Eternal Samurai (7 page)

Distracted by the sounds of the fight, the large bull loosed his chokehold around Bana. The shorter bull lost his grip on Bana’s flailing legs. With raw desperation, the Irishman twisted his head for air, jackknifed both knees to his chest and kicked out. His booted feet caught the short vampire in the solar plexus, hurling him backwards. Tatsu sliced once with his
wakizashi
. The vampire’s head bounced against the brick wall as the body toppled into its own scarlet pool spreading across the alley floor.

Tatsu leaped over the corpse toward Bana just as the huge bull slammed the Irishman’s head into the bricks. Bana’s eyes rolled up and his arms fell limp. With a wet growl, the vampire jerked the stunned man’s head sideways and sank his fangs into the taut skin above his prey’s collarbone. The pain woke Bana. Roaring with outrage, he bucked against the heavy body. One fist pounded against the vampire’s face, crushing the nose. The vampire ignored the blow.

“Fekkin’ bastard,” Bana screamed. His hand scrabbled beneath his jacket.

The blast of gunfire echoed loud and rude. The vampire reeled back, arms flailing, a look of disbelief on his face. Smoke and blood coiled from his chest. Bana freed the gun from under the jacket and fired again. The crown of the vampire’s head disintegrated in a flaming ball. Cooked bone fragments and brain tissue sprayed into the night air. Slack-limbed, the corpse dropped to its knees then toppled over with an odd, hollow expulsion of air.

The air reeked of cooked meat, blood and shit and the thick choke of gunpowder. Bana leaned against the moss-covered wall, eyes closed, lungs pumping in great, ragged gasps.

“Jaysus fekkin’ Christ,” he gasped several times like a mantra. After a minute, he pushed himself off the moldy brick. He poked his finger through the smoldering hole in the jacket. “Shite. Fekkin’ rogues.” Still fingering his damaged coat, he walked over to Tatsu, grabbed the youth by one shoulder in an unfriendly grip and spun him so they faced each other.

“Thanks boyo. Thought they were gonna have me clackers fer dinner. Shite, what a stench. Now, do yerself a favor. Git the holy hell out of here.”

Tatsu jerked out of the clutch of that hand and pinned the Irishman with pitiless stare. “I just saved your life. You owe me.”

“Yer making a mistake, boyo. Don’t owe ya shite. Now I’m telling you, jist go into the bar, get a drink on me. Fergit all this,” The cold glare in the boy’s eyes unnerved him a little. With a dismissive snort, only half-convincing, Bana shoved his gun beneath his jacket and pulled out a cell phone. He muttered into it, secret words for a secret act.

Tatsu looked over the carnage. An odd fascination coupled with repugnance shuddered through him. He toed the nearest corpse. Regarded the rictus on the face, the snarling lips turned rubbery and brown. The crimson eyes already fading into a mottled yellow-brown. The fangs—uppers longer than lower—holding the mouth agape.

A rivulet of crimson slid down one of Tatsu’s blades and plopped onto the pavement. Drew his attention to it. With a quick snap, he flicked blood from both swords before swiping the
wakizashi
on the nearest corpse. He sheathed the shorter weapon. Bent over to clean the
katana
. Let the adrenalin rush of battle drain from his muscles.

Standing immobile within the deep shadows of the alley, a slim, pale figure watched the fight with avid interest. The observer ignored the older man. Instead, his golden eyes fastened on the youth who cleaved through three
kyūketsuki
in mere moments. The watcher’s breath caught in his throat.

“The way of the
niten’ichi,
” Saito Arisada whispered in awe. This hunter, this impossibly young and beautiful hunter, fought in the style of Miyamoto Musashi, Japan’s most revered
kensei
, sword saint. In more than five centuries since the great swordsman’s death, Arisada had seen no fighter use this technique—the Way of the Two Swords—with such perfection. Until now.

Arisada’s gaze devoured the young man. He feasted on the sight of the long, lithe legs and the hard mounds of the youth’s buttocks moving within tight denim jeans. Arisada took in the hunter’s delicate, perfect face, the high cheekbones, thin nose, the sensuous bow of full lips above a strong, slightly cleft chin, shaggy chocolate-brown hair falling just above the collar of a leather motorcycle jacket. A defiant gold ring glittered from the lobe of his left ear. Defiant because men wore no jewelry in these times.

For the first time in centuries, the vampire’s body burned with a scalding lust.

