Wolf's-own: Weregild (30 page)

"No, they
won't
!” Jacin grated. He bucked his entire body, managing to jostle Umeia a little, but not get himself loose. “Fucking
bitch
, don't you know what—?"

"I expect I know a great deal more about all this than you do,” Umeia said calmly, adjusted her grip and flattened Jacin brutally into the wall, shaking her head as he grunted. “I'll keep them safe. Heart and body; breath and spirit.” Then she pulled back a little, turning her glance out the door. “He'll need to be bound—” She stopped when Jacin tried again to jerk in her grip, tried to get loose from her impossible hold, cursing and almost whimpering all the while. Umeia set her teeth and held on. “Probably sedated too."

The day was gray and damp, almost oppressive with the heavy warmth and the stench of the alley seeping in through the door. There was no real sunlight for shadows, but Joori could swear he saw one darkening the doorway, and the scent of jasmine leached in, winding through him. Jacin kept glaring and snarling and fighting as light footsteps approached. One cheek was still mashed into the wall, but his wild eyes never left whatever—whomever—they were watching as he breathed, “No.
No
.” And all at once he sagged, breath coming in harsh little hitches, face so filled with pain Joori could almost feel it twisting in his own chest.

Defeated, powerless, Jacin shut his eyes, teeth clenched tight.

"Beishin...
please
."

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It hurt. Because there was a time when that plea would have meant entirely different things, and there would not have been that heavy thrum of betrayal beneath it. There was a time when Jacin-rei would have begged his beishin for other things, and there was a time when Asai had been so sure in his refusal. He wasn't sure anymore, and seeing the boy's eyes devoid now of their dedication, their blatant love, seeing it all replaced with bleak despair and distrust.... It hurt. And Asai never would have thought it.

He only watched for a moment, watched the boy's thwarted writhing in the wolfling's hold, watched him try to flop himself about like a butterfly on a pin, watched the defeat take hold and the grief swell... shook his head sadly and sighed. Asai hadn't wanted it to be this way. He hadn't wanted to have to resort to such measures to regain his hold on his Ghost, and he certainly hadn't wanted to be forced to accept the wolfling's “deal” to get him back. But Jacin-rei had proven more unpredictable than even Asai had guessed, and there'd been little choice.

He was flirting with doom, now, he knew—Kamen would be blood-mad when he found out what his sister had done, and he
would
come. There would be nowhere for Asai to hide, so he simply wouldn't. He would take back his Ghost and gamble on the Catalyst and the Fate he'd foreseen all those years ago. Asai had no doubt that Kamen's anger could very well usurp his sense when it came to their laws. And the threat of the suns might not be enough to keep offended pride from feeding what was sure to be impressive rage. They might be forbidden to kill each other, but Asai had seen Kamen's fury before, and he had no illusions that sense and obedience to the gods would rule this time, if Asai didn't get Jacin-rei back in line. The little Ghost might very well be Asai's only defense against Kamen, and “stealing” him back like this was only going to deepen Kamen's ridiculous notions of justice.

There was still one card left to play. When Kamen came after Asai, the Ghost would not allow his beishin to fall to the
Temshiel
. Asai had built Jacin-rei to have no such choice. And the boy was a very skilled killer. Asai would get what he wanted out of this, in the end; it would merely be in a very different way than he'd foreseen.

Asai squared his shoulders, put on a soft smile, and allowed genuine affection and almost apology to curl through it. He stepped forward, said, “Hello, my wayward Ghost,” and he caught the eye of the earth-bound—the key to Jacin-rei's absolute obedience and cooperation. So close and yet now as untouchable as his brother. Asai refused to allow his disappointment to show. He held out his hand to... he couldn't remember the man's name—one of Snake's thugs that happened to be for sale when he'd sent out an eye for biddable minions... Itai, that was it—and accepted the length of rope he'd hoped wouldn't be necessary, though he'd known it would. “I've come to take you home,” he told Jacin-rei.

Would that it were so simple.

None too soon, though, from what Asai could see. Jacin-rei looked ill-used and hollow-eyed. He wasn't physically well, the offense of which curled much deeper in Asai than he'd supposed it would or should. Leu's bungling, he knew, and he spared a dark bit of a growl for her memory, but mostly for Kamen. Jacin-rei belonged to Asai, and the
Temshiel
who'd claimed him for his own had apparently not been taking very good care of him. Kamen was in his own Cycle, his powers were nearly limitless, and yet he'd allowed the Catalyst to be injured, and, it appeared, rather grievously. The boy was ill and raw, wide open, and in more pain than that which Asai had inflicted merely by showing up.

