Canute (The Kindred Series Book 2) Read online

  Haru didn’t know what Canute meant by that. He tilted his head, and he was sure the confusion was clear as day on his face. “A lie all over again?”

  He couldn’t help but ask. That didn’t sound right at all. The tiny, selfish part of him was telling him not to start talking, because if he did, he would start to lose his anger towards Canute. Haru was the kind of person to help strangers out when they were lost in the woods, after all, and many times Kaguya described him as too “soft-hearted.”

  All it meant was that any bad blood between Haru and whoever had wronged him was doomed from the start.

  “There was a moment in time, very recently in fact, that I thought someone else was my Kindred,” Canute explained. “But he was simply a Siren using his magic to trick me into believing he was my Kindred. As to why they had to search to the other side of the world just to sow discord, I have no idea. I’m not clear on the details.”

  It was at that instant that everything clicked for Haru, and in one fell swoop, the anger he felt turned into sadness, and indignation. How could anyone have the gall to do that?

  “Oda did this?” Haru asked, though it was a rhetorical question at best.

  Canute nodded. His expression turned grim.

  Haru could understand why Canute was so adamant against having a Kindred, then. To know that something so sacred as a Kindred bond could be so easily faked by another creature had probably thrown Canute’s entire world off-kilter.

  Still, that didn’t mean Haru had to like it.

  Haru silently looked up at the cherry blossoms blooming right above the both of them, some of the soft pink petals cascading down slowly, fluttering down until they hit the ground.

  “Where do we go from here, then?” Haru asked. “If you don’t want to be with me, I can’t stop you. You have a war to fight. We barely know one another. The only thing we have is that I gave you my blood.”

  “That means everything to us vampires. After all, blood is what keeps us alive. In more ways than one, even,” Canute replied. “But I have to say that this scares me more than I would like. The last time I felt like this, it… it ended poorly. Lady Himiko was wounded, people died, and I…I was hurt more than I care to admit.”

  “Oh.”

  Haru didn’t know what to say at that point. He imagined Canute just didn’t want to be with him because of his youth and inexperience. He didn’t think there was going to be anything more underneath the surface at all! Perhaps the most infuriating part of it all was that Haru didn’t want to be treated like a child, and yet because of his outburst, he felt even more immature than he was before.

  Canute looked down at the ground, averting his eyes away from Haru. “I don’t know if I can handle that again.”

  “But what makes you so sure that those things will happen again?” Haru asked. “I’m just a kami of the woods. I don’t have any hidden agenda.” Well, apart from being with the person he was bonded to, Haru thought.

  “Well, let me throw a question right back at you, then,” Canute answered. “Why do you want a damaged person like me?”

  Haru looked up at Canute, and in those deep blue eyes, the young kami could see the pain hidden just underneath. Here was a lonely creature, trying to find love, only to have been cruelly tricked by fate. If Haru were the one in Canute’s shoes, he didn’t know how he would learn to trust again, either. So instead, he slowly extended a hand until he cupped Canute’s cheek, and offered a soft smile.

  “My grandfather once told me that you can’t turn down the opportunity to be with the person who completes you. Then again, he was a romantic,” Haru said. “And even if I can’t intrinsically feel the same Kindred bond as you do, I know that when you bit me, it didn’t feel wrong. And being here with you doesn’t make me feel uneasy.”

  “The truth is, I don’t quite know if I want this yet. I barely know you. In the time that we spent, you were either unconscious, feeding on me, or pulling away from me,” Haru added, as sincerely as he could be. “But I don’t mind seeing where things go…if it’s with you.”

  “Are you certain?” Canute asked. That question said it all, really—Canute was still hurt and aching from the betrayal, and everything about the vampire told Haru that he couldn’t quite trust himself to make decisions just yet. Haru, on the other hand, may not have had a lot of experience, but he did know that Canute needed him.

  Haru didn’t know much about vampires, but he did know that the Kindred bond was serious enough that Canute would never be able to feed from anyone else at all after meeting his Kindred.

