CHAPTER 7
The day had turned hot at some point, and even with the panels opened to allow air to flow into his room, Esher hadn’t been able to slip back to sleep after waking from a nightmare. Agitated from trying, he had left his room, grabbed a bite to eat and a glass of water, and had tried to focus on small tasks to keep his mind occupied. Trimming the topiary. Feeding the fish. Enjoying the cherry blossoms.
None of it had held his focus for long.
His mind had kept drifting, and it had always returned to one subject.
Her.
She had slipped into his usual nightmare, inserting herself into the scene, but not where he had expected her to be. Rather than being one of his tormenters, with the other humans, she had been the one bound before him.
They had tortured her to weaken him.
Gods.
Esher ran a shaky hand over his black hair and drew in a deep breath to calm his turbulent emotions as he walked, afraid that if they got the better of him Daimon would feel it and would realise he had left the safety of the mansion grounds.
He needed to walk.
He needed space.
He had been cooped up in the mansion for days now, and he was feeling stronger, more than able to take care of himself if anyone dared to attack him. Besides, it was daylight. Not even a strong daemon could withstand this much sunshine. They would be insane to try.
Strings harmonised with a brass section in his ears as he paused at a crossing and waited for the lights to change in his favour. Ahead of him, on the other side of the road, the park was busy, mortals soaking up the sunshine as they walked alone or with friends, and occupied the benches.
And seemingly every inch of the broad path beneath the trees.
Fucking Sundays.
Normally if he came for a walk in Yoyogi Park, he had it mostly to himself, with only a smattering of humans, a low enough number that it rarely bothered him.
But on a Sunday, it felt as if every person in Tokyo was trying to squeeze into the open spaces to enjoy the small pocket of nature.
He couldn’t blame them, but that didn’t mean he had to accept their presence.
The red light flicked to green on the other side of the street, and he edged away from the mortals as he crossed, giving himself at least three metres space. Better. Now he just had to survive the heaving park and find a quiet spot to make his own.
The solitude of the garden at the mansion was starting to look appealing again, but he needed this. He needed to see the modern buildings that crammed into every street around the park, and hear the noise of the trains as they constantly rumbled into the station, and the revving of car engines as they pulled away from the traffic lights. He needed it because it was miles away from how the world had been all those centuries ago, a contrast that reminded him that he wasn’t there now. The world was different now.
His kind could move undetected through the streets, and even if a mortal witnessed something out of the ordinary, they normally kept it to themselves, believing themselves overworked, or even fucking blessed to have seen something they believed was supernatural.
It was a far cry from the days when just being different had been enough to raise an army or a mob against you.
Witches still had a bad rap though. Some of them for a good reason. He had met a few in his eight hundred plus years, and quite a number of them had deserved the reputation they had gained among mortals. The rest of them were alright, as long as you didn’t cross them.
Even gods could be cursed.
He strolled down to the entrance of the park and looked up as he moved into the shade of the towering trees that stretched from either side of the dirt path to tangle together high above it. The air was instantly cooler, the perpetual shade keeping the heat of day at bay, and he breathed a little easier as it washed over him while the music danced in his ears and sunlight sparkled through the small gaps in the green canopy above.
Esher tugged at the collar of the grey t-shirt he wore beneath his dark blue linen shirt, wafting air down his chest, enjoying the coolness of it as it bathed his skin.
A human suddenly closed the distance between them, leaping into his path, and his hand twitched, a heartbeat away from backhanding them away from him when he froze, the awareness that blasted through him halting him in his tracks.
He lowered his blue gaze to the petite female standing before him, a vision in a black ruffled skirt, violet stockings, platform pink patent shoes, and a tank with a diamante skull on the front. Her bunches swayed as she canted her head and said something he didn’t hear over the music pounding in his ears.
When she continued to speak, her enticing glossy lips shifting in a symphony in time with the rising strings, he gathered his wits enough to pull on the cord in front of his chest, tugging the buds from his ears.
“Sorry,” he said in Japanese, and a pink hue climbed her cheeks. “Music was on.”
“It’s you again.” Her smile hit him hard, reaching her dark chocolate eyes, and she rocked on her heels, her hands locked behind her back.
For a split-second, he considered leaving, and that was strange.