So many emotions swirling in his Ghost's eyes, and now they were crowding for dominance all at once: betrayal, hurt, fear, and hatred, the latter trying to overrule all of the former, and it almost made Asai smile. Love and hate were so very close, and one couldn't have one without the other. His Ghost was not entirely lost to him, not yet.

"Only me?” Jacin-rei whispered. Heartbreaking hope and far too much damnable suspicion.

Damn
Kamen for the way he'd twisted the boy from the devoted Ghost he'd been to this sad, chary, defeated shadow. Asai hadn't
wanted
to use the boy's family against him; he'd only wanted to motivate his Ghost in the right direction. Well, he hadn't wanted Jacin-rei to
know
he was using his family against him. Moot, anyway, since Asai couldn't have them.

He took a step closer, raised an eyebrow at the wolfling when her mouth and grip both tightened, then dismissed her. She could distrust him and hate him all she liked. It would have no effect whatsoever on his place with Wolf when this was all through. With the tiniest of smirks her way, Asai raised his hand slowly, swept gentle fingertips over Jacin-rei's sweat-clammy cheekbone, then slid them farther up and pushed matted chestnut out of his eyes. Jacin-rei neither tried to flinch nor lean into the touch.

"Your hair, Jacin-rei,” Asai murmured. He watched the specter of Jacin prowl beneath the indigo-rung grays of Jacin-rei, watched the reluctant longing at Asai's deliberate soft tone well up beneath the rage. “These people have not been taking care of you properly.” Certainly he was no longer the clean, impeccable youth Asai had seen every day for almost a decade. And there would be words later about those marks on the boy's neck. Bloody Kamen. “You need your beishin to see to you, lad. You always have done. None other can love the unlovable, not like your beishin. Whatever these people have told you, little Ghost, whatever you might want to believe, only I can give you what you truly want. What you
need
, Jacin-rei. You do not exist but in my eyes."

You're nothing, and you know it—only I can make you something, and you know that too. Come with me, and I'll give you what you need, what you know you still want, even if you don't want to know or want to need.

Asai leaned in, lowered his voice, let his fingers gently tease at the wisps of chestnut that stirred with his own breath against Jacin-rei's ear, and went for the gut. “You have not yet attained perfection, little Ghost. How it must pain you, knowing they all look to you, and knowing you can never make the measure."

Failure. A not so gentle reminder. Cheap, perhaps, and a shortcut, certainly, but he needed his Ghost back, and he needed him walking the path Asai set for him, needed the promise of the Fate only this Catalyst could bring.

Except Jacin-rei's eyes hardened, and his teeth tightened impossibly. “Only.
Me
,” he shoved out between them.

Keeping the snarl from his face with a great deal of effort, Asai stepped back, refusing to spare a glance to the wolfling. He didn't need to see her to know she was smirking. He'd known the boy was going to take work; he reminded himself it was all going to be worth the effort. And that Jacin-rei would thank him when it was over. He half wished he could just lean in and kiss him, still him, promise him... confuse him, at the very least.

Not here.

Instead, Asai smiled and shook his head. He sighed. “You are, and have ever been, the only one I need, Jacin-rei. For you, I touch the Untouchable.” Sincere, because it was true, the way things should have been, had he not miscalculated that fateful night so badly, had Yakuli and his disastrous arrival at Asai's door not slipped right through his sight and taken him so unawares. Yakuli—so arrogant and disdainful of “Lord Asai"—would pay for it in pain and true terror when Asai finally revealed to him what he was up against, and if he played everything exactly right, Jacin-rei would believe that Asai was doing it all for him. Asai might even allow the boy the honors himself—after all, he'd done such magnificent work with Sonji-onna, by all reports—
if
Jacin-rei put the appropriate effort into relearning his place and purpose.

"Fen,” said the wolfling, calm yet commanding—so much like her brother that Asai's mouth tightened in distaste, “you for them. That was the deal. He'll take you with him and he'll leave them here with me. I promised you I'd see to them, I swore oath. You know I can't break it."

