Eternal Samurai

by B. D. Heywood

  They sprang into the fight. Tatsu took the offensive pressing forward across the mat. A fierce joy filled him. The vampire met him strike for strike, giving no mercy as they fought. At the end of this match, one of them would bleed.

  At first, Tatsu believed he knew all of Arisada’s techniques. Still, as the match wore on, he realized knowledge and skill were not enough. He had to be cunning. Tatsu stepped back into defensive mode trying to lure the kyūketsuki into a mistake. The vampire followed. In an inhumanly fast move, Tatsu drove his sword past his opponent’s defenses, forcing Arisada’s strike to glance aside. Tatsu reversed his sword and caught the center of Arisada’s blade. So fierce was his cut, it sent Arisada’s katana spinning into the dark. Tatsu’s shout of victory ended in a bark of laughter.

  The vampire dropped to one knee and pressed his forehead to the mat in surrender. The moment froze in Tatsu’s mind. One swift cut against that vulnerable nape and Arisada would be dead. A heartbeat later, Tatsu knew he could not kill this stunning beauty.

  A second passed before Arisada slapped one hand on the mat and stood. “You have won my young samurai. Ask your question. I promise to tell the truth.”

  Tatsu picked up the vampire’s katana with his left hand. Suddenly, he realized he did not care about Koji Nowaki or why Arisada sparred with him or even why Arisada had kissed him. There was only one question to ask.

  “Nagasaki, fourteen years ago, four people slaughtered by kyūketsuki—my parents, brother and sister. Your word of honor. Was it you?” Tatsu’s voice grated with suppressed grief.

  Unrestrained sorrow crossed Arisada’s face. “Gomen nasai, Cobb-san. I am deeply saddened at the loss of your family. I offer you bushi no ichigon, my word of honor as a warrior, I committed no such atrocity. During that time, I was in Guangzhou negotiating a treaty between my kind and the people of Southern China.”

  “Prove it. Strip.”

  The edges of Arisada’s lips crinkled up. “What is this, a seduction?” Before Arisada drew his next breath, the tip of the youth’s sword pressed against his throat. The vampire smelled the miniscule drop of his own blood.

  “I’m not fucking around.” Tatsu increased the pressure of the katana a fraction. “Take off your clothes.”

  Showing no fear, Arisada stepped back and untied his obi. With a dignified grace, he slipped the keiko-gi from his shoulders and dropped the garment to the floor.

  “Nanimokamo, everything.” Tatsu gave a menacing flick of his blade.

  Arisada removed the flowing black culottes then the silk under-trousers. Almost naked, he regarded Tatsu through a calm, curious gaze.

  Tatsu stared at the curved planes of Arisada’s body, the tantalizing joining of the underarm to the slightly defined chest. Smooth, almost alabaster skin with just a thin, teasing trial of hair above the waistband of the fundoshi. A scar, thin as a surgeon’s scalpel, was visible from hip to hip. With an odd certainty, Tatsu knew it came from an attempt at seppuku.

  His heart gave a disturbing leap as his eyes slid over the vampire’s crotch. Lingered too long. A painful hunger filled him as he looked at the bulge stirring beneath Saito’s white loincloth.

  What the hell? The fucking vampire was getting turned on, standing naked in the middle of the dojo with Tatsu’s sword an inch from his throat. Worse, Tatsu’s own cock was showing interest. With effort, he wrenched his gaze away from Arisada’s groin.

  “Around.” Tatsu flicked his katana, trying to hide his arousal behind anger. Arisada presented his back. Even at that critical moment, Tatsu’s gaze betrayed him as it fell first on the vampire’s small, compact buttocks with their perfect indents on each muscle. Smoky warmth spread through Tatsu’s belly as he took in that rounded ass. His eyes traveled slowly, oh so slowly, up the twist of the fundoshi between the buttcheeks to the delicious dip of the spine. Then his look shifted upward.

  For the rest of his life, Tatsu never forgot his first sight of the vampire’s back. A tattoo covered almost every inch of skin from the waist up over the right shoulder. A cherry blossom tree, so perfectly rendered that Tatsu reached out to touch one fragile pink blossom expecting it to fall away in his hand. Instead of the softness of a petal, he felt warm skin. A hot prickle flared through him. He snatched his hand away.

  As Tatsu stared transfixed, the image of a boy emerged from the depths of the art. A stereogram in which the tree slowly materialized into a beautiful youth—a bishounen with startling emerald eyes framed by long black lashes. A beguiling innocence reflected from those jade orbs, belying the boy’s smile that was filled with a seductive promise. Then Arisada flexed his shoulders, turning the tattoo into a sakura tree.

