Incarnadine

Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

"Eiko," he said. "We have to get you home. It's going to rain."

Home? Was I not already home? I buried my face in his chest, inhaling his scent. This felt so natural. I'd done this a lot of times before. I knew this from my memory.

Had I killed before, too? Was that why the sight of blood on my hand felt so familiar?

A small round bump under his shirt brushed my nose. The magical pendant. Sessho-seki.

"Why did all those people come to hurt me?" I asked him, drawing away a little. "What had I done to wrong them?"

His brows knitted together. "You've done nothing wrong. It's me."

Puzzled, I waited for him to explain.

"Years ago, I challenged the local Pack leader of werewolves here. It was a draw, but their Pack was...provoked by...an incident. It became a war for the community. Things got out of hand, and they formed these underground rebel forces against the law."

I remembered then what Armand had said.

The events of the night came back to me in a wave.

"I killed someone," I told him. The words were barely a whisper.

"He was going to hurt you." Warm fingers stroked my hair. My eyes shuttered.

"But I shouldn't have killed him. I should have just...knocked him out or something." I clenched my hands into fists. "I can't control them, Duane. You should have seen—I didn't have any control over my own hands. They were just suddenly claws and..."

He tipped my face up by the chin and pierced me with his gray eyes. "You've done nothing wrong, Eiko."

"I—" A sob hitched my throat.

"You did what you needed to do in order to stay alive." His fingers brushed the tears away from my face. "Had I arrived earlier, I wouldn't have let them walk out alive either way."

He kissed me. I let myself sink into the warmth, the comfort. Safe. I felt safe when I was with him. I didn't care what we were supposed to be. He's him. Duane. A missing part of the puzzle I'd failed to solve these years. Drops of water fell on my face. I thought they were my tears, at first, but then they also fell on my hair, on our lips. I tasted the rain in our kiss.

I pulled away first. Droplets of rain fell from strands of his hair, shadowing the question in his gray eyes. His arms were still on my waist, as if backing me up so that I wouldn't fall. I let my hand trail to his chest, my other still hung on his neck. I traced the outlines of the Sessho-seki under his shirt.

"Let me do it again," I said. "I've remembered most of it. Let me remember the rest."

Above us, a thunder crackled in the clouds. Duane shook his head. "No."

"Please, Duane."

I didn't let him reply. I pulled him down into another kiss. There was nothing gentle this time about our kiss. It was demanding. Feverish. His hand snaked up on my back to pull me closer. I held unto his shoulders, asking for what he didn't want to give.

And then I slid my hand under his shirt, to his chest. To the Sessho-seki.

Japan, 1966

"Your name for mine. Remember? You said you're going to tell me the meaning of your name. I think you have made me wait long enough."

I rolled in the grass to face him. There was a dried leaf caught in his light hair. I plucked it out and smiled. We both smelled like grass and dew and autumn rain. I kissed his nose, for I have loved it since the first time kissed when it kept bumping into mine. It was the nose of an American man—the people of the village didn't like it.