The hound pranced around the corner and out of sight, thick tail swishing. “Bad dog,” I yelled after her retreating back.
“Does that mean she doesn’t approve of this meeting?” Katsuo asked.
“No.” I gave up on plucking off all the hairs and headed for the door. “All that means is she’s a big, furry pain in the tail.”
Chapter 9
A slender Japanese man with gray streaking past his temples sat in a booth positioned near the emergency exit. His black suit was crisp, his nails manicured and his expression placid as he read from a small book of poems. Two hulking men stood behind him, each positioned at one shoulder. Their arms brushed, forming an impenetrable wall of muscle.
I shook out my hands, set my shoulders back and approached the booth. The bodyguards ignored me, their dark gazes fastening on Ryuu and then Katsuo. The other kitsunes eased into empty booths and left us to our meeting. When I stopped beside my dad, he waited until finishing the page he had been reading before he marked the spot with a scrap of silk and tucked the book into an inner jacket pocket.
“Mai.” His glacial voice, the one he used for business associates who had fallen from grace, carried. “You look well.”
Knocked off my game by his cool greeting, I had to work at finding an appropriate response. “We need to talk.”
“Sit.” Dad indicated the bench opposite him. “We will order what passes as food here, and then we will discuss your intentions.”
I slid across the seat, and Ryuu sat beside me, far enough away we didn’t touch. Katsuo took position behind us, mirroring Dad’s guards.
“I’m not hungry, Mr. Hayashi,” he said in an equally frosty voice. “I doubt you are, either.”
“I sought only to observe the rules of hospitality.” A motion too slight to be a shrug twitched in his shoulder. “I suppose, given how we came to be here, expecting you to show any respect for tradition or for your elders was foolish of me. I see now you have lost what few redeeming qualities you once possessed.” He stared down his nose. “Your parents must be ashamed. They have my sympathies.”
“Our parents are dead,” Katsuo snapped. “Thanks to you.”
A flicker of emotion brightened Dad’s eyes before he blinked away the show of weakness.
“Katsuo,” Ryuu warned. “We’re going to keep this discussion civil.”
“Dad,” I interjected. “Ryuu isn’t here to defend himself or his actions.” I kicked Ryuu under the table. “His intentions might be admirable, but the way he went about achieving his goals was not.” His glower bored through my ear. “The fact remains that, regardless of the circumstances surrounding our acquaintance, he has shared information that disturbs me.”
“I can imagine what he has told you.” Mottled red splotches began creeping up Dad’s neck. “There is a reason why his family was expelled from the Hayashi skulk.”
“You told me they chose to leave,” I said in a small voice, dread rising. If he had lied about that so casually, what other secrets was he keeping?
“You were a child. You were hurt by the loss of your…friends.” He smoothed a hand down the front of his shirt. “There was no reason to burden you with facts that would have only caused you pain.”
I nodded once. “So you lied to me.”
His hand clenched into a fist before disappearing beneath the table. “I did what any father would have done to protect a beloved daughter.”
“What—?” I cleared my throat and tried again. “What were you protecting me from?”
A short huff of indignant laughter. “He schemed to claim you as his mate.”
Having listened to one version of this story, I owed it to myself to hear the other. “The only way he could have claimed me was if I tested him and he passed.”
“That would have been the proper thing to do, once you were of age, but no.” The red crept higher up his neck. “There are other, less delicate means of claiming a mate.”
A bitter taste clogged my throat. “You’re implying that Ryuu forced himself on me.”
“His brother invited you into their house, and Ryuu lured you up to his bedroom. Luckily, another skulk member witnessed the inappropriate behavior and took action.” The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. “The boy ran for help. He found your mother in the garden, and she called for me. We retrieved you before any irreparable damage could be done.”
Fury radiated off Ryuu, and the muscles in his neck strained. I squeezed his thigh to quiet him. I wanted Dad to tell me everything before Ryuu attacked and they tore into one another. If I let it go that far this fast, I would lose all hope of piecing together what really happened.
