17. Kitsuki
Chapter 17
Kitsuki
A week had passed since the incident at the castle gates. Things had been tense between Kitsuki and Auslin ever since. It was easy to wish things could go back to the way they had been in the past, when everything was effortless in their relationship, but Kitsuki could never be Kitaro again.
Auslin was getting better at navigating his long stares and silent reactions, but it was obvious it was hard for him to reconcile Kitsuki with the Kitaro he had once known. Kitsuki could smell the guilt that ate away at Auslin over what he had unintentionally done by unwittingly going through Fate’s Gate. The shifter monarch didn’t know how to make it clearer to the mage he truly bore no grudge against him for following Sophina’s guiding hand of fate they were all powerless to resist.
Ever since Kio’s ominous warning, Kitsuki had a sense of foreboding he couldn’t explain away. Auslin could tell that something was amiss, but Kitsuki had not shared the source of his uneasiness. He didn’t want to upset Auslin when there wasn’t an actual threat he could point to as a definitive cause. He felt foolish for being unable to dismiss the nebulous feeling something bad was about to happen.
After breakfast, Auslin left to resume his training with Jaega. Kitsuki couldn’t risk Auslin not being able to defend himself against Kio if the half-shifter got the mage alone.
Before Kitsuki could take care of his daily duties as monarch, he stopped by his bedroom to pick up the drafts he had drawn up the previous night while Auslin read.
His thoughts were solely on his work as he entered his room to gather his documents from his desk. It was why it startled him when he felt an all too familiar and unwelcome presence join him in his room.
Nasume strutted into Kitsuki’s room with a seductive expression. While the wolf shifter had grown more handsome over the centuries, his cruel streak had deepened him into a fearsome creature. He wore tight black breeches and a black jacket decorated with elaborate gold embroidery. It complimented his amber eyes that focused solely on Kitsuki. His long black hair was pulled back in a series of braids. How had Kitsuki never noticed the similarities between Nasume and Maseo in their past encounters? Perhaps it was because Maseo lacked the arrogance of his father.
Kitsuki refused to give the wolf king the satisfaction of catching him off guard. He cooly said, “You should not be here, Nasume.”
“Is that any way to greet your oldest and best friend in all the realms?” Nasume asked with a playful pout.
“You are neither invited nor welcomed here,” Kitsuki told him in his most authoritative tone. “Leave.”
“That’s the welcome I get after I came all this way to see you?” Nasume tutted as he attempted to invade Kitsuki’s personal space.
Kitsuki wasn’t interested in playing Nasume’s normal games. He grabbed Nasume’s offending hand by the wrist before it could make contact. Kitsuki crushed it almost to the point of breaking. “I am in no mood, Nasume.”
“I can change that,” Nasume purred as he ignored the pain and embraced Kitsuki with his free arm. He pressed their bodies close together with a seductive sway of his hips.
When Kitsuki forcibly shoved Nasume off him with his other hand, Nasume's eyes went wide in shock. “How did you get a new arm?”
Rather than answering Nasume's question, Kitsuki shoved him away to force distance between them. “Why must you persist in believing my rejection of you is foreplay? Have these centuries of denial taught you nothing?”
Nasume wasn’t discouraged. His amber eyes grew brighter at the challenge. “It would not be worth it if it were easy.”
“Get out.” Kitsuki wished Nasume would listen to him for once and do as commanded. “I have no time or interest in your harassment today or any other day.”
“But I can make it worth your while.” Nasume popped open his jacket collar, then each of the buttons one by one, taking a step closer to Kitsuki with each one undone. “ Very worth your while.”
Kitsuki rolled his eyes at the blatant come-on. Such antics would never tempt him. “Stop debasing yourself. Leave before you embarrass yourself further.”
“It’s cute how you always try to resist me,” Nasume mockingly said. He ran the claws of one of his hands down his chest, then over the tight muscles of his stomach. It showed off his emerald-green shifter markings, which covered his body. “You know, if you would take that stick out of your ass, I could replace it with something far more enjoyable for both of us.”
Kitsuki did not like the direction things were heading. He venomously ordered, “ Leave , or I will have you removed .”
“The only thing that needs removed is my breeches.” Nasume slid his hand down to undo the buttons on it next, then backed up closer to the bed.
Kitsuki froze when Nasume’s nostrils flared. Nasume’s outraged expression betrayed the fact he had caught scent of Auslin in their bed.
“You’ve taken a lover?” Nasume incredulously demanded, staring at Kitsuki in disbelief.
“It is none of your concern,” Kitsuki coldly replied. “Remove yourself from my presence at once.”
Nasume was clearly upset, but he continued trying to maintain a playful fa?ade that had cracked. “If you were that hard up for company, you should have summoned me sooner.”
“I did not summon you at all,” Kitsuki growled in irritation. “Yet you persist in remaining here uninvited.”
