Dreamlands (10 page)

He had cried in my arms, falling asleep, knowing I wasn’t going to hurt him for his refusal. To him, sex was a frightening and painful thing, even after I had shown him I could be gentle. I wanted to kill his abusers over and over for doing this to him.

Keno sniffled and nuzzled my chest, innocent and endearing, cried out and asleep. I was proud of the elegant sophistication that was Sakura, but this moment was priceless. Yoshinoko and the others had done a wonderful job training him; he had been poised and confident in the face of his brothers’ questions. The trouble had only started when we had arrived at home. Sighing, I pulled the covers over us and settled down to sleep.

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I WOKE the next morning with Keno still sleeping in my arms and my desire for him returned. He moaned softly, and I tightened my embrace.

That woke him up. Keno jerked his head up, and I kissed him, rough and demanding. He struggled for a second and went limp.

“Trust me,” I hissed.

Keno didn’t say anything, but he cautiously stroked my arms and shoulders.

“I just want―” I began.

It was incredibly frustrating, his fear and his ignorance. Okita had informed me that he didn’t understand the jokes and the teasing but took it good-naturedly. Okita had been worried about where he had been raised; he hadn’t thought that even Buddhist acolytes were so ignorant. In fact, he was certain they knew more about pleasure than Keno did. I had refrained from snapping at him, saying it wasn’t any of his business, but the men had become fond of Keno.

“Get it over with,” he whispered. “Maybe… maybe it isn’t as bad as I remember.”

“Was that… how old are you?” I asked him in horror. Maybe the issue was that Keno was younger than I thought he was.

“Twenty,” he whispered, cringing, not understanding I wasn’t angry with him, but with the ones who had hurt him. “I had just had a birthday, before… I’d been there for four years. No one… they treated me… Mason and Wolf were nice, but….”

No wonder he was as ignorant as he was. Isolated and imprisoned, abused by his captors. Rape hadn’t been the worst thing he’d worried about, and I doubted he had been treated gently. Okita had informed me that it had taken a long time for Keno to stop cringing when he trained with them, to become comfortable with trading blows with the others.

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DREAMLANDS

“I had hoped that you would lose your fears,” I said thickly. I didn’t want to say this, but we couldn’t go on in this manner. I would lose him, and I didn’t want that. “But I think that it would be better if you moved into the barracks with Okita-san and the rest of my lady’s samurai.”

Keno started shivering, shutting his eyes tightly. “Whatever you want, Samojirou-sama,” he said dully.

“They will not hurt you,” I said, confused and angry.

Why did he think they were like the animals that had him before?

If he stayed here, with me, I would let my desire overrule my good sense, and Keno would suffer. I would continue to enjoy his company; I had liked last night too much to deny myself much longer. Keno had enjoyed it also, so I doubted it was my company that was issue.

I rose and dressed. Keno made a move to get up, and I ordered,

“Stay there.”

I strode out of my rooms in a fury and wasn’t surprised to see the servants and the others scattering out of my way. An angry
oni
wasn’t something many of them could deal with.
Oni
are one of the more powerful beings in the Dreamlands, and this place was just as in the real world, where the weaker served the stronger.

Tamazusa found me in the iris garden an hour later.

“I see that Keno-chan is not to your taste this morning,” she said.

I looked at her. “He is too much to my taste. And he fears me. I have failed.”

Tamazusa shook her head. “He trusts you still. It’s just that he is still ignorant of the power that is in him. That is part of what is attracting him to you. I think… I think that it is time that we told him about that, at least.”

“And about his family?” I asked.

She smiled and studied a flower, thinking about what she was going to say before she stated it. “There is no reason to tell him about FELICITAS IVEY

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them. The princess would send him back to the real world, and I feel that is not the best place for him. What I have seen there was barbaric.”

“He should move into the barracks,” I said. “Because―”

“You almost overstepped your bounds?” she asked. “Keno’s introduction to adulthood was with fear and pain, being with those people. I know that has warped him. He should have been coaxed into it. From what Yoshinoko has told me, he would have been a wonderful
tayuu
or even a geisha.”

