Blood Brothers (5 page)

“
Ge-ge
,” Kiyoshi gasped as the lamplight illuminated a deep gash on his adopted brother’s throat. Dried blood caked the edges of the wound, and even the hem of Liu’s kimono was stained from the deep crimson liquid. Liu appeared so pale, drained of color the way Kiyoshi’s mother had looked the morning they found her lying in bed, her life taken from her by the same sickness that had claimed so many that year. But Liu had never fallen ill in all his life, and he certainly wasn’t sick now. Not the way his eyes glittered as he met Kiyoshi’s stare.

“What has he done to you?” Kiyoshi whispered.

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Barbara Sheridan and Anne Cain

Liu touched his finger to Kiyoshi’s lips. “Come and see for yourself.”

Liu led him through thick underbrush and into another cave where the samurai Kuro sat like the Emperor himself on a throne made of huge rocks. Behind him was a glowing orange fire that gave him the appearance of a fierce and powerful God. Kuro’s mouth and chin were stained with blood…Liu’s blood?

“Such a smart boy,” Kuro said with a deep laugh that echoed through the small cave. He held out his hand to Kiyoshi. “We haven’t much time, little one. Nobunaga’s men may still be on our trail and I want you both to be strong enough to face them.”

“Go to him,
dai-dai
. Hurry.” Liu gave Kiyoshi a little push.

Swallowing, Kiyoshi stepped forward, feeling as though the power of the samurai’s stare was pulling him against his will. Kuro slid off the rock throne and stood before him. He slid his
katana
from the sheath at his side and held it blade up, then began chanting words that Kiyoshi couldn’t make out. It sounded like a combination of Chinese and Japanese but none of it made any real sense.

“Close your eyes, Kiyoshi-kun,” Liu said from behind him. “This is like a ceremony at the temple, you must close your eyes and offer yourself to Kuro-sama and his Gods of war.”

“But…”

“Ssshhh. Just do it,
dai-dai
. Trust me.”

Though his heart was pounding and a tingly freezing chill slid along his spine, Kiyoshi did as his brother asked. He closed his eyes and found himself soon mimicking the samurai’s prayer-like chant.

He heard a
swoosh
of something cutting the air and then felt a burning across his belly. Wetness, warm and thick, touched his skin and he opened his eyes to see his blood spilling. Before he could cry out,

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Blood Brothers

Kuro was tearing into his throat, sucking his blood, then biting into his own forearm and pressing it to Kiyoshi’s mouth.

“Hurry, child, drink. Drink deeply and become one of us.”

As he had back in the village, Kiyoshi was overcome with the maddening desire to do as he was told. He lapped up the blood, and began sucking in earnest until the samurai pulled away then dropped to his knees.

Kiyoshi stared down, shocked yet aroused to find both Kuro and his brother kneeling before him, their mouths pressed to the wound on his belly. Gently they licked the gash, stroking his bloody flesh with their hot tongues.

He whimpered when he felt Liu’s hand stroke his rear through the fabric of his
kosode
. Kiyoshi’s knees trembled as Kuro’s hand slid up his leg, caressed the top of his thigh and fondled the aching sack between his legs.

Liu looked up at him, his mouth stained crimson, his tongue darting out to lick the blood from his lips. “Do you feel it,
dai-dai?
Do you feel his power within you?”

“I-I don’t know…” Kiyoshi’s halting words drifted into a moan before Liu raised the bloodied hem of his
kosode
and took his cock into his mouth.

He was only half-aware of Kuro standing, slipping one arm around his waist until he leaned against the samurai’s body while the older man tugged up the back of his robe and fondled him from behind.

“Feel the power, boy. Take all that I give.”

Kiyoshi cried out when Kuro lifted him off the ground and impaled him from behind.

Liu watched in morbid fascination as the samurai held his friend and fucked him fiercely. His own body was still slick with the samurai’s seed

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Barbara Sheridan and Anne Cain

and he found himself reaching out to jerk his own rigid cock, coming all over his hand as Kuro came inside Kiyoshi’s body.

Liu raised his semen-coated fingers to his mouth and lapped at them while he continued to watch, desperate to ease a sudden lustful thirst that rose in his body.

Kiyoshi moaned and reached up with one trembling hand to grab at the back of Kuro-sama’s head as the samurai pressed against him, grunting. He gasped sharply with each powerful thrust the samurai drove into his smaller frame. Liu moaned in time with Kiyoshi and tugged at himself with increasingly desperate strokes. He bit down on the fingers in his mouth, tasting blood with his come and enjoying the sharp tanginess of the mixture far more than the pain could detract from it.

