InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Transient Winds ❯ Husband ( Chapter 10 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Dear Reader; Be advised: this chapter is not for the weak at heart. It is meant to twist your stomach a little and at the same time it serves a purpose and hopefully gives understanding to Miyabi. So here we go…



The air between them had become so stiff that even the breath stilled in her throat, choking her. If it wasn’t for the weight of the man above her, she would have thought to inhale, but the intense look in his eyes sent a thrill up her spine and all contemplation ceased.


Everything around them had die away in movement. A pin could have fallen, making echoes ring from one side of the room to the next and she would not have paid it any attention.


Ecstasy invaded her mind and made it a haze of what she desired it to be. She wanted to think, and react. She wanted to do something other than roll her hips against his, pant his name, and claw at his back, like some helpless little girl.


Her left thigh suspended high in his right hand. All the while his fingers tightened with each stroke of his body, leaving red imprints for reminders. Sweat poured from his brow, tickling a trail to the tip of his nose while animalistic growls ricocheted from wall to wall and back to her ears.


“Miyabi.” His body was starting to shutter inside her and she maneuvered her muscles to clench him, please him. Her pampered hands reached out to grab him. Small dainty arms encircled his board back and mashed him across her bare chest.


“Yes, yes,” she coached him, burying his head in the nape of her neck. “That’s it.”


Her nails traced small cuts along his back that war had made and she whispered, “I am here.” Her lips caressed the tip of his ear. Her swift tongue ran over the tip of his lope to taste him.


He bit his bottom lip, a habit he chastised her for. The feeling of her right heel digging into his lower back urged him.


“Damn it!” he grunted. In one violent motion he slammed his hands to the hard floor beneath her head and cried out in agony as her nails clawed open those same cuts that she caressed only moments ago. His body ached and begged for release.


Between her legs felt like home and left him in agony.


With every fiber of his being he could not take his hands from her. Stubbornness in his body did not want to leave her and a greater part of his mind had started to lose the control that kept him from her- the common sense given to a man.


It was her sobs that he heard first, then the soft whimper from her lips- sounding something of a wounded animal. With a slow and steady movement, he lifted his head just enough to notice the silver trickles that had started to trace lines down her cheeks.


Slow inaudible whispers came from her lips like invisible liquid. He thought to ask her what was wrong, but couldn’t find the words.


His mind was not able to grasp the agony that had started to contort the lovely feature on her face. He lifted himself from her, his naked body exposed to the coolness of the night that had surrounded them.


Miyabi’s body still lay on the cool floor. Her arms still extended wrapping around thin air, clutching someone that was not there. Over and over again he heard her breathless whispers. Louder and louder they had become until she was screaming and her face became an unclear picture in his mind.


“Please don’t!!!”


The air that gushed into his lungs burned like poison and there was a haze before his eyes. Sweat poured onto the bed sheets like water and Tanaka felt as if he were glue to the mattress. In the night air, his body was trembling with desire and his mind cried out in frustration.


“Miyabi,” he whispered into the darkness just to hear her name.


It had been nearly a year since she had departed from his home. Tanaka had made it a point of never going to see the girl in hopes that his dreams would stop. However the thought of her smooth skin, her panty voice, the times he had seen her precious face cringe in pain and those tears in her eyes, would rile him to a breaking point. He had awoken many times like this with sweat pouring, heart beating, and the stiffness below his stomach that frustrating him.


He threw things, broke lamps, vases, expensive items that he would no longer be able to replace. Afterwards, he would fall to his knees to pray silently to whatever god listened to the rants of a mad man. God, how he longed for her.


But tonight was different. Tonight, he had no desire to wake his servants in the middle of the night with his screams and shouts of anger and aggravation. Tonight, his body was weak, feeble from his peculiar dreams. With a trembling hand, he made a trail from the nape of his neck and down the middle of his chest, just like she had in his dreams.


He was surprised that at his own touch his body quivered. Shamelessly, his fingertips traced the ripples that made up the muscles of his belly and through the thick brush of curls that he knew Miyabi had inherent. With an exhale breath, he wrapped his finger around his penis that stood erect from his visions.


Without a thought her name came from his lips, “Miyabi.”


It brought about an unusual relief, something that Tanaka had not had since the day she left. Slow and steady stroke put him at ease and he called her again. In his mind he had visions of the night she laid on the floor and he stroked her with his fingertips. The softness of her was tantalizing and her wetness that had started to cover his five appendages would have made her ready for him.


