White Lies: (The Uruwashi Series #4) (8 page)

Yukihime’s expression lit up. “Not only Ryōshi-san…”

NOW that we are alone, we can speak freely,” Wren said.

Tristan lowered his sword, letting the tip just graze the ground. “You think I have trouble with speaking freely?”

The vampire smiled a real smile, all fang and honesty. “No. You don’t seem the shy type.” The smile slipped as he considered Tristan again with some scrutiny. “You’re not bitten, are you?”

“‘Scuse me?” It was natural instinct that made Tristan lash out. He was grateful to his obstinate side since it helped hide his surprise.

Wren took a step forward and Tristan automatically moved away, keeping distance between them. “You’re the one that’s said to have killed Malik.”

Relaxing slightly, Tristan lowered his blade again. His arms were getting tired and this guy didn’t have an air of malice about him anymore. “Sure did. What of it?”

“I should thank you, he was a revolting vampire. Not abnormal, mind you, to our kind, but revolting nonetheless. However,” he sighed and returned his sword to its scabbard on his left hip. “I don’t believe you acted alone. He was too old and you are obviously not an awakened Uruwashi.”

“Oh yeah?” he tried to bluff his way through this. “And what makes you say that?”

Wren got this strange look on his face and came for Tristan. Wren tackled him and Tristan tumbled to his back. Hands grabbed his wrists and pinned them under his chin so that he had no leverage.

“An educated guess.” Wren tilted his head to side, eyes straying down to Tristan’s neck. Up this close Tristan could see the edge of scars peeking out from under his mask. “I don’t suppose you’ll give me a taste?”

It took everything in Tristan not to lash out needlessly. He was learning not to be impulsive. His efforts didn’t always pay off but he hoped they would this time. He just had to keep his head.

“That’d be a negative. Now, you mind?”

Wren considered him a moment, only his one good eye showing emotion. Enough that Tristan could almost guess what the man was about to say just before he said it. “You smell of Ash of Earth.”

He couldn’t hide his surprise this time. Okay, that wasn’t what he thought the man was going to say.

“How do you know Asta Moriakos?”

“I could ask you the same thing. Who are you? And what the fuck is going on?”

Wren let go of Tristan’s arms and sat up, keeping the other man pinned under him. “Are you always so rude?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

Wren just gave him a look.

With a surge of adrenalin and maybe a touch of panic, Tristan forced Wren off him and to the snow on his back. He laid blade of his katana across Wren’s throat to show him he was serious. “Now listen to me, fang faced fuck, you’re going to tell me what the hell is going on or I’m going to press down and slice your pretty little head off, no regrets.”

“And you wonder why others see you as surly.”

Tristan pushed enough to draw blood. “I really won’t mind killing you.” Too bad he would.

Wren blinked at him, one of those long slow, thought-processing blinks. “I don’t believe that. And if you do, you’re just lying to yourself.”

“That—”

“If you’re not going to cut my pretty little head off, I’d like to get up now. Vampire aren’t affected by the cold, but we still feel it and I rather dislike being cold.”

Tristan frowned, considering his options. He didn’t really like either of them: A) Follow through and kill this guy even though he had no proof of wrongdoing or B) Let him go until said proof arises and just hope for the best. With a groan Tristan let the vampire up.

“Thank you,” Wren said casually as he brushed the snow from his clothing.

Tristan took several large steps back, giving himself some reaction space. “Okay, let’s try this again. I’m Tristan, nice to meet you.” He made a flamboyant gesture to indicate that he expected Wren to reciprocate.

Fixing his clothing, Wren mumbled softly, “Finally, some manners…” He straightened, rolling his shoulders and then presented a deep bow. “Tsukahara Toshiro.
Hajimemashite
. I go by Wren though, please.”

“Fantastic. Now that we all know each other, mind telling me what’s going on? How do you know Ash?”

The vampire frowned with half his face, the rest hidden behind the mask and veil of hair. “I could ask the same of you. Then again, she always did have a soft spot for the underdog.”

“What makes you think I’m the underdog?”

“You’re an Uruwashi in the twenty-first century, that makes you an underdog. Especially if you’re not bitten.”

“Who says I’m not?”

“Oh please, must we play this pointless game?”

Tristan huffed, but didn’t bother with more needless answers. He made a big show of sheathing his sword and pulling his gun, pulling the slide loudly, before letting it hang at his side in his hand. He felt a thousand times better with the gun. “She’s my bodyguard.”

That single brow raised high. “
Nan dato
?”

“That’s right, my bodyguard.”

“She always did have a protective streak.”

Tristan huffed. “What are we doing here, huh? Shooting the shit?”

Wren let out a long breath. “Are you, or are you not, the one Akane sent for?”

“Huh?” he grunted ineloquently.

Wren shifted on his feet, looking irritated. “What did she tell you?”

