Chapter 20: Penance

“Well, we can’t leave him,” Shannon cried. “What if that vampire never comes back for him?”

“He will,” Masaaki growled. “That’s why we’re leaving.” He had a duffel-bag of cash over one shoulder, and a bundle of groceries over the other. He took these out to the car, dropped them in the backseat, then came back for more.

“You’re not going to like my apartment,” Shannon said. “It’s small.”

“Small, but safe.”

“God, I can’t believe this.” She had never been so tired in her life. She checked her watch. Almost six in the morning. She’d gotten maybe two hours of sleep before the yatagarasu had gotten into a brawl in her living room. “Can’t I just sleep a little while longer?” She knew she was whining, but at this point, she didn’t really care.

“We need to move, now. Before he arrives with reinforcements.” He snatched up a stack of books and carried it out to the car.

Shannon gave the sofa a look of longing. The last thing she wanted to do was go out to the car and drive them to her apartment. But, at the yatagarasu’s insistence, that’s exactly what she did. At least she won the argument about bringing the dog. Every dog she had ever seen had tried to maul her on sight except for this one, which made him an O.K. dog, in her view, regardless of what the crabby old sword-slinging freak said.

They scrunched all of their belongings and groceries over on one side of the spacious backseat, and let the dog sit upright on the other. Then, window rolled down, music blasting, discussing how to kill people with Masaaki, she drove them to her studio apartment, where she crashed the moment her head hit her pillow.

That evening when she woke up, she had to feed again. It was a desperate ache in her chest, just under her heart, and when Masaaki flatly told her to wait until dawn, that he didn’t have the energy to feed her and the vampire lord, Shannon felt an instinctive rush of panic within and almost took him anyway. It was everything she could do to lay on the bed for the next six hours, staring at the ceiling, hands fisted in the covers as she listened to the yatagarasu move around the room nearby.

The next morning, the yatagarasu handed her the keys to the Mercedes. “Take me somewhere sunny,” he said, and Shannon saw the flash of fear in his eyes before he quickly hid it by pretending to pick at something on his shirt.

Though every instinct was telling her to grab him by the throat and drive her fangs into his neck, Shannon swallowed down the urge and drove him to the inlet. Trying not to look at the throbbing golden spiderweb of his blood-vessels, she walked him down the treeline to a secluded spot along the swampy beach and waited for him to pick a spot to sit down. For a long moment, Masaaki simply sat cross-legged in the sun, staring out at the deep blue water of the lake.

The sun, by this point, was actually starting to make Shannon feel ill. “Masaaki…” she whispered, finding herself fighting the desperate urge to lunge at him like a starving animal. Her hands were shaking. “I’m…”

“…hungry, I know.” Masaaki swallowed, hard. He turned to look at her, and there was fear in his silver-streaked brown eyes. “I’m terrified of vampires, Shannon. I’m a samurai, and I’m terrified of vampires. When that lord fed on me…” He made a bitter sound. “I lost my mind with terror. I didn’t even think to summon my hikari until after he’d taken his fill.”

Shannon was so desperate that she was having trouble speaking. “What do you want me to do?”

Masaaki timidly met her eyes. “Please promise me. Never without permission.”

Shannon flushed and dropped her head. “I already broke that promise once.”

“It was your first time,” Masaaki said softly. “I was surprised you let me up at all.”

The sun was actually starting to hurt. Shannon slid her arms over her chest, trying to protect some of the skin of her forearms. “I wasn’t thinking, Masaaki. It was like part of me just shut off.” The same part of her that was rapidly shutting down around her, leaving only that ache in her chest, that crystal-clear matrix of golden essence coursing through his system.

“Promise me that you will try now,” Masaaki said, “As much as you can. And that over time, you will learn. Never without permission. Me or anyone.”

“Never without permission,” Shannon agreed. But she knew damned well that if he suddenly said, “Oh, well, guess I’m just gonna tell you ‘no’ for right now, let you work on controlling yourself, better luck next time,” she was going to lunge and take him anyway. Her hands were even then trembling with the need to press her wrists to his throat, push her fangs up into his brain from below…

Masaaki must have seen it, too. He swallowed, and she saw sweat standing out on his forehead. “Okay,” he said softly. “Please not the gut or the chest or the throat. Please. Leg or arm.”

Shannon groaned with relief and fell to her knees beside him. “Thank you,” she whispered.

He bit his lip and, hesitantly, drew the hakama up over his leg.

“Where?” Shannon croaked, barely able to think over the throbbing golden energy pulsing inside his leg. “Show me.”

Masaaki grimaced, but then reluctantly took her hand and pressed it to his thigh.

Feeling the golden glow pulsing just under her skin, Shannon lost control. She felt that strange tensing in her wrist, felt the fangs slide out.

Masaaki stiffened under her, his breath catching in a whimper.

“Sorry,” Shannon managed, trying to pull back. “Sorry…” But then she felt the euphoric glow of his essence, drawn up into her being, and she tightened her fingers, forcing her fangs deeper.

“Hurts,” Masaaki whimpered. “Please no deeper.” His hands were fisting in the silty ocean sand, his breath was coming in low whines, and he was going pale, looking like he wanted to kick her.

Shannon felt herself struggling against the sudden tide of energy, like a swimmer caught in a moving river. “I’m sorry…” she whimpered. “I’m trying…” She didn’t have the control to retract the fangs. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Her heart was hammering oddly, like a gun going off in her ribcage. Then she felt the first heat hit her chest, washing outward. She gasped in a breath of relief, groaning as she drooped forward, over his leg, panting. She felt the heat spread, relaxing her, easing that anxiety that had been building since that first feeding two mornings ago. Ambrosia. There was no other word to describe it. Like liquid heaven, soothing her being, sharpening her senses.