Involuntarily, his strokes became vigorous and he closed his eyes to see her.


If he had entered her that night, taken away her virginity, she would have been his tonight. She would have thrown her head back and he would have nipped at the exposed skin on her neck, leaving markings that she would cover with a light dust of powder.


His body was once again shuddering against his vicious movements.


She would cringe at her own tightness as he slowly, tenderly stretch her open. A slight whimper from her throat would cause him to kiss her lips and whisper, “It is okay.” Then he would continue, gradually entering her and easing out as inch by inch she stretched to take him.


His blood was rushing now. He could feel his pulse surging in between his fingers. Damn, it felt good to lose himself in her.


He would teach her. Show her to move with him so her body could embrace him at the right points and he could fulfill desires that she never knew of.


On a panted breath, he called to her again, “Miyabi.” His body jerked forward into his hands and he finally released covering himself in the slick white liquid that would have been encaged in Miyabi.


In his mind, her muscles relaxed around him and she smiled at him, hugging him in a childish way. “Thank you,” she’d laugh that giddy way he had not heard in years. “Can we do it again?”


“Oh, gods.” Tanaka panicked when he felt his body go rigid again, wanting more than what he had given and he continued stroking and tugging as he saw Miyabi smiling and panting with him. He called her name and she would call his in return.


As the second climax escaped, Tanaka felt weary, but not spent. His right hand shook uncontrollable against himself and he could feel his blood rushing, starting his body up again as if he had done nothing. The sound of her voice echoed in his mind and his body was ready again.


Enraged, he grabbed the clean linen he was covered in and threw it across the room. Gripping his unyielding hard extension, he began to jerk wildly for release, coming to a conclusion in his mind, a declaration that made him reach out his free hand towards her grabbing only thin air.


“I will to have you.”


Her dreams were that of an innocent young woman. When she closed her eyes, she saw white lilies and red roses- kimono’s traced with silk threads and happiness visible to only her eyes.


Those dreams were piece of mind, her solace. They eased her like the hand of her mother on those restless nights, but slowly she found herself without those images. Those dreams had stared to dry up with the swinging of her instructor’s calligraphy pen, reddening the backs of her hand. With each wrong answer, with each incorrect posing of a limb, strict discipline was the response.


And gradually things changed.


Curiosity was childish, biting your lip was improper, and going without shoes was barbaric. Royalty had taught her those things and Miyabi had adapted with the precision of a true lady. She stood with a straight back and was more seen than heard. Her touch was light, and her manners, perfection. She was Lady Yamato.


The lord’s wondering eye had begun to focus on Miyabi and though it excited her to have the attentions of her lord, it was terrifying. His stare was direct and he was no shameful man. He would stop by her lessons everyday and watch with a scrutinizing eye. The gentle strokes with a calligraphy brush had never been so enticing.


With gradually influence, he saw her begin to form into what he so longed for her. She would speak in a quite voice and only talk when spoken to. Whispers from servants had begun to change from criticism to admiration. He enjoyed that.


She was his.


Out of the corners of his eyes, he watched her lips caress the brim of the sake cup as she drank. The tip of her fingers encircled the small container and her face gave an ever so slight cringe at the burn it caused in her chest. He had kept her away from sake; it was unbecoming of a woman to drink in such a fashion.


Her makeup had been place flawlessly and in her uchikake, she glistened. The white fabric laid against her skin in a similar design as snow on the ground. On the ends of each sleeve, a hint of blue, mingled with the feather cranes that danced all about her garments. Each thread carefully entangled into the fabric to form this perfection before Lord Yamato. She had never looked more beautiful than she did then.


Removing the cup from her lips, she swallowed with hopes of ridding herself of the bitter taste on her tongue. The small cup rested on the palm of her left hand as she eased it over to her husband wary of her dress. She had not wanted to soil the fabric she wore.


Yamato’s lips curved into some what of an enduring smile as he took the cup from her. His fingers brushing the skin of her hand and he saw her wince. He took it as nothing more than the taste of sake, and proceeded with the ceremony of marriage.