  No scars lay hidden beneath that beautiful skin art. Relief washed through Tatsu, puzzling in its intensity, its mere presence. His cock gave another throb as he took another long look at the vampire’s hot—did he actually think hot—ass.

  “Get dressed,” Tatsu barked to cover his confusion.

  Exhibiting no shame, Arisada bent over to pick up his clothes. The act gave Tatsu another delicious look at those tightly muscled buttocks. His body heated in a flash at the sight of Arisada’s lean, legs, the bunching of those fine ass muscles. Flustered, he lowered his sword. “Gomen nasai, I had to know,” he murmured.

  “Know what?” Arisada ignored his clothing still scattered on the floor and turned back to the boy.

  “The kyūketsuki who murdered my family is scarred, shoulders to hips. Do you know of any like that?

  Arisada had made the wager in honor. Yet, he froze, the reply turning to dust in his throat. “I cannot help you,” he choked. Inwardly, he begged forgiveness from the Buddha Amida at the lie as he stared straight into Tatsu’s peridot gaze.

  “What about this Ukita Sadomori?” Tatsu persisted.

  Arisada shook his head. “Nani mo, nothing. He is my Seisakusha, my creator. Nothing more.” Arisada would do anything, say anything, to protect Tatsu from confronting Sadomori. The Daimyō would snuff out the life of this youngster with less effort than that needed to kill a fly. “What will you do if you find this kyūketsuki?”

  “Kill him.”

  “, sō desu ka. It is a blood debt.”

  “The honor of my father’s name must be restored,” Tatsu retorted still pointing his weapon at the vampire.

  “Honor is everything. Yet so many suffer in for it.” The vampire looked sadly at Tatsu. Again, he turned to pick up his clothing. This time, the act held a finality to it that filled Tatsu with anger. Something dark and perverse moved within Tatsu. It boiled over, shredding the tight band of control around his emotions. Frustration and disappointment, yes, but also the raw hunger of a man too long denied his most primal need. He wanted to inflict some sort of cruelty on this creature.

  Tatsu’s sharp order to freeze surprised Arisada. He looked into that face, the forehead furrowed into a scowl. The mouth, bowed lips bared over perfect white teeth. The eyes now turned sea-dark with lust. Saw with complete clarity that this was the true spirit of the warrior in Tatsu. The warrior who knew what he wanted and was going to take it.

  The katana’s tip nudged into the indent just below the vampire’s Adams’ apple. It touched the pale flesh, and halted, its tip a hair’s width from piercing the pale skin. Arisada froze. An incremental increase in pressure and Arisada felt the wound. Smelled the copper scent from that first drop of his own blood. He stepped back, weight on his rear leg. Still the katana kept up its relentless press. Arisada moved back again, his eyes never leaving Tatsu’s face. Another step, then another. With a hard thud, Arisada’s back hit the wall of the dojo. Perhaps the boy was going to take his life after all. Wakatta, so be it.

  The move, so fast it was a blur, stunned the vampire. The sword sliced through his fundoshi at the waist. The blade continued its arc straight into its saya. In the same moment, Tatsu’s tanto replaced its brother at Arisada’s throat. Seconds later, the loincloth reached the floor.

  Arisada’s cock bounced out—free, pale
and long and growing rapidly toward full arousal. The foreskin stretched back tight and thin revealing the head as pretty as a ripe apricot, the slit oozing with precum.

  The feral look in Tatsu’s eyes never softened as he looked down at Arisada’s erection. Tatsu licked his lips, the lascivious gesture clearly unconscious.

  His tanto never wavered as Tatsu moved chest-to-chest with Arisada. Their gazes locked. Understanding rippled between them. Both knew the vampire could break free perhaps before Tatsu realized it. Both accepted that escape was not even a consideration. A tiny moan escaped Arisada as he submitted.

  A fine quiver washed over the vampire’s skin as the callused pads of Tatsu’s free hand trailed down his ridged belly. A harsh tug at curls around Arisada’s shaft, then the sublime, unutterable delight as the boy’s fingers curled around his cock. Tatsu’s grip was hard, as if to inflict pain, as if to deny the pleasure of his actions. Arisada gasped as heat rolled through the turgid length of his pounding prick. His eyes, now scarlet with lust, closed in sweet surrender. Arisada’s top fangs slipped their channels. Then sharp pain, razor-sharp points cut his lower lip.

