by S. Young
“Hopefully not,” he replied unexpectedly to her comment about having a vision. “We’ll be in the mountains for three days. Full moon phase.”
Of course.
Right.
Niamh frowned. “We didn’t check out of the hotel. Are you telling me you’re paying for that room for three days when we’re not even there?”
“It’s no big deal.”
It was a big deal. Kiyo wasn’t the type to splash the cash like that. “We should have checked out.”
“As long as we’re checked in, anyone who wants to know we’re in Tokyo will think we’re still in the city.”
True.
“At least let me pay for my half.”
Kiyo snorted. “And have you rob a bank to do it?”
Her cheeks colored. Even though she knew it wasn’t a dig, it only reminded her that she hadn’t done anything honorable to earn money. When Thea was on the run and on her own, she’d worked every menial job under the sun to pay her own way. She stayed in shitty apartments all over Europe. Niamh had never sacrificed like that.
“Hey …” Kiyo’s voice softened. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I know. Still, I should probably think about getting a proper job at some point. Putting some money away. Money I’ve earned.”
“You have a job. An important one. Don’t forget it.”
Soothed somewhat, she shot him a smile he couldn’t see because he was focused on the road ahead.
They fell into companionable silence for a while, and Niamh took in the city as they drove through. They slowed in the heavy traffic. Catching sight of a sign that had a wolf painted on it, Niamh thought about the reason for their flight into the woods.
“What’s it like?” she blurted out.
“What?”
“The call of the moon?”
He flicked her an amused, questioning look.
She shrugged. “I’ve never had the chance to converse with a werewolf long enough to ask. I mean, you have to turn on a full moon, right?”
“Yeah, there’s no stopping it.”
“So what does it feel like?”
Kiyo seemed to consider this. “Physically, it’s like this tingling sensation down my spine. A burning tingle. It’s a pleasure pain. The first time I was forced to turn, it was frightening to not have control over my body. To feel it changing and not be able to stop it. But after a while, the fear went away. I feel connected to the universe during a full moon in a way I don’t otherwise. Like the moon and I are bonded. Like it rejoices in my running wild in my wolf form. It’s freeing. To soar and leap and be at one with the woods and the earth and the animals. The human part of me might lose control of its body but the wolf is in control of every veer and jump and swerve through the trees.”
Something warm and full of anticipation moved through her. “It sounds … awesome.”
Kiyo threw her a quick grin.
“You don’t resent being a wolf, then?”
He shook his head. “Strangely not. When I was first bitten, I didn’t want it. I was afraid of it. But eventually—and by eventually, I mean quite a few years later—I started to give into it. When I did, I realized that being a werewolf had freed me.”
“Freed you?”
“When I was human, I was always treated as if I was different because of my mother’s supposed shame. Children who should have been friends used me as target practice. Adults veered between treating me as if I were invisible or as if I were less than an animal to them. It got better as I got older, living in Tokyo away from the past. But I never quite felt myself. Or that I belonged, no matter how people tried to make me feel like I belonged.
“Being awoken to the supernatural world, becoming a werewolf … I was finally able to let go of the idea that being different was something to be ashamed of. I let go of all the shit that had screwed with my head for years. It was freeing, and I might have been happy as a wolf.”
Niamh heard the underlying sadness in his voice and guessed, “If you hadn’t been cursed with immortality?”
“Yeah.”
“Will you tell about me about it, Kiyo? Will you tell me the rest of your story?”
He slowed the car to stop at a traffic light and looked at her, searching her face for something.
Niamh didn’t dare move, afraid any little thing would push him away. He didn’t make friendship comfortable, that was for certain. But Niamh couldn’t seem to stop wanting to try with him, anyway.
The lights changed and Kiyo turned to focus on the road again.
Disappointment filled her only to melt away as he began to speak.
“After Sofu abandoned me in Tokyo, I tried to survive the only way I could. I begged for food and fell in with some street urchins who taught me how to pick pockets. I hated it, but they kept me alive. It was only some weeks later when I was begging for food in the Kabuto-cho area that things changed. It was the business center of the city, where the bank was. While businessmen were more likely to kick you out of their way than give you yen, those who would give money were often more casually generous than could be found elsewhere. There were a few who handed over yen notes as if they didn’t even realize their value.
“That day I was begging, I was approached by a well-dressed woman. When we talked, she seemed surprised by how well-spoken and educated I was. It turned out she was the wife of a construction contractor. She gave me yen and told me to meet her back there the next day for more. So I did. And she kept her promise. This time she’d brought food as well as coin and asked me about my life. Assuming the truth of my illegitimacy would send her running, I lied and said my family had perished in a fire back in Osaka. That I’d come to Tokyo to make my fortune. She was a kindhearted woman and I hated lying to her, but I was trying to survive.”
“I understand,” Niamh said softly, hearing the self-rebuke in his voice. “You know I understand that. You did what you had to.”