Underneath her kimono, Miyabi shook like a nervous child. She could feel the eyes of her father stares and in her head she could his voice. “Akusai wa hyaku-nen no fusaku. “


His bittersweet tongue whispered those words to her again, moments before she stood beside her husband, with the demeanor of a woman that she could not recognize if asked. Behind her, a gathering of royalty that she knew nothing of, but her husband spoke among them like family. They admired him and congratulated the man on such a beautiful wife.


Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him take the sake to his mouth and drink with an ease that she did not possess, nor did she want. As composed as she was, she wanted to run.


Her father had told her not to. He had gripped her by the shoulders digging his finger tips into her skin as though the fabric she wore could hinder his words. Back and forth he shook her until the vision before her blurred.


She nodded blindly, tears hadn’t stained her powdered cheeks, but blood stained her well-manicured fingers. A healthy gash tore the skin on the back of her hand. It neither hurt nor stung. It was just a reminder of a confusion that she did not understand.


The oak frame of her full length mirror lay not far away. Crooked and facedown, it did not compare to the shattered glass about the floor. The jagged shards caused images of light to glitter the walls around them. Almost mystical, was how she remembered it. It was like something of a fairytale.


Miyabi hadn’t known who to blame; herself or the woman that stared at her through the translucent frame of the mirror. The image of her was revolting and petrified Miyabi. However, the damn woman could be called nothing, but beautiful, radiant, and graceful. Her line of elegance came only once in a lifetime and Miyabi hated that.


The woman was the spitting image of her mother. The same solemn expression dashed across her face and she could not tell if she was delighted or miserable. She would follow her husband around quietly becoming the perfect treasure for any man.

People smiled and admired this woman. She had started trends amongst others in the village, as had her mother.


Miyabi didn’t know her and had no interest in knowing her. She was nothing, but an image of perplexity to taint Miyabi and thus she had put her fist next to the image, pressing until the woman’s face shattered into tiny depictions of what it had once been. Millions of eyes stared back at her accusingly, daring her to grip the frame holding the woman’s image and she did. Her tiny fingers grasping the mirror frame so tightly that she could hear the wood groan. She cried out before she threw the structure, a hollow grunt from her throat, scaring the maiden that stood in the corner, ready to serve her lady.


The young girl raced through the corridors, she had never seen a woman so enraged. When she ran into Lord Tanaka, she was petrified. Her words came out a jumbled mess, but enough for the man to understand that there was something wrong.


Without a second thought, he stood before her doors watching the beautiful woman as she picked up sharp shards of glass throwing them across the room, mumbling incoherent words under her breath. The small glass would slam against the wall, and explode with the sound of tiny bells.


It was the third piece that sent him racing towards her, gripping her shoulders. He would bring her back to reality; give her the sense that she was born with.


Then she gazed up at him, questioning his presence, a final shard of glass falling from her fingers to the floor about his feet. The blank stare he received made him wonder if she had even heard him tell her to cease her actions and she had not.


It was the eerie silence that covered the wardrobe room underneath her father’s words that dawned her attention. The awkward quietness gave her a semblance of peace. Her eyes had closed and she tilted her head back, thoughts drifting back to days when she would have cried, would have felt hurt.


In her father’s arms her body went limp.


In her mind, the sound of the glass as it collided with the skin of her hand played like a melody. The relief that came with the shatter caressed her down to the depths of her soul. She didn’t care that Yamato would take a hand to her face when he found out about it, leaving bruises and imprints on her cheeks as he had done before.


He was fixing her. That had become his reasoning, but as hard as she tried she couldn‘t recall being broken.


Tanaka stared at his daughter, confusion marred his features. He knew nothing to do.


She looked to him for the healing that only a father could bring, but Tanaka could never be that father to her. She was more to him than she could ever understand.


He could not decipher his feelings as she gazed at him. The thought of wanting to condemn her or take her away from the life that he had planned out for her were at war in his mind. Those impending dreams planted remnants in his head and he mashed her small frame against his chest. From her mouth a gasp of surprise. If she had been his lover he would have laid her down on the bare wooden floors until she could remember to breath. And while she could not understand what was happening around her, he would have explained to her, but unlike the father that he needed to be.


Miyabi could hear her father’s heart beat. The tempo was something that she had never heard before. It was soothing and the rhythm pounded against her left temple. With eyes closed, she clung to him digging her red nails into the fabric of his yukata. It felt magnificent. The sense that maybe he cared, that the man had some feelings for her, but she was still as naïve as the day she left her home.


