Star-crossed Royals

Chapter Four

Stunned Jamie stood there, his mouth agape looking around at the faces of the men standing in front of the girl who seemed so different from earlier. “I said come in. You speak English, right?” Akiko said, her eyes narrowing. 

Jamie stepped one foot into the room through the window. He tried to make himself as small as possible as he ducked through, but he still had trouble fitting through the relatively large opening. As he unfolded himself to stand upright, he towered over not only the girl but the other three men in the room as well.  

Jamie ignored the other men; they didn’t matter to him. He stared pointedly at the girl who was clearly the source of the flames coursing through his body. Her attitude and the fact that she knew he was outside annoyed him. No other wolf, aside from Leif, would have known he was there. How had she? 

“How did you know I was here?” Jamie blurted out. She ignored his questions and looked around, her eyes stopping on the man from earlier.  

“Get out. I need to talk to him, and I don’t need you here to protect me. You can wait outside,” she told him. 

“Akiko-sama please allow me to stay at least…” the man began, but he was cut off with an icy stare.  

“You will go now Hattori-san” Akiko said, her eyes glowing green again. Her voice glacial but not raised in the slightest. 

As if his mouth were suddenly glued shut, Hattori stopped mid-sentence and then fell silent. His eyes betrayed his feelings about being ordered to go, but he seemingly had no choice. With a deep bow, he and his men let themselves out silently.  

Jamie turned his gaze back towards Akiko, “They have to listen, don’t they?” 

“As much as he hates it, yes Hattori and those under him have no choice given my station,” Akiko replied as she sat down at her desk and motioned for him to take a seat of his own. Jamie sat down slowly, not knowing what to think. Clearly the Kitsune were structured in some way like the Lycans were, but he was at a loss as to how their abilities and pack structure worked.  

“Do you call a group of foxes a pack?” Jamie thought to himself. “I have questions,” Jamie said out loud, looking at Akiko’s face. He tried to keep his eyes on hers, but he slowly lost the struggle with himself.  

“I’m sure I have answers, but you’ll have to answer my questions before I’m willing to answer any of yours,” Akiko replied. The electric feeling from before returned the moment he stepped onto the roof outside her window. It’s how she had known he was there. It was faint, he was clearly trying to mask his scent, but even the smallest amount of his scent gave her an unmistakable feeling. She started to cross and uncross her legs as they talked. The nervous energy she felt from this new proximity to him kept her from being able to sit still, and she was worried he might pick up the scent of the arousal building between her legs. Her heart felt like it would rabbit out of her chest at any moment, and she just barely stopped herself from biting her lip in response to the pleasure and need the electricity coursing through her body was causing. It felt like she had been turned into a livewire with voltage running through her, and now that she was in the room with him with no distractions, it was so much more intense than what she experienced the first time.  

“Ok, I’ll go along for now. I will answer what I’m comfortable with, and you can do the same,” Jamie agreed. He kept shifting in his seat, her scent was becoming increasingly distracting, and he was trying to hide the large bulge in his shorts.  

“Are you here to kill me?” Akiko asked pointedly. 

“No? I don’t understand! I just met you, why would you think I would want to kill you? I didn’t even know Kitsune existed until a few hours ago!” Jamie exclaimed, a bit taken aback at the question and the blunt manner in which she asked it.  

“Do you really not know why I would ask that? You don’t know what your people did to mine?” Akiko replied, now a bit confused.  

Jamie racked his brain for anything he’d ever been told that could have something to do with what she’s talking about. What had his people done that was so bad? She was terrified when they met, she was telling him that they had done something to the Kitsune, and he didn’t know they existed in the first place. All of these conflicting concepts rolled around in his head, but he came up with nothing of note.  

Akiko couldn’t tell if Jamie was lying or if he really didn’t know. She decided to throw caution to the wind and assume he was telling the truth. “Do I remember your friend calling you Jamie? Is that right?” she asked trying to put them on a bit more familiar ground that being random strangers asking each other probing, personal questions.  

“Yes, you can call me Jamie. Was your name Akee…ko?” Jamie returned, stumbling over her name. 

“Akiko like Ah-Key-co,” Akiko responded, sounding it out for clarity.  

As the conversation continued, both of them started inching a bit closer to the point that Jamie was now sitting with his knees against the desk and Akiko was sitting with her stomach pressed against it on her side leaning towards him. Since they couldn’t get any closer with the desk between them, they began to lean in slowly as they talked as if an invisible magnet was pulling them towards each other.  

 “Akiko, that’s different. It’s…a beautiful name.” Jamie said, now blushing and looking away in embarrassment. He hadn’t intended to say that at all, but he just heard it coming out of his mouth almost as if he were listening to someone else say it. Akiko blushed too, and there was a long silent pause that dripped of awkwardness.  

“Before we continue, I have to ask you something,” Jamie continued. 

“Ok, what is that?” Akiko asked. 

“Do Kitsune have a mate bond? Like someone they bond to for life?” he asked. 

“Yes? I think all races of shapeshifters have their form of the bond. Ours is called Kaen, the Japanese word for flame. It describes the feeling when you’re around your mate before you complete the bond. It’s like you’re being slowly set on fire, but it causes pleasure instead of pain,” Akiko answered. 

Jamie was now both on fire and in a cold sweat, terrified at what this could mean. She just described what he’s feeling now, what he’s been feeling since the first time he picked up her scent.  

“There’s no way…” Jamie thought. Worried that he already knew the answer, Jamie asked anyway, “What is the mating ceremony to complete the bond?” 

Akiko, who was a bit confused at first, was starting to pick up on what he was asking. Her heart leaped into her throat, but she managed to choke out “Kaen starts with a kiss. Once that happens, the two are bonded, but the relationship is consummated by a formal ceremony later.” 

“Why is he asking?” she thought to herself. “Do wolves feel this differently? Could it possibly be what I’m feeling right now?”  

“Jamie…” Akiko began, “What does it feel like for a wolf?” 

“Lightning. It feels like electricity coursing through your body. Like your flames, it doesn’t hurt. Our bond begins with a kiss too,” Jamie replied. They both locked eyes as he finished his answer. Neither of them had thought of the weird feelings they were having as being anything other than some reaction to each other’s scent, but now it was falling into place for them. The weight of what this meant was crushing. It still didn’t stop either of them from wanting to know.  

As the leaned in slowly, they didn’t realize how close they had become. They realized they were only inches away from each other, and they were both writhing within an internal hell engulfed in the feelings of pleasure and wanting they were trying to hide from the other.  

Jamie looked at Akiko, suddenly so close, and asked “May I?” his voice a deep whisper that betrayed the longing that had started building inside him the moment he saw her. 

Akiko simply nodded as Jamie reached over the table to splay his fingers through her hair, his hand wrapping gently around the back of her head drawing her into him. Their lips met, and the world stopped. Jamie was engulfed in flame, burning away at his soul as if to create something new in its place. Likewise, Akiko felt like she was literally struck through the heart by a bolt of lightning, coursing from her heart throughout the rest of her body. It seared her in a way that she knew she was changed forever.  

They slowly pulled back from the kiss, the sensation beginning to subside to a much more manageable level, even less than it was before it. 

“Was that what I think it was?” Jamie said, panicking at what this would mean for a moment to himself. 

“I think it was, Jamie,” Akiko answered his unspoken question without speaking a word of her own.