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This was a creature who could slip inside my mind like he owned a key. He'd easily tracked me. He’d come to my hotel room, burned through the protection of my ancestors, and survived it. He'd even taken shifter-blood bullets to the head and the heart, then gotten up off that floor, and kidnapped me anyway.

Surely, a creature that powerful could have the gift of influence too. Could bend me. The way Big Mae had used dark magic to bend that carpenter.

That thought should have scared the hell out of me, but then there was my heart, pumping in rhythm with his.

And my skin sparkling wherever he touched me. Tiny, sweet sparks, like the air before a summer storm rolled in off the Gulf.

And beneath all that heat, there was the heated current flowing through every cell in my body.

So soothing.

So loving.

So harmonious.

If this was all magic. . .I was slowly starting not to care.

Because it felt so damn good.

Yoichi began to climb up the steps leading to the shrine. Moss softened the edges. Old roots split the stones and curled over them like knuckles.

The shide hanging from the shimenawa rustled overhead as we passed beneath the gate.

There’d been spirits out here when I first arrived, whispering to me. Now. . .in Yoichi’s arms. . .they were silent as fuck. . .as if they were just as scared as the chauffeur to mess with his mate.

I shivered.

Yoichi's hand slid up my back, and his palm spread between my shoulder blades. "We’ll be home soon, little witch."

Soon, we passed Oiwa's grave.

The small stone marker sat beneath a cedar so old its trunk had split into three. Tons of offerings crowded the base—coins, folded paper, a small bottle of sake, a pair of women's combs. Actors' offerings. Directors' offerings. People begging her blessing.

Then I saw her spirit.

She knelt beside the grave in a white burial kimono. Her long black hair hung loose to the ground and pooled in the wet moss. Her head was bowed. Her hands rested in her lap.

The air around her smelled like river water and camellia oil.

My whole body went cold, even in the middle of all that heat.

Slowly, she lifted her face, saw Yoichi, and smiled.

“Good evening, friend.” Yoichi nodded.

Oiwa turned her gaze on me.

Every hair on my arms rose. My ancestors stirred against the back of my neck—rose water, cocoa butter, tobacco—and for one second, I thought they would rise up to fight.

Yoichi kept on walking. “Calm your powers, little witch. Oiwa is my friend.”

“She is?”

"We knew each other three hundred years ago. We were very good friends. She was also a very good cook."

“Were you two. . .lovers also?”

“No. By then I was a very. . .angry fox spirit.”