Because when faced with a human trying to interact with him without him prompting it, he always ignored them and moved on as quickly as possible, evading them.
But something about her, his little butterfly, soothed him and made him want to stay.
Calmed him more than being alone.
“How is your arm?” Her English words were stilted, lacking confidence that she seemed to exude when speaking her native tongue, and she nodded towards his arm when he just stared at her.
Esher looked down at it. He had finally taken the bandage off two days ago, had meant to discard it in the bin, but in the end had placed it in a box that stood on his chest of drawers in his room. Which was strange too. He had no reason to want to keep the used bandage, yet he couldn’t bring himself to part with it.
“It’s fine now, but thank you.” He stuck to Japanese for her, wanting her to be comfortable so she would speak more with him.
Also strange.
Feminine giggling had her looking to her right and widening her eyes in a way that screamed ‘shut up’ at the pair of females sitting beneath the tree on a bench. The two females from the day she had been walking in Shibuya. Her friends?
They were dressed like her now, Gothic Lolitas enjoying a day off in the park. It was common on a Sunday in Yoyogi Park, the proximity of the Harajuku shopping street bringing them into the area.
“Wait.” She held her hand up between them, and then hurried to her friends, grabbed a black satin bag with a crimson frill around the zipper and a collection of figures dangling from the strap, and a green drink in a clear plastic cup, and bounced back to him.
She sipped on the matcha iced smoothie as she walked away from him, her ruffled black skirt bouncing with each step, flashing a lot of leg. When she paused and looked back at him, a little frown wrinkling her nose, he followed, assuming it was what she wanted.
“I’m glad your arm is better. I was worried.” She hit him with another high-beam smile as he caught up with her.
Had she really been worried about him?
She looked the type to worry about strangers, and she was studying medicine. She was gentle, and good, he could see it in her as she kept glancing at his arm whenever she had the chance, checking the wound that was barely a scar peeking out from beneath the rolled-up sleeve of his navy shirt, needing to see for herself that he was better.
He gazed at his boots as he carefully rolled up the lead of his earbuds and put them in his breast pocket. Her feet were tiny compared with his, her step light despite the thick two-inch platform soles of her shoes. With them on, she fell short of his shoulder. How small would she be against him without them?
“What’s your name?”
When he looked up at her face, she covered her mouth, a blush staining her cheeks, and her obvious embarrassment over asking such a question outright, something out of place for a Japanese female, almost teased a smile from him.
“Esher.” He had no qualms about her knowing it, mostly because she would offer hers in exchange.
“Esher. Esh-er… Esh-errr.” She frowned as she tried to wrap her mouth around it, her chocolate eyes on the path in front of her. Those warm eyes lifted to him again, and another smile curved her lips. “I’m… you would say it… Aiko Matsumoto.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Aiko.” And it was. Strange.
She giggled. “How long have you been in Japan to know the language so well, but not learn the customs?”
“A long time,” he countered, “but you didn’t strike me as the sort to want to be given an honorific or go with tradition. I can call you Matsumoto-chan if you preferred? Or maybe Ai-chan?”
She laughed, the sound more entrancing than even the most beautiful classical piece, and shook her head as she waved her hand in front of her face. “No. Aiko is fine.”
With that, she broke away from him, her eyes darting everywhere as she sipped her drink through the straw, taking in all the nature that surrounded her.
Its beauty was lost on him as he watched her, his little butterfly more stunning and fascinating than a few ancient trees.
She pirouetted to face him and walked backwards in front of him. “Are you alone in Tokyo?”
Esher shook his head, frowned when his hair fell down over his left eye and obscured her, and pushed it back, threading his fingers through the black lengths as he watched her. A flicker of sorrow crossed her features, but it disappeared when he spoke.
“I live with one of my younger brothers.” Technically true, although Daimon was spending more and more time in Hong Kong recently.
Was she relieved because he didn’t live with a female?
“What do you do? It’s unusual for foreigners to live in Japan. Do you teach?” She moved back to beside him again.
Teaching was a common profession for foreigners, but the only teaching he did was to daemons and constantly trying to make them learn the lesson that he wasn’t going to let them near the gate to the Underworld.
Still, he didn’t want to be thought of as a teacher. It reminded him too much of long, boring lessons in the Underworld, listening to various tutors drone on about history and such, and it was leagues from what he really did.
