Blood Brothers (3 page)

He stared at Liu, pleased by the way the young man’s pulse quickened with excitement. Kuro sat up all the way and leaned forward.

“I can make you a warrior, Liu. I can make you a man so strong that no one can defeat you, that no one will ever deny you what you want, be it a material thing or more intimate pleasures.”

Kuro let his mind reach out again, pulling at the passion Liu felt for Kiyoshi. Kuro saw the images embedded in the young man’s memory and drew them to the forefront of his mind, adding his own power to make Liu squirm and bite back a moan of pent up desire.

“Stop it,” Liu whimpered, but he reached down to pleasure himself with desperate strokes that matched his heaving breaths. He brought himself to the verge of coming; Kuro could smell the musky scent on the young man’s perspiration. Liu swallowed back another groan and pitched forward, resting on his palms. He moved towards Kuro, crawling on his hands and knees. “Leave us alone—we just want peace.”

“Then why do you reach for the
kama
so quickly?” Kuro touched Liu’s knuckles as the young man gripped the wooden handle of the curved scythe. “Your instinct is to take a farmer’s tool for reaping crops and transform it into a weapon of death. It comes easily to you, doesn’t it?”

Liu’s eyes widened. He looked at Kuro’s fingers as they brushed over his hand, his face twisting with confusion. “I want to be stronger,” he admitted, seemingly for the first time. “I want Kiyo-kun to be stronger too. I—I want so many things. But he’s happy here…”

“There are ways for you both to be happy.” Kuro leaned forward, his lips just grazing Liu’s ear. “Many ways. That I promise you.”

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Blood Brothers

“How?” Liu shivered, but the trembling in his body was from anticipation. “What are you?”

“I am the excitement you’ve always dreamed of. I am the giver of gifts you’ll never encounter anywhere else.”

Kuro’s tongue snaked out and flicked along the edge of Liu’s ear. The young man shuddered with pleasure pure enough for Kuro to taste.

Smiling, he stroked Liu through the folds of the
yukata
.

“Lie back, Liu. Lie back and let me taste the power I know you have.”

The young man’s dark eyes grew wider still, first with fear and then compliance. Liu moved to stretch out on the futon and undid the thin sash holding his robe closed.

Kuro smiled at the sight of the bulge in the young man’s
fundoshi
and he reached down to shred the fabric of the loincloth with a flick of his fingernail.

Liu’s body responded all too readily. As Kuro grazed the edge of his nail over the pulsing length of the young man’s rigid cock, Liu jolted and writhed on the mat. This mere touch was enough to send the young man spiraling into the depths of ecstasy, fluid already seeping from the tip of his ready, throbbing head.

“That’s a good boy,” Kuro purred and leaned over him, his tongue darting out to lap at the tense flesh. Liu’s skin seemed to hum with so much unresolved tension, so many curbed desires. “You must have ached for release long before I arrived.” Kuro’s laughter sent more shudders through the other’s body, until Liu shivered as though from cold. But heat poured off him, his body temperature rising and his heart thumping wildly.

Kuro suppressed a desirous moan as his fangs extended, their sharp tips scraping his tongue. Liu’s blood sang to him like a siren’s call.

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Barbara Sheridan and Anne Cain

His long fingers raked through the thick curls around the base of Liu’s erection. The young man squirmed and gasped, and Kuro moved over him. “But I want to taste more than this, boy,” he whispered, his hand moving up to press against the back of Liu’s head. “Much more…”

Suddenly, he grabbed a fistful of hair and jerked Liu’s head to the side, exposing the neck and his throbbing vein. Kuro licked at the sweat-covered flesh and the young mortal moaned. Liu’s very body pleaded for Kuro to take whatever he wanted. More than happy to oblige, Kuro opened his mouth and punctured the vein with his aching fangs.

Kuro clamped his lips onto Liu’s neck and sucked ever so slowly as his hands drifted between them to stroke and squeeze the boy to a pulsing climax. The action filled Liu’s blood with a searing heat that went to Kuro’s head like the strongest
sake
.

In an instant, Kuro moved his lips away from the neck and closed them around the tip of Liu’s organ. He sucked out the last of young Liu’s sticky come, lapping it up and swallowing it down. He moaned softly as the fluids combined to create the most intoxicating blend imaginable.

The men’s labored breathing filled the stillness of the small house.