“That’s why you exiled the Tanabe family?” On the surface, it made sense. If Ryuu had taken liberties with me, when I was twelve or any other age, Dad would have excised the Tanabes to prevent potential unrest should loyalties be torn between the two oldest families in the skulk. “Ryuu attempted to force himself on me, and you removed the threat?”
His nod was decisive. “Yes.”
“Why don’t I remember any of this?” I braced my forearms on the tabletop and leaned forward. “I had no idea who he was until he told me. Why is that?”
“You were traumatized by his betrayal.” Dad showed the first hint of unease by shifting almost imperceptibly in his seat. “Your mother and I decided it would be best if you didn’t remember him—or that day.” His resolve wavered. “We asked a friend, a talented witch, to remove the memories before they damaged you.”
Anger curled my fingers into claws that pierced my arms. I had no problem imagining the events of that day unfurling exactly how he described. If Dad had decided a course of action was best for me, he would have seen it through. Mom wouldn’t have fought him. She hadn’t been raised that way. For that matter, neither had I. The blind obedience she and Grandmother had labored to instill hadn’t stuck with me. Even if either of them had disagreed with Dad’s decision, they would have bowed their heads and allowed him to rule as he saw fit.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” I scented blood and forced my claws to retract.
“No.” Finality rang through the word. “It would have only upset you, which would have undermined the lengths we went to protect you in the first place.”
While I sat there, numbed by his admission of magically lobotomizing me, the tenuous grip I had on Ryuu snapped.
“You’re a godsdamned liar,” he growled. “I never laid a finger on Mai, and you know it.”
“Your intent was clear in your eyes then as it is now.” He flashed his teeth. “That remains proof enough for me.”
Realizing my hand still rested on his thigh, I squeezed it hard, begging for just a few moments longer.
“There was a witness?” I pressed. “Someone saw me enter Ryuu’s home with Katsuo—which I must have done a thousand times before—and what? He decided that Ryuu was out to sully me without being inside the house to hear or see what was happening?” A thought occurred to me. “Did you have someone watching me?”
Dad’s eye twitched. It was answer enough.
“So your spy saw me go inside and head up to Ryuu’s room.” Which fit with Ryuu’s version of the story. “Did he observe any inappropriate behavior on Ryuu’s part before dashing off to report to you?”
“There was no reason for a girl of your age to have been in a room with a boy like him.” The red creeping up Dad’s neck flushed purple. “It was unseemly. Your behavior was not befitting one of my daughters—a Hayashi—and therefore it must have been his doing.”
“She tested me.” Ryuu spoke into the silence. “I passed.” He turned his head toward me, gaze hard and possessive. “She is my mate.” He pressed a hand to his chest. “The binding was done, and you robbed her—robbed us—of that.”
“That is not possible. Mai was a girl of twelve. She did not know what she was doing.” He jabbed a finger at Ryuu. “You were older. You knew she was fascinated with you. You should have stopped her instead
of letting her play out her fantasies.”
“I was fascinated with him.” Hearing Dad admit it knocked me down another peg into this twisted alternate universe where I found myself. Nothing made sense to me anymore.
Dad’s jaw was enveloped in the violet rash of throttled fury. “He was forbidden—the older brother of your best friend. You tested him as a game, because you were a child and unaware of the consequences.” His jaw quivered. “No one finds their mate with their first shiren.”
I anchored my elbows on the table and covered my face with my hands. A heavy hand touched my shoulder, and I glanced at Ryuu, whose features should have been wreathed with triumph at being proven right, but instead he wore shared pain that I understood stemmed from grief over the future we had lost.
I tested the weight of the words on my tongue. “I knew it was you.”
His fingers sank into my hair. “You never had a doubt.”