  If nothing else, Haru knew he had to be there for him because of that.

  “I’m not certain about anything at all,” Haru replied honestly. “But I thought maybe we could at least figure things out together.”

  Canute smiled. For the first time since Haru met him, he finally saw the warmth hidden beneath the steel, and it made the young kami’s breath catch. There was the slightest dimple in his cheek, and a glimmer in those eyes.

  Then, Haru was surprised to feel a soft pair of lips meet his.

  Canute placed one hand on his cheek and the other against his side. The kiss wasn’t too deep—and there wasn’t any tongue—but Haru sighed as he felt the tension leave his shoulders. Still, it was his first kiss, and even though Canute’s beard felt bristly and ticklish against his skin, Haru couldn’t help but think it felt…right.

  Maybe he felt the bond more than he thought.

  Chapter Five

  That very morning, Canute felt more relaxed than he had in the past forty-eight hours, and it was because he could feel his body and his mind beginning to calm down.

  The betrayal he felt from Oda and Ranmaru had turned from sadness and despair, to anger and indignation. But that change wouldn’t have been possible if the universe hadn’t decided to show him where his Kindred actually was. Or rather, he was led right to Haru.

  How many people could say that they were able to find the person who completed them? Not many, that was for sure.

  Himiko was right. He had needed to settle things with Haru. Canute was happy that he did. Though there was still a heaviness to him, a heaviness that probably wouldn’t leave his body until he exacted his anger on Oda and his conniving ways, Canute didn’t feel the same sense of hopelessness and dread that he had before.

  It was reassuring how life could turn so quickly in the span of a few days. It hadn’t been a lesson Canute had been able to really grasp even after his hundredth year alive. Even now, nearly a millennium’s worth of years under his belt, sometimes he still had to come to grips with his emotions and how easily he could find himself swallowed by them.

  That just told him that even after all this time, he still had some growing to do. But given what had happened to him, wasn’t he afforded some distrust? Not just of himself, but of the people around him?

  Canute was beginning to suspect that trust might come even less now than before.

  Perhaps part of the reason he felt so calm was that explanation he’d heard from Cyrus before, about how one’s Kindred calmed their inner demons.

  Canute definitely felt calmer than he ever had been before. He didn’t even need to consult Cyrus about this. This was his decision.

  Himiko’s arrival had been met with no fanfare, unlike last night. Canute hadn’t even finished washing his face when he heard Kaguya speak to him from the hallway, telling him about the matriarch’s arrival. As soon as he pushed the sliding door open, Haru stood there, looking up at him and smiling.

  Canute couldn’t help but smile back at him. As he walked out, Himiko strode forward from around the corner with her arms crossed and her eyes trained right at him. “Let us leave before the light of dawn hits us,” was all she said before turning to walk out the front door. “There’s much to do in preparation.”

  “Hang on,” Canute said. “I’d like to ask if Haru would like to come along with me.”

  The matriarch raised her eyebrow. Haru, who had been standing there
and fiddling with his fingers, suddenly looked up and gawked at Canute.

  Canute tilted his head. “Is there a problem with that, Madame?”

  “Not at all,” Himiko replied, smirking. “Here I thought you’d already asked him to come with us. He’ll be well-protected at the compound.” She then turned to Kaguya. “You can come as well if you fear for your friend’s well-being.”

  Kaguya smiled. “As expected of the Shaman Queen, one might think you were a mind reader.”

  Himiko shrugged. “It’s not mind-reading to know when a friend is concerned about the other. Besides, you are a shrine maiden. I’m sure you can protect yourself just fine.”

  “I would love to go,” Kaguya replied. “However, my duty is here. I’ll have to tell Haru’s grandfather to help me find someone else to watch over the woods in Haru’s absence.”

  “You’re replacing me?” Haru asked. There was the tiniest frown on his face.

