“Is he okay?” Ahlaksiz asked.

  “This place is amazing,” I muttered, ignoring all that other stuff. “I’m great. Perfect.”

  “You are,” Kinara said as she turned to face the guards, wrapping an arm around my waist.

  Apparently, Ahlaksiz had been saying something before my little moment, because she looked at me expectantly.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “I wanted to stay at a ryokan because I hoped it would help you relax. I chose this specific one because it’s not far from the river—in fact, there’s a private onsen that lets you look down upon the water. Why don’t you and I go down there to focus your mind? Train you, then we’ll return for dinner.”

  “What about the… Shades and all that?”

  “They won’t be a problem. As long as I don’t activate the eye, they won’t be able to get a lock on us.”

  “We’ve also set up wards,” Koharu said, “similar to those that protect the location of the princess, when the eye hasn’t been activated anyway.”

  I nodded, then had another thought. “And other guests? I mean, won’t it be weird seeing us trying to reach into my core, or… training, whatever form that might take?”

  She grinned. “This is the off-season, and this ryokan is very exclusive. We happen to be the only guests here.”

  Although I went along with it, I had doubted it was luck that we were there alone. What sort of strings had she pulled to make it so? Or was the owner somehow connected to the monster or fairy tale world?

  Not that it mattered to me. All I needed to do was figure out how to find this strength within that Ahlaksiz insisted I could find. Somewhere out there was this Protector who had managed to prove himself, to fight some big war… and I found myself curious about him. Was he the destined one, like in stories where a hero comes along once every decade or something? And if so, what was I doing here?

  The ladies got settled, some deciding to wash up in the room’s shower, others deciding to go to the onsen as well, though they would take a different bath to let me focus. While I walked with Ahlaksiz, I picked her brain.

  “This Protector, who was he?” I glanced back, noticing a figure with a tail on a rooftop, watching us. Probably one of the monkey guards, keeping an eye on Ahlaksiz while she had the eye.

  “Just a normal guy like you,” she replied, opening a door for me that led to a walkway to the onsen. As we entered and found the dressing area, she eyed me. “Although, that’s misleading. Clearly, neither of you are normal. I should say he appeared to be a normal guy, as you appeared to be.”

  I chuckled, watching her undress, not shying away from watching the way she bent to pull off her panties, or the way her tail—not hidden from me here—moved around as if to say, “Caught you.” Indeed, she looked back at me, still bent over, and said, “Focus.”

  “Sorry.” I turned and undressed, then joined her at the little stools to sit and rinse. I hesitated, seeing her in the mirror as she washed with the little bucket. This new, younger look was definitely her, but I had to flip a switch in my mind to make sure I knew it. Her eyes rose to meet mine, the one now golden that carried the Eye of Ra creeping me out slightly.

  “It’s still me, you know,” she said, grinning. “This eye, this younger version of myself. And no, when I do this,” she pointedly turned, staring at my nude form, though I was sitting so she couldn’t very well see much, “it’s me looking at you, not some ancient god.”

  I grinned nervously, then followed her lead on cleaning myself. The place had dark charcoal soap, which intrigued me, and I distracted myself for a bit with it.

  “The Protector, though…”

  She sighed. “Jack, I believe. I don’t know everything about him, only what I’ve been able to pick up here and there. What is it you want to know, exactly? He actually didn’t live far from you, by my understanding. The Myths discovered him at a convention in Anaheim, which is where Morganna summoned the vampire King Arthur and—”

  “The what?”

  She frowned, eyeing me. “I often forget how your history books and fairy tales forget such simple facts. Or maybe the historians never knew. Arthur was, in fact, a vampire. Still is, I suppose? I’m not sure where he is now, or what happened to him after the battle.”

  I poured more water over myself, rinsing off the soap, and processed this. “So this guy is like Neo, kind of? From The Matrix? He learns the world around him isn’t what he thought, and that he’s the chosen one.”