“Sakura-chan was a wonderful companion last night,” I said. “But the evening ended in tears.”

“Too much saké,” Tamazusa dismissed briskly. “See what happens on your next outing.”

“As you wish,” I said listlessly.

She glared. “You have been a thoughtful companion over our centuries here. I just want you to be happy. It seems that our little prize can provide that for you. Time is not something that any of us have to worry about.”

I bowed to her. “Then I should see how he is doing.” She smiled. “He is still in your rooms, and according to the maids, he’s asleep again.”

KENO

SAMOJIROU didn’t mention the incident when he came back to his rooms, and he didn’t send me to the barracks. Stupid as it sounds, I still trusted him. I knew he was frustrated, and I felt like I was leading him on, sleeping with him and not doing
that
with him. I liked him a lot; 65

DREAMLANDS

Samojirou was smart, we could talk about almost anything, and he was very patient with me, but I still wasn’t ready to have sex with him.

That evening I had dinner with Tamazusa. It was nice and relaxed, even though I felt there was something she wanted to tell me.

“How did you enjoy your introduction to kabuki?” Tamazusa asked me toward the end of the meal. We had been talking about various happenings on the estate and my lessons.

“I liked it,” I murmured, instinctively falling into the female dialect. I had been using the male one before. Tamazusa was talking about my girl persona, so I felt I should talk like a woman with her.

“But afterward,” she continued.

I blushed, knowing she knew I had cried like a baby in Samojirou’s arms about
that.
They told each other almost everything; they really were like siblings in that way. “I… Samojirou-sama said that I didn’t have to. He was very kind to me when I had drunk too much saké.”

“I told you that he was thoughtful man,” Tamazusa said cheerfully.

“You and Samojirou-sama both have been very kind to me,” I said humbly.

She smiled, looking thoughtful. “You are someone that kindness comes naturally to and for.”

I looked down at my bowl of rice, biting my lower lip, remembering when people hadn’t been so kind to me. About the TCs who had pinched me in odd places, the scientists who would wake me up in the middle of the night to fix something for them, and the techs who were abusive because something had gone wrong with their experiments.

Tamazusa’s concern and Samojirou’s weird affection for me was a hundred percent better, because no one had been kind to me in a long while. Wolf and even Mason had tried, but they were away a lot, and they had been sent away because they tried to protect me from Heiseg.

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66

Because of that I had been alone on the two worst days of the year, the day I had been captured and my birthday. Not that anyone had remembered my birthday, but it had been nice to have company for it, even if Wolf didn’t say anything about it. He didn’t know about my birthday at all.

Tamazusa must have seen something in my eyes, because she sighed. “I meant not to remind you of past ills.” I smiled, wanting to make her feel better. She was still impressive and scary, but I now knew she was a nice person. “You didn’t mean to.

And there are times that they are not far from my mind.”

“
Ah,” she sighed, “your distaste for intimacy with Samojirou-sama… he will not hurt you. He is drawn to you and does not mean to frighten you.”

“I know,” I murmured, feeling stupid. “He’s been very nice about the fact that I still can’t do
that
with him.”

“He has mentioned that you have gotten better about kissing,” she teased, ignoring the fact I couldn’t say the word
sex
. I had trouble even
thinking
that word.

I blushed. I had, even if I didn’t really respond to what he was doing. I was less stiff about it and let him explore more and more of me. I could enjoy what he was doing to me if I didn’t think about how it might end. I knew it wasn’t fair to Samojirou. I never thought that I wouldn’t be hurt, no matter who had gotten to me first, Heiseg or one of the TCs. With Samojirou, I could almost forget the fear. He didn’t want to hurt me like others had.

“But there is a reason that Samojirou-sama cannot stop touching you, besides that he is a very passionate man,” Tamazusa shared after a delicate drink of her saké.

“And that reason is?” I asked her, sipping at my tea. I was avoiding alcohol after last night. I didn’t want to end up crying again. I was proud that my voice was steady.

