Page 61 of Drawn into Oblivion

“The book called to her. I could see it in her eyes,” Vallen said. “It willed her to read it. It wanted to hurt her. This thing is evil.”

“What did she say?” His head pounded with dread.

“She asked a lot of questions. I’m afraid none of my answers calmed her. She was inconsolable when she left.”

“I must go to her,” he said, restless to find her and fix what had been broken. He turned to the door, but Vallen stopped him with his hands on Rosuke’s arms.

“You should give her some time. She’s taken a lot in.”

“If I don’t go to her now, she’ll think I don’t care.” He tried to pull away, but Vallen held on.

“She already thinks that. She told me she confessed her love today, but that you said nothing in response.”

“Damn it, Vallen, let go,” he grunted.

“Will you shut up and listen?” Vallen pushed him back a step. “Did I not say months ago that you should take time to process what we went through? To center yourself in a new purpose? And yet you pursued Mai anyway. I know you’re a good man, but even I questioned your intent when you started courting her. Divine One above, Mai herself questioned it just now. In light of everything, she believes she was just another conquest in your eyes.”

“She’s not a conquest. I love her!” Rosuke avowed. “She’s strong, responsible, honorable, compassionate,” he said, emotion clogging his throat, “and everything I wish I’d been as a human.” He broke Vallen’s hold and stepped back, chest heaving. “I got a second chance at a mortal life, one with honor. And I wanted to be the kind of man Mai could admire. Proving my worth to her would mean proving it to myself.” His voice broke near the end, his anger dissipating as despair set in.

And for the thousandth time, he recalled all the things in his past that did not make him a “good man,” as Vallen had said. The first morning he had woken as a demon, he had been compelled to seek out the nearest source of energy. His lover at the time had been asleep in his bed, awaiting his return despite knowing he had disappeared from a party with another woman of the court. He didn’t recall her struggling, but he’d killed her all the same, taking her over and over again until she had given him all her life’s essence.

By the time Vallen’s father had found him next to her dead body that afternoon, the man had already executed Madam Muneoka for cursing his son. Rosuke had been scared of what he’d done, and hadn’t understood why his magic wouldn’t respond to his will, nor why his hair was red. No one had been in their right mind to realize they should have questioned Muneoka first. A grave error, for no one in the court had known how to undo her evil incantation. She had hidden her method well, and the only words of significance they had found in her journal had been “the Devil’s Hand.”

A few months later, the thirteen house elders had banished him, Yasuke, and Vallen from court, citing their demonhood as more than sufficient grounds to eject them from crow society. Though Vallen’s father had done his best to find the Devil’s Hand, the man had died of old age and grief without learning of its whereabouts. For years thereafter, Rosuke and Vallen had searched together for the infamous tome, using methods that now filled Rosuke with shame. But they’d never found any leads, and the Dark Court had refused to even hear their pleas, let alone assist them.

Then the blondies had rebelled. The court had fallen, and everyone he and Vallen had ever known had died with it. Most of the court library had burned, the surviving items stored in a heavily guarded warehouse along with anything remotely considered magical.

As months, years, decades passed without a single clue to help them regain their humanity—as the countless faces of women they took energy from began to blend together—he and Vallen had forgotten their old lives, their magic. They forgot the idea of home and family. They forgot what they’d been seeking in the first place. All they’d known was that a woman could keep them alive for one month more.

Guilt had ridden his conscience even more than the shame of giving his body to anyone who would have him. Guilt for the rake he’d been, for caring more about the attention of women than the women themselves. Guilt for the consequences his callous disregard had wrought, not only for himself but for his younger brother, whose face he could only recall from the night he’d watched Yasuke fade unto death.

Then his curse had been lifted. He had woken as a human for the first time in centuries, and his already twisted world had been turned upside down and inside out. The limitations of the life he’d been forced to live no longer applied. Longings he had once entertained—of human connection, fulfillment, and growing old—but had cast aside years ago, had become possible once again. He had been determined not to waste any time.

“I see in Mai the kind of person I want to be—the kind I know I can be whenever she looks at me,” Rosuke said. “She is my strength, and all I want is to be hers. But if trusting and loving me for the man I am now—despite my past—is insurmountable, then…how do I regain my honor? How do I center myself? What must I do to earn her love again?”

“Rosuke, I…” Vallen stammered.

“I understand,” said a soft, strained voice. Both men whipped their heads toward the bed. Shumei stood next to it, albeit unsteadily. A slow-moving wave of her magical scent billowed over them, dusting them with soothing comfort.

“Shumei,” Vallen whispered a second before he went to her, shoving aside a bench in his way. She let out a grateful sigh when he wrapped arms around her waist.

“Are you all right, Empress?” Rosuke asked.

“I will be in about a day,” she assured them, her breathing labored. “Rosuke, do not seek out Mai tonight.”

“But Empress—”

“Do not argue. She has already thought the worst and will not be able to take any more tonight. Give her time.”

“I don’t understand,” he said, his white-knuckled hands trembling.

“You may think what she needs to hear is what you have to say. She may even think the same thing, but you are both too upset to think straight. Wait a day.”

“Very well,” he said grudgingly.

“Vallen,” she sighed, knees buckling. Vallen gently swept her back into bed.

“Yes, love, what do you need?”