“Look, I’m here for her troll problem. You were just an added bonus.”

Wren let out a long, dramatic sigh. “
Naruhodo
.” When he looked up again it seemed like he might have been trying not to smirk. “So you will kill me now for my indiscretions?”

“If the fang fits.”

“And how do you verify these indiscretions?”

Huh, good question. It wasn’t like he could bite the vampire and see their life. So how did he confirm a vampire’s guilt? Oh, right, that’s what Ash was for. “I, uh…”

“I assure you, Tristan of the Uruwashi, that I have not killed any innocent on purpose in nearly one hundred and two years. I could give you the exact count before that, if you’d like.”

He wasn’t sure he bought that, but he didn’t have time to harp right now. “And Oogui?”

“That vile monstrosity… I swear upon my honor that I’ve nothing to do with her but an unfortunate unrequited attraction.”

Tristan frowned at other man. Troll, while hating all other races, including their own, were known for their particular attachment to the vampires. The feeling was never mutual and Tristan could see why now that he’d met a real live troll in person. He hoped it would be his last.

“Oh, so this is your first time seeing one?”

Cringing to himself at his carelessness, Tristan threw up with mental block with an ironclad hold. He couldn’t afford for Wren to read anything more from him, no matter how insignificant it might seem. Not until he understood this man. And there was only one way to find out.

Tristan’s smile came off more like a sneer. “You’re pretty good at reading my thoughts, for a vanilla.”

The vampire looked deeply upset by Tristan’s accusation. “That is just rude.”

“I’m right, aren’t I? Because,” he said with a lot of theatric, “if I’m right that means no seikonō. The kitsune said you were the one drowning those people, but you’re not. Not if you’re only a vanilla.”

Wren smiled. “You’re not as simple as you look.”

“And I’m rude?” he muttered more to himself more than anything. “You know who it is, don’t you?”

Wren tilted his head to the side, considering him for a moment. The movement pulled all of the hair he wore over his face away from him, giving Tristan a better view than when he was pinned before. Even from across the distance between them he could see the edge of scars that trailed out from under the mask and down the man’s neck, dipping down past his collar. Tristan wondered how far they went and how he got them.

The vampire was a vain race, only choosing the most beautiful of humans to carry on the vampiric legacy. Being scarred wasn’t usually beautiful. That left only two options to Wren’s existence, either some vampire took pity on him as a scarred human and appreciated the apparent beauty that was, despite the blemish. Or, more likely, Wren was mutilated after he died. Punishment for betraying his Master would have been the most logical reason. So who was Wren’s Master and were they the one setting him up?

“Yes,” the vampire answered Tristan’s question simply. “I do know who it is.”

Tristan sighed. “So you’re hiding out here, trying to stay undead and poor little you just can’t get a break when Oogui decides to attach herself to you. That about the rub of it?”

Wren gave a little nod, the corner of his mouth curling into a sly smile. “More or less.”

“Great. So maybe you want to tell me who’s the real one doing the killing?”

“Do you intend to kill the one who murders indiscriminately?”

“That’s the idea.”

“No offense, because you seem so very confident, but you aren’t up for the challenge. Akane was wrong, you’re not the right person for this job.”

Tristan snorted. “Look, pal. I don’t know you and you don’t know me. What we do know is that you are the hunted and I’m the hunter. Okay? Would I have come out here if I couldn’t handle one little vampire?”

Sure, he sounded like an arrogant prick, but he needed this guy to be a little afraid of him. But, from the way Wren talked, he knew that as an unbitten Uruwashi, Tristan was merely human in every way. His skin might as well have been tissue paper, his limbs pretzel sticks. There was no denying that he was weaker, at a disadvantage, but he still had a few tricks up his sleeve that would make his enemy underestimate him.

Without any warning, the vampire darted for him. He was over a hundred, if his word was to be believed, but he was also a vanilla. Slow as a snail compared to his Master counterparts. Tristan emptied his clip before Wren ever reached him. By the vampire’s grunt of pain, a few hit their mark too. Sure enough, when Tristan was slammed to the ground, he could smell the blood.

Something in his middle clenched and he had to force himself to believe that it wasn’t hunger. Wren’s tackle had too much momentum and the couple was tossed over again but not before Tristan got a face full of blood. In Tristan’s confused frenzy to keep it out of his eyes and mouth he missed his chance to dominate the vampire and was shoved to his back again. One eye had too much blood to open, but the other cracked open just enough to see a mouth full of pretty white teeth and two small fangs coming at him.

“Fuck!” Tristan hissed and threw up a fist. He managed to punch the guy right in the gunshot wound on his neck, opening it again. When a fresh stream of blood sputtered into Tristan’s face, he nearly took it in the mouth and flung his face to the side, giving Wren the perfect angle to bite him.