  Tatsu smelled that blood. As if he were kyūketsuki, its scent drove him wild. His hand tightened its painful grip, pushing the silken foreskin back from Arisada’s weeping crown. Tatsu tugged Rolled his thumb over the slit that throbbed and leaked with raw sensitivity. Pearly juice seeped out, caught in Tatsu’s palm. He slicked it back along the swollen shaft. Rubbing, teasing, demanding. Tatsu’s hand assaulted the vampire’s tender flesh, each stroke faster than the one before. Yet, never for one instant did he release the relentless pressure of that knife tip against the vampire’s jugular.

  Heat washed over the vampire’s cheeks, making the white lines of his scar stand out in graphic relief. The thin nostrils flared with every ragged breath. The full lips drew back over a mouth dropped partially open, fangs extended. Lust glittered from the vampire’s eyes, turned them molten with excitement.

  Pain from Arisada’s cut lips sent want surging down into his groin. He gave free rein to his hunger, allowed his body to be engulfed in Tatsu’s fury. The skin of Arisada’s hardened cock stretched almost beyond endurance. Waves of fire spasmed from his sphincter deep into his entrails. Fingers stroked up then down with punishing force, the friction sending a sweet, delectable, pain through Arisada’s sex. The rub of a thumb over his throbbing crown. A sharp drag of Tatsu’s nail across the piss hole.

  Every neuron in Arisada’s ass, his prick, his balls fired at the same time. The blast of raw heat, almost on the edge of pain, shot from Arisada’s rod. He rocked his hips, driving his sex a final time into Tatsu’s hand. Uncaring of the danger from that tanto, Arisada’s body convulsed jetting his spunk through his slit into the torturous grip of Tatsu’s palm.

  With that first glistening jet, Arisada screamed. He twisted his head to one side, fighting the urge to tear into Tatsu’s throat, to feast on the boy’s rich blood and drain him of life. The vampire’s hands tore holes in the paper walls of the shiaijo. Arisada, his cock still spurting with aftershocks, lunged away from Tatsu. He felt the tanto slice across his neck. Falling to his knees, Arisada dropped his head between his hands and fought off the urge to drink. His breath came in great shudders. His vision blackened. The muscles along his arms and legs knotted as he dove within himself, seeking that infinitesimal center of peace. He fastened on it and used it drove back the lust for blood.

  Arisada knelt on that mat for several minutes fighting the urge to feed. When his body and mind at last belonged to him, he pushed himself to his feet and faced Tatsu. The boy stood as if frozen.

  The slickness of cum clinging to his hand had caught Tatsu in a strange fascination. Without lowering his knife, he cleaned off each digit one by one with slow, deliberate laps. With that final lick, the hunger and rage on Tatsu’s face dissolved. He shook his head, the primal gleam faded from his jade eyes.

  “Sumimasen,” Tatsu croaked. The apology was bizarre, a weak defense against the stricken rawness of the feelings churning in his gut. He offered Arisada a confused, desperate look. Then, with a strangled cry, he bolted from the dojo.

  Arisada leaned against the chill surface of the dojo wall, his body supported on shaking knees. He touched the thin cut across his throat. Looked in wonder at the smear of blood on his fingers. Somehow, Tatsu had prevented his tanto from cutting deeper and ending Arisada’s life.

  Many minutes passed before he felt the strength to gather his clothes from their tumbled heap on the floor. Minutes that left him filled with wonder of the power in this human boy who had brought him gasping and begging to such a total surrender. Filled Arisada also with fear of how close he had come to taking the boy’s life.

  The vampire fastened his clothing with fingers that shook only slightly. He tightened his obi around his slim waist and tucked in his sword. Tatsu may have pleasured him as a show of dominance but Arisada knew the boy desired it as much. When Tatsu’s fingers circled Arisada’s tumescent organ, a covenant was fused. Tatsu gave himself to Arisada. Tatsu just didn’t realize it yet.

  “Next time, my bishounen, I won’t allow you to win,” Arisada whispered. He smiled, a beautiful human smile with no show of fangs.

  That cock-pulsing, ball-throbbing, wet dream haunted his sleep again. This time the hard body pressing with raw urgency against him was slim, wiry. The hair tumbling over Tatsu’s body was the color of flame not coal. The eyes above him reflected the gold of the sun. The skin of his lover shone white instead of nut brown. Not Navajo but the ancient language of Nipon cried one word in ecstasy. Koibito.