Kiyo exhaled slowly and Niamh’s breath caught at the tenderness that suffused his face. “Her name was Ichika. Her husband was Yasahiro Watanabe. Theirs was a love match but their marriage had not been blessed with children of their own. When Ichika brought me home with her, I was sure Yasahiro would throw me out instantly. Instead he sat me down and we had a conversation. Whatever he saw in me, it was enough to extract his trust. He decided he would try to help me find work. A good position to suit my obviously good birth.
“But as I accompanied Yasahiro at his work, I took a genuine interest in the construction business. It pleased him. More than I think I ever knew then. Before we knew it, months and then years passed as I lived with them and worked as an apprentice for Yasahiro.”
“They sound like amazing people.”
“They were. But I couldn’t forget my mother or the men who destroyed her. I’d promised myself that I’d return to Osaka one day and wreak revenge on the men who brutalized and violated her.”
Niamh held her breath, feeling nervous for him, even though these events had already passed.
“Seven years later, I was nineteen and considered a man. I had a good job and while I wanted revenge for my mother, I was concerned about hurting my new family with my actions. So, I delayed it. And I worked my ass off for Yasahiro and endured Ichika’s many attempts to marry me to a respectable bride.”
Niamh smirked, imagining how much he’d have chafed at that.
“Yasahiro and I went on a fishing trip to the mountains to schmooze government officials into signing a contract with us. One of the men was a danna—the patron of a well-known geisha called Sora. What none of us knew then was that Sora, while taking money and gifts from her danna in exchange for being his exclusive mistress, was carrying on an affair with a young man. And he happened to be a very jealous werewolf called Kurai.”
“Holy shit.”
“Sora didn’t know, of course. That Kurai was a werewolf. I knew that when Kurai changed in front of us. She was as horrified and shocked as we were. I caught up with him a
year after he attacked us and asked him why before I killed him. He wanted to kill Sora’s danna and when he heard we’d all be in the mountains, he thought it was the perfect chance to get away with it. But when he showed up, he was out of his mind with jealousy. He confronted Sora and her danna and Yasahiro tried to step in to calm the situation down. But Kurai lost all control. We watched him turn into a wolf and I thought I was losing my mind. He ripped through our entire party like we were made of the finest silk. Tore us to pieces. I can still hear the screaming.”
Niamh had seen many horrors in her visions, but she didn’t know if her heart had ached quite as badly as it did for Kiyo right then. He’d lost so much. And endured incredible violence.
“I was the only one who woke up a day or two later after going through a fever unlike anything I’ve experienced. I couldn’t understand what I was seeing when I woke up. What I was feeling. I raced out of the cabin and eventually it came to me that I was an animal. Out in the woods, somehow I changed back into my human form. I was terrified.”
“I can only imagine.”
Kiyo flicked her a wry, unhappy look. “For a while, I really did think I was losing my mind.”
“What happened next?”
“I returned to the cabin and practically threw up my insides at what I found in there. Yasahiro was dead. They were all dead. Worried I’d be blamed, I left. I left Ichika and everything behind to find answers. I eventually tracked down rumors of a wolf pack near the mountains close to Kyoto, and I lived with them for a while. They taught me how to change at will and how to endure a full moon. When I felt emotionally strong enough to return to Tokyo, I hunted down Kurai and killed him for Yasahiro and Sora and every man in that lodge. I killed him for making me into something I loathed. I killed him for Ichika, who’d lost the love of her life and didn’t know why. Perhaps she even blamed me. I’ll never know.
“I left Japan in search of a cure. Around seven years later, I finally realized there wasn’t one, other than death. And I had unfinished business.”
“You returned to Osaka to take your revenge,” Niamh whispered.
He nodded slowly. “I might have hated myself, but I was powerful now. I hunted those men down like they were animals. Fear ripped through Osaka as worries grew of a wild animal on the loose. I had two men left to take care of when the grandmother of one I’d killed found me. She had magic. What we called a miko. A female shaman. They were mostly known for their spirit possession and takusen—they served as mediums to communicate with spirits. But they were so much more than people knew.”
“They were witches.”
“The most gifted of witches. They had psychic gifts. Like the fae.”
“What happened with this witch?”
“She was a vengeful old bitch,” he sneered. “She didn’t care that her grandson had participated in a violent gang rape. All she cared about was her own revenge. She knew what I was, and she had an ability to sense things about people. She sensed my self-loathing and decided to trap me with my werewolf curse for all eternity.”
“She made you immortal.” Niamh’s mind whirled. “But how is that possible?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I didn’t believe her at first. After I’d killed the last two men, I took off and tried to end myself. Many times.” He flicked a look her way. “I even tried to rip out my own heart.”
Niamh gasped at the thought.
He smirked. “Obviously it didn’t work. And miraculously, even though the thought of forever was a torture of its own, I realized that embracing what made me different was the only way I could live as a free man.”
“You’re amazing.”
Kiyo looked at her fully now. “I just told you I killed a bunch of people, and that’s your reaction?”
“You also told me on the plane that revenge didn’t give you what you wanted. But maybe it did give you something. It gave you wisdom. It gave you the ability to pass that on to me and to make me feel less alone about all the bad stuff I’ve done when I’m supposed to be the good guy.”
Though he concentrated on the road now, roads Niamh realized belatedly had changed from city to country, Kiyo spoke to her in a way she knew he wanted her to hear him.
