Dreamlands (3 page)

“Just enjoy him,” she said. “The fool had no idea what he had. I killed him.”

I slowly reached out and touched the boy, expecting his shudder. I wasn’t insulted by it. Keno looked like a beaten dog. He was aware enough to understand our conversation and was expecting the worst from us.

“Come with me, and we will clean up,” I said gently.

He was still shivering and resigned to whatever insult I was going to offer him. I smelled more than blood on him and sensed the truth behind my lady’s words. Keno had been raped. I was stirred by anger I couldn’t explain. I didn’t know the boy; what did it matter to me what had happened to him? The power that filled him was what should have mattered, but knowing he had been hurt still filled me with an odd rage.

I guided him to the
onsen
to bathe and untied the ropes on him.

“Wash,” I told him.

Keno obeyed wordlessly, cleaning himself thoroughly before slipping into the hot spring. I studied him out of the corner of my eye.

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He was biddable, probably beddable, and under the bruises, beautiful.

Not like his namesake, this Keno had the fragile beauty of the
sakura
―the cherry blossom
.
His ancestor had been elegant, possessing a sharp and wicked wit. He also had been a deadly warrior, skilled beyond belief. I had loved that Keno beyond reason, and he had banished me here to save me. Our punishment had been that he could not join me. Sometimes I wondered if that was not better, because there were times now that I didn’t know if I had loved or hated the man.

We settled into the hot water, and Keno’s shivering eventually stopped. He asked no questions, and that worried me. Too frightened?

Too tired? Or knowing too well one of the reasons my lady had given him to me? I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t recognize me. I didn’t know why I was angry that the boy was bruised and obviously abused, since he was not my lover, only a pale echo of him. I noticed that not all the bruises were new, so the fool had been abusing him for a while.

Keno was also pale, as if he hadn’t seen the sun in a while. Had he been ill?

We soaked quietly in the hot water for a while before I announced, “Enough. Back to my quarters.” Keno’s shivering started again. I wondered what else had happened to him besides the obvious. He dried himself off and waited for my orders; I decided to test his control and his reactions. I went over and kissed him deeply.

Kissing was a Western custom Tamazusa had told me about. It was interesting. Keno yielded dutifully, letting me explore his mouth with my tongue. He was not unaware of the custom either, but he was letting me play with him like he was a doll. I caressed his body, my fingers straying toward a very intimate spot. He involuntarily made a small sound of pain when I touched his nether opening. I didn’t enjoy that sound. I broke off our kiss and studied him. With his downcast eyes, he was the picture of submission… or fright.

“At this time, I doubt that I will be interested in more. You seemed to be injured,” I explained. I was tempted to see how much more than kissing he would be interested in, but I knew that right now he was too frightened for anything more than kisses, if even that.

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“I’m fine,” he whispered. “It doesn’t matter….” Fright it was. The fool who had been Tamazusa’s pawn, if not others, most likely had abused him more than this one time. But there was something else there. Resignation and a dullness that spoke to me of long-term mistreatment colored his tone of voice. What had been happening to the boy?

While
Hakkenshi
were in the Dreamlands, still they had avatars in the real world, their descendants, one for each of Satomi’s eight grandsons in each generation. They had occasionally been called upon to repeat their ancestor’s heroism when Japan needed it.

While I never had seen my Keno in the Dreamlands, I was aware of the others. We ignored each other. Surprisingly enough, I had a civil relationship with their mother, Fuse. I knew that she protected her sons’

avatars with a fierceness that would surprise many who knew of her gentle nature. She would have protected Keno. Something had happened so that she couldn’t; that was going to be to my advantage now.

“Unlike that fool that my lady took you from, I have no taste for abuse,” I said harshly.

He shuddered at my tone of voice. “What do you have a taste for?” Keno whispered.

I smiled, trying to reassure him. “Pleasure. For both of us.” He looked at me, shocked, before he dropped his eyes. Keno didn’t believe me. I bit back my anger because someone or ones had nearly ruined him. I had seen and caused enough pain in my existence to have no desire for it in my bed. But I might be able to use it to my advantage. Kindness from me after the abuse would bind him close to me. Tamazusa would be able to manipulate his power easily or have someone teach him how to use it for himself, if I desired.