Tanaka sniffed the jasmine from her hair, felt the curves of her waist and through the thicken fabric she wore, he could image the smoothness of her skin.


“Gods,” he whispered tightening his grip on her, finding the tremors that haunted his body at night were staring to shake the tips of his fingers.


In her ears, he sounded as the father that cared, but in her ignorance she failed to notice the way his hands had started to caress the small of her back.


He had begun to question the sensation building in the pit of his stomach. His fingers hesitantly roamed the contours of her back. Would it be okay if I just…


“My lady?” The voice, clear and contrite, came with an underlined warning and he found it annoying.


To Miyabi, the father and daughter moment had come to an end. With lilting hands, he released her allowing her to stand and straighten the hand woven obi around her waist. Afterwards, she turned to the door, with a renewed sense of unawareness.


Gekido stood at the door. Hair pulled back into a bun- her formal attire pressed and pristine.


Immediate recognition raised Tanaka’s brow. The few times that he had seen her in his home she had been huddled under an over protective grandmother, but had she been free she would have become another concubine in his palace walls.


How could any of that matter now? Not with the small indention that he felt in Miyabi’s back. The new contours of her face and the small fraction of a smile that echoed on her face at that moment.


If she could understand what ran through his mind, would she reject him or let him take what he wanted as her father and pervious lord.


He calculated his motions carefully in his mind, taking the hesitation from his lingering hands so that she would not notice. He spun around on his heels before the longing on his face was visible, leaving the clinking sound of his boots forever in his daughters mind.


Tap, tap, tap.


And she watched his back against the darkness of the atmosphere, etched his frame into her mind like a well oil painting. And though she could count the very threads that assembled the crest upon his back, if asked of her wedding ceremony, she could remember nothing, but the shivers from her husbands touch, the pulsations of her fearful heart.


She stood before her new husband, now. They were alone. His frame towered above her and his eyes roamed the contours of her body as though she were a divine dish.


Lord Yamato had only dreams of his time with her. His vision derived from their encounter in the forest. The softest skin glazed with honey from the light of the sun. It was so close his fingertips had begun to tingle with want.


He took a deep breath absorbing the intimacy of his moment.


The room they shared was drafty. A small futon draped in white linen and dusted with the smell of chamomile was the center piece. An enchantment of candlelight danced from the wall to the ceiling and back again.


She didn’t like the look in his eyes. So, she didn’t stare while the thought of his hands repulsed her, giving her tremors in the pit of her belly.


Would he stop if she asked him to?


Her eyes went to the bed.


Lord Yamato frowned at the way Miyabi just stood there staring at the futon. He circled the mattress, stopping opposite of his bride. He had no intentions of wasting time wondering of what would be. He was straight forward and always had been. Nothing could change that. Not the fears of his wife, or her stupid notions.


“Take off your clothes,” he ordered as he would his slave and though she wasn‘t, he had never thought of her as a person of equal status.


She jumped at the sound of his voice. Unprepared, she could do no more than stare at him. He sounded so much to her like her father that she almost called him by that name.


With the uncomfortable motions of inexperience, she slipped her kimono from her shoulders.


His eyes scrutinized her actions. Innocently, she didn’t understand the situation and the uncertainty of his thoughts bothered her. Even the delicate touch of the wind that eased through the cracked window frightened her as it rushed over her bare skin, touching her in all those spot that made her shame.


“Lay, Miyabi-chan.” He ordered and she slowly lowered herself to the bed keeping her limbs close to her for comfort.


Her back hit the mattress with a small thud that echoed in her ears. Her senses filled with the light smell of chamomile so much closer now than before and she could hear the ruffles of fabric beneath her.


Her body had started to relax on the pristine sheets and the thought of her husband escaped her mind for merely a moment before she heard the cling of armor falling to the floor. With a wide eye and a broken heart, she turned to him.


Body glistening in the light of the moon, his yukata fell to the floor. Underneath she eyed him, made a drawing of him in her mind. His body had been shaped at one time, but now it had started to loose the tightness that held in crisp stomach muscles. So, it in turn rounded slightly above a scar, a massive indention that was meant to kill. His legs lingered on forever and she could see how he had once been the man of dreams, but he was older now and she could only wonder how he would change for years to come.


She had adverted her eyes before the shadows could uncover the parts that scared her and it brought a laugh to Yamato’s throat.


