Chapter 22: Chapter 22: The Ruined Kiss, The Snoring Child, and The Black Iron Lock

His lips were so close I could actually feel the warmth of his breath against mine.

My eyes fluttered shut. My heart was beating so fast and so loud I was terrified he could hear it echoing across the hot spring. I tilted my chin up, completely surrendering to the Warlord holding my face.

BANG.

The heavy sliding cedar doors to the bathhouse didn’t just open. They were violently shoved off their tracks.

"I demand a new sleeping arrangement!" a shrill, pre-teen voice echoed over the water.

My eyes flew open. I gasped, instantly sinking down into the steaming water until the bubbles were practically touching my nose. My face was burning so hot I could have boiled an egg on my forehead.

Akira froze completely stiff.

Standing in the doorway, wearing his oversized white kimono and holding a small wooden pillow, was Yuki. The twelve-year-old cat-boy marched right to the edge of the geothermal pool, his fluffy white cat ears completely flattened against his head in pure outrage.

"The child is a menace!" Yuki complained loudly, completely oblivious to the fact that he had just interrupted the most terrifying man in the empire. "She snores! And she kicks! She kicked me right in the shin! I am a nine-hundred-year-old sacred beast, I do not share a futon with a flailing human sprout!"

Akira didn’t move his hands from my face, but I felt the muscles in his jaw lock as tight as iron.

Slowly, terrifyingly, the Demon Prince turned his head to look at the boy.

The water around us actually began to bubble faster. The air pressure in the room dropped so violently that the golden flames in the stone lanterns flickered and dimmed. Faint, lethal blue spirit-fire began to crackle around Akira’s wet shoulders.

"Yuki," Akira said. His voice wasn’t a yell. It was a demonic, vibrating whisper that promised absolute, painful destruction.

Yuki finally seemed to realize exactly what he had just walked into.

The cat-boy’s glowing turquoise eyes darted from Akira’s murderous face, down to how close we were standing, and then to me, hiding under the water like a boiled crab.

Yuki gasped, dramatically throwing his hands over his eyes. He dropped his wooden pillow with a loud clatter.

"My eyes!" Yuki shrieked, turning his back to us. "My pristine, ancient eyes! I am traumatized! A warning would be nice before you two start mating in the communal water supply!"

"This is a private bath!" Akira roared, his legendary patience finally snapping entirely.

"It’s unsanitary!" Yuki yelled back, waving his arms blindly in the air. "Disgusting! Repulsive! Humans are so needy! I am going to sleep in the kitchen with the salmon!"

Akira didn’t even bother arguing. He raised one wet hand, snapped his fingers, and a wave of compressed blue yokai energy shot across the room.

It hit Yuki squarely in the back, effortlessly sweeping the shrieking cat-boy out the door. The heavy cedar panels slammed shut behind him with a deafening CRACK, rattling the wooden frames.

The bathhouse plunged into absolute silence.

The only sound was the gentle splashing of the bamboo water pipe.

I was still submerged up to my nose. I stared at the closed door, and then I looked at Akira.

He was breathing heavily, his chest heaving under the water. The lethal blue fire faded from his shoulders. He slowly dragged both hands down his face, pushing his wet pink hair back from his forehead. He looked like a man who was deeply reconsidering his life choices.

I couldn’t help it.

A tiny, nervous giggle escaped my lips. It bubbled through the water. I slapped my hands over my mouth, but the giggle turned into a laugh.

Akira dropped his hands, looking down at me with a completely exasperated, defeated expression.

"I am going to shave him bald," the Warlord muttered darkly.

"You can’t shave him, he’s in his human form," I laughed, finally standing up a little so I could breathe properly. "You’d just be giving a twelve-year-old boy a terrible haircut."

Akira groaned, leaning his head back against the stone wall. "I command thousands of men. I hold the northern border against demons. Yet I am utterly powerless against a cat."

He looked back at me. The heavy, suffocating tension from before was completely gone, replaced by a warm, domestic comfort that I didn’t even know I was missing.

He waded the half-step back over to me. He didn’t lean in for a kiss this time. Instead, he gently placed his hands on my shoulders, pulling me forward just enough to press his lips softly, reverently, against my forehead.

He lingered there for a long moment, his wet hair brushing against my skin.

"First thing tomorrow," Akira whispered against my skin, "I am having the blacksmith forge a heavy black iron lock for that door."

"Make it two locks," I smiled, wrapping my arms loosely around his waist under the water. "Just to be safe."

The next morning, I woke up in the massive futon completely alone.

The indentation beside me was cold, meaning Akira had been up for hours. A small, neat note written on fine paper rested on his pillow.

I am inspecting the outer battlements with Tomoe. Rest well, my wife. I have assigned guards to the door to keep the cat out.

I smiled, folding the paper carefully and tucking it into my sash as I got dressed. Yua had left fresh, warm northern clothes out for me, a beautiful, dark green wool tunic and thick black trousers meant for walking, not lounging.

I found Rin in the dining hall, completely ignoring a pouting Yuki while she ate a bowl of hot porridge.

"Morning," I said, kissing the top of her messy head. I looked at Yuki. "Did you actually sleep in the kitchen?"

"The head chef gave me a very comfortable sack of flour," Yuki sniffed, refusing to look at me. "It was far superior to sharing a room with the kicker."

"I don’t kick," Rin argued around a mouthful of porridge. "You just take up too much space."

Before Yuki could launch into another tirade about his divine presence, Commander Tomoe strode into the dining hall. Her heavy armor clanked against the wooden floorboards.