I slipped into a clean
yukata
and handed one to Keno. He took it uncertainly and put it on. He wore it correctly, which I was relieved to see. The boy wasn’t a barbarian, at least. I had heard many complaints FELICITAS IVEY

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from others here that the Nipponese people were becoming too Western and foreign. Keno wasn’t one of those, apparently.

“Follow me,” I said.

He was quiet, but I sensed he was studying his surroundings, even with his eyes obediently on the floor. He was an interesting mixture of fear and curiosity. I would enjoy seeing his reactions to discovering the world he was in now.

We passed by one of the maids, and I instructed her to bring us a meal. She nodded and sped off to the kitchen, eager to spread the gossip that I had a companion. The servants knew my lady and I weren’t intimate, living as siblings rather than lovers. I have never been interested in women, preferring the joys of men.

We arrived at my apartment. Keno walked in after hesitating for a moment and seemed to be at a loss. He stood there dumbly, and I fought the urge to snap at him. How bad had his life been that he couldn’t think without orders? All that power he had, and I could make it all mine. Did I want that? Or did I want a companion more than a doll?

“I fear that I have been rude,” I said. “I have not given you my name. I am Samojirou Aboshi.”

“What… what do you wish to do with me, Samojirou-san?” Keno asked me softly. He showed no recognition upon hearing my name. I shouldn’t have hoped he would.

“You are an unexpected gift from my lady,” I said with a slight smile. “I have not thought that far ahead.” Keno flinched. He was too docile, as if he had been a prisoner for a long time. Tamazusa would tell me, but I was reluctant to ask her. It would show that I hadn’t been paying attention to her schemes as much as I should have. But since she was also a woman who kept her own counsel, I thought I amused her with my indifference to her plans. It was as if our roles had been reversed: I was the dutiful consort she returned to after her adventures, and I was the one to impress with her 15

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stories and to comfort her on her setbacks, the rare times those happened.

“But food will be brought soon,” I said. “After that, you can rest and heal.”

“I’m fine,” he said, sounding panicked and frightened. “You don’t have―”

“But I choose to,” I said with a touch of steel in my voice. “And you are not ‘fine’, you are injured! Or have you been in pain for so long that you do not know any better?”

“Just… just get it over with,” he said tiredly.

“It?” I asked, confused.

“Hurt… hurting me,” he stuttered. “I’m just property. It―”

“What happened?” I demanded, though I was trying to sound gentle. I didn’t know why my heart ached to hear him so broken. It wasn’t as if I had one after I turned into an
oni.

“It wasn’t a game,” he said simply.

I didn’t understand him, but the maids arrived with the food at that moment. We both stood there as they set the trays on the table. I gestured for them to leave, and we heard them giggling in the hallway as they scurried away. I rolled my eyes in annoyance. Keno looked tired and confused. I didn’t think he expected the maids to be such happy little things. Their kind always were. The maids are
kashin
, flower spirits, eager to serve and almost incapable of an angry thought.

“Please eat,” I ordered.

Keeping half an eye on me, he knelt at the table but didn’t touch anything until I started eating. It was a simple meal of rice and vegetables, but he devoured it eagerly. I wondered when he had last eaten, from the speed in which the food disappeared.

“Sleep now,” I said when he was through.

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I got up and guided him to my bedroom. My futon had been laid out already. Keno stopped when he saw it, shivering a little.

“Was this the first time that you have been raped?” I asked bluntly. I didn’t think being delicate would work with him.

Keno flushed bright red and dropped his eyes to the floor. “He…

Heiseg had been touching me for a while. Since… since he was sort of told that he could do anything that he wanted to me. It was weird. He…

he has… had a girlfriend, and I thought that I was just imagining things, because who would want me?”

I refrained from asking the boy if he knew what a mirror was.