“I work in defence.” Also technically true.
Her eyes widened. “Like the military?”
He shrugged as they rounded a bend in the path, an enormous torii gate coming into view. “Something like that.”
Aiko passed beneath the imposing wooden structure of two columns supporting a curved beam, with another beam intersecting them below it. Apparently, some believed it was lucky to walk through the gate that marked an entrance to a Shinto shrine.
Maybe if you were human.
Esher walked around the thick left column, feeling the power in the gate as he avoided it.
He never had gotten along with the local gods.
Even walking the sacred grounds on the other side of the gate as he was now was often enough to cause a mild sense of discomfort, as if someone was giving him the evil eye.
Aiko moved back to walk beside him, on his right this time, and her eyes fell to his arm. “You have so many scars.”
Her words were soft, not meant to hurt, but they carved his heart open and he fell silent as he struggled against the surge of memories that collided with fragments of his nightmare. He battled them, trying to hold them at bay, but the nightmare had left him weak against them, allowing them to easily push at him, rousing his other side, the one that whispered to him and had him eyeing all the mortals passing by, a desire to punish them rising inside him. His gaze drifted over Aiko and back again. The need to leave warred with a desire to stay near her, to protect her from the cruel humans who wanted to hurt her, and him.
When they neared the grand shrine, she moved away from him, and he reached for her, his heart lunging into his throat. His hand stopped just short of her bare arm as she paused and looked his way, her eyes falling to it and then rising to his face.
“I just need to go inside. Come too,” she said softly, warm light in the midst of the darkness raging inside him.
Esher shook his head and let his hand fall to his side, and she stared at him a moment, concern filling her eyes before she rallied, blinking and then smiling again.
“Will you wait?” She moved a step closer to him, and it struck him that she didn’t want to part from him either, and gods, that was the strangest thing yet.
He nodded, still struggling with the tide of memories and unable to find his voice as they raged inside him, a violent sea he was trying to tame—for her sake.
She moved away from him, stopping at the rectangular stone trough of water beneath an elegant open-sided wooden structure topped with a sweeping copper roof that had gone almost turquoise over the centuries. She purified herself, and then walked towards the main gate of the shrine, an imposing wooden building that stood twice as tall as the walls around it, topped with the same sweeping copper roof, and he took a step towards the shrine, wanting to follow her.
An invisible barrier repelled him, and he bared his teeth at the shrine and the gods who forbid him to enter it.
He had tried to get them to manifest and explain themselves so they could understand each other, but the bastards refused to speak with him, merely repelled him whenever he tried to enter a shrine.
Unable to follow her, he drifted away instead, towards the shade of the trees where no humans ventured, and put his earbuds back in to block out the noise so he could focus on calming himself.
No matter how loud he made the music, the gnawing feeling persisted, thoughts of Aiko at the mercy of the humans filling his mind, tormenting him with images of her from his nightmare—bound and bleeding.
Close to death.
He closed his eyes, wanting to shut out the world, sure it was the presence of all the humans pushing him deeper into his memories.
It only worsened things.
Instead of seeing only flashes of images from his nightmare, he replayed the whole damned thing, felt himself bound and fighting against the ropes that bit into his arms, felt his throat burn as he screamed at them to stop and begged the bastards for mercy they refused to give.
The whispers grew louder, becoming chanting that goaded him into showing them no mercy in return.
They were ants, and he would crush them for what they had done to him.
Warm, soft fingers brushed his right hand, caressed the inside of his wrist where his favour mark stood pronounced on his skin, and chased the dark memories away, allowing light to filter back in and breath to fill his lungs again.
He slowly opened his eyes and looked down into Aiko’s, and didn’t stop her when she lifted her hands and carefully removed the noise-cancelling headphones from his ears. He stood mute, staring at her, shaken to his core and weak to his bones.
She smiled gently. “You moved, and your smile is gone. You’re serious again.”
Had he smiled for her? He might have. More than once, he had wanted to do it, and maybe he had, but he couldn’t remember now. Everything was clouded again, just like the sky. Heavy black ones were rolling in, and he could feel the rain coming. It was partly his fault. His mood had taken a nosedive, speeding the weather that had already been building in the distance.
