Eternal Samurai Page 5

  “Not yet, Atsilí. I’m gonna make you scream when you come.” He pulled out with a sudden jerk that felt good to both of them.

  A quick flip and Tatsu’s trembling legs rested on the Navajo’s broad shoulders. Sage’s mouth tasted him, laved hot, needy licks along his quaking thighs, nibbled over his tightening sac, delivered several throat-deep sucks to his cock, leaving it dripping with saliva and precum.

  A moaned “Oh kuso,” followed by a string of need-ladened, sex-filled “fuck me’s,” spilled from Tatsu’s parted mouth.

  The Indian looked down with a curious wonder at the sooty eyelashes fluttering low over pink-dusted cheeks. Lower lip caught in his perfect teeth. Dusky skin hot and flushed, thrumming with sensation. That thin, tough body taking him, balls-deep, in the ass. Such delicate beauty hid a will of steel. Samurai steel. This beauty had waited for him. Sage’s breath blew out from lips parted in astonishment.

  “Anything … anything for you.” With an urgency unknown to him, he rolled the head of his prick against that brown, puckered hole. Left a sticky trail over the pulsing muscle. A whispered “ready?” then he drove in until his cock was buried to the root in Tatsu’s ass.

  The aching pleasure of that stretch was so absolutely incredible that Tatsu lost himself. He used his legs to drag Sage deeper, stilled his cry against the excruciating fullness. Begged in two languages for more of that rigid length. Felt the Navajo pull back until only the head of his cock rested just inside the first ridge of muscle, that dragging exit stretching him in a delicious new way.

  Then Sage fucked in deep, hips twisting and grinding. Riding him. Tatsu lost himself in the shocking pain-pleasure of that invasion. He rocked against the Navajo’s pistoning body. Heard himself babbling, “Fakku, fakku.” Demanding more pain, more pleasure. Begging for every inch of that wonderful, fat Navajo cock.

  And Sage responded, Pistoning into him, until both were utterly engulfed in waves of ecstasy. Ecstasy and a beautiful sense of the rightness of it all.

  Sage’s fingers took Tatsu’s cock, jacking him with every pounding thrust. “Come for me, sweet Ninja Boy,” he panted in a voice turned gravelly with sex and long-denied want.

  Those words fired sheet lightning that shot from Tatsu’s balls, his pucker, out his cock. Then Sage’s wide crown rolled over his prostate. The climbing chill in his ass turned into blazing heat. “Iku, iku! I’m coming!” His orgasm ripped through him, sending pulses of glistening cum over his chest.

  Sage slammed one final time into Tatsu’s center. His body froze for a moment. Then, his nuts emptied their load, driving his spunk out of his cock in pulses of pure, scalding heat.

  “Atsilí!”

  The Navajo’s cry shattered Tatsu’s heart. He looked up at his copper-skinned lover, saw the eyes flaring with a wild radiance, the face contorted yet fiercely beautiful in its carnal pleasure. Sage flung his head back. His shining, black mane fanned the air like the wings of a great, obsidian bird. He was primal, untamed, gloriously savage, as he poured himself into Tatsu’s accepting core.

  Spent but not sated, they lay curled together, watching the smoke drift up through the hole in the roof. Sage dragged a blanket over their bodies, caked with dry sweat and sticky with cum. Lassitude, warm and heavy, spread through Tatsu. His ass throbbed with a delicious ache. His heart was filled with joy

  “Are you staying in Santa Fe?” Tatsu cringed at the grating need of his entreaty.

  Sage propped himself onto one elbow and pecked Tatsu on the nose. “Maybe. For a while.” Those mahogany eyes held no real answer. He rose and began dressing. “Come on, we’d better get back. Your uncle’ll be worried.”

  For six days, they went nuts with each other. Sage took what he wanted, and Tatsu took what he needed. Their fucking was hard and messy and painfully glorious. They took each other wherever and whenever they could. When Tatsu complained his ass was raw from taking the Navajo’s dick, Sage rimmed him until he spilled himself over and over, and his body had no more to give.

  Tatsu had no words for his first taste of Sage’s cock, that heavy weight, that rich male musk, the way the silky skin moved over the iron rod within. The salty-sweet cum spurting down his throat. He loved that prick, taking it into his willing mouth and eager hole at every opportunity.

