[I wish you were, too. But hopefully the meeting will be brief.]

Today, a meeting with Yuna. Tomorrow, an assembly with the current business leaders of Okayama, and Friday, a welcome reception in Haruka’s honor in Himeji.

Upon his return, the vampires within his realm have been much more welcoming than Haruka had anticipated. He had expected bitterness, but the overall sense within the community has been something like relief (the purebred substitute was… challenging). With Haruka’s reinstitution come many social requests, meetings and responsibilities. The weight of his position is quickly bearing down on his shoulders.

It’s overwhelming, but this is his true designation—the life that accompanies his lineage and bloodline. A life of self-sacrifice. Haruka’s family traditionally oversees both the Chūgoku and Kansai regions. This level of accountability was much less daunting when he’d been mated, and the thought of bearing it alone had been a catalyst for his leaving home after his bond had broken.

Privately, Haruka sincerely hopes that Nino finds western Japan to his liking when he visits in two months. He fully accepts that Nino has no interest in their cultural aristocracy, but simply being in his warm and vibrant presence makes circumstances much more tolerable. Even enjoyable.

The prospect of the bonding ceremony had been a thing of great foreboding. As they spent time together, researching and relishing in candid conversation, the circumstance unexpectedly become pleasant.

His phone lights up with a new message.

[Call me after she leaves. xx]

[You should be sleeping, it can wait until later.]

[Just call. I’ll be up. mmt+]

Haruka frowns, confused as he types his response.

[Nino, what does that mean?]

[Mi manchi tantissimo.]

Haruka smiles.

[I miss you, too.]

Forty minutes later, Yuna appears in the doorway to the tea room of Haruka’s estate… like a physical ghost from his despondent past. As ghosts do, she is silently watching him— cautious in a frozen, awkward moment.

She is wearing a sky-blue dress that gracefully flows just below her knees. There was a time when he loved this color on her. She knows this. It perfectly accentuates her slim waist and small, elegant frame as if it were tailored specifically to her pale body. Her shoulder-length dark brown hair is clean and lustrous, framing her oval face like a heavy curtain.

She gracefully steps down from the hardwood of the hallway and onto the lower tatami flooring of the tea room. Haruka stands, nodding politely as she reaches the small sofa opposite him. A modern wooden coffee table is set between them.

Yuna dips her head in a bow and Haruka notices that Asao has remained watchful of the situation in the doorframe behind her. His eyes are narrowed in distrust.

“Hello, Haruka…” she says, sitting on the couch. She breathes a laugh—a lighthearted, fluttery sound. “We seem a bit worse for wear, don’t we?”

It’s true. She looks pale. Gaunt. Where her eyes had once been a deep, rich brown with lovely flecks of robin’s egg blue, they are now washed out, almost milky. They look as if she’d been ill and has never properly recovered from it. Haruka is also not in optimum health, having been separated from Nino for a month now and feeding from a lower-ranked source. However, Yuna’s condition seems somewhat exaggerated in comparison.

Another oddity is her scent. In the past, Yuna’s essence had registered as sweet but zesty to Haruka’s nature—like lemon trees blossoming in the springtime. Now her scent is sour. It distinctly reminds him of the six months he’d spent violently and painfully expelling her nature from his body.

“Such is life,” Haruka says. “What can I help you with?”

She pouts, a familiar hurt in her expression. “Straight to business? As if I’m some piddling member of your aristocracy? We haven’t seen each other in seventy years. And you ignored all my letters. You sent them back.”

“I could not fathom why you would write to me in such frequent intervals, or what we would need to discuss at any length.”

“I’ve missed you.” She takes a deep breath, pinching the hem of her dress with her fingertips. “Everyone has missed you. It took me years to track you down after you left. You kept moving around.”

“It was within my right to do so.”

