Page 34 of Secrets & Sake
Twenty minutes after I’ve managed to pick myself up and go upstairs, I’m still in shock. My mug of green tea cools in my hands as my mind churns. Wolves. Yakuza. A mass grave full of remains going back one hundred years. What the hell is happening in this city? I can’t make it make sense. Maybe I’m in over my head. None of this makes sense anymore. I can’t do this.
I guess Raiden isn’t coming. Maybe he decided things are too weird between us after we slept together. I don’t even know, but it doesn’t matter. I can’t focus on him. I’ve got to investigate the disappearances from all those years ago.
And yet all I can think about now is that damn wolf. Am I sure it was a wolf? It couldn’t have been a dog. But it makes no fucking sense. I open up a search engine and start typing. There were two wolves endemic to Japan, the Honshu Wolf and the Hokkaido Wolf, and both were exterminated during the Meiji Restoration period.
So why was one running around Tokyo?
Unless I imagined the whole thing. I’m about to crawl into bed and forget about the day, when a headline grabs my attention. I almost laugh.
Werewolves Spotted in Japan?
Good grief. I have to see this. I click the link. Shitty as the website is, whoever wrote it genuinely believes the government is trying to cover up the existence of werewolves. And then my eyes snag on something about disappearances. The writer of this article believes that werewolves are behind it. After all, the disappearances only pile even higher in the week before a full moon. That’s not true, though. The abductions are completely sporadic.
I think about all those bones in the mountain and shiver.
No. No way is any of this true. I’ve got to hand it to this person, they’ve managed to connect these disappearances to werewolves in a way that’s almost believable.
God. I’m seriously scraping the bottom of the barrel if I’m turning to werewolf conspiracy theorists for answers. My father would laugh his head off and tell me I should have just joined the family business. And maybe he’d be right. I don’t always second-guess my choices, but tonight, I’m just drowning in self-doubt.
I’m searching the cabinets for sake I can spike my tea with when the intercom buzzes.
Could it be—I rush to the door and ask, “Who is it?”
“Let me in, Sunshine.”
Oh, shit. Raiden’s here, and I look like I just got the shit beaten out of me. I run around my apartment, tidying up. I tear my case map off the wall and cram the pictures into a box in my dresser where I keep the rest of my reporting gear like my press I.D. I close the box and cover it with a pile of shirts. Then, my doorbell rings.
Raiden’s appearance is the one bright spot in my night. Although, he looks… off. His clothing is rumpled, and his hair is disheveled. Those eyes make me shiver. Their whiskey-brown hue is the exact same as that huge wolf’s. It’s freaky.
“What the hell?” Raiden growls, eyes going wide as he takes in my appearance.
I avert my gaze. “It’s nothing. Just—”
“That’s not nothing, Hiro.” A scowl slips into place as Raiden reaches out. His fingertips brush my cheek, and I wince. He touches the bruise on my cheek from where the bastard hit me. Raiden’s jaw tightens, eyes narrow in anger. “Who did this to you?” The low, furious rumble of his voice makes me shiver. I’ve never heard him so pissed before.
“I don’t know. Some guys. They attacked me just as I was going inside.” I wince as he touches the scrape on my cheek where the guy ground my face against the pavement.
“Fuck…” Bristling, Raiden stomps into the bathroom and returns with a first aid kit. “Sit down.”
“It’s just a few cuts.”
“Hiro, just sit down and let me take care of you.”
I’m a grown man, and I’ve been looking after myself for five years. I don’t need help… but that doesn’t mean I don’t want it. “Yeah, okay. Sure.” Exhaustion weighs on me. I collapse on the sofa.
Raiden kneels before me, and I’m struck by the sight of this man, strong and powerful as he is, on his knees before me. “This’ll sting,” he warns me, dabbing some disinfectant on a cotton ball. I wince at the burn when he rubs the cotton against my cheek. The discomfort fades once the wounds are clean, then he takes out a few Band-Aids.
He presses one of them to each of my injuries, gently smoothing them down against my skin. His touch is so… careful. It’s the tenderest touch I’ve known in such a long time that my eyes actually start to sting. Fuck. I didn’t know I needed this so badly. Someone to take care of me, to touch me like I’m made of glass. I shouldn’t like that it’s him in my hour of need. I should wish it was someone else, someone less complicated and dangerous. But I don’t.
Without thinking, I touch my forehead against his, closing my eyes as his soothing scent of aftershave and clean clothes caresses my nose. “Thank you.”
A pleased sound rumbles from Raiden’s chest. He runs his big warm hands up and down my arms. “I’ll always take care of you, Sunshine.” He leans in and slants his mouth against mine. He kisses hard enough to bruise, yet so sweet my body goes slack against him, surrendering to his consumption. “No one is laying a finger on you again. I promise.”
I don’t like that look in his eyes. Okay. I do. Some fucked-up part of me really likes the idea of committing violence on my behalf—okay, my dick likes the idea.
“What are you going to do?”
Raiden squeezes the nape of my neck. “Find those bastards and make them regret touching what’s mine.”