  She frowned, then shrugged before standing and walking past me toward the steaming water. I simply turned, glad for the view of her ass as she went. I could never get bored of that view. And to all the people thinking my mind is always in the gutter—try being surrounded by beautiful, nude women, and see if your mind ever leaves the gutter. If it does… something’s wrong with you, not me. Imagine the person who could live in Rome surrounded by such history and architecture, and one day stop noticing it? Not me.

  “Coming?” she asked, lowering herself into the water.

  I hesitated, flashing back to Amabie pulling me under, but nodded and stood, then walked over. She sat with her breasts semi-floating atop the water, surrounded by large rocks that I assumed had been brought in to make the experience feel more authentic. On each side of us were walls made of woven reeds; the other wall was open, leading down to the river.

  From nearby, I heard the low murmur of women talking—the other ladies at their onsen.

  “I think Neo isn’t a great comparison,” Ahlaksiz said, watching me with a pleasant smile. “He was the chosen one for humans, working against the machine, in a way. The Protector’s role is to keep fairy tales safe from humans, really, and that is supposed to include Legends—the ones working against humans. Whether Jack has changed the role, I don’t know, but that’s the idea.”

  “Ah, so more like where I thought Game of Thrones was going with the Night King. Like he was created by the Children of the Forest to protect them against the new men, or something like that. Only, and sorry if this is a spoiler—”

  “Oh, I’ve read all the books,” she interjected, stirring the water in front of her with her tail that stuck out slightly from the water. “The show though, not for me.”

  “Don’t bother with it, at least after the sixth season. And you can skip season five. Anyway, I think he ended up not being what the Children of the Forest wanted, doing his own thing, right? But the basic idea of it is the same.”

  “Jack has free will. Who knows—maybe he’ll go that way too, and it’ll be up to you to step in and stop him, help proclaim a new Protector?”

  I laughed, hoping she was joking. When she didn’t laugh, I said, “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  “Let’s hope.” With a deep breath, she closed her eyes and said, “Are you ready?”

  I bit my lip, eyeing her there and the way her nipples barely poked out of the water, the steam moving around them like ghostly tongues wanting a taste. Trying to push those thoughts aside for the point of focusing, I closed my eyes, too.

  “Yes.” My mind went to thoughts of the Protector again, though, and I cleared my throat before opening my eyes. She was staring at me, clearly a bit annoyed.

  “What?”

  “Can we meet him?”

  “Who?”

  “The Night King,” I joked, then cringed as her eyes narrowed. “The Protector, of course. Jack.”

  She sighed. “Why?”

  “If there’s any chance of him going bad, or I don’t know, maybe even turning against humans in favor of the fairy tales, shouldn’t we be ready? Or at least get a good sense of where he stands in all this?”

  “You’d be a sort of policing force in all this?” She laughed. “Sure, why the hell not. It’s not like we don’t have enough going on otherwise.”

  “Hey, we’re sort of fighting the same fight, aren’t we? I’m working with you all, he’s working with the fairy tales—”

  “And there’s clearly a strong crossover.”

  “Sure. Exactly. So?”

  “I’ll see what we can arrange—as it fits into the schedule. What do you say we first make sure you’ve advanced enough that you actually have some say in all this? I’d hate to make plans only to see you killed tomorrow because you were too busy fantasizing about hanging out with the Protector or… ogling my breasts.”

  My eyes had moved down again; I couldn’t help it. Quickly looking up to meet her gaze, I put on a serious face, nodded, and closed my eyes again. Why a stunning woman thought it would be a good idea to bring a young man to a nude bathing experience for focus was beyond me, but I decided to do my best.

  “Walk me through it.”

  “Just like before. You’ve already done it to a degree, with the ichor you used to make yourself more in touch with the druid-like powers. Now we’re trying to open you up so you’re adaptable. Turn your body into, in terms you would understand, a T-1000 of the soul.”