“The Japanese have a saying: Wabisabi. It’s a perspective, really. It’s the accepting of the fact that life is imperfect and therefore we should appreciate the beauty in the imperfect things. There is light and dark in all of us, Niamh. Sometimes life causes us to let in a little more dark than we’re comfortable with. But as long as we remember the light exists to chase away the shadows, we’ll be okay.” He glanced at her meaningfully. “The dark is our imperfect natures, but without it, we’d never realize how beautiful the light is. How beautiful it is as it dances with the shadows. I know you’ll be okay. Astra won’t pull you all the way into the darkness, Niamh. I won’t let her. More importantly, you won’t let her.”
Emotion consumed her as she stared at his profile while he drove them onward.
His belief in her was something she never knew she’d needed.
And while it was wonderful and exhilarating … Niamh was afraid to need anything from him.
21
The cabin wasn’t exactly what Niamh was expecting. It was definitely more of a lodge on stilts. It only had one floor, accessed by an exterior staircase. The lodge had a triangular roof and a deck overlooking the somewhat misty pond it was perched above. As ever, the cold didn’t bother her, but she was aware of how much the temperature had dropped at this elevation.
Nature was dark with brown and rusty bracken, but hints of green peeked through, suggesting the season was about to turn. Icy patches of snow could be seen here and there on the forest floor as if it had only snowed a few days before and was still in the process of melting. The air felt fresher, crisper, and clearer up in the mountains, away from the pollution of the city.
“Will it snow while we’re here, do you think?” she’d asked as Kiyo wandered around the lodge, checking things over.
“Possibly.” He seemed distracted.
The lodge was minimally furnished and was a mismatch of cultural ideas with tatami mats and shoji screens but a comfortable-looking old leather sofa on either side of a beaten-up coffee table. There was even a log-burning fire in the middle of the room with a flue that went right up and out of the ceiling. One shoji screen opened into the bathroom and the other to the bedroom.
“One bedroom?” she asked.
“I’ll be in wolf form throughout the night while you’re sleeping.” He dumped his bag on the small kitchen’s only countertop. “You can take the bed during the night. I’ll take it through the day, if that’s okay with you?”
Disappointment niggled at Niamh. She hadn’t realized they wouldn’t be spending any time together, but of course they wouldn’t. This wasn’t a vacation. Yet, she was still reeling from the outpouring of his story during their drive. As much as she (and he) might fight it, she felt closer to him than ever and didn’t want to be far from him.
As if he sensed her feelings of disappointment, Kiyo’s lips twitched. “You can conjure a book or two to entertain you, right?”
Instead of childishly sticking her tongue out at him like she wanted to do, Niamh gave him an imploring look. “Or …”
His expression was wary. “Or?”
“You could let me run with you?”
Kiyo’s chin jerked back in surprise. “Run with me? While I’m a wolf?”
She nodded, feeling like an excited child at the prospect. “When you were describing what it was like, it sounded wonderful. I want to experience it.”
“You’re not a wolf.”
“Intelligent observation, Sherlock.”
At his answering glower, Niamh switched back to imploring. “Please. You know I’m super fast and will more than keep up with you.”
Kiyo seemed lost for words. “I’ve just never … I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t a wolf who wanted to run.”
“It’s
safe, isn’t it? It’s not like you lose a sense of who you are when you’re a wolf?”
“No, I’m completely self-aware.”
Niamh snorted incredulously but covered it up with a pretend coughing fit, even though his raised eyebrow said she wasn’t fooling anyone. She threw him a sheepish smile and persisted. “It shouldn’t be a problem, then.” But then something occurred to her. “Oh, goodness, unless it’s, like, an extremely private moment and my asking is unforgivably rude and against all werewolf etiquette?”
He grinned.
God, she loved his smile.
“It’s not private and it’s not rude. You can run with me. But I’m out there as long as the moon is out.”
“I have a lot of stamina.”
Something like sexual avarice flickered across his eyes before he quickly looked away. “I could eat. Could you eat?” He busied himself unpacking the food from the duffle bag.
Niamh nodded forlornly, feeling flustered and frustrated in equal measure.
“Ready to go?”
Niamh turned from her spot on the deck. She was sitting on a wooden lounger that had been left out there, gazing at the sun as it set, light filtering through the trees and dancing across the misty pond below.
It felt like they were at the end of the world.
It was wonderful.
Her eyes widened at a half-naked Kiyo standing in the doorway of the deck and the living room. Her gaze, with a will of its own, drifted down his taut pecs and tightly roped abdominals. The scar on his belly, left there quite clearly by silver, pricked her curiosity. She wanted to ask about it but thought perhaps he’d done enough sharing for one day.
“Well? We need to go. Sun is almost set.”
“Sorry.” She blushed at his slightly impatient tone. “Just wasn’t expecting you to come out wearing only joggers and looking like a Japanese Adonis.”
Kiyo shook his head at her nonsense but she caught his slight smile as he walked back into the lodge. She followed him inside as he threw over his shoulder, “The less I wear, the less I have to strip off before the change.”