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DREAMLANDS

Tamazusa smiled, proud of the control I was showing. I had gotten it all from my time in Boylston Street, because I couldn’t show those people any sort of weakness
.

“I fear that I had not been honest with you about why I had taken you from the real world,” Tamazusa said.

“You rescued me from Heiseg and my life there,” I said huskily.

“It is I who should be thanking you about that.”

“But I did so for very selfish reasons,” she protested.

“But you did so,” I said, my self-control slipping, sounding needy and raw. “Your reasons do not have to be pure. You were willing to do it. That is all that matters to me.”

“Even if I handed you to Samojirou-sama as a present, without thinking about your feelings about the matter?” she demanded harshly.

“I treated you as I had been treated in the past.”

“At that time, I was unable to think,” I said. That was why she didn’t seem to like men in
that
manner; she had been someone like me at one time, powerless and frightened. I thought she might really have been a
tayuu
or worse.

“Samojirou-sama was…
is
very kind to me. You both took care of me when I needed it. I was in shock that night, and Samojirou-sama could have just hurt me like Heiseg had. He didn’t. You could have hurt me or given me to your samurai, for them to hurt me. You didn’t.

You both have treated me as if I were part of your family. I haven’t been treated so well since I left my parents’ house.” Tamazusa looked worried. She put down her saucer of saké and shook her head. “I cannot tell you everything that you need to know at this time.”

I nodded, knowing she had been hiding a lot from me, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. Stupid, I know, that a couple of people being nice to me after I had been numb for so long made me not care about the secrets they might have been hiding from me. But despite the fact that they were demons, they were treating me better than the FELICITAS IVEY

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humans had. “I am grateful for whatever you wish to tell me.” I said softly.

Tamazusa smiled. “Samojirou-sama is attracted to you because of the magic that is in you. That is also the reason that the Reavers follow you around. They are attracted to unusual power.” I shook my head, confused. “I’m not magical or special.” She laughed, a polite trill that confused me. I didn’t know why she thought that was funny. “You have magic. I sensed it in you when I saw you, even after Heiseg had abused you the way that he did. He thought that he was the one that had power.” She frowned. “He was a fool and insulting.”

“He had connections,” I said, “the backing of several of the people who ran that place. I’m nobody. He wouldn’t have been punished for hurting me. He had been told more than once that I didn’t matter.”

Tamazusa reached out and touched my hand gently. “You matter.

You have power. I am assuming that Samojirou-sama will be arranging for that training sometime in the future.”

“Why should he?” I asked bluntly. “Wouldn’t it be better for him if I were powerless?”

“Samojirou-sama chose to have you educated so that you will be an amusing companion to him, instead of treating you as a thing,” Tamazusa said. “I think that in the future he will send you to be trained to be a powerful companion also.”

“But why?” I asked, confused.

Samojirou having me trained to work magic was very different from him having me learn the tea ceremony. It probably wasn’t different from having me practice with the samurai in the mornings, even though everyone knew I wasn’t expected to be a fighter.

Samojirou had been very clear about that; he only wanted me to be able to defend myself in the future, so no one would be able to hurt me again.

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DREAMLANDS

“Because he made a choice the night that I gave him to you,” Tamazusa said softly. “One that I had hoped he would make. He chose to have you become his companion, rather than a doll for him to play with.”

“I am grateful that he made that choice,” I said. “I will study anything that he wants me to and make him proud.” Tamazusa smiled. “He is proud. And happy with you. Please remember that he will never hurt you, as others have done.” I bowed my head, humble and subservient.

SAMOJIROU seemed to have lost all interest in doing
that
with me. In fact, we started sleeping on separate futons that night. It wasn’t that he ignored me, because I woke up sometimes with more covers tucked around me or with Samojirou watching me. That should have scared me, but it didn’t. Samojirou was still being nice to me. While the kisses had stopped, he hadn’t stopped touching me. Now that I knew part of the reason, I didn’t tense up when it happened. In fact, I started to like it, probably because I knew it wasn’t going to go beyond touches for now.