“Tristan!” came a distant cry. The howl of a tiny fox echoed the fae’s plea and Tristan tensed.

“Your friends are having trouble with the troll,” Wren whispered. His face was splattered in fresh blood. The wounds would heal fairly quickly, but because of his young age and lack of seikonō, the actual blood would take a very long time for it to dissolve into nothing. Up this close, Tristan’s nose and stomach were convinced it smelled delicious.

“They’re not my friends.”

“No, I’d think not. It’d be an unfortunate thing to befriend someone like Desmond… James the Good.” The vampire snorted a crude laugh. “
Good
, indeed.”

Something in Wren’s voice made Tristan open his eyes. Blood stung them, clouded everything in a haze of red, but he needed to look the vampire in the eye. “Do you—do you know him?”

“Of course I do.” Wren sighed, eyes drifting away from Tristan’s to focus on nothing. “Desmond is my Master.”

ASH moved silently around the room as she put away the last of their tea. Having tea with the person she was angriest with was not on her to-do list for the night. But the break seemed to calm Yukihime and bring her back to herself again. Almost just, anyway.

The point was, Yukihime wasn’t toying with Ash, too much, and might actually be receptive to civilized discussion. Ash just had to choose the right words.

“How is my niece?” That was purposeful enough, right? Remind the old vampire who she was keeping captive.

“Yare yare, you think I keep her? Like Malik had before, forced? Do you not know me at all, my dear Asta-chan?”

A string of complaints came from Malik’s head.

Ash frowned. “You mean she chooses to stay?”

“Of course.”

“It’s wrong of you to taste her mind.”

Yukihime looked perturbed when she lifted her chin and said, “She offers me her very soul willingly. If you had only listened to me in France instead of going off on your superior tangent, then you would have known.”

Ash gasped, not believing. “That is—”

“The truth.
And
if you had come to see her sooner then perhaps you would be in her good graces as well.”

“She… she is angry with me?”

Yukihime harrumphed and put her back to Ash. “How would I know, I’m just the crazy old vampire who carries around the head of her dead lover.”

Ash lowered her face into her hand with a sigh. “You are the crazy old vampire who carries around the head of her dead lover, but you are also my friend.” Didn’t mean she wasn’t very angry with her right then. In truth, Ash didn’t want to be here, talking to Yukihime but she was glad she was. Something was different with the ancient vampire today and Ash felt almost an equal to the woman for the first time.

Yukihime turned enough to look back over her shoulder. “Really?”

“Why else do you think I have put up with you all this time?”

Yukihime turned around to fully face Ash. “No one’s called me friend in…” Her gaze grew distant as she tried to remember. “Well, I really don’t remember now… Desmond hates me. I know he does, I can see it in they he looks at me when he thinks I’m not paying attention—I’ve tasted it in his blood. And the fae…” Yukihime sighed.

Well, it was true, almost all scion hated their Master, it was a part of being a vampire. “Maybe,” Ash said, taking a step towards her. “If you did not meddle with people’s lives, maybe you would have more friends.” Especially now, with so much change on the horizon, it seemed wise to befriend those more powerful. Ash thought of Innokentiy and wondered if there was a way to find him again. He was successfully “dead” for nearly a millennia though, so her chances were slim.

Yukihime jerked her attention to Ash, her eyes full of intensity. “Only those who matter to me the most, Asta-chan.”

Ash stopped just out of reach from the other woman and crossed her arms under her chest, tilting her head to the side in consideration. “Even the child of our enemy?”

“Especially him.”

“Why? What is it he is meant to do?”

Yukihime frowned. “Not so much do as become.” She took a step forward. “With your help of course.”

“Which is what?” Ash asked, frustration making its way into her tone. “A year ago Lilith came to me and told me the impossible. That I was to meet a man and that I was meant to save him. Not only save him, but change him to his very core, make him into the very monster our kind spent centuries trying to eradicate. And for what? The annihilation of the vampire race? Just how are two people supposed to pull that off? And why? I have never thought the world would be better without the vampire. If anything, the humans need the sin of our kind. We cull the evil of humanity.”

Yukihime’s brows rose high. “You think the world deserves sin?”

“There is balance, however unjust and I will not be the one to destroy that.” Ash huffed. “This whole thing is just… frustrating.”

Yukihime watched her for a moment and then shrugged, her whole demeanor relaxing. “Knowing what you do, you can’t tell me you don’t foresee something big happening.” Ash opened her mouth to argue, but Yukihime spoke over her. “And while, yes the death of the vampire or the human race is certainly big, I don’t think that’s the fate of life on this planet. Actually, from what I understand of it…”

“What?” Ash prompted when the old vampire looked like she wasn’t going to say anymore. “Yukihime, please.”

Yukihime sighed and turned away to go plop on her oversized bed. Ash tentatively sat down on the edge, close enough to be part of the conversation, but far enough to be out of reach.