Such a child, he mused lowering his body to the bed, gazing over his bride. Taking his time, he studied the smooth texture of her skin, the rise and fall of her chest, nipples hard from the consistent breeze tangling around them. The way her belly flatten and sunken in the middle, was untouched by any hands, but his. Black hairs curled at folds of her thighs. So pretty the way they shifted with the touch of his fingertips. Softly he raked his hands over them catching the heavy gasp on Miyabi’s breath.


His fingers wanted to touch every part of her body, wanted to explore the region of her curves and creases until he tired, but there would time for that later. Right now, his body was rigid with want.


Fabric wrinkling beneath his hands as he crawled over her, he looked much like a dog on hands and knees.


Her eyes stared daggers into the far wall and Yamato found it displeasing. Lowering his lips to her ears, he barked through clenched teeth. “What are you staring at?”


She wasn’t compelled to answer him, only to turn and stare with eyes the size of serving saucers. Her lips parted. With nothing to say that would satisfy him, she was much the child that Yamato thought her to be.


Through in the moonlight, he could not deny that he had chosen a beautiful wife. The woman beneath him had all the glory to bring a man to his knees and with no knowledge of what she was, she would belong to him.


He had accomplished such feats before and she would be no different.


She was his ornament. She was nothing more than something pretty for him to play with. His bidding would do for her. He could mold her, shape her, and she would bend to his will without question.


Her lessons had been diligent and dealt with similar rule. He would watch her as she studied. Such the determined learner that she was, she didn’t notice the scrutinizing way in which her future husband eyed her. His sights were approving of her, and that was all he needed.


The tenderness of her body lay beneath him questioning what was to come. He liked that. It was the intent of war. His weapon was the element of surprise and he thrived. Leaning into her neck like an animal he tasted her skin with the tip of his tongue.


She swallowed, the muscles in her neck responding.


And he smiled.


His experience had taught him how gentle a woman could be, but it had not taught him to care. With a swift motion, he maneuvered her thighs apart with his knees and watched her wince, shifting her body away from him. A normal man would have been insulted, but Yamato was a warrior from his heart and sight of the flinch amused him, excited him.


In dimming candlelight she look helpless, and her skin teased him. It was similar to that enticing moment in the bamboo forest, when she lay beneath him, crying, panting, and looking for a way out.


At the very thought, his heart rushed and he could feel blood racing to see those beautiful tears stream down her face like rivers. He wanted submission.


From his throat a dry laugh and a harsh grunt. In her ears, it resonated and she shook from the core of her soul.


It was her tears that pushed him. Like the monsters he had seen in the forest, he curled his lips back away from his nearly jagged teeth and lowered his head to the nape of her neck.


She felt the tingle of his breath, the moisture of his tongue, and the sharp, pinch of his teeth. Excruciating pain erupted on her neck sending terrifying signals to her brain and she cried out. He knew she had been heard outside the four walls that caged them, but her stimulating reaction was riveting.


The bittersweet taste of copper engulfed his mouth as her fingers raked at his cheeks trying in a futile attempt to stop the pain that tore at her shoulder, but his teeth dug deeper.


Heavy hands forced her manicured fingers from his face and to the mattress in a deadlock grip he used when he took the thinnest blade across the tender flesh on an enemy’s neck. He gripped her until her fingers where numb.


A trail of red poured from the corner of his lips once he lifted his head to eyed the woman and she was crying, uncertain, and scared.


The corners of his mouth turned upward, curving into something of a vicious nature. His teeth coated in red liquid and he leaned in close to kiss her lips. He felt her protest and would not allow it; felt her body shifting for a semblance of comfort and laughed at her attempts.


He laid himself between her legs, allowing her warmth despite his grave treatment of her, but not for her sake, for his. Her legs kicked and shot out from under him. Her tears were still freshly falling to the white sheets as she turned away from him.


“My lord, please,“ she whispered through the lump that had formed in her throat.


At the sound of her words, he felt insulted. She dared to protest with words what her lord was doing. No one, absolutely no one protested this lord.


Anger visible in his eyes, he lifted her wrist until she had no choice but to come face to face with him, lifting her head from the bed. And she was powerless.


Through his teeth, he spat words out to her, blood sprinkled her face, “what has your mind, woman? I will not stand for your protest.”


Slamming her head back down to the bed, he gave her no time to think before shoving himself into her fully without thought to her virginity. A ragged scream escaped her throat and the hand of a brute covered her lips.


