BURUU!
No answer save the roaring surf, the undertow swelling in her ears. She struggled to the last, unwilling to end, clawing dark water in a futile attempt to make the surface. But she didn’t even know which way was up. The ocean pushed into her lungs, salt and cold and black, and as the light died and all became nothing, she felt the grip of water kami come to claim her spirit and drag her before the Judge of the Nine Hells.
Would he weigh her fair? With no one to burn offerings and no ashes on her face?
Would Buruu miss her?
Would Kin?
17
THE SWEETEST POISON
Her lips tasted of strawberries and sweat, warm as spring and soft as Kitsune silk. Wet beneath his fingertips, thighs smooth as glass, a river of glossy black spilling around her face and clinging to dripping breasts. She swayed above him; a long, slow dance in the lamplight, spilling across her contours, down into soft curves and sodden furrows. Soaking all around him, slick and scalding to the touch. She took his hands, pressed them against her, biting her lip and sawing back and forth atop him. Her sighs were the only sound in his world, her heat soaking through to his center. Her hips moved like a summer haze over lotus fields, climbing the mountain as she moaned his name over and over again.
“Ichizo.” Her lips on his own, breathing into his mouth. “Ichizo…”
He cried out as she finished him, arcs of lightning behind his eyes, every muscle afire. She collapsed atop him and lay there for a blissful forever, sweat mingling with his own, flesh slippery against his. He gasped for breath, the sheets beneath them a soaked and tangled mess.
“You…” Ichizo swallowed, “… will be the death of me, Michi-chan.”
A shy grin curled her lips as she rolled off him. Dragging a sheet around herself, Michi sat up on the futon’s edge, picked up the perspiring bottle of rice wine. He watched her profile in the dim light, throat shifting as she drank, a single droplet running down her chin, pooling in the groove at her clavicle. She tossed long hair back from her face, glanced at him with dark, smoky eyes and offered the bottle. He shook his head, collapsed back onto the pillows.
“Truthfully, are you looking to end me and escape?” His heart thundered behind his ribs. “I’m helpless after that, you should get it over with…”
She laughed, small voice husky with liquor.
“I fear I won’t have to lift a finger if you’re late for the council meeting, my Lord.” She slipped back into bed, rested her cheek against his chest. “Your cousin will have you commit seppuku to prove a point.”
“Gods.” Ichizo sat bolt upright. “What time is it?”
“It must be close to Snake Hour by now.”
“Izanagi’s balls!” Rolling from the ruins of the bed, he charged toward the washroom. He cracked a gong, and two serving girls scurried in from the hallway, heads bowed, eyes downturned. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“I did say something.” That same shy, delicate smile. “Ichizo. Ohhhh, Ichizo…”
“Demon woman.” His laughter carried over splashing water. “Two nights in your bed and you’ve bewitched me. I should send for a Purifier, have him cleanse me of your taint.”
“What would be the point, my Lord?” She pulled up the sheets to cover herself, curled beneath them. “When the next night you poison yourself anew?”
Ichizo emerged from the washroom shortly, scrubbed and smelling of lavender. The servants had slicked his hair into a topknot, arranged a long scarlet kimono upon his shoulders. He sat in front of the looking glass as one of the girls slipped a tall, tasseled hat onto his head, pierced it with long, golden needles. His robe spoke of lavish wealth, the irezumi on his skin was the work of a master inksmith. He stood as the second girl wrapped a silken obi around his waist, and he slipped two ornate chainswords into the folds at his left hip. The daishō had the unmistakable gleam of weapons that had never seen battle, yet he wore them like a man who knew the art of the blade.
At a nod from Ichizo, the servants vanished without a sound.
“Well?” He turned to the girl curled on the bed. “How do I look?”
Michi pulled the sheet down from her shoulders to expose a few teasing inches of skin, staring up at him through kohl-smeared lashes.
“Still hungry…”
“Gods, you do want me dead. How would I court you from the underworld?”
“Court me?” A short laugh. “I believe it’s customary to do that before you bed me, my Lord Magistrate.”