Nasume’s playful act dropped. “Who the fuck would you choose over me?”
Since Nasume wasn’t taking the hint, Kitsuki went for a low blow to drive the wolf shifter out of his room. “I would rather be with your son than you. Get out.”
Nasume reared back as if Kitsuki had physically slapped him. “How dare you say such a heinous thing! It is beneath your station to tell such lies.”
“It is funny you say I am lying when we both know you can smell I am telling the truth.” Unlike his father, Maseo had always treated Kitsuki with the respect his position owed, despite Kio’s vehement protests. It was sad he felt safer with Maseo than around Nasume.
“I would cut off that insolent whelp’s hands before I ever let him touch you.” The venomous way Nasume spoke about his son bothered Kitsuki more after hearing Auslin’s passionate defense of him. “I will kill him before I let him have you. You are mine . You always have been and always will be. That pathetic waste of life I am forced to call a son does not deserve you.”
Kitsuki shrugged. “He has treated me with more respect than you ever have.”
“Say you would choose my son over me one more time, and I swear to every Power in the Divine Realm, I will lay his corpse at your feet.” It chilled Kitsuki to hear Nasume make such a lethal threat he had no doubt the wolf shifter would carry out. No child deserved a father who would speak of them so cruelly. It was no wonder Auslin wished Maseo happiness when he was surrounded by two of the most toxic people in the Living Realm.
Not wanting to chance it, Kitsuki dismissively waved away the topic. “Do not be so ridiculous. Such jests are beneath you.”
Nasume’s nose flared again as he took a step closer to the bed. “Wait, is it another human ?” Nasume sounded hurt, but it didn’t move Kitsuki’s heart the same way Maseo’s plight did. “I had heard rumors, but I thought they were surely just that. Have you learned nothing from the last one who abandoned you?”
Rather than dignifying the question with an answer, Kitsuki tried to walk away. But Nasume embraced Kitsuki from behind to stop him from leaving. “You have no reason to choose a human when I’m right here and willing.”
Kitsuki’s attempts at extracting himself from the compromising position failed. “I owe you no explanations. It is not my fault that you are too stupid to understand what centuries of being told, ‘No,’ means.”
Nasume hugged Kitsuki tighter. “The only stupid one is you for not understanding the depths of my love for you.”
“This is not love.” It was an insult to the very notion. “This is nothing more than your misguided obsession.”
Before Nasume could make a counterargument, Auslin entered the bedroom. His eyes went wide as he took in the sight of a partially undressed Nasume clinging to a visibly uncomfortable Kitsuki. “What’s going on?” Auslin demanded, a slight waver in his voice.
Nasume finally released Kitsuki as he took a few steps toward Auslin. “What necromancy did you use to revive Vanra?” Nasume snarled as he turned back to glare at Kitsuki with his ugly hatred on full display. “How can it possibly be him? Humans cannot live six centuries!”
When no one answered his question, Nasume stalked closer to Auslin, cupping his cheek in his palm to get confirmation that what he was seeing was real. “You should be dead and buried. You cannot be here! It is impossible!”
Auslin slapped Nasume’s offending hand away from him. “The only one who shouldn’t be here is you. Neither of us wants you here! We never have.”
“This is not over.” Nasume pointed at Kitsuki. “We will have words later when you come to your senses.”
With a final disbelieving look at Auslin, Nasume stormed out of the room, the door closing behind him.
Auslin looked at Kitsuki expectantly with a trace of hurt in his expression.
Kitsuki started with the obvious. “I did not invite him here. I did not know he was in the castle until he appeared in our room.”
“The better question is, why is he here at all?” Auslin crossed his arms over his chest.
It took a moment for Kitsuki to process what had just happened. “Nasume mentioned he had heard rumors of me taking a human lover. The only logical explanation is Kio informed Maseo of your return, and he passed word to Nasume, who came to see for himself if it was true.”
It was a perfectly reasonable explanation for Nasume’s appearance, but it didn’t appease Auslin. “Even if that was true, what reason does Maseo have to tell his father?”
“Perhaps it was an attempt to curry his favor?” Kitsuki shrugged.
“I could see Kio telling Nasume himself, but I refuse to believe Maseo would do such a dastardly thing.”
It pained Kitsuki to concede the point. “That would make more sense when Kio was threatening to get his revenge on us.”
“What it doesn’t explain is why was Nasume half undressed?”
Kitsuki cursed Nasume for putting him in such an untenable position. “For some inexplicable reason, he persists in the belief that the very sight of his naked body will somehow sway me into desiring him, despite centuries of evidence to the contrary,” Kitsuki irritably answered. “This is further proof you should have let me cut down Kio when I had the chance.”
“ That’s what you’re taking away from this?” Auslin incredulously asked. “That’s hardly the real problem here.”