Power radiated from Kuro-sama, intoxicating Liu’s senses, filling his very being. The same lustful desires that poured from the samurai echoed in Liu’s own heart, as they were in the heaving cries that came from Kiyoshi.

“
Dai-dai
,” Lui whispered hoarsely as he crawled forward.
Oh
yes…Kiyoshi felt it too
. He sat back on his heels, close enough to feel the heat of his friend’s body and hear the blood rushing through his veins.

Engorged and swollen, Kiyoshi’s cock jutted up from between his legs, throbbing with a need for release. Liu grabbed the organ’s base with the bloodied hand he’d had in his mouth. As his slick fingers slid over the tender flesh, he leaned forward and savored Kiyoshi’s cock.

Liu’s tongue swirled over the slit on his head as he stroked at the shaft. Kiyoshi shuddered, overwhelmed by so many sensations, and he made a choking noise from the back of his throat.

Kuro looked down over the boy’s shoulder, catching Liu’s gaze. The samurai’s eyes flickered wildly in the firelight, frightening and alluring all at once. “Let your brother taste you as you are now, little one,” Kuro

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Blood Brothers

panted into Kiyoshi’s ear, laughing throatily. “Fuck his hot mouth like you would his body.” He slid his tongue along Kiyoshi’s neck and without warning bit down into the spot just above the
kosode
’s collar.

Kiyoshi cried out, but not in pain. His spurt gushed into Liu’s mouth, released not by the demanding strokes he’d made but from the ecstasy of Kuro-sama’s bite. Liu struggled to swallow in time, but some of the sticky come seeped around his lips. And all the while Kuro-sama never eased his harsh pounding into Kiyoshi’s body.

Liu closed his eyes, unable to look into the samurai’s fierce gaze as he sucked madly at Kiyoshi’s cock. He drank the fluid almost as quickly as it spilled from Kiyoshi and filled his mouth. The seed was thick and hot, coating Liu’s throat and searing his insides from the power it now contained—
Kuro-sama
’s power. Suddenly Liu craved to know the taste of the samurai again, to feel him ravaging his body with the same ravenous desire he showed Kiyoshi now.

Sounds of ecstasy tumbled from Kiyoshi’s lips. With each moan, Liu sucked at him harder, envious of the experience his brother was having before him, jealous Kuro’s hard cock was buried deep in Kiyoshi instead of him. Surrendering to his growing desperation, Liu spread open his legs as he kneeled, still drinking from Kiyoshi. He arched his spine and reached around with his free hand to touch his own sensitive opening between the curves of his ass.

“Do it,” Kuro-sama commanded, his husky voice thick from sex. Liu looked up at his master, startled. Kuro laughed and ground into Kiyoshi, drawing out another groan of erotic satisfaction from the boy.

Liu plunged his fingers into himself.

He pressed back against his own hand, swallowing a cry from the invasion of his sensitive opening. But the pain brought him pleasure, his

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Barbara Sheridan and Anne Cain

balls tightening again as he stretched himself open. He let go of Kiyoshi’s cock and clutched at his own as he struggled for breath.

Kuro dropped Kiyoshi, who landed on his hands and knees panting and trembling. “
Ge-ge
,” he moaned and reached for Liu. Kuro grabbed the back of Kiyoshi’s collar and pulled them apart.

“Does pain bring you pleasure, my child?” Kuro demanded of Liu with a crazed smile. “I’ll show you more of both in ways you’ve never fantasized of.”

“Take me,
Chichi-ue
,” Liu pleaded. Kuro laughed.

The samurai grabbed him by the back of his head and forced him to lie on his belly on the cold stone. Kuro bore down into him and soon Liu’s moans echoed in the still cave.

Those sounds followed Kiyoshi into sleep as his exhausted mind and body drifted into unconsciousness.

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Blood Brothers

The seasons changed rapidly. After the night they fled from their village, the passage of time no longer seemed so clear cut. Summer blended into autumn, and then was quickly buried in snow as winter came and blanketed the countryside. But the color of any season was always the deep crimson of blood.

“Get away from the window, Kiyoshi.”

