Read Online Samurai Son by M. H. Bonham - Free Book Online Page B

might die, but she didn’t think so.   It felt like a very bad case of seasickness; the others would think she was seasick and nothing more.   But it also meant that she would be incapacitated for a while.   She did not relish that.
    She wondered what the others thought of this.   She hoped none noticed the demon shadow or the way it reacted to her.   Humans were superstitious; sailors, doubly so.   They would throw her into the ocean if they knew she was part kami.   She suspected that her loud-mouthed half brother would tell everyone she had gotten seasick.   That would probably mollify most of the sailors, but some old-timers would undoubtedly think it odd she would show seasickness only after several days.   Still, she was a woman, and women behaved oddly in men’s eyes.
    Her cabin door opened, and Jiro strode in.   No knock or anything, she noted, feeling the tiger anger well up in her throat.   She hated how he treated her.   Even though they had the same father, the fact he was in line for the inheritance and she wasn’t made him cocky.   He looked at her sideways through slit eyes.
    “You still sick?”
    “Yes,” she said.   “Didn’t your mother teach you to knock?”
    Jiro shrugged and rummaged through her packs where she kept pears.
    “Those are mine.”
    “You’re not eating them.”   He pulled one of the pears out and bit into it.   “Honestly, Kasumi, you’re being stupid.   Who ever heard of getting sick during a pirate attack?”
    “Are you accusing me of cowardice?”   She stared at her brother, who just took another bite.   “Get out of my room!”   She felt like throwing up again.   He grinned before leaving with a slam of the door.
    Demon-sickness, she thought and felt her stomach try to heave again.   She stuffed her fist in her mouth and bit down on her knuckles until they bled.   The tiger within her awoke as she tasted the hot, salty blood on her tongue.   Tiger, I am a tiger, not some mere mortal.   She looked around her cramped quarters.   Normally, if she were a man or not samurai, she would have to stay in the bunks with the other sailors, but they made allowances for her.   Carrying the two swords gave her rank far above that of commoners.
    Yet she and all samurai served at the whim of a daimyo.   Her family’s ancestral lands would never be hers or belong to anyone in the Neko clan; they belonged to the commoners and the emperor.   Nanashi could demand the Neko clan’s lands but at the ire of the emperor and other samurai families.   No, it would be better if he tried to take them first and take everyone by surprise.   That way he could destroy the Guardian of the Kimon and bring the demons in.
    There were demons already here, though.   The Kimon was not the only way out of the demon world.   Nanashi’s summonings proved that.   And now she was certain that a demon stalked her.   Could she possibly fight it?   She took a deep breath and swallowed the sour bile in her throat before pouring a small cup of water and drinking it down.
    Kasumi needed rest; that much she knew.   It didn’t matter what Jiro or any of the sailors thought about her.   She had to be ready when the demon appeared again.   That meant rest and food.   She closed and barred the door.   She wasn’t quite ready for food, but she was tired.   Exhausted, she blew out the light and curled up in a ball, as she had often done as a cat, and fell asleep.
    #
     
    Kasumi awoke several hours later to the gentle rocking of the ship.   Her headache had subsided, as had her nausea.   As she lay on the pallet, she felt a slight change.   She raised her head and snuffed the air.   It was ship’s air, dank and musty, with the taste of brine and the stench of sailors.   But there were other scents her cat nose picked up.   She could smell pines through the wind, plants, and rice paddies.   Her ears heard the cries of gulls and other birds above the creaks and groans of the