by Young, S.
“It’s Daiki.”
“The good-looking fella the train doors closed on and who is now coming toward us glaring at you like he wants to kill you?”
Good-looking? He cut her a dark glance over his shoulder. “Yes.”
“Why? What does he want with you now?”
“My guess? To warn me off.”
“Off what?”
“His mate.” Kiyo caught Niamh’s eyes. “Sakura.”
Understanding dawned. “Oh shit.”
Yeah, that about summed it up.
19
“Whatever happens, don’t use your powers,” Kiyo murmured. If Daiki discovered Niamh, Kiyo would have to kill him. “This is between me and him.”
You expect me to just stand by while you fight?
He started at the unexpected sound of her voice in his head. He wasn’t quite used to it yet. Kiyo glared at her, bristling with male pride. “I can handle myself.”
“Oh, I’ve seen that,” she assured him. “But I’m not sure killing Sakura’s mate is a smart idea.”
“I’m not going to kill him.”
“You could not even if you tried,” Daiki growled, overhearing them. He sneered at Kiyo like he wanted to rip his head from his body.
Kiyo straightened his shoulders and tried to conceal as much of Niamh as possible from Daiki and his little pack. The four wolves standing behind Daiki weren’t all the same players from the ’90s. He only recognized two of them. One was Kobe, Daiki’s beta.
“He has barely aged,” one of them said to Daiki in Japanese, his tone suspicious.
“It means nothing,” Daiki replied. “His bones will have aged, and that is all that matters since I plan to break some.”
“What are they saying?” Niamh whispered, stepping up beside Kiyo, drawing the other wolves’ attention. He could feel her energy humming at a low level around her, which meant she was readying for battle. Kiyo shot her another warning look, but she was too busy shooting her own warning look at the wolves.
Seeing Daiki’s men stare openly at her, their eyes dragging down her body, Kiyo tensed with agitation.
Daiki looked at her but not in the way a male stared at a woman he found attractive. His gaze was more calculating. He turned to Kiyo, something working behind his eyes. “Leave Tokyo. Now.”
“English, Daiki.”
The wolf shrugged and repeated the demand in English.
“I’m afraid we can’t do that. Not just because we don’t want to but because your alpha has demanded my presence for a fight.”
“I am aware of what Sakura has asked of you.”
Kiyo raised an eyebrow. “And you’d try to undermine your alpha?”
Daiki’s men shuffled their feet restlessly behind him, clearly uncomfortable with anyone voicing such a thing out loud.
Daiki’s face hardened but satisfaction gleamed in his eyes. “I hoped you would see it that way. You and I will settle this now.”
Kiyo gestured with his hand. “Lead the way.”
“After you.” Daiki stepped to the side, and Kiyo grabbed Niamh’s hand to keep her with him. Daiki’s eyes lowered to where Kiyo held her and a frown puckered his brow.
The wolves surrounded him and Niamh as they marched from the market. Locals darted out of the way, either recognizing Daiki and his men or intuition telling them this was business they didn’t want to get involved in. Tourists steered clear because of the sheer amount of energy pouring off them all.
It didn’t surprise Kiyo when Daiki led them all the way down to the river and stopped on the loading dock behind a warehouse at the river’s edge. They could still be seen, but no one would dare stop them. Not even the police once they realized who Daiki was.
If it looks like he’s going to fight dirty, I’m stepping in.
Kiyo turned to face Niamh in answer and gripped her elbow as he tried to communicate silently that she was not to make any move toward helping him. At all. Thankfully, Niamh’s mulish expression softened, and she gave him a slight nod of acquiescence.
He raised an eyebrow.
I promise, she said softly in his head.
Gratified, Kiyo gestured for her to stand to the side. When Daiki’s men sidled up next to her, he quelled the overwhelming urge to warn them off her. He didn’t need them to know Niamh was a weakness.
Daiki shrugged out of his jacket and threw it without looking at his men. “Put it on his mahoutsukai. She looks cold.”
Kiyo bared his teeth at the men without thinking. “Dare.”