Across the way, Kiyoshi peered into the darkness, a stab of jealousy pricking his heart. He knew those sounds Liu had been making. He understood exactly what was happening when he heard his friend pant and strain to catch his breath.

Kiyoshi turned over, covered one ear with a hand and pressed the other against the futon to shut out as much sound as he could. He wasn’t certain but he thought he heard the older man laugh.

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Blood Brothers

“I think you’re right,” Kiyoshi told Liu the next morning. “I think he’s well enough to be on his way. I’ll tell Kuro to leave when I take his breakfast—”

Liu grabbed his arm. “No. Not yet. He—he needs more rest…”

Kiyoshi set the wooden bowl down roughly. “
You
need to rest. What did he do? Why did you let him? Look at you. You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

“Kiyoshi-kun!” Even Liu looked shocked at the sharpness of his tone.

Kiyoshi gave a start, leaning away from his brother who’d never spoken to him so roughly in the past. He tried to pull back but Liu held on to his forearm firmly.

“I didn’t mean to sound so harsh,
dai-dai
. Forgive me,” Liu spoke hastily in a hushed whisper. “I’m fine,” he insisted. “
More
than fine.” He moved closer, reaching out to take hold of Kiyoshi’s other arm. Dark shadows spread under eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep, and a crimson, angry-looking welt stood out on Liu’s neck.

“Kuro-sama is an amazing man,” Liu rushed on. “He spoke so many truths to me last night, things I’d never even realized for myself. I think he was a gift from the gods.”

“
Ge-ge
…” Kiyoshi said worriedly.

“The
kami
sent him here to help us, Kiyoshi-kun. He can make us better than we are—stronger, happier. Wouldn’t it be nice if you no

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Barbara Sheridan and Anne Cain

longer fell ill so often?” Liu looked desperately into Kiyoshi’s face, his strong grip tightening over the other’s arms. “You know how I worry for you.” Liu sounded almost on the verge of tears though no wetness shimmered in his eyes. “You know how much I love you.”

“I know,” Kiyoshi said softly. He lifted Liu’s fingers one by one and pulled away from his friend’s grasp. “I’m going out to pick the radishes.

You rest.”

Outside Kiyoshi dug into the dirt roughly with his bare hands. “I know you love me, Liu, and I know that samurai is not a gift from the gods. The gods would not send someone to take you from me.”

“Who knows what plans the gods have?” A shadow fell across the radish patch followed by the raspy sound of steel being drawn from a wooden sheath. Kiyoshi whipped around and stared up at a tall samurai in full armor standing over him. The warrior bore a fierce snarl on his weathered face, one eye glared down at Kiyoshi with unblinking intensity. Where the other should have been there was only a gaping hole, dried blood still clinging to the frayed edges of the fresh wound.

“Get up, boy.” The samurai raised his
katana
and for a moment Kiyoshi wondered if he meant to strike him down. Instead, the samurai grabbed Kiyoshi roughly by the chin and cut open the edge of Kiyoshi’s
kosode
collar with the sharp tip of the sword. The samurai jerked him around, half-dragging, half-carrying Kiyoshi out of the shade of the bamboo grove into the direct sunlight.

Too frightened to cry out, Kiyoshi trembled as the samurai forced his head to either side, the man’s one eye intently studying his neck.

Whatever he saw pleased him enough to release Kiyoshi, though he still held his
katana
at the ready.

“Take me to the one you spoke of—the man who found shelter here.”

The samurai spat on the ground. Blood mixed with the saliva, startlingly

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Blood Brothers

red on the light dusty earth. The samurai must be wounded on the inside as well, beneath the scarlet armor covering his body. Kiyoshi saw now the lacquered wood and leather straps were battered and battle-scarred.

“Fuck the gods for making a creature like Kuro,” the samurai cursed.

“Take me to him, and I’ll show you my plans.”

“No.”

Kiyoshi looked past the samurai to see Liu standing with his hands behind his back. “
Ge-ge
—”

“There is no one here,” Liu said matter-of-factly. “There was a man last night but he’s gone now. We gave him shelter and he left with the dawn.”

“You lie,” the samurai said. “The
kyuuketsuki
had to come this way.

Come closer, boy, let me see your neck.”

“Of course.”

Kiyoshi watched in horror as Liu whipped a small scythe from behind his back and sliced off the samurai’s head. The man’s head rolled, the one eye blinking, the mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.