Then Arisada lost his breath at the sight of the boy’s eyes. From their emerald depths shone the
tamashii,
the soul of Koji Nowaki. Deep anguish filled Arisada’s golden eyes. He’d found his
koibito
, his beloved, his betrayer, reincarnated in the body of this beautiful boy.

Tragic the young man had to die. Even more tragic, Arisada would be the one to take his sweet young life. An odd strangled cry escaped the vampire’s throat.

In that second, the fifth rogue, insane with bloodlust, attacked Tatsu from the shadows of a doorway.

No warning save a rush of air. Tatsu spun. Too late. Four fangs drove into his nape. Tatsu roared, arched his back, struggled to twist the
katana
backwards into the monster. But the blade caught on the rogue’s bulky overcoat. He reached up for the
wakizashi
but it was trapped between their bodies.

At any moment, those fangs would ripe his spine in two. With a roar of desperation, Tatsu clawed at the vampire’s head trying to gouge out an eye, tear off an ear, anything to pull that mouth from his neck. No good. In seconds, he would be dead.

Then the weight fell away from his back. He spun around and saw a man brandishing a bloody
tanto
in one hand and holding the struggling rogue by the hair with the other. With one incredibly swift slice, the stranger cut the vampire’s throat, avoiding the blood gushing from the corpse with a graceful step back.

The man was dressed in the clothing of a samurai, black
keiko
-gi and flowing
hakama
that fell in perfect folds from his narrow waist. Tatsu got a sense of a strong, lean body. A pair of split-toed
tabi
hid the small feet. A
katana
rested beneath his wide
obi
. A samurai!

Too stunned to even offer his thanks, he riveted his gaze on his rescuer’s face. Never had he seen such heartbreaking beauty in a man. Clearly Japanese and beautiful yet with no loss of masculinity. A face that held the exquisite blend of the strength found in the finest
katana
tempered by the delicacy of a sakura blossom. Sensual full lips that Tatsu wanted to kiss with a sudden, irrational passion. Above that mouth, a regal, straight nose, nostrils slightly flared. High cheekbones, the left marked by an odd scar. What should have been a disfigurement only added an exotic allure. Some trick of shadow hid the eyes, yet Tatsu mentally colored them a rich, chocolate brown.

Every cell in Tatsu’s body resonated with an inexplicable call to this man. Tatsu’s heart, already pounding from the fight, dove straight down into his groin. He hardened so fast he hurt.

“Who—?” The question was cut off by the press of the man’s mouth, hot, demanding, a tiny slip of a wet tongue, the taste alien at first then turning achingly familiar. An accepting moan slipped from Tatsu’s throat.

Those warm lips moved again, a briefer kiss filled with the sense of discovery and promise in the fleeting touch. Then gone. Tatsu opened his eyes. Stood alone, body pulsing with want, cock hard beneath his jock. Mind reeling with the mystery, he turned to ask Bana if he’d seen the stranger. Needed confirmation that he was not crazy. Saw with dismay that the Irishman, head turned away, was still talking on his phone.

“You are
kurutteiru
,” Tatsu called himself all kinds of crazy. Flustered, he snapped his
katana
into its
saya
and turned to Bana who looked up in confused surprise.

“What the fekkin hell happened? Where’d that one come from?” He jerked his chin at the fifth corpse twitching at Tatsu feet.

Tatsu’s reply stuttered from lips still zinging from the tender press of that mouth. “Jumped me.” What could he say? That some man—some gorgeous, Japanese man wielding a
tanto
—had just materialized out of the dark, saved his ass then kissed him? And what a kiss.
Kuso,
he’d must have hallucinated it, right? Some kind of adrenalin overload brought on by the insanity of the fight. Yet the humming in his cock and burning on his lips told him otherwise.

Bana gave Tatsu a long, suspicious stare then shrugged. “Okay, c’mon then, I’m parched. I’ll buy ya a billie-dee while I wait for the clean-up crew.”

Determined to get answers and needing to hear the solid reality of another voice, Tatsu followed the stocky man back into the bar. They hunkered down in the booth nearest the back door and let their combat-strung nerves relax. Bana ignored the staccato of Tatsu’s questions. Instead, he waggled two fingers in the direction of the waitress.

The Irishman muttered a “Thanks, luv,” when Doris brought their tall stouts. He gulped his in three immense thirsty swallows. “Keep yer gob shut, boyo,” Bana menaced as he slammed his empty mug down hard enough to rattle the table. He fingered his throat above his collar. Deep purple blotches already blossomed around the wounds.

