Mariko was jostled awake by the sway of an animal beneath her.
When she raised her eyelids, a smudge of brown muscle came into focus before her face. The muscles of a warhorse. Hattori Mariko had been thrown across the back of a steed, like a sack of grain. Realization surged through her. Remembrance clawed at her senses.
She’d been drugged by the leader of the Black Clan!
Mariko struggled to right herself, only to discover her hands bound. Swinging below her head. Her distress mounting, she tried to shift her body upward. To take stock of her surroundings.
They were still in the forest. Walking along a muddy embankment. She breathed deep. The air here was thinner. Crisper. They were now at a higher elevation.
Near a body of freshwater.
It was likely near dawn. And the—
A hand smacked the back of her head, chastising in its suddenness.
She could not help it. She cried out in frustration.
“Keep whimpering,” Ranmaru said. “It amuses my horse.”
Mariko lifted her arm to peek beneath it.
This was not possible.
She’d been thrown on the back of Takeda Ranmaru’s horse.
“Where—where are you taking me? And why would anyone want to amuse your horse?” Mariko croaked.
Ranmaru began to whistle a tune faintly familiar to her. “Because if you don’t, I’ll gut you and feed you to the brute. His favorite meal is the flesh of tiresome young men. Especially ones who whimper.”
“You routinely feed him whimpering young men?” Mariko attempted to twist into a better position. To see where they were.
“Not routinely. If he ate such a delicacy all the time, it would eventually lose its appeal.”
“How would you know?” she grumbled, swallowing the lump of distress gathering in her throat.
“I myself no longer have a taste for it.” With that, Ranmaru resumed whistling.
Her concern taking root, Mariko struggled to sit upright. Again a hand thwacked across the back of her skull.
Mariko shouted, the panic setting in. A warrior is never weak. “I must ask you to refrain from—”
“Listen to the little Lord Lackbeard, issuing orders like the damned emperor himself.” Ranmaru laughed.
Mariko clenched her teeth. It was easier for her to admit defeat. But she knew now was the time she most needed to appear strong—when she was at her weakest.
“Why have you drugged me?” she asked. “Where are you taking me?”
“More questions. In their depths, you’ll find the answer.”
She waded through Ranmaru’s words. Let her thoughts settle into straight lines.
More questions?
Understanding dawned on her, as chillingly bright as a winter sun.
The old man at the watering hole. He must have told Ranmaru I’d been asking after the Black Clan.
“Akira-san whispered something to you when you first arrived last night,” Mariko said, careful to conceal the defeat in her tone. Despite all her best efforts to evade notice, she’d been undone by the wily observations of a grumpy old man. “What did he say?”
“I knew you were smart.” Ranmaru spoke loudly, ignoring her question. “Even if you were as untried as a newborn colt.”
I lost my best chance.
I’m as good as dead.
Her body fell against the horse, loose in the face of failure. “So what do you intend to do with me?” she asked. “Besides feed me to your horse.”
“Stop asking questions. Truly you don’t learn.”
If I’m going to die, what is there left to learn?
No. She needed to be brave.
And there was always something left to learn.
Mariko wrapped her fingers around the rope knotted about her wrists. “One must ask questions if one intends to learn anything.” While she spoke, she searched for any slack in her bindings.
“I grow weary of your curiosity, Lord Lackbeard.” Ranmaru glanced to his right. To a person Mariko could not see. “Take this thing from me.”
A hand grabbed at the scruff of dirty fabric around her neck.
Mariko refrained from crying out again as she was hauled from one beast to another. This time she was not thrown on the back of the horse. No. This time she was tossed on her stomach before the rider, the breath momentarily knocked from her body.
As she was thrown about, she caught a flash of unbound dark hair.
ōkami. The Wolf.
Before she had a chance to settle, Mariko thrashed about like a flailing fish. She knew it was foolish, but she refused to be handed off from one murderer to the next, as though she were a spoil of war.
“Stop fighting me.” Though ōkami’s voice was softer, it was no less harsh. “I’m not Ranmaru. I won’t hit you.”
Again the feeling of being near him unnerved her. That same all-but-undetectable hum. “I’m not surprised.” Venom tinged her retort, while blood rampaged through her body. “Based on my observations, you don’t hit much.”
The instant she mocked him, a jolt of fear passed through Mariko.
Laughter rippled around them. The front ridge of ōkami’s saddle dug into her stomach and chest. If Mariko hadn’t thought to bind her breasts tight in a long length of muslin, she knew she would have been suffering far more discomfort.
“The little lord is right,” the gruff voice of the cook called out from behind them. “What took you so long to best the giant, ōkami? Are you losing your touch?”
“The little lord didn’t let me finish.” ōkami bent forward. “I said I wouldn’t hit him . . .” He was so close, his words pulsed across her skin.
“But that’s not the only way to punish someone.”
Fear knifed through Mariko’s center, its aim hot and true. She knew she could not afford to let a boy like ōkami see even a hint of distress. She had to get free of these men. Had to gain the upper hand somehow. Seeking a way to distract herself—any weakness in the strength surrounding her—she studied ōkami’s fingers. They were long. Strong. His forearms were corded with muscle. His hold on the reins was loose. Easy. Which meant he was likely an accomplished rider. Any attempt to unseat him would be ill-advised.
But perhaps Mariko could unseat him in other ways.
“What kind of a name is ōkami?” she began, her tone low and brusque.
“You really don’t learn, do you?”
“You mocked my name, even though your parents named you after a wolf?”
“They didn’t.”
Despite all, her curiosity took hold once more. “Then it’s a nickname?”
“Stop talking,” ōkami said. “Before I pass you to someone who really will beat the impudence out of you.”
She paused. “Wolves are pack creatures, you know.”
Another rumble of coarse laughter rang out from behind them. “I must admit that boy is tenacious, even in the face of doom.”
Mariko felt ōkami shift in the saddle to address the cook. At that, she took the opportunity she’d been waiting to catch him unawares.
She bit into the skin just above ōkami’s knee. Hard.