Sakura’s mate smirked, and Kiyo cursed inwardly. He was testing him.
Irritated, he flicked an annoyed look at Niamh. He’d told her to wear a jacket.
Don’t look at me like that, she snapped.
For some reason, her indignation relaxed him.
Which was a good thing. It didn’t bode well to enter into a fight when you were tense. Kiyo shrugged out of his own jacket and Niamh stepped forward to take it. To his shock, she slipped it on as if to make a point, and a rush of possessiveness soared through him. His blood pumped hot and fast, and he turned to Daiki with bloodlust in his eyes.
His opponent saw and felt it, baring his teeth to reveal drawn canines.
They raised their arms, fists relaxed, in guard position.
“Let’s do this.”
Daiki moved first, turning at speed to come at Kiyo with a spinning hook kick. He dodged the maneuver and caught Daiki’s leg with a block that threw the wolf off balance. Fast and agile, however, Daiki bounced back up into position and came at Kiyo again with a series of front and side and spinning kicks that forced him back along the riverside.
He kept this up, staying on the defense, rather than offense, to tire Daiki. The alpha would tire eventually while it would take much to tire Kiyo.
“Tatakai!” Daiki yelled in outrage. Fight!
But the more Kiyo didn’t fight, the clumsier Daiki got in his aggression. As Kiyo maneuvered them in a tight circle and back up toward Niamh and Daiki’s men, the other alpha lost his footing and had to catch himself from falling. When Kiyo didn’t take advantage of the moment, Daiki’s face flooded with color and he came at Kiyo with fists of fury.
Kiyo blocked, dodged, and tapped his punches away like they were mere flies.
Then he heard Niamh’s voice, her snap of irritation as she warned, “Touch my arse again, dickhead, and I’ll tear yours a new one.”
Rage flooded him as he whipped around in her direction. Lights exploded across his left eye as he felt his head snap on his neck.
Sucker punched.
“Kiyo!” Niamh cried out in concern.
Daiki took advantage and punched him in the gut. But Kiyo was motivated now. He smashed his fist into Daiki’s face, knocking the wolf on his ass, and then he strode toward Niamh, ignoring the swelling in his eye that would heal soon enough, anyway.
“Which one?” he barked at her, his gaze on Daiki’s men.
Niamh didn’t need to answer. The one closest to her shifted away, guilt and wariness in his eyes.
He was a dead man.
Surging at the wolf, Kiyo swung his dominant arm in an uppercut. The impact juddered down his body and a crack rent the air. Daiki’s henchman fell like a sack of potatoes, neck broken.
It was over disappointingly fast.
The other three wolves stood stunned for a moment as Niamh’s shocked glance bounced from the downed werewolf to Kiyo.
“What do you think you are doing?” Daiki yelled.
Kiyo glanced over his shoulder as Sakura’s mate strode toward him. “He touched her.”
Daiki slowed to a stop, staring at his unconscious man. “And that was worth breaking his neck?”
“You think it’s okay if a person sexually touches another without their consent?” Kiyo asked, but he already knew the answer. He and Daiki had never gotten along because of Sakura, but that didn’t mean Kiyo didn’t have some respect for the wolf.
He was a man of honor and all the time K
iyo had known him, he’d never hurt those weaker than him or touched a woman who didn’t want to be touched.
“There is more to it than that.” Daiki approached, drawing to a halt to look at Niamh. “Who is this mahoutsukai to you?”
Thinking of how easily she distracted him, how protective—and, yes, possessive—he felt over her, Kiyo knew she was more than just a job. More than a mission. He couldn’t process how much more. He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to. But he had to acknowledge that his and Niamh’s conversation in the hotel room that morning had been bullshit.
Turning to her, their eyes met.
“She’s my friend,” Kiyo replied to Daiki but said with all meaning to Niamh.
Her lips parted on a exhalation she couldn’t quite hide. And while something softened in her expression, her eyes seemed to fill with confusion and questions.
“Fine.” Daiki broke the silent moment between Kiyo and Niamh. He glowered at his men. “You touch the mahoutsukai and you answer to me.”