Actually, Keno seemed to be older than he looked, but humans always looked young to me. I wondered if that was why he thought he was property, if he were too damaged to think on his own or believe in himself. Would I enjoy the challenge of fixing that damage? Or should I just take advantage of it? As I had said, Keno had been an unexpected gift. I would have to think about how I would mold him to my needs and pleasures.

“But tonight,” Keno continued. “He came into my room, and I didn’t know what was happening. There were monsters with him. He…

he had them drag me out of my room for him. He smashed all my models.”

Keno sounded bewildered as he recalled what had happened. Idly I wondered what a model was.

“We went down to D level. There were more monsters there, eating the lab techs. Heiseg ra―hurt me. He hurt some of the techs while the monsters ate the men. The ones he hurt were all women. Then he hurt… hurt me again, hitting me and telling me that he should let the monsters eat me too. He was still shouting crazy things when that lady showed up. He started screaming, ’cause I think that he knew her and then… then he just seem to swell a bit and explode. Inside.”

“Ah….” I knew that spell. My lady Tamazusa was quite skilled with it, since it was one of the few that she knew, since it was something that as a lord of the Dreamlands she was able to wield. I had 17

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no idea what a lab tech was, but I could see why Keno was in shock.

He seemed unused to all violence, not only violence against himself.

“Lie down,” I coaxed. “Sleep. While I am interested in your body, I am in no hurry to claim it.”

Keno obediently curled on my futon, making himself as small as possible. I stared at him thoughtfully before fetching a scroll to read. I would have to treat him gently, which wouldn’t be a chore, with whatever plan I chose. The boy was exquisite, and fortunately, he didn’t remind me of his namesake, which might have influenced the decision I made.

KENO

I WOKE up to my captor staring at me thoughtfully, almost in the same position he had been in when I fell asleep. It was the same way that McGann used to look at me when I first woke up in Boylston Street.

McGann was an executive with the people who had held me prisoner and the person who controlled my life, such as it was. I had to ask her for anything I needed, from a toothbrush to books. She was also the one who gave me all my orders, from hacking into someone else’s system and stealing information to helping researchers with setting up a computer―basically anything the Trust wanted me to do. She was the first person I saw when I woke up after I had been kidnapped from my dorm room. McGann was the one who told me that the rest of the world thought I was dead. I didn’t exactly hate her, but I was afraid of her and knew that I depended on her for almost everything in my life. I hated that.

Samojirou looking at me in the same calculating manner frightened me even more than she had. I knew McGann hadn’t been interested in doing
that
to me, and he was, from the kisses and touches last night.

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I hurt in places I hadn’t thought possible. I shifted and had trouble biting back the low moan of pain. I didn’t want to move ever again.

“Do you want to see the healer?” Samojirou asked.

“I’m fine,” I insisted.

I wasn’t, but I hadn’t seen a doctor in a while, not since the Trust got me. Heiseg had raped me, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that. I couldn’t forget the way he sounded when it happened or the searing pain I felt when he… when he did
that
to me. And I was now the property of a man who wanted to do the same thing. And I didn’t know where I was or why the name Samojirou Aboshi sounded familiar to me.

I wondered if I could find a knife and just end it all.

“I do not think so,” Samojirou said with a frown.

“Just get it over with,” I muttered. For a moment I thought that I’d spoken my last thought aloud, but it seemed Samojirou was just commenting upon my condition. I never wanted to be noticed or thought of as a bother, because that might lead to McGann or her superiors deciding I wasn’t worth their time and getting rid of me permanently. I was surprised when Samojirou didn’t hit me for being rude to him, muttering like that. Most everyone would have hit me for that comment.

“The maids will be bringing breakfast soon,” he said. “I suppose that there is no harm in letting you follow me about for today. Do you practice the art of the sword?”

I curled up smaller, trying to ignore the pain. “I used to.” Samojirou smiled. “Then we can start on your training after breakfast.” He hesitated. “I must ask. Do you feel that there is an injury? Are you bleeding?”

I blushed when I realized what he was asking. I didn’t feel anything odd since he let me take a bath, but it wasn’t like I had a lot of experience in this. I was scared that I was going to have too much 19