  Tatsu snapped awake, his cock rock hard, pounding with a painful demanding insistence. Using his left hand, the same hand that had wrapped around Arisada’s prick mere hours before, Tatsu reached for himself. He pushed back his chamois-soft foreskin, rubbed over the knobby head now slick with precum. His hand moved faster, quick tearing strokes followed by merciless twists around the ridge. He felt the punishing scratch of his calluses on his cock, knew that same sensation had propelled Arisada over the edge.

  He cupped the silky weight of his sac, fondled his nuts, rolling them, stretching the soft skin with hard tugs. His forefinger slid along his sensitive perineum sending cold pulses up his spine. With one fingernail, he gouged at the puckery rim of his hole knowing it would hurt. He jabbed his finger past the resisting rim. The tight muscle protested then yielded with a sweet rush. With a hiss of pleasure, he entered the heat beyond. Tight, wet walls clamped around him as that burning sensation shot through his ass. Craving the fullness, he shoved in a second then a third finger. Curled his knuckles against the wet quivering walls of his chute.

  The muscles of his abs knotting, Tatsu curled over his screaming groin. His punishing jerks on his cock matched each deep thrust of his fingers into his ass. Faster, harder, asking for the pain, demanding it as punishment, getting instead a sweet rolling pleasure that engulfed every part of him.

  Arisada’s face distorted by fangs, eyes crimson with lust, yet still stunningly beautiful, filled Tatsu’s vision. In the second before his spunk blasted from him, Tatsu imagined Arisada’s fingers shoved up his ass. He cried the vampire’s name. Gouts of cum splashed over his belly in aching spurts.

  Chest heaving, Tatsu fell flat on the mattress. His sweat-drenched body stank of spunk and shame. “Oh, fakku,” he groaned. What the hell was he thinking? But he knew. The name bursting from his lips, the sticky mess clinging to his hand, the after-shocks pulsing through his organ, the surging in his body—all told him.

  He’d always faced the truth no matter how harsh. And the truth was he wanted Saito Arisada, wanted to fuck him and be fucked by him. Craved him with a desperation that threatened all reason.

  .

  Thirteen

  The double doors of the Snake Pit thudded open under a heavy kick. Chain strode in outfitted in crisp combat pants that contrasted with his scuffed tanker boots. He braced his heavy crossbow over one shoulder. A dee-
skin vest dangled from his other hand. His tight tank top barely contained the bulge of muscles across his massive chest. The fabric outlined every ripple of his six-pack abs. His unbraided hair cascaded over his shoulders in ripples of black silk.

  The Cajun looked around for his no-show partner, raised one eyebrow before placing his bow on the table. He dug in his pockets—the act stretching his pants across his prodigious crotch—and pulled out a pack of Gauloises. He looked over the flame flickering between his cupped hands and winked at Tatsu. Then, cigarette dangling from his mouth, he began to braid his hair with swift moves made incredibly sensual by their lack of guile.

  Tatsu stared utterly captivated at the big man. His eyes fixed on the conspicuous bulge at the big man’s groin. Shimatta, he’s pure gorgeous animal. No wonder Galloway’s in love with him! Tatsu’s fantasy jolted to a halt when Galloway strolled into the Pit.

  The blond mercenary dropped into his accustomed chair. He knew his smile bordered on the insolent as he looked at the Major glowering down at him. “What’s up, boss?” he drawled.

  “Mr. Galloway, what part of your employment agreement did you ignore that requires you to call in immediately on a Red Status?”

  “Sorry, Major, didn’t hear the page. Was in the middle of a hot date, if you catch my drift?” Galloway fixed the expected leer on his face. “Hey, partner, comment ça va?” he turned to Passebon to cover his lie. He hadn’t dated—hell, hadn’t even had his dick in anyone—since he’d fallen for the Cajun.

  A frission of jealousy slithered into Passebon’s gut. Why should he care who Galloway fucked? Never bothered him in the past. Lately, though, he could not stop thinking of his partner in bed with a man. Mentally, Passebon shrugged. Laissez-faire. None of his business who Galloway fucked as long as the blond had his back.

  The Major’s words cut through Passebon’s distraction. “I apologize for calling all of you in during your two-day leave but this is top priority. Having stated that, Mr. Murtagh also seems to be among those who think dereliction of duty is a fine quality.” He rarely displayed anger, but a scowl crossed his face as the minutes passed and Bana didn’t show.