Chapter 3 #2
He ran his fingers through his hair. "I asked her about the bag and told her simply that. . .when we make love, I will put it over her head, but that it is breathable."
I waited.
"She had a response, but I don't understand it. I was hoping you could ask your Tiger to give me a translation."
I sighed.
My Tiger was going to be pissed about him drugging and kidnapping her. I doubted she would offer a translation when she would want his blood under her nails.
Still, I shook my head and asked. "What did she say?"
He ran his tongue across his bottom lip. "First of all, she called me the n-word."
I blinked. "She what?"
"The n-word. I don't know why she would call me that, but she said it really loud and then asked if I was crazy.”
Oh fuck. This is going to be a shit show.
I inhaled more of the joint, unsure of what else to do.
"Then she said something about her face card."
"Her face card?"
"Yes. I think American girls call that like their status of beauty or—”
“I get it, but basically she brought up that she was too beautiful?”
“Yeah. There were several sentences about her face card, but then she said something about if that bag came near her face, the only solution would be ‘belt to ass.’" He looked at me, completely serious.
"That’s the part that lost me. Do you think she's expressing interest but the cultural barrier is causing confusion? "
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Rin. . .I think she was threatening to whip you if you ever tried to cover her face.”
“No.”
“Yes. Whip you with a belt.”
Rin turned back to the sea and then laughed. “Wow. She’s like no woman.”
We spent a few silent minutes smoking until the joint was almost gone. When it got close to done, he put it out on the stone railing and flicked it in the air. “Kenji. . .”
I looked at him.
"What am I going to do?" His voice came out stripped. "Already. . .I don't want to let her go, but I don't know what to do with her if she won't meet my requirements. . ."
I said nothing because what I wanted to say was just try without the bag. Those words sat in my throat.
But I also knew why the bag existed.
The ceremony had happened on Rin’s eighteenth birthday. Every man in his bloodline went through this so-called rite of passage tied to the family's obsession with purity and the belief that their blood was divine and their emperors must be sexually dominant.
Generations of inbreeding had made the family brilliant and broken in equal measure, and the ceremony was the proof of both.
Rin had known little about the ceremony, just that it would involve something sexual.
The night of his eighteenth birthday, the royal guards brought him into a spacious room with a huge bed in the center.
Rin only wore a white robe.
The emperor—his uncle—sat on a throne four feet from the bed. Rin's father sat beside the emperor. Another uncle beside him.
Three men watching.
A naked woman lay on the bed with a dark black silk bag over her face.
Young and seeing a naked woman for the first time, Rin’s body responded and his cock hardened.
The emperor told Rin to remove his robe.
When Rin disrobed, his father looked at his cock and proclaimed with pride, “Look how strong and big my son is.”
The emperor smiled.
Naked, Rin climbed onto the bed.
The woman spread her legs.
He got between them and his hard cock pointed at the entrance.
She guided, helping him enter her and teaching him how to move his hips with her hands. He kept the rhythm that she gave him.
And every time Rin looked up, there was the emperor nodding, his father smiling, and his uncle grinning.
It ended quickly.
Barely a minute later, Rin finished inside her. Yet, it was the most intense physical sensation of his life.
The emperor nodded. “You did good.”
His uncle smiled and clapped.
His father stood and walked over to the bed with tears of pride in his eyes. “You have brought honor to our bloodline.”
Rin pulled his wet cock out of her and panted. “Thank you, Father.”
“I'm very proud of you, son.” Then he reached down and pulled the bag off. “And your mother is proud too.”
Rin stared in horror as his mother—the woman whose face had been under the black bag—looked up at him from the bed. Her face was flushed and she was still breathing hard. She smiled. “Yes, son. You did an amazing job.”
Rin vomited on the bed.
The emperor recoiled. “What is he doing?”
The uncle looked away in disgust.
Rin ran out of the room, dressed fast, and escaped the palace. An hour later, he was on my balcony in the middle of the night.
And every woman since. . .got the silk bag. Because the last time a bag came off a woman's face during sex, it was his mother underneath.
The bag wasn't a preference.
It was a scar shaped in silk and he didn’t know how to heal it.
I looked at him now with all his royalty, power, and poison.
Tonight, what I saw underneath. . .was that same terrified eighteen-year-old boy on my railing.
I let out a long breath. “You may have to tell her why the bag is important.”
"Besides those that were there and you. . .I'll never tell anyone else.”
“Rin—”
“I'll die with that truth."
"Then you may need to let her go."
"I don't want to."
“She’s my Tiger’s stylist, and if my Tiger asks me to intervene I will.”
“Does Nyomi have to know?”
“I can only buy you a few days time, but once she realizes that Deja didn’t return to New York. . .”
“She's different from any woman I've ever met."
"Then use that."
He looked at me. "Use what?"
"Use the fact that she's so completely different from any woman you know."
She's not your mother.
I swallowed. "Lean into that difference and maybe. . .just maybe you won't need the bag."
His hands began to shake, telling me how much trauma he still carried from that night. "I'll think about it."
“Two days, Rin. That’s all you have before I tell Nyomi what happened to Deja.”
“Could you give me a week?”
I scowled. “Two days.”
Sighing, Rin rose until he was standing on top of the railing. His long hair rippled in the wind, showing more of that cracked crown tattoo full of black roses.
From this view, he appeared like some ethereal spirit balancing on the edge of the world. “Okay. Two days.”
I nodded. “Get some rest and don’t drug Deja anymore.”
“Yes, sir.” Rin stepped off the railing into a silent drop.
I never heard him hit the ground.
Fucking unbelievable. Why would he kidnap her?
But the conversation had made me think of one thing.
Our ancient grandfathers over several generations—a samurai and an emperor.
Same blood.
Same shadows.
And neither Rin nor I had escaped what our blood had built for us.
I need to know more about my ancestors. Maybe. . .it could help in the war.
I quietly returned to the bedroom, got in bed next to my Tiger, grabbed my phone, and sent a text to my Roar.
Me: Look through my mother's belongings. Find any texts, books, journals, anything that talks about my bloodline. I want it in my office by morning.
It took too long to go back to sleep as I held my Tiger. . .too long, but when I did. . .I dreamed of shadows shaped like beasts hovering over faceless dead people floating on a rippling sea of blood.