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“Traumatizing?” He ducked his head, smiling. “They contacted me and told me that I needed to formally bind myself as your priest. Just working magic together isn’t enough. Neither was our Soul Symbiont ritual. I guess Beltane is going to be big, right?”
Slowly nodding, I wrapped my arms around my knees, huddling in the now-chilly darkness. “Aeval told me to be prepared for the Hunt…Beltane is on a full moon, and the Wild Hunt on a Sabbat night? I have no clue what to expect.”
Morio scooted over to me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders, his body heat warming me.
“I’ve run with the Hunt ever since I was first initiated into the Moon Mother’s service. But…this feels big, and cold, and different than anything I’ve ever done. It reminds me of when the Moon Mother caught me up, when I was held captive by Hyto. She took me on a rampage—I tore through the skies with her.” And it had felt good. Cleansing, to destroy, smash, take out my fury on the world.
Morio let out a murmur. “I do understand.”
“Tell me…what was the demon you fought? And the snake…unless, of course, they are private parts of your life you’d rather not share?”
He paused, then let out a long, slow breath. “The demon, I fought when I was younger. I was grown and on my own, but still naïve and still easily swayed. She presented herself as a beautiful woman and seduced me. I had been traveling with a companion—a very devout monk—and she used me to get to him, to make him break his vows. After she corrupted him, she tortured and killed him. I was helpless to intervene. I managed to track her down and kill her, but I’ve never forgiven myself for being so blind to the danger.”
Regret…it was in his voice. I knew my men had secrets they kept—just as I did, although Trillian and I were most open with one another. We talked about everything. But Morio had told me little of his past. I knew less about him than I did Smoky and far less than I knew about my alpha lover.
“I’m sorry.” There wasn’t much else I could say.
“No, it was long ago, and over. But I think…I think it will always haunt me. He didn’t have to die. If I’d been more cautious, he would have not been in danger. I was responsible for his safety on that journey, and I failed miserably.”
He hung his head.
I leaned forward, tipped his chin up, and kissed him lightly. “Some things can never be undone. We can only learn and move forward. And…the snake?”
A tear slipped down his face. He bit his lip and hung his head. “You know how my parents don’t blame all humans for the slaughter that happened in their families, and how Grandmother Coyote rescued my father and brought him up?”
“Yes. She sent him to live with Kimiko, the nature spirit who rules over the devas and flower faeries, right?”
“Right. Well, we were visiting her when I was in my teens. I loved attending to her shrine, and I loved it when she summoned us to her side. I met a young woman back then—my age. We were both…oh…teenagers, in our time frame. She was my first.” He dipped his head, smiling slyly. “She was brash and independent, and her family tried to rein her in, but it never worked. Anyway, we spent that summer at Kimiko’s, and Yoshiko and I fell in love, in that reckless teenage way where every look, every touch means something earth-shaking.”
I let out a small laugh. “Like Shamas and I did, before his family separated us.”
“Right.” Morio frowned. “Let’s leave Shamas out of this, okay? I still don’t trust that he’s not after you.”
Rather than argue, I shrugged and bit my tongue.
“Anyway, we were out exploring one day, and we came to a cave. We decided to explore, and when we entered the main chamber, we discovered a nest of magical sea vipers. We were near the cliffs, near the ocean.”
I’d never heard of the snakes before. “Were they poisonous?”
“Very.” He pressed his lips together for a moment, then let out a long sigh. “Long story short, they separated us. They were quick and large and managed to cut her off from me. I had no choice—if I didn’t get out of there, they’d kill me. I had to leave her behind. I can still hear her screams as they swarmed her. I glanced back, but all I could see was a mass of writhing scales and slithering bodies. I ran home to get help. Kimiko herself joined the search party. But we couldn’t find Yoshiko. We never even found a trace of her, though we found the nest and destroyed it. I knew she was dead, but the rest of the summer, I went out there every day, looking and hoping that somehow she managed to get away.”
“What about her family? How did they take the news?”
He shrugged. “They were pissed that she’d disobeyed them and gone with me. They had forbidden us to be together. They disowned her memory, cut her out of the lineage. They forgot her.”
The hairs on my arms stood up. How could parents be so cruel? I still hadn’t fully forgiven Father for disowning me, even though he’d been on his best behavior since he came around a few months ago. But it would take a long time to heal the wound he’d left on my heart.
I took Morio’s hand, held it tight. “And you’ve never forgiven yourself. It wasn’t your fault. Neither one of you knew that the cave had monsters in it.”
“I should have. The area was fraught with danger—Kimiko warned me to be cautious when I first arrived. And if I hadn’t encouraged her to sneak out with me, Yoshiko would have still been alive.” He paused, then looked up. “Leaving her there, helpless to do anything, I’ve never forgotten that feeling. And when Hyto captured you—it all came back. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t stop him. We knew he was out there, hunting you, and we let you down.” He looked up at me, his eyes haunted in a way I’d never seen him look.
And there it was. The crux of his regret. Both of his challenges—the demon and the snake—were all about regret over perceived failures. And he felt he had failed me, too.
“You did not fail me.” I took both of his hands, pressed them to my breasts. “My love, listen to me. People die. Monsters are real. As Chase would say, ‘Shit happens.’ There isn’t any way to predict some of the tragedies we’ll encounter. You didn’t kill the monk—the demon did. You were seduced and deceived. It happens. And you didn’t kill Yoshiko—the snakes did. Both of you were young, in the throes of that youthful passion, and you didn’t think—either of you. And that’s normal.”
He pushed to his feet and held out his hand. “I know that logically. And logically, I know that Hyto would have found a way to get to you, no matter what we did. I know that on an intellectual basis, but emotionally…”
I took his hand and let him pull me to my feet. “Emotionally, you feel like you’d be a bad person if you let the guilt go?” It was a suspicion, not a certainty, but I thought I understood what was going on. “You don’t have to wear the guilt around like a hair shirt, especially when it wasn’t your fault. Nobody’s going to think less of you if you set it down. Guilt impedes you, makes you weak. Let it go, my love. I don’t blame you. Yoshiko and your monk friend? They’re long gone, except in your memory.”
