Didn’t I want justice?
I was too soft for them. They didn’t know it, didn’t understand just how much of an outsider I was, because I kept my mouth shut as they taught me how the laws of mages worked. Because no, I didn’t want someone murdered on my behalf, even if he was a monster.
Iwasn’t a monster.
Every day I spent in Japan, I felt more distant from Igarashi Kosuke. He’d died with his parents, in a way. The very idea of a Kosuke who could be the heir they needed was long dead.
I was Dakota Morris, and someday, if I married Jax, I’d be Dakota Fyse, because I had no love of my adopted parents or name. Sure, it was a pain to change your name, but it was the right choice for me anyway.
All that mess circling in my head was why when Jax took me aside, our bags already packed, and we left the family’s enormous Kyoto estate, I didn’t hesitate a moment. Every day with the Igarashi family was like trying to wear the skin of a dead man. Alone with Jax, I was myself again.
With Jax, I would go anywhere.
The drive through the Japanese countryside was beautiful. Japan was beautiful. I fit well with the average people I ran into at markets and restaurants. If it hadn’t been for the Igarashi element, I suspected I’d have felt almost at home there.
Funny, that the people I was genetically related to made me feel less at home.
I had no idea where we were going, but even as the scenery got greener and greener, I didn’t have the slightest urge to ask. I squeezed Jax’s hand tight in mine, and that was enough.
Jax was always enough.
By the time we pulled up to the end of a long driveway, I was curled up in his arms, content to spend the rest of the day in the car if that was his plan. But no. We were at a huge house that looked like a postcard version of what people expected Japan to be. The family house in Kyoto was enormous and luxurious, but it had felt American in style, right down to the overstuffed sectional sofa.
This place was like a picture of traditional Edo architecture. Long elegant lines, a gently sloped roof, and everything made of wood, not a speck of concrete or stone in sight. The feeling of stepping into history was magnified when the driver brought us inside to find a traditional genkan, and automatically stooped to remove his shoes before taking the bags any farther into the building. Jax followed suit, because my boyfriend and alpha was nothing if not savvy to local culture.
It was like he was made to be a diplomat.
Me? I was a bulldozer.
Okay, fine, I stopped to take my shoes off too. I wasn’t abarbarian. I just wasn’t as good as him at following social cues. I’d learned these ones in school though, so I already knew them.
Almost the whole house was low tech. No outlets, no ceiling fans, not even electric lights. Just tatami-covered wooden flooring, sliding fusuma for all the doors, and shoji windows, which were... well, beautiful. I didn’t think I’d survive long without an internet connection, but I couldn’t question the sheer stunning elegance of the place.
It was less than an hour, though, before the driver was leaving, saying he’d be back in three days—three days?—and taking his leave.
Were we supposed to live three days with no internet and minimal electricity?
Jax didn’t pay any mind at all, just marched over to the huge building’s one nod to modern style and technology—a full kitchen with huge restaurant-size fridge. When he swung the doors open, it was literally full of food. A whole fish in a pan on one shelf. Wrapped meat, with listings of the cuts and weights on the paper they were wrapped in—steaks and chops and pounds of fish and squid and... it was incredible, and I wanted to dive into it.
I hadn’t even realized before... was I hungry?
My stomach grumbled as though to answer just as Jax turned back to me, a wide smile on his face. “Your grandmother is a heck of a lady.”
“She . . . what?”
His face turned serious and he crossed back to me, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me in. “You know this is the full moon, right?”
But it wasn’t. It was days till the full moon. Or at least...aday. Wasn’t it? Had I completely lost track of time? I’d been trying to track it, since I knew it was supposed to be important to me now, but things had gotten a little muddled over the course of the trip.
“You’re reacting to the waxing moon,” he said, stroking a hand down my back, his voice soft and touch soothing. “You haven’t been a wolf for long, and your body isn’t fully attuned yet. It’s like werewolf puberty, sort of.”
Fuck me. Puberty? That had been bad enough the first time. I did not need to deal with that crap again. “You’re joking,” I demanded.
The sympathetic wince he gave said that no, he was not, in fact, kidding. He was deadly serious. I was going through werewolf puberty. The way I’d been wanting to scratch myselfall over, and the creepy-crawly feeling of my own skin on my body came back to me. The way I’d been entirely unable to get comfortable for the last week.
I’d thought it had just been the discomfort of dealing with the Igarashi family and their presumptions that I was one of them and thought like they did.
“So... they sent us out to the woods?”