  As much as that almost made me laugh, it also somehow put it all together for me. As my mind took hold of the thought, I could almost feel my energy as it flowed through me, as if I could see it as I did objects with my echolocation.

  “Think of it in terms of colors, with blue at the bottom, gold near the top, but red the most. Tiers that you can associate with your ability to summon, but are really so much more.”

  Even as she said it, I could see the tiers forming like stages in front of me to ascend. I could sense it was so much more complicated than that, but for now, it was enough.

  “For now, I think that will be enough,” Ahlaksiz agreed.

  Her voice seemed so close, so I opened my eyes. Indeed, she was right there in front of me, leaning in, hands on either side of me. “Now… I like to reward good behavior.”

  “Oh? Have I been good?”

  She laughed, and I felt something brush along the inside of my thigh. I nearly jumped, but saw her grin and realized it was her tail.

  “And the others?” I asked.

  “I’m sure they’ve been good, too. But come on, you don’t want some alone time with each of us now and again? I think it would be smart, actually. Good for forming more direct bonds. Maybe make it official, if it doesn’t happen naturally.”

  As she spoke, she leaned in and pressed her breasts against my chest and her lips to my neck, kissing it, then moving up to nibble on my ear.

  “I could see how that might be smart,” I replied, breathing heavily.

  “Come,” she said, running her hand along my chest, into the water, and nearly to my cock, but pulling away as the side of her hand barely grazed it. “Not here.”

  “Where then?” I asked.

  She pointed to the trees outside, then exited the water. As she did, though, I pulled her back to me, one leg on each side, and scooted up so that I was sitting with my face at pussy level. Her yelp showed I had surprised her when I ran my tongue along her thigh, stopping at the edge of her mound and lingering there to tease her. She lifted one leg up to a higher rock so I had better access.

  “Before we go there,” I said, nodding to the trees, “I want to show you my appreciation.”

  She laughed, then bit her lip and shut up as I tasted her. My hands went to her thighs and ass, then I was fingering her while licking her clit. She ran her hands through my hair, holding my head and pressing her pussy forward, so that I knew to go harder. It was amazing. Going down on her, as compared to the others, I started to realize how each pussy wasn’t an exact replica of another. I don’t know why, but growing up it had always seemed to me that cocks were different shapes and sizes, but pussies were all the same. Not so! Clearly some had a bit more meat to them, some had pronounced clits while others were more of a challenge to find, and even the shapes varied slightly. Of course, there had been that super racist bullshit rumor about Asian pussies being sideways—probably something to do with how Asian eyes were more slanted?—but I’d never been stupid enough to buy into that idea.

  They tasted differently, too. Not like any foods or anything I could quite place, but Ahlaksiz had more of a fine wine, savory taste, versus the more sweet, intense moistness of Kinara. Neither was better than the other, just… different. I wanted to know more, to explore Ahlaksiz in every way I could with my tongue and lips, to see what she liked and what didn’t work. As far as I could tell, it all fucking worked.

  As she started to moan, she pulled me away, saying, “Not yet,” before leading me out to the trees. She grabbed towels along the way, which she placed on the ground and grinned. What followed was magical—a night under the stars making love, while somewhere in the distance, ancient Japanese music played. Was it my imagination? Had Basty, who was back in the room, sensed my pleasure and decided to add a little something extra? For all I knew, it could have been real, but it seemed too perfect to be true.

  She rolled me onto one of the towels, kissing me and grinding on my cock, then let me flip her over so that I could be in charge. I slid in slowly, loving the feeling of her pussy as it clenched onto me, then slowly came out until only the tip remained, then back in. I did this several times, letting her feel the full length of my hard cock, then started going faster, increasing the tempo until I was banging away and she was clawing my shoulders.

  But we were in nature, so I wanted to be more, I don’t know… one with nature. I turned her around, brought her up to her hands and knees, and took her from behind, grabbing her tail as I did so.