“God, so help me,” his abrasive act turned her head to the side, jarring a pain in her neck. “If you scream once more. I will snap you neck.”


The pain between her legs sent sensations up her back splitting her nerves in two. She was unsure what she should have done, but she could feel the throbs of his movements and heard laughter on his breath.


“That is what it means to belong to someone, Miyabi,“ he panted on a harsh breath as he pumped her harder and more rapidly than before. “You belong to me, girl.“


Miyabi laid there, eyes closed enduring the unfamiliar pain. On her lips she whispered a prayer that her mother had taught her and though she could not remember for what she had learned the pray for, she simply hoped that someone heard her.


Her body trembled when it was over. Her limbs were unsteady and she bled from between her legs. She stared at the wood of the ceiling, paralyzed. Afraid that if she moved incorrectly, she would offend the man that had so easily rolled over and fallen to sleep. She didn’t want to wake him, lest he wanted to torture her more.


She had not reached up to dry her eyes, neither had she allowed a sob from her mouth. Shock had left her aching and in the pit of her belly the churning had started again. She could fill bile in the back of her throat, but her brain had not been quick enough to tell her to move or turn over, but her husband had.


With a sharp jab with his elbow, he moaned in his pleasurable sleep, “You are not to lie around in that state. Go clean yourself, Miyabi.”


Limbs that felt like weights lead her to the far corner of the room. Her steps burned the place between her legs and she could not find a steady stride to keep from holding on to the table and collapsing beside the small wooden bucket of water, left specifically for her occasion. She had not meant to lean over the still water, but her body was so feeble that it was all she could do to keep from crashing to the ground. In the translucent frame, she saw her reflection the woman that started back at her look horrendous. Blood had been draped across her face and she couldn’t seem to recall how in the mist of her experience.


Her eyes wide and vaguely defined turned away from her reflection, searching for answers to questions that had started to form in her mind. Her sights stopped on the bed. The bloodstain on the left side of the sheets stood out like a rose in carnations. The broad back of the man that she had so detested once upon a time, stared back at her as evidence.


She had become his woman. Everything that she was had become his. She had lay beneath him and watched him upon her panting, and grunting, the hair about his head slinging over his shoulders.


She had laid eyes upon his naked body and had gotten to know her husband. And he had hurt her. Like so many other times, she had stared up at him, questioning what she had done to deserve the bruise about her cheek, the blood that came from her lips, and now the redness that gushed between her legs.


Nothing made sense. His brutality was dry and uncalled for, but she had desired to be what he wanted for a wife and for the few minutes she laid beneath him, she was.


In the pit of her belly, the churning had ceased only a plunging feeling that forced her to distort her naked body while the bile that sat in her throat spread about the floor at her feet.



The wood below her feet had gone cold hours ago and the corridor was empty.


Her head was starting to hurt because she gripped her hair too tightly, pulling from each end, but it was the only thing she could do to slow the tears that fell at her feet. They turned the floor a darker brown and at times she allowed her mind to wonder as she gazed at the damp floor.


Then she’d hear her screaming. Crying out for help that was not coming.


A muffled sound from behind the rice door. Then she was quiet again, but only for a moment.


And for the first time she questioned herself. For the first time, she considered leaving her lady. Gekido’s decision to stay was never a matter of should she, but it was duty and admiration -the last wish of her grandmother.


The release of tension on her head eased her headache as she used her hands to cover her ears. The padding of the lady’s footsteps across the room bothered her. So unsteady and overcastted.


If she could have, she would have run to her, comforting the woman that she admired.


But she had heard this before. Some distance memory that she chose to forget, but she could recall her feelings. So vivid they were, now.


Thoughts of running into the room to stop this torturous behavior had crossed her mind, but the lord would not stand for it and she was in no position to question a man as powerful as he.


Even Tanaka had not been this brutal, but Tanaka had not been her lover. Would it have been better if Miyabi refused the marriage and ran from such a man?


Yamato’s common logic made no sense. He thrived on punishment to those closes to him and treated his concubines with care. At least that was what she had heard whispered from the mouths of women that had been with him and a few men that had the pleasure of passionate encounters with the lord, but that was never to be spoken of.


Lord Yamato was cruel, but Gekido would be there, waiting outside the door until she could enter to help the woman that she served.