“If I had done so, Kio would not have informed Nasume, who would then have no reason to be here,” Kitsuki rationalized. “Kio’s death would have prevented that course of events from occurring.”
Auslin huffed with irritation. “I would rather have Nasume here than Kio dead. At least now we can deal with Nasume once and for all and get him out of our lives.”
“As Nasume is the ruler of Kunushi, it is inadvisable to kill him,” Kitsuki stated, the fact galling him.
The mage threw his hands up with an irritated noise. “Is killing people your go-to solution for everything now? Because I’m not okay with that.”
“In these two specific instances, it would be an ideal permanent solution to unwanted problems. Kio and Nasume cause far more problems than they are worth.”
Auslin pinched the bridge of his nose, then took a deep breath to calm himself. “I am asking you not to kill them. I may hate Nasume, and Kio may well deserve it, but I’m not okay with having their deaths on my conscience.”
“Even if it means Maseo dies?”
The mage blinked at Kitsuki several times in confusion. “Why would letting them live mean Maseo dies?”
“Because Nasume was not lying when he said he would kill Maseo before he could be with me.”
Auslin rubbed his forehead. “And why would Maseo be with you? I feel like I’m missing something here.”
“I was trying to anger Nasume enough to make him storm off.”
“I’m still not understanding.”
“I thought the worst thing I could say to Nasume was I would rather be with Maseo than him,” Kitsuki said with a shrug. “When he smelled I was not lying, he made threats about cutting off Maseo’s hands and laying his corpse at my feet.”
Auslin continued blinking at Kitsuki as he tried to process everything. “Why was it not a lie?”
“Because if my only choices were to be with Nasume or Maseo, I would choose Maseo. He does not pose the same threat to me and has been nothing but respectful to me. You also harbor a fondness for him, which seems to be wearing off on me. Whereas Nasume has never met a boundary of mine he would not cross.” Auslin still seemed dazed, so Kitsuki made things clearer. “I am not saying I desire Maseo. I was merely trying to wound Nasume so he would run off in a rage. The only person I will ever want is you.”
“I don’t doubt that.” Auslin lost some of his defensiveness. “You don’t think Maseo is in danger now, do you? Nasume wouldn’t actually kill him, right?”
Kitsuki hesitated. “I cannot say one way or the other. Nasume is too unpredictable. But it would probably behoove Maseo to steer clear of his father for the time being.”
Auslin worried his lower lip with his teeth. “I hate I don’t have a way to get in touch with him to warn him. I don’t even know what kingdom he would be in now that he’s not with Kio.” He looked at Kitsuki with fear on his face. “What if Nasume really goes after him when he leaves here?”
“If you do not know where Maseo is, it is highly unlikely his disinterested father knows.” When that failed to reassure Auslin, Kitsuki tried the next best thing to soothe away the guilt they both felt for turning Nasume’s attention to his son. It truly had not been Kitsuki’s intention. “I can have one of Jaega’s spies try to find him. I cannot promise they will be successful in finding him, but it is the best I can do to give you peace of mind.”
“I appreciate that. But what about Nasume and Kio?”
“What about them?”
Auslin frowned. “I want to hear you say you won’t kill them.”
“I just told you that killing Nasume is inadvisable because of his position,” Kitsuki pointed out, causing Auslin to scowl at him.
“And Kio?”
It pained Kitsuki to say out loud. “He shall live for now.” He couldn’t shake the feeling that Kio would bring more harm in the future. It was hard not to be a little resentful that Auslin was tying his hands in not being allowed to rid them of such a troublesome creature.
Auslin gave Kitsuki a pointed look. “Only for now?”
Even Kitsuki had his limits. “I will not make a blanket promise of guaranteeing that mongrel his life forever. I reserve the right to take action in the future when Kio proves himself to be the threat I know him to be.”
“All he does is run off his mouth,” Auslin argued in an aggravated tone. “That’s not grounds to kill him!”
“For now,” Kitsuki conceded, rankling Auslin’s ire further.
“Why are you being like this?” The question lay heavily between them, with the unspoken answer of it being because Kitsuki was not as forgiving as Kitaro had once been.
Kitsuki immediately became concerned when Auslin turned on his heel to leave. “Where are you going?” Kitsuki winced at his tone being sharper than he meant it to be in his fear over what Auslin might do.
He looked back at Kitsuki. “I’m going to go take a walk to clear my head.” Fear gripped Kitsuki’s heart because that was how he lost Auslin in the past. Realization dawned on the mage, who softened his tone. “I promise I won’t leave the castle.”
It was a relief to hear, especially when he could smell Auslin was telling the truth. “Very well. In the meantime, I will do what I can to rid us of Nasume’s presence at the castle.”
Nodding in acknowledgment, Auslin finally walked out of the room. Kitsuki remained standing alone, unable to shake the foreboding premonition the worst was yet to come.