Kobe, his beta, nodded militantly and gestured for them to back away from Niamh.
Daiki turned to Kiyo. “Let us finish this.”
* * *
An hour later, covered in sweat and bruises, Kiyo stood over a sprawled Daiki. “Are we done?”
Daiki squinted up at him through swollen lids and snarled. “Yes. Kono kuso.”
Kiyo started to remember the reasons he didn’t like the wolf. Turning from him, he paused when Daiki called out his name. Sakura’s mate slowly pushed up onto his knees. He held the ribs that Kiyo had broken in the final fifteen minutes of the fight.
“Stay away from Sakura,” Daiki warned quietly.
“I don’t want her,” Kiyo answered honestly.
Hearing the truth in it, Daiki frowned. His eyes flickered behind Kiyo in suspicion.
Kiyo tensed. He didn’t need anyone realizing how important Niamh was to him, but he suspected it was perhaps too late.
Understanding seemed to dawn on Daiki, and hating the idea of the wolf knowing anything that made Kiyo vulnerable, he spoke to distract him. “Sakura made it clear she’s not done with me. Instead of warning me to stay away from her, perhaps you should warn your mate to stay away from me. There’s nothing more off-putting to me than someone who uses their power to try to coerce me into their bed.”
Daiki lunged, faltering as he gasped out in pain.
Enough. Kiyo heard Niamh’s disapproving voice in his head.
Without another word, he turned on his heel, eyes to Niamh, and strode toward her as if he didn’t feel bruises on his body from the few powerful hits Daiki managed to get past his defenses. It had been a joke of a fight. Other than the sucker punch he’d gotten in, Daiki never got near Kiyo’s face again.
Taking hold of Niamh’s hand, he marched them past Daiki’s wolves who had surrounded the one who was slowly coming back to consciousness. Their furious glares followed him and Niamh, but they didn’t dare make a move.
It wasn’t until he’d safely ensconced Niamh in the back of a cab that she spoke. “You were toying with him. The fight. Not just the mean dig about Sakura afterward. That fight was nothing to you.”
He didn’t need to answer. They both knew it was true.
“Then why?” she huffed, her exasperation finally drawing his attention to her face. She stared at him like she didn’t understand. “Why fight him at all?”
“Because he wanted it.”
“Seriously? So, every time someone wants to fight you, and I’m sure that happens quite a lot, you capitulate?”
“Not every time. Daiki has been waiting for this fight for a long time.”
“Why didn’t he kill you, then?”
“That wasn’t the point.”
“Explain the point. Because you just seem like a bunch of Neanderthals to me.”
He scowled. “The point was to defend Sakura’s honor. He didn’t get the chance last time.”
“Her honor?”
“He thought I took her virginity. I didn’t.”
“Why not tell him that, then?”
“It wouldn’t be right.”
A cloud flickered across Niamh’s face. “Because you care about her?”
“No.” Kiyo sighed impatiently. He was exhausted. Not from the fight but from the emotional energy he’d expended in the last few days. “Because Daiki needs to believe in Sakura’s honor. He needs to believe that her virtue was taken, not given. It’s part of the way he views her. Screwed up or not, old-fashioned or not, he needs to believe she’s virtuous. Why would I disillusion him?”
Niamh considered this. “While that’s very gentlemanly of you, it might have had a bigger impact if you hadn’t rubbed his nose in the fact that his mate wants to sleep with you.”
Maybe it was Niamh’s prudish disapproval or maybe it was just the strangeness of the past days, but amusement bubbled inside him.
Suddenly he was chuckling … and then laughing. He leaned his head back on the cab bench seat, fingers pressed to his closed eyes as his body shook.
Then her voice was in his head, her own laughter dancing through the words as she said, I don’t know why you’re laughing but you should do it more. I like the sound.
A tender ache flared inside him.
He opened his eyes to look at her, his laughter drifting away.
There was something like affection in her expression. “Are we really friends, then, Kiyo? Or did you just say that to make them stop touching me?”