“I wish I remembered.” How many girls got it right on the first try? All this time, all these failures, all because I had been desperate to find what I had already claimed and lost. I braced myself to ask Dad, “Can the spell be reversed?”
“No.” He sliced the air with his hand. “The witch is long dead, and it’s too dangerous for even one of his line to tamper with something as delicate as the mind, especially one altered while you were so young and your recollections malleable.”
“I want the truth,” I told him in a little-girl voice close to breaking. “Please, Dad. Don’t you think I deserve to know that?”
For several minutes, my dad stared at a cigarette burn on the tabletop. “It is possible that Ryuu’s recollections are accurate.”
It was as close to an admission of guilt as I would ever hear from him, and it shattered the pillar upon which my father had sat during my entire life. Every kind word and gesture fell under scrutiny. I had gone into the Expo sure that I was Dad’s favorite, his little princess, and here I sat wondering if he had really loved me so much or if he felt so indebted to me that he had made atonement his life’s work where I was concerned.
“Mr. Hayashi,” Ryuu began. “I didn’t agree to this meeting for the reasons you might expect.”
My dad squared his jaw and waited. “Isn’t taking my daughter from me recompense enough?”
For all the lost years, lost history, lost lives… No. Hayashi or not, I wasn’t worth that much.
“What I want is for my skulk to be recognized by the National Kitsune Registry.” Ryuu tapped his knuckles on the table. “You can make that happen.”
“When you marry my daughter,” Dad said carefully, “your skulk will be grandfathered in.”
“I want this for my family, for my parents. I want them to be named reynard and vixen of the Tanabe skulk posthumously. I want our people to be granted all the rights afforded to NKR members. That includes financial and medical support, as well as a one-time gift of land given to us free and clear, as is custom for all newly established skulks.”
An utter calm settled over my father. “Since you are unmated and unable to claim the title except through inheritance, I assume, as their eldest son, you wish to be named heir?”
“I do.”
The two of them were deciding something between themselves, but what they had agreed on I couldn’t put my finger on until a thin smile broke my father’s composure. It was the pointed grin of a satiated shark circling a wounded seal, content to let it bleed to death rather than expend the energy necessary to go in for the kill.
“You do not wish to marry my daughter.” He unfastened the top button of his shirt. “You are pursuing this agreement in lieu of asking for her hand?”
Ryuu’s fist clenched in my hair. “Yes.”
The world pitched beneath me. I braced my palms on the table to stop the spinning. It didn’t help.
“What are you doing?” Katsuo demanded, rounding the booth and fisting Ryuu’s shirt. “This is not what we agreed on.”
Ryuu knocked his brother back and let his power saturate his words. “Wait for me at the truck.”
Given as a direct order, Katsuo had no hope of refusing. He fought each step but still walked himself outside, leaving me alone with the two men deciding my future without once asking me what I wanted.
Complexion returning to normal, Dad lost the arctic edge of his cold shoulder. “I can push the paperwork through within forty-eight hours.”
“Let me out.” It took me a second to register I had spoken, and a few seconds longer for the men to notice me, but I wasn’t done yet. “Get your hands off me.” I shoved Ryuu. “Move. Get up. Let. Me. Out.”
Dad rapped his knuckles on the table. “Mai, you will cease this improper behavior immediately.”
“Or you’ll what?” I couldn’t bring myself to call him dad. “Wipe my memory of this conversation? Oh wait. You’ve already done that once. For all I know this is the third time we’ve had this talk this week.”
From the corner of my eye, I watched as Dad’s face purpled to a shade that only naturally occurred in eggplants.
Ryuu allowed me to push him away, let me stand and then captured me by the shoulders. “I did what you told me to do.” He pinned me while I squirmed. “I took a good look at who we both are, and we don’t fit.” He lowered his voice. “Maybe your father was right. Maybe we never did.”