“Another word an’ I’ll personally slice off yer clackers. Go home. I’ll find ya in the bye-and-bye an’ we’ll talk.” His cell phone rang. Without another word, Bana shoved the instrument against his ear and stalked out the back door leaving Tatsu speechless for the second time that night.

Mere minutes before the first glimmer of light touched the snow-capped Eastern range, Arisada arrived at the sanctuary of his home on Mercer Island. He showered then locked himself in his bedchamber in the basement. That he’d been tracking those same rogues that attacked the older man was no mere coincidence. That the lovely green-eyed boy—the reincarnation Arisada had sought for eight centuries—just happened to be at that very time and place, also no coincidence. The timing only could be the result of
karma
.

Arisada had been tracking the rogues and felt no regret when the humans killed them. Saving the boy’s life was pure instinct. Kissing him was pure desire. After hundreds of lifetimes, Arisada’s need shattered his self-control and within seconds he found his lips fastened to that pretty, surprised mouth.

Able only to think about the Japanese hunter fighting in that alley, he felt no urge to sleep. He had no doubt the soul of Nowaki lived in the body of this beautiful youth. Yet, the utter improbability of it stunned Arisada. But why not? He’d lived hundreds of years, seen thousands of boys. Almost given up. His need for
fukushū
, for vengeance for Mii-dera, was the core of his life. Until now.

He lay awake considering how to confront the emerald-eyed boy—for the vampire could only think of him as a boy. What words to use to convince him of his reincarnation as Koji Nowaki, the traitor of Mii-dera. And as a traitor, he must die.

But the satisfaction of realizing his long-awaited revenge mocked Arisada. A torrent of conflicting emotions besieged him. The vampire recalled every exquisite detail of the boy from the alley. Every nuance of movement, every glimpse of flesh and expression, sooty lashes lowering over jade eyes, the tiny huff of sound as breath entered and left the youth’s delectable mouth.

And oh, the taste of those beautiful lips! They were tender and sweet and heartbreakingly familiar.

A visceral honesty, more ingrained than revenge ever could be, showed him the truth. While he always planned to kill Nowaki in his new form, Arisada had never dreamed that he would fall in love—instantly and insanely—with that form.

Arisada ached to claim this pretty, no beautiful, green-eyed youth. Just once, drive his cock between those tight buttocks and into that pulsing heat before death closed those peridot eyes. He looked down the planes of his thin body—the pale skin stretched over the stark arch of ribs, the angles of the hollows below his sharp hips, his large cock that was responsible for as much pain as his fangs. His fingers, described by some as long and elegant, by others as cruel and talonned, tugged on his desire-hardened nipples before sliding down to curl around his hot, demanding flesh. The fantasy took him as he pulled on himself with harsh, unforgiving strokes.

His fantasy took his mind. He tasted every secret place on the youth’s honey-colored skin, suckled on tender nipples—were they dusky pink or nut brown? Lave over the ridges and cuts of muscles down to that cock, pulsing hard and hot. Take that turgid, begging member deep into his mouth, until the boy bucked beneath him.

So vivid his fantasy, that Arisada felt long legs settle their warm weight on his shoulders. Smelled the rich musk of arousal pouring from sex-flushed skin. Heard deep visceral moans of raw need as he plundered that heated core. Felt the wet, intense pressure of a hot channel clamped around his cock. The slap, slap, slap of skin on skin. The raw noises of rut—panting, rasping breath, harsh groans, ecstatic mewls and entreaties for more.

Arisada stroked himself faster, a punishing drag over satin-covered iron. He rubbed his thumb over the weeping crown with rough, desperate impatience, jacking the taut skin over the steel of his dick. The other hand rolled over his balls, forefinger breaching the resistance of his clenched hole. Curling against his wet walls.

He envisioned the boy in the alley, those emerald eyes blazing with an incandescence of pleasure, the orgasm blossoming across a straining young face. Imagined that pure leaping cry, the hot wet spurt as the boy surrendered his seed.

The image of those beautiful jade eyes drove that wild heat down Arisada’s spine. His balls ached, his anus pulsed. Pain stabbed him as his fangs tore through his gums. Then that blinding moment as his spunk ribboned from between his clenched fist. His harsh shout of ecstasy ended in a deep sob of sorrow.

On a tangle of sweat-soaked sheets, Arisada lay spent but unfulfilled. Anguish crushed his heart. He was honor-bound to slay the jade-eyed boy. Yet, Arisada’s soul ached at the thought of destroying one so young and so unaware of the sins of the soul now possessing his body. He would never be able to take the boy’s life in combat. One glance from those emerald eyes would still Arisada’s sword and shatter his heart.