathed, and Kuro could almost feel Ren’s pulse through his fingers. Or maybe he just wished he could feel any effect from that kiss.

Ren couldn’t have waited to kiss him until the spring, couldn’t have waited to sequester them in a demon-infested castle until the spring, after the dark months.

Ren didn’t kiss him, he reminded himself. He’d only bound them. It meant nothing more. Anyone’s heart would have raced with that power rushing through them.

“There,” Ren said. “Was that so terrible?”

Humans were stupid, and Ren more than most. Ren still didn’t move away. He wouldn’t abandon Kuro, but even with the bond between them, nothing had really changed since before Ren. He still pretended he’d win a shrine. He’d still be murdered for being a Dark Kitsune. He’d still be alone.

Only now Kuro couldn’t hide from it. He knew. Farewell.

He had a new mission to complete, and a lot of plans to unstupidify.

“So.” He turned on Ren. “What do I need to talk you out of first?”