The boy stared at Asai all the while, narrow-eyed, searching, and... damn. Calculating. What
had
these people done to his Ghost? Jacin-rei did not calculate; Jacin-rei acted. Jacin-rei did what he was told. All of the work Asai had done over the years to ensure the boy's obedience was the only way to ensure Asai's own control and influence over the Catalyst's effect on Fate. Now, the boy was taking in what was happening around him, thinking about it, planning. Focus, where there'd never been any before but that which Asai instilled himself. He'd never been able to foresee Jacin-rei, but what he saw now in the boy's eyes didn't need sight. His own death shone out plainly.

It really wouldn't do.

"Let them go,” Jacin-rei said evenly, eyes sliding sideways to where his siblings were all but staked to the floor, still and silent as they should be. “Take off the spell, and I'll come with you."

As though he really had a choice. Still, it would probably be best if he thought he did.

Asai spread his hands out, palms-up. “You can see it isn't I who—"

"I
know
it's you,” Jacin-rei snarled. “Umeia might be a reprehensible traitor, but even she wouldn't stoop to Blood-magic."

The wolfling pinched her mouth up tight but said nothing.

All of this vitriol from his little Ghost. Asai had been expecting anger, had seen as much the night Jacin-rei came to kill him and couldn't, and he knew the boy's confused affections were what had kept him from doing so. Now, it appeared they were even more confused, and whatever Kamen's influence had been, it had rocked them down to a core of which Asai hadn't even been aware.

Damn Kamen, and damn Asai's own sight for not showing him that the
Temshiel
he needed would end up being the very one who could turn the boy against him. It hadn't altered what Asai could still see of Fate, but it was making it damned difficult to keep his own head in the midst of all the upheaval.

Asai shook his head, but kept his smile. “After we're safely away, Jacin-rei.” Kind and indulgent, to counteract the sting of denial. “Your brother will not—"

"My brother will do as I tell him,” Jacin-rei cut in. “Let them go, or you'll have to try and get that rope on me before I get to a knife and gut you.” He paused, smiled a little—sickly and full of hate. “I'm very fast, Beishin,” he said, low, almost seductive. “I did, after all, have an excellent teacher."

Impertinent little reprobate. Clearly, this was going to be more work than Asai had thought.
Damn
Vonshi for disappearing right when he would have been the most useful. More than two decades, Asai had groomed the ungrateful baseborn for this, and now that it was here and Asai needed him....

"He
is
extraordinarily fast,” the wolfling agreed, her snarky tone and slight smirk enough to coil a hot coal of anger in Asai's chest. “And I have no intention of allowing my charges to risk themselves. Give him this. He'll keep his word."

As if Asai needed this poor excuse for a
Temshiel
to tell him what his Ghost would and wouldn't do. Asai only just kept the sneer from his face.

"Anyway,” she went on with a slight tightening of her jaw, “he won't have much fight to spare in a moment.” She shifted her hold, wrenched Jacin-rei's arms higher up his back with one hand, nearly snapping his hands up to his nape, and with the other, she twisted a ring from his finger.

Asai hadn't noticed it before, but he knew right away what it was, and Jacin-rei's reaction when it was taken from him merely confirmed it. He gasped, almost moaned, eyes squeezing shut and jaw clenching so hard Asai thought it likely he was fissuring hairline cracks in his teeth. No wonder the boy had seemed so clearheaded. What had Kamen been thinking, entrusting such a thing to a Catalyst? Had it been bribe or gift? Asai had a feeling it mattered.

Still, the effect of its loss had done more than any force or coaxing Asai might have tried. Jacin-rei was a quivering mess.

Still smirking a little, the wolfling took the ring and ran it lightly against Jacin-rei's cheek; the boy gasped again and stilled, eyes shot wide and fixed once again on Asai. Still a little off-balance, but clearer now. A deliberate demonstration, and Asai had no trouble at all recognizing the wolfling's threat: give the Ghost what he asked for, or she would give him back the talisman that gave him sanity and walk away from their deal. Asai would never get his Ghost out of this dirty back alley without a horrible battle. Tirin and Itai had already demonstrated that they couldn't control themselves when it came to a fight, and the boy was already damaged enough—Asai needed Jacin-rei, and he needed him able. And the wolfling knew it.