Swallowing glass would have hurt less than hearing him—my mate—side with my father. “I guess now we’ll never know, will we?” I executed a move I had learned during marshal academy, one that broke a much larger attacker’s grip on a smaller victim. Once freed, I stormed outside and left the men to pat each other on the back.
A dusty yellow cab idled at the curb, and Thierry leaned against it, back on two legs. She opened her arms, and I walked into them. “How’d you know?”
She twisted around and guided me inside the car before saying, “I heard the direction the conversation was headed and figured I would be prepared.”
“You’re the best,” I told her, letting her hold me.
“I know.” She squeezed me until my shoulder popped.
I turned my face into her faded T-shirt and used her right boob as a handkerchief. “After all this, Ryuu didn’t want me. He gave me back to my father in exchange for a spot on the registry.”
Ryuu had used me as a means to an end, which didn’t surprise me as much as the end result itself. He’d bartered me for all he ever wanted—power, land, recognition—but he had left me in the same situation as before the Expo. The persistent and maddening drive to find my mate beat at me even as I mourned his betrayal. Except now I knew who he was and that he didn’t want me. He had wanted only what my last name would provide him. What was I supposed to do? Settle? Find a nice guy and pretend I didn’t imagine he was Ryuu every time we kissed? Happiness might have been attainable had I never met Ryuu. I could have accepted another man had I not known the one meant for me. But I had met Ryuu, and I had known him for a little while, and no other kitsune would compare to him.
A growl entered her voice. “Then he deserves everything that’s coming to him.”
Idiot that I was, I offered a watery sigh. “Promise you won’t hurt him.”
“I won’t have to.” Her cheek rested against the top of my head. “He’s carried the thought of you around all this time as some kind of harebrained scheme or backup plan or some other BS, but he had no idea what a remarkable woman you became. Now he’s seen you, spoken to you, touched you…and he’s lost you. Trust me when I say he’s going to regret the deal he made today for the rest of his life, and I hope it’s a long, miserable one.”
As wounded as Ryuu had left me, I hoped she was right.
Chapter 10
Three weeks passed before sweater weather arrived and I could hide my body under layers of fabric. Ryuu had given me all the excuse I needed to binge on as much ice cream as I could stuff in my face without it coming back up again. Some might argue that frozen dairy product can’t spackle the fractures of a broken hear
t. I offer up for their inspection Ben & Jerry’s Chubby Hubby, which Thierry had altered in the hopes I might not snarf the third whole tub this week. She had used a permanent marker to change Hubby to Kitsune, but I had sweaters to hide the food baby I was growing, so all in all her campaign was for naught.
Stomach aching, I forced myself to swallow one last chocolatey peanut-buttery bite before crossing the room to the kitchen to discard the evidence and rinse my mouth out with water. I seriously needed a new coping mechanism. One that wouldn’t leave me wearing sweatpants for the next three months instead of the skinny jeans and knee-high boots I’d bought in preparation for pumpkin spice season.
I flopped back on the couch and kicked my feet up on the coffee table. When the doorbell rang, I was tempted to ignore it. Okay, I did ignore it. But after ten minutes I took the hint it must be important and went to greet the bell-ringer.
An elegant woman touched with strands of gray in her jet-black hair smiled serenely up at me. Her raw silk pantsuit matched the warm brown of her eyes, and not a strand of hair was out of place in her coif.
“Momma.” I sucked in my gut and pasted on a smile. “How nice to see you.”
“You have not visited for almost a month.” She reached up and cupped my cheek in her palm. “I have missed you, daughter.”
“Come inside,” I said, remembering my manners. “I’m sorry it’s a mess. If I’d known you were coming, I would have picked up.”
Graceful as the Kyoto-style dancer she had once been, Mom glided into the apartment on dainty feet and managed to hold on to her neutral expression, minus the twitch in her eye when she spotted the can of soda without a coaster. “Your father—”
I held up my hand. “No.”
She cupped her hands in front of her. “You cannot carve him from your life.”
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