  “Haru, my friend, no one can replace you,” Kaguya said, smiling. “But our foreign friend here needs your cheerfulness more than I do, and this temple and the woods around it needs a guardian to keep it safe and healthy. I’m sure Seiji will be able to find someone. Perhaps your sister. It’ll be nice to have more women around here, for once.”

  Haru scrunched up his face. “She’s going to come over and let her cat take over the shrine. What about poor Momo?”

  Kaguya turned to look down at the beagle. “Aren’t you taking him with you? He’s your friend more than mine. I think he hates me.”

  A lie, Canute thought, but Kaguya was trying to do something nice for her friend.

  Haru looked down at Momo, who suddenly wagged his tail. He sighed.

  “If you’ll let me take him with me, then sure,” Haru said, leaning down to wrap his arms around Momo’s body and drawing the beagle up to his chest.

  “Was that ever in question? Go with your Kindred, Haru,” Kaguya said, waving him off. “You’ll always have a home here.”

  “Can I pack my clothes first?” Haru asked.

  Himiko shook her head. “We need to get back to the compound quickly. I’ll send someone to pack up your belongings and bring them there. For now, we have daylight to beat.”

  Canute slowly wrapped his arm around Haru and tried to offer a reassuring smile. It was Haru, when the kami looked up at him with that cheery grin that seemed like sunshine, that seemed like he was reassuring Canute, though.

  Because it was actually Canute who felt something in the pit of his stomach, something that felt like nervousness.

  He didn’t think Himiko would ever find him, after all, or that the woman would even still be alive.

  But, he supposed, as they were ushered to the matriarch’s van and moving back into the city, he didn’t think he would ever find his actual Kindred, either.

  The drive back to the city had been quick. Canute hadn’t gotten too far from the city center, but then again it was a surprise at all that he’d managed to get as far as he did without alerting the human population as a whole. He looked at Haru, who at first had been busy trying to pick lint off of his clothes, but when the cityscape came into full view, the young kami’s eyes suddenly flashed with excitement and awe. Even Momo had settled against his side and peered out the window, wagging his tail.

  Had he never been to the city before?

  Canute was entranced by every little nuance of Haru’s reactions to everything. The young kami pressed up against the window of the van, smiling at everything that passed him by. When they got to Himiko’s compound—the home of her family of Vampires—his eyes had widened even bigger.

  Added to the slight wave of his black hair that hung in soft little rivulets around his face, Haru looked even handsomer against the soft light of the sunrise slowly peeking from the horizon from outside of the window.

  Himiko turned to look at Haru, and there was the tiniest hint of kindness there that she didn’t use with anyone else. When she opened her mouth to speak, her voice was softer, too. “This is the home of my family. There are about one hundred and fifty of us living in this building.”

  “But it’s so tall,” Haru said. “You house that many people in there?”

  Canute looked up at the building and tilted his head. It certainly hadn’t been the biggest building Canute had seen, but then again, he’d seen skyscrapers that actually, honest-to-goodness scraped the sky. A twenty-story building was nothing by comparison.

  “Have you never been to Kyoto, Haru?” the matriarch asked.

  Haru shook his head. “My grandfather took me to the temple just a few years ago and I’ve been living there ever since. It’s usually Kaguya who comes out,” Haru explained. “It’s a little difficult for me to live in the city. Not because I need to be near forests or greenery, but because it’s hard to hide magic when you’re not in a secluded location.”

  “You have that right,” Himiko replied. “I can barely contain my magic around other people.” She lifted her hand, and her palms crackled with magical lightning between her fingertips.

  She continued, placing her hands primly on her lap. “Anyway, each floor is designated to a couple of people to give them the space they need. Smaller rooms for those of us who still have yet to find our Kindred, of course. When we find ours, they can move up to one of the suites. It’s just easier to keep everyone in the same building.”

  Haru nodded slowly. “It’s so different from life at the temple.”

  Then again, considering the roads they took that led them to the city proper, it was any surprise that the wooded enclosure of Haru’s home shrine was even visited at all. Perhaps that was why, when Canute went berserk, he headed straight for those woods. The density of the forests made it so the sunlight wasn’t so harsh if it managed to pierce through the foliage.

