“Just follow my lead,” he murmured. He stepped forward, his knee brushing against my thigh, forcing me to step back. Then to the side, lifting me a little so I was on my tiptoes. Flustered by the unfamiliar dance, and the feel of his hands on my bare skin, it took me a moment to realize we were doing a kind of box step. But Raiden was good at leading, and his strong arms and sure steps quickly disguised my missteps. Soon enough, I lost myself to the rhythm, and we floated across the room as if we’d been doing this forages.
“You’re a quicker study than I thought you’d be,” Raiden said as we waltzed past a pair of skeleton-likeyokaidressed in whiterobes.
I smiled. “I think it helps that we’re underwater. If we were on land, I’m pretty sure I would have face-planted bynow.”
“I would never let that happen.” He pulled me closer, close enough that my breasts brushed up against his chest for a split second. An electric thrill went through my body at the brief contact. “We haven’t known each other very long, Aika…but you’re important to me. I don’t want anything bad to happen toyou.”
A warning bell went off in my head, and I began to pull back. “If you think you’re going to talk me out of going after mymother—”
“No.” Raiden tightened his grip on my shoulder blade, preventing me from backing away. “I know there’s no chance of talking you out of that…and to be honest, I wouldn’t like you as much as I do if you were the kind of woman who just sat back while someone she loved was introuble.”
“Oh.” That took the wind right out of my sails. A warm, fuzzy feeling began to grow in my chest, and it took real effort for me to hold back the sudden smile that wanted to bloom on my face. “Then why are you saying this tome?”
“I just want you to know that I have your back,” he said, his voice pitched low beneath the music. “That you can trustme.”
“I trust you,” I said, a little confused now. “Why wouldn’tI?”
Raiden raised an eyebrow. “Because you think I’m planning to find a way to leave you behind and go fight Kai by myself. Or am Iwrong?”
“I—” My words died in my throat as I realized the truth of his words. He was right—Ihadinstinctively assumed the worst. But was that reallyunwarranted?
“I can’t help it, Raiden,” I said, hating the defensive note in my voice. “You’ve got a controlling streak, and you’ve already made it clear that you don’t want me togo.”
“That’s true.” He lifted his hand from my shoulder blade and brushed a stray strand of hair from my cheek. “I can’t help the way I feel, Aika, but I know we have to do this together,” he said as tingles skipped across my skin in the place he’d touched me. “Amatsu is the god of chaos, and he’s very good at pitting people against each other. The best defense we have against him is to remain a united front. That’s not going to happen if you and I are both standoffish with eachother.”
“I already said that I trust you,” I said, a little mulishly. “I can’t say I’m going to blindly follow along with everything you say, but I promise I won’t try to deceive you or work around you. We’re in thistogether.”
“Good,” Raiden whispered, pressing his forehead against mine. “That’s all I wanted tohear.”
The kernel of resentment that had taken hold of me melted away beneath the warm look in his eyes. Sighing, I relaxed, letting Raiden carry me away on the steps of the dance. He pulled me a little closer to him as he guided me across the room, and in that moment, there was no denying the magnetic attraction between us. Resisting Raiden’s embrace was like the ocean trying to resist the moon’s pull. I didn’t know that anything would come of this, especially since we’d only just met…but was it really so wrong that I wanted to give in to what Ifelt?
We finished the set, then went to one of the refreshment tables to grab a drink. Shota joined us, and a trio of kappa immediately came over and tried to start a conversation with us. As the five of them launched into a conversation about catch wrestling, my thoughts drifted to the worry that had been niggling in the back of my mind. A worry that I’d forgotten about while I’d been enjoying Raiden’sembrace.
Why had Raiden been so relieved when I’d told him I trusted him, and that I wasn’t going to work around him? Was he worried that something might happen when we got to Mount Koya, something that would turn me against him? I couldn’t imagine what that could possibly be. I didn’t know Raiden that well, but I was pretty sure he was committed to taking Kai and Amatsu down. If that wasn’t enough to bring us together, whatwas?
There must be something he isn’t telling you. Some piece of the puzzle he sees, that youdon’t.
“Aika.” Amabie touched my shoulder, and I turned to see her standing behind me with a grave expression on her beautiful face. “It’stime.”
I blinked. “Ryujin’s already gone?” I hadn’t noticed him leave. But a quick glance confirmed he was no longer sitting at the throne, though his queen was up there, entertaining a group of their subjects. He must have slipped out while we were dancing, Irealized.
“Yes. Let’s not keep himwaiting.”
I got Shota and Raiden’s attention, and the three of us quietly slipped out of the ballroom with Amabie. Our escape didn’t go completely unnoticed, but Amabie took us through a servant’s entrance, rather than the grand staircase, so most of the guests didn’t see. She led us up a set of stairs, down two hallways, then up a second set of stairs before we finally emerged into one of the main hallways on the secondfloor.
As promised, Ryujin was waiting for us in his living room suite. He’d reverted back to his normal dragon size and was reclining on a gigantic chaise lounge as weentered.
“Ah, good,” he said, lifting his upper body as Shota closed the door behind us. “Come. I have your weapons, aspromised.”
We stopped a few feet away from the chaise, waiting expectantly. Ryujin waved his hand, and a wave of sparkling dust swirled from his clawed fingertips, coalescing into a four-foot box ofobsidian.
“Open it,” hecommanded.
Slowly, Raiden knelt in front of the box. The muscles in his back flexed as he carefully lifted the lid, revealing akatana. It was an ornate weapon with a gold cross guard and the image of a dragon painted on the black sheath in gold leaf. Moving closer, I saw that the cross guard had been forged into a pair of sea dragons that chased each other around the hilt of thesword.
“Holy crap,” Shota whispered as Raiden drew the blade. I gasped—instead of normal folded steel, it seemed to be forged out of some kind of iridescent blue metal, something that looked a lotlike…
“It’s a dragon blade,” Raiden said, confirming my thoughts. “Made out of dragon scales, one of the strongest substances in theworld.”