Too soon, Masaaki said, “That’s enough.”

Instinctively, Shannon tightened her fingers on his thigh and snarled.

At Masaaki’s terrified whimper, however, the way he started hyperventilating in panic, she regained her wits in a wash of shame. She used the heat of her guilt to wrench her fangs free and pull her wrists tight against her chest, locking them there, curling into a ball in his lap, panting. “Sorry,” she whimpered, trying desperately to swim out of the rush of heat that was overwhelming her. She took several deep breaths, struggling against the overpowering urge to ram her fangs into his stomach.

To her surprise, Masaaki gingerly reached out and put an arm against her back, holding her. The touch allowed Shannon to focus, to swim upwards out of the carnal instinct to feed, following the tender sensation of his hand upon her back. For several minutes, they sat there like that, Shannon panting in his lap, straining against the animal drive to take more than he allowed, and the yatagarasu gingerly folding his arms around her, presenting his belly to her face as he pulled her gently against him.

Eventually, Shannon calmed down enough to get her heart-rate under control, and after a few more minutes listening to the yatagarasu breathe, she started to fall into a lull of near-sleep, surrounded by the soothing heat of his arms

“Thank you, daimyō.” The yatagarasu’s words were whispered somewhere above her head.

Shannon let out a shuddering sigh and grunted against his abdomen. Carefully, checking to make sure her fangs had retracted on their own—which they had—she unfolded and sat up. She wiped the crimson from her wrist on her jeans pant leg, then watched guiltily as Masaaki rubbed the blood from the two puncture-wounds in his thigh. Clearing her throat embarrassedly, she twisted in the grassy sand so that she was sitting beside him on the inlet’s ledge, facing the gray glacial water that the Yentna, Knik, and Matanuska dumped into the Cook Inlet. The sun once more felt glorious on her skin, warm and tantalizing. Rejuvenating her.

“You feeling okay?” Shannon asked, after they sat there like that for several minutes. She turned to look at him. “You’re looking a bit pasty. I took too much blood, didn’t I?”

The yatagarasu was pale, but he shook his head. Softly, he said, “A vampire drinks more essence than he does blood, daimyō. The blood is more or less for sustaining the body, and isn’t as necessary in this realm. Here in the First Realm, you take a few tablespoons, maybe as much as a cup. It’s the essence that drains me. The fangs absorb it like a sponge absorbs water, to feed your soul.”

Shannon froze. “I’m eating your soul?”

He shrugged. “A queen drinks more than most, but I think I can manage.”

She frowned at him. “I’m eating your soul? What happens if I don’t pull my fangs out?”

He gave her another timid look. “Aside from me dying? I’m not really sure.” When she just stared at him, he shrugged. “There are stories told of how those immortals who have died by a vampire find their spirits trapped by the vampire’s fangs, creating many angry kami who will haunt the area until the fangs are destroyed.” He shrugged. “But that is just legend.”

Shannon suddenly wasn’t feeling too good. “You’re telling me I’m eating your soul.”

He shrugged again.

“Oh fuck.” She glanced down at her wrists, feeling sick to her stomach. “I think I’m gonna barf.”

He gave her a fierce look. “It was my choice, daimyō. If you had had your way, you never would have fed of me, and we wouldn’t be sitting here in the sun together. I forced the issue. I chose.” But even as he said it, she saw his fear. And, following that, his shame. He ducked his head and looked away. “I will make it right again, earn back my honor with my blood. I must.”

Shannon was getting angry, now. “What would possess you to let someone eat your soul?” She cried. “What the hell, dude?” He had turned her into an eater-of-souls. That was just great. Just fucking great.

Masaaki grunted and started picking at the flat, water-rounded stones of the lakebed. “I have some transgressions to atone for, in my captivity.”

Shannon stared at him. “Transgressions? You’re kidding me, right? Whatever they made you do, you couldn’t have stopped it.”

He lifted his head to meet her gaze, his brown-and-silver eyes flat. “They made me beg for life.”

Shannon frowned. “So?”

“That is unacceptable.”

Confused, now, Shannon said, “Uh, news-flash here, bud, but most people want to live. If they don’t, they get rounded up, stuffed full of meds, and thrown in a padded room until they decide to be happy again.”

“A true samurai does not want to live.”

Shannon squinted at him. “Then, uh, what does he want to do? Die?”

“He wants to serve his daimyō. If his daimyō requires him to fight on the battlefield, then he does not try to live. Wanting to live will make him make decisions that will aid the opponent. A single samurai who has divorced himself from the will to live, who exists solely to serve his daimyō and protect his honor, will be worth a hundred regular men on the battlefield.”

“Oooooorrr,” Shannon said, “you could invest in an AK-47 and take out thousands, all from the safety of your climate-controlled bunker.”

Masaaki frowned at her. “What?”

She waved off the question. “Boomstick stuff.”

Masaaki grunted and glanced back out at the line of birch trees across the inlet. “I begged for life. I figured that I could renew my honor by surrendering to a daimyō, facing my fear, and using my body to teach a vampire queen to eat gently, without cruelty.” He gave a deep sigh and started picking at the sand again.

“And if I suddenly decided to throw you in shackles and toss you in the basement?” Shannon demanded. “I’ve seen what your blood does to me. I’m strong. Like high on cocaine strong. I could pin you down and do whatever I wanted to you, I’m pretty sure.”

Masaaki gave her a nervous look. “That was one of the fears I had to face, to serve my penance.”

“Penance?!” Shannon demanded. “Dude, you were a captive. Nobody gives a shit what you said while you were a captive. You were at their mercy and they were evil. You’ve got an excuse.”

“I give a shit.” He looked up at her. “It’s my honor.”