“I know that, Haruka, but…” She furrows her brow in obvious frustration and shakes her head. The subtle movement makes her thick hair bounce and sway. “You act as if we didn’t spend our childhood together—as if we’re strangers who only met in passing. Our parents were friends—my parents still love you. We were bonded and had a life together. I know you don’t believe me, but I loved you and cared about you very much. I still do. Why is it impossible to you that I could simultaneously love two people?”

Haruka sighs. His chest is heavy and tight. Is this her rationale? Does this justify her choices and behavior? As if loving two people reasonably allows her to orchestrate a double life. As if she is entitled to secretly, cruelly indulge in everything her heart desires. Meanwhile, Haruka received nothing. Not even the trust, transparency and confidence of a faithful mate.

Why does he need to sit here and listen to this? He feels nauseous. The flood of embarrassment and shame he’d felt back then is quickly rising up like bile in his throat.

“Yuna, why are you here?” Haruka pleads, ignoring her question. “Is this necessary? Where is Kenta, and why are you not happily bonded with him?”

She leans forward, urgency in her voice. “That’s why I tried to find you all those years and kept writing to you, because I wanted to tell you what happened. After our bond broke, Kenta and I, we—we did try to bond. But we never could. It would never take! I don’t think I can bond anymore. I think I’ve lost the ability.”

He sits with his arms folded, processing. How can you lose the ability to bond? It is an innate feature of their biology. Part of what defines them. How can something so fundamental to their species be broken?

Yuna’s voice is low, her eyes sympathetic. “I heard about how sick you became after we separated… That didn’t happen to me at all. I tried to come see you but Asao sent me away. When I came back a few months later, you were gone.”

Rubbing his palm down his face, he sighs. He needs to treat this like a professional call—like someone in his realm who requires his help and expertise. “How long did you try to form a bond with Kenta?”

“Five years. Then we gave up. He lives in Tokyo now. He’s… bonded with another vampire.”

Five years. To go so long without a successful bond is odd. In Lore and Lust, the longest any documented couple went was about two and a half years.

“And there are other things,” Yuna says quietly. “For one, my sense of taste and smell are damaged. No matter who I drink from, it tastes like dirt, and my body doesn’t properly absorb blood anymore. I always look like this, Haruka. I can’t seem to reach my optimum level of health again. I’m forever in this horrible, semi-dried-out state. Is it the same for you?”

“No. I am capable of properly absorbing blood. My senses of taste and smell are undamaged.”

“Then why do you look like this?” Yuna blinks. “Your eyes and skin tone are wrong. And I don’t know why, but I can smell you right now. You smell wonderful to me just like you always did. I haven’t been able to sense another vampire’s essence since our bond broke. Why can I still smell you?”

She never fell ill after their bond broke, but Haruka had been tragically so. Even now, Haruka’s essence is aesthetically pleasing to her, while her scent makes his stomach turn.

“Perhaps in some intrinsic way, my blood still flows through you?” Haruka reasons. “Since your body never rejected my biology, it may remain within you, causing these obstructions and malformations.”

It’s all conjecture, since this is unchartered territory. There simply isn’t any research to frame this aberrant circumstance. Haruka’s father and grandfather would have searched high and low for more instances of this had they known it possible.

“I agree with your theory,” Yuna says, never taking her milky, disturbing eyes off of him. “How do I smell to you? Am I still… Am I pleasing to you?”

He casts his gaze to the side, briefly searching for a diplomatic response. In a rare moment, he comes up empty. “No.”

She’s silent, looking down at the hem of her dress as she rubs it between her fingers. “Is it so bad that you wouldn’t want to feed from me?” she asks. “What if… what if we could fix this? What if we could sustain each other again? Help restore our bodies and natures.”

Haruka turns his nose up, his face having no sense of discretion or diplomacy today either. “Yuna, what exactly are you suggesting?”

She lifts her head, her foggy eyes serious. “I’m suggesting that we become each other’s sources again. I think, if we try, maybe we—”

“I am not interested in this arrangement.” Haruka stands from the couch. The absurdity of it feels like an electric shock to his system. “I ask that you leave my home now. I don’t believe I can help you.”