Chapter Six
Kaiyan
Kaiyan left his chambers, adjusting the sleeves of his yukata. His mind was divided between two matters--one a man, the other a woman. The former was a thorn soon to be plucked from his side. But the latter was proving to be something much more intriguing. And far more tempting.
It had been an hour since he left his study, but Sayuri's breath was still on his skin. He could feel it--hot and shallow, the way it had quickened when he leaned in, his lips hovering over hers. The blush that had bloomed across her cheeks when he'd tugged the sash from her robes still colored his mind.
He should not have pushed her that far. And yet, he would do it again. Every inch he gained from her only made him want to take more.
Kaiyan turned down the corridor, the night air brushing his face, cool against the flush lingering beneath his skin. But it did nothing to temper the heat coiled low in his gut.
Renji was already waiting near the path leading to the bathhouse, arms folded, his face half-lit by the nearby lantern. His gaze flicked upward at the sound of Kaiyan's approach. He offered a subtle bow, but there was a spark in his eyes.
"You have something," Kaiyan said. It was not a question.
"It took some convincing." Renji stepped forward, producing a folded slip from his sleeve. "But once the guard felt assured you meant the girl no harm, he told me everything. Even thought you could help. He gave me this." He handed over the parchment.
Kaiyan unfolded it, the paper whispering between his fingers. Dark ink traced elegant characters across the page. A name--Sata Nobuyuki.
Renji spoke again, his tone even. "He said she's been asking after this nobleman since she arrived."
Kaiyan's jaw tightened. Recognition was not immediate, but it was there--like the brush of a blade along skin, a warning before the cut. He had heard it before. Whispers in court. Rumors murmured over sake cups and concealed behind fans.
A man who promised the world with one hand while stripping girls bare with the other. A womanizer of the cruelest sort.
The pieces were sliding together. The Makoto girl had died in ruin. Sayuri must have tried to avenge her sister through poison.
This was the bastard behind it all. It had to be.
Kaiyan closed the parchment slowly, tucking it into his robes. His gaze lifted to Renji, but he did not speak. He didn't need to. This would be handled.
A muscle worked in his temple as he forced the name aside. There was something else pressing harder against his ribs. Something far more immediate.
"This...guard," he said, his tone low. "Tell me."
"Takeda Hiro," Renji replied. "Lower barracks. Good at his post, but easily overlooked."
Kaiyan absorbed that. A nobody. As he expected. And yet, he had something Kaiyan wanted.
His eyes flicked to his lieutenant. Renji was hesitating. Not out of uncertainty--but because he knew his master. Kaiyan had never worn his displeasure lightly. When it came, it settled like frost over stone--cold, lingering, deadly.
"There's more," Kaiyan grumbled. "Out with it."
"She...meets him at night, my lord."
Kaiyan's pulse kicked--hard. His fingers twitched, hands curling slowly into fists. The image struck like a physical blow--Sayuri slipping from her chambers after dark. Moans carried on heavy breaths. Fingers tangled in hair. Hands caressing bare skin.
A rush of heat flooded his chest--desire and rage, indistinguishable. She was
his
.
"It's not as you think," Renji said quickly. "He's young. Thick around the middle. No soldier. No threat."
"No threat?" Kaiyan repeated through clenched teeth. If she'd gone to him at night--the boy was beyond a threat...
Kaiyan had never agreed with the Emperor's Severance Mandate. The old way had been brutal--a tradition borrowed from foreign courts, where men were rendered eunuchs the moment they entered service. A previous emperor had adopted the practice to mirror the efficiency and loyalty of the great dynasties beyond their borders. But in doing so, he had turned his halls into a place of quiet suffering. That cruelty had been outlawed under the current reign, but what replaced it was no kinder.
Now, those in the lower ranks--guards, servants, those without titles or bloodlines to shield them--kept their manhood. But if they were caught bedding a woman, their lives were forfeit. The women fared better--lashes, humiliation--but at least they lived.
Kaiyan had always viewed it as wasteful--good men executed for the most basic of instincts. But the thought of another man's hands on Sayuri--on
his
woman--made something twist and blacken inside him.