Kiyoshi fell to his knees, his meager breakfast spewing onto the ground.

He spit the remaining bitter bile from his mouth and looked up at his half brother. “Liu, why?”

Liu stared down at the murdered samurai. The corpse was still twitching.

“Because it had to be done,” he finally answered, turning to Kiyoshi.

“It had to.”

“You’re not a killer,
ge-ge
.” Kiyoshi’s vision blurred as tears welled up in his eyes. He shook his head and the fat droplets splattered onto the ground already drenched with the samurai’s blood. “You wouldn’t do something like this.”

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Barbara Sheridan and Anne Cain

Liu backed away from him, his face contorted with so many conflicting emotions. “You don’t know everything that’s inside me,” he said. “I’ve always been able to kill—I just never had the chance before.”

Kiyoshi pulled himself to his feet and ran toward the house. Halfway there, he stopped to look over his shoulder and nearly retched again. Liu was dragging the samurai’s body away and he swore that his friend had dipped his fingers into the bloody stump of the man’s neck and
licked
them clean
.

“Where are you going, little one?” Kuro moved among the long shadows of the bamboo grove and Kiyoshi whipped about to face him.

Though his face was half-shrouded by the darkness, the white of the older man’s teeth shone as he smiled broadly.

“Don’t you appreciate Liu’s newfound strength?” Kuro reached up to wipe at the corner of his mouth as he laughed softly. A trickle of blood ran down from the edge of his sneering lips. “Close friends should have a bond that exceeds everything.”

Kuro stared at Kiyoshi, the intensity of his gaze penetrating. Kiyoshi felt as if he were being scrutinized, perhaps tested.

“And you two are closer than most…you run away only because you don’t yet understand.”

His smile grew wider as he turned his gaze to Liu who pulled the armored samurai into the underbrush, concealing the body from sight.

“I’ve given him only a
taste
and notice how quickly his true passions have been released.”

Kuro gestured for Kiyoshi to step closer. “You need only to taste some for yourself…”

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Blood Brothers

“I—I don’t understand,” Kiyoshi whispered, a knot forming in his stomach as his feet moved him closer to the samurai of their own accord.

“You understand more than you want to admit.”

Was that Kuro speaking inside his head?

“You already know the answer, don’t you, boy?”

Kiyoshi swallowed hard, suddenly finding himself directly before the older man. He was powerfully reminded of his own slight build and physical weakness. He licked his dry lips, tightening his hands into fists at his sides as if bracing for the worst.

“You don’t need to fear me, boy,” Kuro said aloud. “I can help you. I want to help you and your brother rise above your sorry station in life. I want to…adopt you both as my very special heirs.”

“Listen to him,
dai-dai.”

Kiyoshi jumped. How did Liu come behind him so quickly? He’d been way across the grove a moment ago. Kiyoshi relaxed a bit when Liu rubbed his hand across his back in a comforting gesture, only to tense again when his adopted brother wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him flush with his own body.

He couldn’t deny that he craved the feel of Liu’s closeness, the caress of his hot breath skimming his neck, his ear. However, he didn’t like how the samurai Kuro watched, leering the way Kiyoshi had seen the men leer at the whores on display in the nearest large town when he and Father used to go sell some of their crops.

“Listen to him,
dai-dai,
and accept his gifts for they are enormous,”

Liu whispered, his lips brushing Kiyoshi’s ear.

Kiyoshi closed his eyes when Liu kissed the side of his neck, his tongue snaking out to stroke the hot skin.

“Give in to it, boy. Give in…”

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Barbara Sheridan and Anne Cain

“Yes…” Kuro hissed, his voice all but lost in the rustle of the bamboo stalks as a sudden breeze stirred their leaves. Kiyoshi shivered, but Liu’s grip tightened about him and the kisses on his neck became more urgent.

“I would never do anything to hurt you, Kiyo-kun,” Liu breathed into his ear as he stroked the tender lobe with his tongue. “This is for the best. Love me…
trust
me…” His words trailed off as he nuzzled his face against Kiyoshi’s neck.

Kuro laughed throatily, his voice already husky with what Kiyoshi recognized as lust. He felt the same feeling stir within himself as he leaned back into Liu’s embrace. Kiyoshi whimpered and squeezed his eyes shut even tighter.