Friends.
What was Niamh to him, really? She was kyōka suigetsu. She was a flower in the mirror. She was the moon’s reflection on the water. A beautiful but unattainable dream. She was an emotion inside of him that couldn’t be described in words.
“Friends,” he agreed. It was the truth. But it wasn’t the whole truth. The whole truth was something he couldn’t admit out loud. And Kiyo felt fear.
For the first time since he’d been bitten, he felt true fear.
20
Niamh was suffering from emotional whiplash.
Just when she thought she and Kiyo had figured out how to treat one another, he turned around and decided the opposite.
It was frustrating to say the least.
At the market she’d been enjoying herself, mostly because Kiyo was finally relaxed around her. She thought he was relieved that she’d decided not to be friends. Perhaps he’d sensed her infatuation with him and now knowing she had no plans to pursue it, he was able to be himself?
And being himself was a wonderful thing. Kiyo was patient and interesting and seemed to enjoy introducing her to Japanese culture. Even if she was slightly confused when his eyes dropped to her mouth now and then or how his dark gaze gleamed with male appreciation.
But getting sucker punched because he’d been distracted by the idiot groping her and then staring deep into her eyes with that intense expression only to pronounce her his friend …
Niamh was bamboozled by the sexy, mercurial bastard.
She didn’t want to think about what the sight of him laughing in the cab did to her belly flutters.
So they were friends. It was decided.
Friends.
Did friends cause constant butterflies or hot flushes when you thought about them taking a shower a few meters from you?
Niamh didn’t think so.
And now, rather than being stuck in a hotel room with him with a big city outside to escape to if she needed a break, they were on their way to the mountains. Where she’d be trapped with him completely, in a cabin of all places.
Niamh had been blissfully free of any Astra-manipulated visions the last few days in Tokyo. But she’d also been free of any visions, period. She could tell Kiyo was growing antsy at the lack of direction, and it was only exacerbated by the moon, which was moving toward its full phase. The morning after their day at the market and Kiyo’s impressive fight with Daiki (that did nothing to quell Niamh’s belly flutters), Kiyo had announced at breakfast that they were going t
o the mountains in two days’ time. They needed to be there so he could turn in privacy for the full moon.
“I was intending to leave you here at the hotel, but now I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
“Because of Daiki?”
“Because of the pack and because of Astra,” Kiyo had answered. “She was following you in Paris, which probably means she’s in Tokyo or at least knows we’re here.”
While Niamh slept, Kiyo had been on the phone booking a place for them to stay in the mountains. That’s how she found herself three days after their arrival in Tokyo, in the passenger seat of a rented car as Kiyo drove them out of the city. Apparently they’d be staying in an out-of-the-way lodge in the mountains not far from Mount Mito. Niamh obviously didn’t know where that was, but Kiyo said it was about a two-hour drive west out of the city.
“Maybe I’ll get a vision while we’re there,” she said in a hopeful tone, knowing he wanted to expedite the mission. He’d spent the last few days playing tourist guide, showing Niamh around the city, taking her to the stunning temple at Senso-ji, and back to the pack’s Shinjuku ward but this time to Golden Gai to visit the narrow streets with their post-war bars that were stacked on top of each other via steep staircases. And also to see the Gyo-en National Garden. It was where Sakura’s fight would be held.
After strolling through the absolutely stunning Japanese garden, Niamh wondered how on earth Sakura got away with closing it down for a fight. And why would anyone in their right mind want to? What if the gardens were destroyed? There were not only traditional Japanese gardens but landscaped English and French gardens too. Niamh’s favorite spot was the Taiwan Pavilion, perched along a pond. Kiyo told her it was a pity it was just a couple of weeks too early for cherry blossom season. Niamh already thought the place was breathtaking. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like with the cherry blossoms in full bloom.
The garden did, however, seem vaguely familiar, and she mentioned to Kiyo about the garden she’d seen in her visions. He said there were many Japanese gardens, and if there was nothing specific that stood out for her, they couldn’t be sure this was the one from her vision.