He would not kill the boy.
But part of him wanted to.
Renji, ever perceptive, shot him a flat look. "They meet to play Go. Nothing more."
Kaiyan blinked. Go. The word landed with a dull thud in his mind, so out of place it almost made him pause. After everything he'd imagined--flesh on flesh, breathless sighs in the dark--this was what he was given?
He forced his eyes back to Renji. "And...you believe him?"
Renji held his gaze. "I do."
Kaiyan exhaled slowly, but the weight inside him did not lift. Renji was not a man who was easily deceived. In all their years--through battlefields soaked in blood, through palace halls dripping with deceit--Renji had never failed him. If his lieutenant truly thought the girl had sought the guard out for nothing more than board games and information, it was probably true.
It should have been enough. And yet...
Why had she gone to a boy--a guard--when she could have come to him?
Kaiyan commanded armies. He had spies in every province. He could have had any nobleman she wanted dragged from his house and deposited at her feet.
If she wanted Sata, all she had to do was ask.
Kaiyan stopped at the bathhouse entrance, the scent of cedarwood and lotus water curling in his lungs. Steam billowed from the small vents near the foundation, slithering into the night air like pale serpents.
He sighed, thumb pressing lightly over the spot where Sata's name rested inside his robes. "I want everything," he said evenly. "Business. Holdings. Connections. And when you find him--"
"I'll bring him to you," Renji finished the thought.
Kaiyan gave a single nod, but his thoughts were already elsewhere--on her. Always on her.
Renji shifted, smirking faintly when his eyes slipped to the bathhouse door, though it lacked any real bite. "And your chambers, my lord? Shall I--"
Kaiyan cut him off with a low laugh, though it was strained now--more breath than mirth. "You obviously don't know this girl."
Renji's grin widened. "I've never known one to deny your bed."
Kaiyan's mouth curved faintly, but his voice was softer--quieter, almost to himself. "She's not like most girls."
She was not like
any
girl.
"See it done," Kaiyan said, his tone cool once more. He turned toward the doors as Renji bowed. "Your presence is not required here tonight."
He slid the door open, and humid heat enveloped him as he stepped inside. The faint gurgle of flowing water filled the space, accompanied by the distant drip of condensation trailing down stone. Steam hung heavy in the air, clinging to the brass lanterns that lined the walls, their light softened to a molten glow.
Polished stone platforms framed the large bath--a basin carved deep into the earth, its edges worn smooth by years of heat and water. The surface was alive, fed by hidden channels that sent gentle ripples across the water, catching the light like gold threading through silk.
His eyes found her at once--kneeling at the water's edge, sleeves pushed back, arms bared to the elbow, fingers skimming the surface as she tested its heat. Her hair was twisted back, but loose strands clung to the curve of her neck, dark against the white of the attendant's robes she'd changed into--a lighter material meant for movement. The thin fabric stretched as she leaned, and his gaze flicked to where the dampness pressed cloth to skin, hinting at the swell of her breasts beneath. The heat had brought color to her cheeks, a soft flush that crept to the hollow of her throat.
Kaiyan leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed lazily over his chest, but his body was far from relaxed. His gaze followed her every movement, each detail adding to the ache building in his gut.
She looked small--kneeling, tending--yet it wasn't fragility he saw. It was intimacy. A softer version of the woman who glared at him to mask her fears. It contrasted the sharp tongue she so often wielded like a blade. The same tongue that made him want to curse her and claim her in the same breath.
"You're lovely like this," he said, his eyes tracing over every inch of her--every curve softened by heat, each line blurred by steam. "When you stop fighting me."
Her fingertips stilled against the basin's edge, and her spine straightened, shoulders drawing back. Those light eyes found him, and her gaze sharpened, her mouth pressing into that familiar line--defiance raised like armor.
Kaiyan pushed off the wall, his steps scuffing softly against stone. He closed the distance with the same inevitability that made men fear him on the battlefield--as though he had already won before the first strike landed.
