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?