“I think it’s just the opposite. I think Tristan is meant to save the human
and
legendary races—human, shinwa and heikō. I think his purpose is to save us all. He is this balance you speak of because there is no balance right now. The scales are tipped but the imbalance has yet to fully be realized.”

Mamoru had thought so too. Ash wasn’t so sure when she tasted the thought from the man, but now, hearing Yukihime say it… “How can I ever believe anything you say to me, Shishō?”

Yukihime smiled. “You shouldn’t. But trust my intentions.” She rolled over so that she could put a hand on Ash’s bare knee. “You always had a choice. You still do.”

Ash looked at the small hand and sighed, pushing her off. “Stop that.”

“What can I say to make you understand I mean well?”

Ash huffed as the other woman moved around on the bed to place herself behind Ash. She didn’t even pull away when Yukihime put her hands on her shoulders and whispered, “Lilith remembers you well, Asta-chan. She loves you and wishes to see you again. But like all Moriakos, she is resiliently stubborn. She just needs time to mend her hurt feelings.”

Ash laughed, shaking her head but wouldn’t look back at the vampire leaning against her. “It is not like you to placate. Not without some other nefarious reason.”

“I think you misunderstand me, child.”

Ash’s lips pressed into a thin line as she gave Yukihime a look over her shoulder. “Nefarious is your religion,
Shishō
. And you are a zealot to the extreme.”

Yukihime laughed and hugged her tightly. “Come to bed with me.”

Ash immediately started to shake her head as she shrugged out of Yukihime’s hold. “No. I cannot—will not, not again.” That Ash survived that first and only time was a testament to her mental strength. It was a test she was not willing to endure again.

“Oh dear.” Yukihime’s small hands wandered up Ash’s torso. “We had such fun.”

“No,” Ash said firmly, pushing the hands aside. “You had fun.” Perhaps a human might think of it as torture. To the vampire it all was perfectly normal.

The ancient vampire sighed and threw herself back on the bed with a big pout. “Fine.” Then her face lit up. “We can wait for the boys to return. I know you haven’t given lovely Ryōshi-san his official baptism and what better way than—”

“No!” Ash’d heard enough and burst to her feet. “No, no, no, NO.”

The other vampire laughed hard enough and with enough motonō that Ash doubled over, moaning out her pleasure. She hated it when Yukihime did that.

“What happened with you?”

“What?” Ash asked in a breathy whisper as the last of the pleasure fizzled out.

“Between you and Tristan? Things are not going well.”

Ash scowled. “Are you truly asking because you do not already understand our situation or are you looking to pry for information you already know and just wish me to put it to words?”

“You were at a crossroads, Asta-chan, back there in France. To stay or leave. To either give up on him or finally give him everything. You decided to stay and yet, you are still holding back. Why is that?”

“Again, you need to ask?” Yukihime knew perfectly well why she would be more inclined to hold back than not. The vampire had tasted Ash’s memories, thoroughly shifted through them all and knew her feelings.  Too much past, too much remembered anguish, they all served to prove that impulsive hadn’t boded well for Ash.

The older vampire sighed. “I understand your life is not what you wanted it to be. But is anyone’s?”

“Well, no—”

“You’re being just terrible to Tristan. He loves you deeply. I’ve never seen that sort of love for any of our kind by anyone. You have a chance to be truly happy and yet, you still hold him an arm’s length away. He’s strong, but the human in him makes him fragile too. If you’re not careful, you will lose him forever. And it will not be just you who suffers.”

Ash crossed her arms over her middle and hung her head. “I know, all right? I know. But I—it’s just so hard. What if I lose him anyway? No, you know what? No. This is
not
a conversation I want to have with
you
.”

Yukihime made a dismissive gesture with her hands, lips puckered. “He’s not shallow or petty. Ma, well perhaps a little petty, but he seems to enjoy focusing that on my Desmond.”

Ash had to smile. It was turning into a hobby between those two, hating each other. It was almost endearing.

“Asta-chan,” Yukihime took her hands into her own. “I may be a child, but trust me on this. I’ve lived long enough that I’ve seen more than a few interesting things in my life. Even learned some valuable lessons. Just tell him. Let him have you, all of you. He will accept you as you are.”

Ash smiled for the first time since entering the house and Yukihime made a small noise of surprise, hearing Ash’s words before she spoke. “That is precisely why I am here.” If she could get her book, then there’d be little Ash had to hold back physically from Tristan anymore—at least until she was ready to take that one last step.

Yukihime got a sly look on her face as she sat up. “Sō ka?” She looked past Ash, her eyes filling with mischief. “And you think a simple spell will be all it takes to fix things between you?”

“No, but it is a very good start.”

The older vampire thought for a moment and then got a calculating look in her eyes. “Join me for a walk. I have something to show you.”