  Late one night, frantic for reassurance, Tatsu rode his lover in the cramped cab of the truck parked in the shadow of a store. A storm of desperation, touching the edge of insanity, gripped Tatsu. Repeatedly, he drove his ass down so hard on the Navajo’s cock that Sage joked they were going to break the shocks. They came at the same moment amid hysterical laughter. Sage said it was like breaking the rules in school.

  Tatsu, sprawling spent and sober against his lover’s chest, whispered, “Aishite imasu,” too afraid to declare his love in English. He was certain Sage would never say those words to him in any language. He was right.

  Two days later, it was over. Tatsu found Sage’s Drifter parked in Ray’s driveway with a note taped to its chipped tank.

  “Atsilí, we walk separate paths. Another waits for you. The bike is so you won’t forget me.” It was unsigned.

  Oh Sage, why? The walls that had been holding back Tatsu’s grief shattered. Pain—for his family, for Ojii-san, for Sage—sliced into him as surely as if he had stabbed himself with his razor-sharp tanto. He let it engulf him as he clung to the cold steel of those handlebars. He bit through his lip, managed to suppress the sob tearing its way up his throat.

  “Wakarimashita.” He told himself he understood. But he really didn’t.

  Five years gone, those few precious days with Sage. The Navajo had taken Tatsu with the wild, untamable force of a desert storm. Sage took what was offered then drove it back into Tatsu’s hungry body. Time not love was their real enemy.

  Staring out that grimy, bleak window over the alien Seattle skyline, Tatsu’s loneliness grabbed him, a fierce, unwelcomed clutch of hurt. He berated himself his weakness. Foolish to grieve over a love that was never meant to be. His destiny lay along the path of fukushū. He would allow nothing else.

  .

  Four

  The Seattle Quarantine, 2024

  A clinging fog rolled off Elliot Bay the next night when Tatsu returned to the Educated Whore, determined to find the Irishman—the very armed and very dangerous Irishman. A man like that only survived by knowing about every threat around him. And that meant vampires. Tatsu counted on Bana remembering him, gambled that the man perhaps felt somewhat grateful for his safe escort home, even more grateful that his “good Samaritan” hadn’t robbed him blind.

  Tatsu entered the smoke-filled bar just in time to spot the Irishman ducking out the rear exit. Tatsu’s “Hey, Bana,” drowned beneath the sudden blast of music. He darted across the floor, muttering his “gomens” as he shouldered aside a couple of customers who yelled their outrage. The steel door nearly broke Tatsu’s nose as he slammed through it and stepped into total chaos.

  A huge bull vampire held Bana aloft in a chokehold. The Irishman’s fingers clawed at the tree trunk of an arm wrapped around his neck. Bana’s eyes bulged from his florid, oxygen-starved face. With a growl, the vampire hoisted the Irishman farther off the pavement. Bana’s legs flailed with futile desperation. A smaller vampire clung to the Irishman’s thrashing legs. Bana’s boot slammed into the creature’s stomach sending him reeling into two more vampires, one Japanese, circled the struggling pair.

  Tatsu whipped out both swords in mid-flight as he leaped over the railing to the alley below. At his war cry, the third vampire spun toward him and aimed a gun. Tatsu danced forward and sliced his katana downward through the bloodsucker’s shoulder. A scream of agony bounced around in the narrow alley. The weapon fell from the nerveless fingers as the limb flopped to the ground. The creature staggered backwards clutching his truncated limb. Instantly, Tatsu whipped his shorter wakizashi across the vampire’s torso opening clothing, skin and viscera. Raw, steaming guts spilled out. Tatsu spared no glance for his e
viscerated foe but whipped around to face the second attacker.

  A Japanese vampire screamed a battle cry in Kyotsugo, and charged. Two-handed, he sliced his katana diagonally across Tatsu’s torso. The blade missed by a millimeter as with an imperceptible shift of his weight, Tatsu rolled into a half-crouch. He drove his katana upwards. The creature faltered, eyes bulging in shock as Tatsu’s sword slid between his ribs into his lungs. Tatsu stood, pulling the blade free with a wet pop. The creature staggered face first into the side of a rusted dumpster where he slid to the ground and lay twitching.

  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 a
re 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.