Strangely, he didn’t want it to rain, was sure this time he wouldn’t find any comfort in it, because it would separate him from Aiko.
But he couldn’t contain his pain to stop it.
“I need to get out of here,” he husked, his eyes darting over all the humans as they stared at him.
She nodded. “We can visit the teahouse by the pond. Hardly anyone goes there.”
Sounded like heaven to him.
He followed her as the clouds reached them, blocking out the sun, and the wind picked up. They backtracked towards the torii gate, and she stopped a short distance from it, a frown marring her face as she stared at a sign and then at him.
“It’s closed.” She sounded as disappointed as he felt.
Esher didn’t hesitate. He grabbed her waist with both hands, eliciting a squeak from her, and lifted her over the gate, doing his damnedest not to look at her panties.
They were pink.
She dropped to the leaf-litter on the other side, landing in a crouch, and moved aside. He vaulted the gate.
“I’ve never broken a law before.” She looked more excited than upset about the fact she was breaking into the garden, and he didn’t have the heart to mention that she was hardly going to get arrested for being in the garden when it was closed. Reprimanded maybe, like a slap on the wrist. This was Z grade breaking the law.
If she wanted to see A grade, he could show her.
She crept along the narrow path through the thick trees like a damned ninja, and he strolled past her, the need to reach the teahouse and the quiet driving him. If a human was around and spotted them, he would deal with them.
And for once, he didn’t mean by killing them.
He would wipe their memory.
The elegant single storey wooden building came into view around a bend in the path, nestled with its back against the trees, and wood-framed glass panels protecting the walkway beneath the flared roof, and the paper panels of the interior.
It faced a sloping garden of grass and manicured bushes that resembled large smooth boulders in the dimming light, and beyond that a broad lake surrounded by trees.
The agony clawing at him began to fade as he looked at it, breathing easier as he sensed only Aiko nearby, and smelled the water and the coming rain.
The skies opened.
Esher grabbed her slender wrist and ran with her, trying not to pull her along as he raced towards the teahouse and used what little control he had over his powers and the weather to ensure not a drop of rain hit them.
When they reached the slight overhang above the exterior glass panels of the teahouse, she tucked closer to him, breathing hard. He released her, used his telekinesis to unlock the doors and pushed them back to allow her entrance. She stooped on the high stone step to remove her shoes, and then stepped inside.
Rain poured off the roof in torrents, cascading like a waterfall behind him as he removed his boots and followed her inside.
“I didn’t get wet.” She looked down at her clothes, over her bare arms, and then at him. Her expression shifted, going from one of surprise to something else, but if she noticed anything in his eyes, she kept it to herself.
She pushed aside one of the paper panels and stepped into the main, open room of the small building, her purple stockings a contrast to the creamy yellow of the traditional straw tatami mats. He trailed after her, catching her just as she moved to the front of the building and pushed more panels open to reveal the garden.
Aiko eased onto her knees in the middle of the open panels, her back to him, eyes on the outside world. The grass looked greener in the rain, and the surface of the lake had gone dark grey as it rippled with the heavy downpour.
It was beautiful.
She looked over her shoulder at him, her long black hair brushing her bare shoulders.
She was beautiful.
He moved towards her, drawn to her, unable to stop himself from closing the distance between them and easing onto his backside beside her.
Her dark eyes moved back to the world beyond the glass. “I like the rain… the melody it makes. It soothes me and seems to carry my troubles away.”
When she glanced at him, he smiled at her, wanting to show her that he felt the same way.
She blushed and looked away again.
How old was she? Megan had mentioned something about being in her thirties, but Aiko appeared younger than her. Mid-twenties if he had to hazard a guess. She had barely seen this world, probably knew very little of its darker side other than what she had seen on the television or in movies.
Fuck, he wanted to keep it that way.
He wanted her to always be this pure, this full of life and hope, and happiness. He wanted to shield her from the darker things, to keep the light inside her shining.
Her blush deepened. Because he was staring at her?
Because they were alone?
That had a hint of colour rising onto his cheeks too. He wasn’t sure he had ever been alone with a mortal, and he couldn’t remember being alone with a female like this before either. He hadn’t considered that when she had offered to take him to the teahouse, or when he had broken in with her.
He had just wanted to escape, to find peace, but he hadn’t wanted to part from her.