Liu sat back against the far wall, watching the embers burn in the small hearth by the center of the tavern’s room. He remained nearly motionless, his long hair falling across his face in a cascade of inky black waves stirred only by the faint drafts that worked their way between the cracks in the building’s old wood. His breath became visible in the cold air, a wispy cloud of warmth that soon vanished.

“But I want to see the sun,” Kiyoshi protested softly. He kneeled by the window, his legs folded underneath him on the
tatami
as he fingered the bamboo frame. His longing to feel the sunlight obvious in the gentle and tenuous touch. “It’s been so long…”

“Get away from the window.”

A half-whimper escaped Kiyoshi. “
Ge-ge
, a little bit of sunlight won’t hurt us.”

“No, it’ll
weaken
us,” Liu snapped. The harshness of his tone made Kiyoshi flinch. “We need to be strong, Kiyoshi. We need every bit of our strength to save our father.”

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Barbara Sheridan and Anne Cain

“He’s not our father.”

Liu darted forward and crossed the
tatami
in a second’s time. “Don’t talk that way about Kuro-sama.” He struck Kiyoshi across the mouth.

“I’m sorry,
dai-dai
.” Liu dropped to his knees beside Kiyoshi, the thick folds of his heavy kimono bunching up around the two
katana
tucked into the ties circling his waist. “But
chichi-ue
is more important than anything else.” He touched Kiyoshi’s chin. “The samurai in this village want to murder him—they want to take him away from us, Kiyoshi. I won’t let that happen.”

Kiyoshi could only stare and blink back the tears he wanted to shed.

The blow hadn’t been that painful, in fact he was much stronger now than he’d ever been, but the pain went deeper, cut through him harder than any physical injury or illness ever had.

Kiyoshi ached knowing his beloved Liu was lost to him. He’d been lost almost from the moment the samurai Kuro had regained consciousness inside their humble house back in Kozuke.

Liu had changed so much, now preferring to be called Sakurai—the name he once despised because it was forced on him over the Chinese name his mother had given him.

“Nothing’s changed at all,
dai-dai
,” Liu said softly, gathering Kiyoshi to him. “Nothing’s changed the way I love you, Kiyoshi. Nothing will ever change that.”

Kuro stirred from his darkened corner of the house they’d taken and listened to the sounds of his perfect little killer fucking that weak adopted brother of his. Kiyoshi had not progressed as he’d hoped. Oh the boy could be a merciless foe when the thirst consumed him, but far too

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Blood Brothers

often he let foolish mortal sentiment get in the way. He chose to see their unique abilities as something to be used for a purpose other than reveling in the mere power of it all.

For all his outward weakness the little wretch was strong inside.

Strong enough to cloud the judgment of Sakurai, and Kuro would not let that happen. He wanted his new protégé to himself. Together they could conquer this land and make the Nobunagas of the world kneel at their feet and do their bidding. But for that to happen Kiyoshi had to be gotten rid of.

And Sakurai, for all his newfound cunning and strength, remained completely ignorant of his master’s dark thoughts.

While the last of the sun sank below the mountain range in the west, Liu stretched out across the
tatami
. He held Kiyoshi to his bare chest as their pulses slowed and breathing became even once more. “I love you, Kiyoshi,” Sakurai whispered and brushed away sweaty tangles of hair from the younger man’s brow. “You know I do.” He kissed him gently on the cheek and Kiyoshi nuzzled against his neck with a sigh.

Kiyoshi pressed his lips to Sakurai’s throat. He kissed the raised scar tissue from the marks Kuro had left on his willing brother’s neck. “If I close my eyes,
ge-ge
, it’s almost like we’ve gone back home,” he said softly.

For a moment, Liu let himself feel the sadness coming from Kiyoshi, the desire to return to their small farm and his father’s land. His real father.

Sakurai held him tighter. “Almost…”

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Barbara Sheridan and Anne Cain

“But things are better now,” Kuro’s deep voice boomed at them from overhead. Kiyoshi stiffened and Sakurai sat up. He shifted on the
tatami
until he faced the samurai and then quickly bowed low so his forehead rested on the mat.

“Kuro-sama,” Sakurai said in a hushed and reverent tone. “You’re awake.” Kiyoshi sat up beside him, drawing his kimono over his naked body. Sakurai reached over and hastily pulled Kiyoshi into a deep bow as well.

“We’re ready to serve you,” Sakurai said.

“Yes,” Kiyoshi added flatly.

“I’m certain you both are.” The coldness in Kuro’s voice rivaled the bitter winter winds outside.