  Canute smiled. Himiko was making a concerted effort to talk to Haru, it seemed. Canute tuned the conversation out but he saw how Haru was slowly beginning to relax. They were talking about nothing in particular, the soft sounds of Haru’s voice helping Canute to calm himself down.

  The car entered the underground parking garage, and soon they were ushered onto the elevator, careening up to the topmost floors. Haru held onto Canute’s arm, buckling a little from the pull of gravity, and looked like he was holding Momo’s leash tighter on his other hand, too.

  “Whoa,” Haru said, running his hand down his clothes and smiling. The cheeriness on his face looked almost as sunny as the daylight outside. Simple, child-like wonder seemed to permeate every action Haru made, and it was making Canute feel…normal. He didn’t feel like his usual, warrior self. He felt like a protector, like he’d found something precious that he wanted to hold on to.

  Perhaps this was the universe’s way of making things right.

  “Are you okay?” Canute asked.

  Haru nodded. “That just surprised me, is all.”

  Himiko had the softest ghost of a smile on her face as she turned to look at Canute. “We’re heading straight to the boardroom. You and Haru are welcome to join us while we prepare the room you’ll be staying in,” Himiko said. She paused, and pursed her lips. “Your old room has been placed off-limits, just in case we uncover anything Ranmaru might have left in there.”

  Canute nodded. Unsurprisingly, the thought of Ranmaru’s betrayal didn’t sting quite as badly as it did yesterday. He wasn’t quite over the betrayal, but at least Canute was beginning to feel numb to it. “Okay,” Canute said quietly.

  The elevator bell rang. The door opened. Himiko briskly walked out, leading the way to the boardroom at the end of the hall.

  Just like the Chateau Sanguine, Himiko’s home was the picture-perfect example of sheer opulence. Gold accents in sleek, black hallways of marble, with tasteful fluorescent lighting in a soft, golden hue. Every window was tinted to the darkest color during the day, making sure none of the harmful light of the sun could penetrate through the glass.

  And when Canute turned his head to look at his Kindred, Haru was gawk
ing, or gasping. Soon, he’d wrapped an arm around Canute’s bicep, and that made him smile.

  It was just a small action, but it made Canute feel needed. It was the kind of attention he sought.

  The doors to the boardroom opened. Already seated all along the sides of the table were Himiko’s second-in-command and her four other closest lieutenants.

  “Apologies for my lateness, but I brought back Canute to help us with this situation,” Himiko said, her voice light and airy and confident once more, no longer the soft and friendly, almost maternal tone she used with Haru. Interestingly, she was speaking in rapid-fire Japanese, and yet Canute could understand her perfectly now.

  “This is his Kindred, Haru. We will do our best to make sure he is protected while he stays here in our home. Do I make myself clear?”

  The men and women around the table nodded. Canute went to take a seat, but not before pulling out the seat right next to him and dragging it closer to his. That way, Haru could sidle up against him.

  Haru didn’t even protest. He sat there in Canute’s arms, entwining his fingers with Canute’s. Momo lingered underneath Haru’s seat, his eyes darting from person to person and his tail wagging low.

  Himiko cleared her throat and sat down on her own, pursing her lips.

  An assistant immediately scurried from the sidelines straight to one of the nearby tables, busying himself with making barley tea for everyone present.

  “The plan is simple, but its execution requires finesse. We’ve staked out a number of Oda’s satellite offices close to our vicinity, and a few branches closer to Oda’s location that I’ve already sent men to. I’ll be sending all of our available combatants to each satellite, so only a token amount of security will remain here. We will attack each and every one of these offices simultaneously. This should draw out the bulk of Oda’s forces into focusing on each small theater of war we open,” Himiko said, gingerly holding up her cup of tea and placing it close to her face. “As this happens, Canute and a small number of my best soldiers will be sent in. Just as they sent a precise strike at us, we will send a precise strike at them.”