“Do you feel better now?” Her gaze bravely came back to him. He nodded, and relief flitted across her face, and he wanted to say something, but could only stare into her eyes as she looked deep into his, and murmured, “You have eyes like the ocean.”
He averted them, and she leaned towards him. His breath seized in his lungs as she moved closer to him, her soft floral scent teasing his senses, and her body heat brushed against him. He froze when her hand neared his right arm, his body coiling tight as he waited for her to touch the scars and mention them again, a spike of fear driving through him as he willed her not to do it, because he was finally on even ground again and he didn’t want the memories to surface once more.
Rather than touching his scars, her fingers stroked a line over the trident mark on his inside wrist.
“The gods watch over you,” she whispered, and he looked down at the favour mark, given to him at his birth by Poseidon, his uncle.
When she looked up at him, her face so close to his, he forgot what he had wanted to say.
He swallowed hard and stared at her, battling an urge that felt more powerful than any he had experienced before.
Not an urge to hurt her.
Far from it.
This urge had nerves sweeping through him, a fierce flood of them that left him shaking as he stared at her, his heart thumping against his ribs. She blinked slowly, shuttering her warm brown eyes, stealing them from view for a heartbeat before they locked with his again. Her pupils dilated, devouring her rich earthy irises, echoing the need that surged inside him.
He raised his hands, focused to stop the damned things from trembling, and swallowed to wet his parched throat as he edged them towards her, and finally, carefully, placed his palms against her cheeks.
Touching her.
Gods, she was warm, soft beneath his callused palms. His little butterfly, beautiful and delicate, trembling in his hands.
He meant to leave it at that, to release her and not risk anything else, but she shifted on her knees, placed her hands against the mats to support herself and brought her lips up to his.
Fire and lightning crashed through him as they brushed his, the sweetness of her lip gloss coating his, filling his mouth with the taste of strawberries, and hunger surged through him, a need to taste more of her, to completely devour her.
On a low growl, he slid his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her to him, his mouth claiming hers.
He tried to hold back his strength, the raging tide of his desire, the maelstrom of his need, but it was impossible as sensations collided and detonated inside him. He kissed her deeply, fucking clumsily if he had to admit it, his hand shaking against her nape as he stiltedly swept his lips across hers, and she blissfully responded, her own actions as jerky as his, as if desire was overcoming her too, stealing control.
Sweet gods.
The rain lashed down, striking the roof so hard that it shook the wooden structure, the weather turning more violent as a new need surged through him.
He wanted to touch her.
Intimately.
A growl tore up his throat, a need to go through with that driving him to obey, and he barely leashed it, holding it back as he broke away from her lips, shock rippling through him.
He couldn’t believe he wanted to do such a thing, or the ferocity of his hunger to be inside her.
A mortal.
Esher stared at her, breathing hard, fighting to restrain himself and tamp down that need. She looked at him, lips swollen and red from his brutal kiss, her pale skin darkened beneath his palm by the pressure of his grip. He had been rough with her, but she hadn’t pushed him away, and she still looked at him as if she wanted to kiss him again, as if what he had given her wasn’t enough for her either.
Fuck, she was beautiful as she looked at him like that, something soft and almost affectionate in her desire-hazed eyes, her shy smile luring him in together with the way she was hiding nothing from him. Her warmth and honesty, her openness, drew him towards her, and he wanted to drown in her.
That scared him.
What the fuck was he doing?
It was dangerous for her to be around him, but he couldn’t let her go. He needed her. He couldn’t have her though. All it would take was the moon’s sway to get to him, or his memories to overwhelm him. It would take only a momentary slip in control and he would hurt her. His powers had always been strong and as unpredictable as the ocean, and since what had happened to Calindria, he had been more than dangerous.
Aiko was strong, he could see that, but it was a strength of spirit, not of body. She was delicate, and he wanted to protect her because of it. He wanted her to always smile.
He released her and eased back, the hardest fucking thing he had ever done, and looked at the world outside. The rain was so heavy that he couldn’t see anything beyond the glass. His fault.
As much as it killed him to stop, he needed to find some calm again, some sliver of control.
Because he didn’t want to hurt her.
Gods help him, he didn’t want to fuck up and be the one to kill that smile of hers.