  “Fuck!” she hissed, then swatted my hand away from the tail. “Excuse me, but… that’s a no.”

  I mouthed, “Sorry,” then slowly started back at it, unsure if I had ruined the mood. When she looked back at me like “What’re you doing?” I started going at it again, slapping her ass and feeling my balls against her thighs, but careful not to get carried away and grab that tail again.

  When I wanted to see her face again, I turned her around and we were clinging to each other, slippery with sweat. I tasted the salt on her breast, taking her hard nipple into my mouth and swirling my tongue around it. She grabbed my head and pulled me tight, nearly smothering me with her breasts, then pushed me aside to grab my cock and stroke it as she licked my inner thigh and balls.

  “Finish inside of me,” she said, pulling me on top of her and staring into my eyes with a ferocity that left no room for argument. She guided me in, then gripped my ass and hooked her legs into mine so I could get better traction. My knees weren’t super into the idea of the ground, but I pushed through, and within seconds she had climaxed. Then, as her tail managed to tickle my balls, I fell into her and let loose. When it was over, I rolled to the side of her, letting my cock slide out and rest against her thigh. She didn’t seem to mind, as she lay panting, staring into my eyes, and ran a hand along my chest, up to brush lightly along my neck.

  We laid there like that for what seemed like an eternity, simply watching each other breathe, enjoying the warmth of our nude bodies pressed together.

  “You sell yourself short, you know that?”

  I bristled. “What?”

  “It’s in your eyes. You don’t think highly enough of yourself. Yet. Maybe that’s a good thing, because when you realize what you really are, your ego might be hard to control. I should appreciate you like this while I can.”

  I grinned. “Any time you want to appreciate me, go right ahead.”

  That earned a laugh, and she was kissing me again, briefly, before pushing herself up and motioning for me to follow.

  “Hungry?” she asked. “We need to restore your energy, get you ready for the ghost.”

  “This ghost… does she have a name?”

  “Oh…” She frowned. “Had I not mentioned that?”

  “You keep calling her ‘ghost,’ is all. So… no.”

  “Odd. Odder still, I don’t seem to recall her name right now. It’s like these memories are there, but… partially not.”

  Clearly, I had struck some sort of nerve, because she was staring off at the river in the distance, arms wrapped around her torso.

  “We’ll ask her,” I said, wrapping my arms around her. “It’ll all come back.”

  “Yes…” She shook her head, suddenly snapping out of it. “What’s that?”

  I followed her line of sight, seeing nothing at first, but then movement. Figures moving along in the darkness—at least a dozen of them. They were searching, and most likely that search was for us.

  “Back to the ryokan,” I said, taking her by the hand and pulling her along.

  We stopped by the onsen to quickly dress, and as we did, she explained, “They won’t likely find us, not with those charms from the guards.”

  “But they could?”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “Depending on their tech, and whether it has any magical elements, yes. It would stay hidden from sight, but they could stumble upon it, then the wards wouldn’t apply. Still, they have all of this area to cover, and are likely only one team of many on the hunt.”

  Hunt. I didn’t like the use of the word as it applied to us, especially after being hunted back at Big Bear. We started up the path, jogging, and soon reached the door to our room. I paused there, hand on the door, listening to laughter and talking within.

  “And… the river?”

  “We still have to go. We don’t need the ghost, but I sense her reaching out to me, maybe in a way she doesn’t even know she’s doing. Without a doubt, we’ll be better off with her, so have to at least try.”

  I nodded, then opened the door to rejoin the others.

  20

  In our ryokan room, Ahlaksiz and I returned to find the others lounging about, Milrae curled up in a ball asleep in the corner, her head on Kinara’s lap. Kinara caressed her head, and had been watching her sleep until we entered. Now she looked up at us expectantly, and smiled. Her eyelids were heavy, but it seemed she had wanted to wait until we made it back.