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"I guess that not everyone can figure out that we are the same person,” he said thoughtfully.

"It is that ignorance that is keeping you safe."

He frowned at me, apparently confused by what I was talking about. He continued with the disguise of Sakura because it amused him, as well as myself. I didn't think Keno realized he needed its protection still. I hoped he never would.

He got up and gave me a kiss. “It's been a good evening,” he said. “I'm not letting Sousuke ruin it."

I kissed him back. Keno was being bold. We had progressed in our physical relationship to more than kisses, for the most part, including the rare, treasured times of actual sex. He was still uneasy about sex after suffering rape and other abuse at the hands of the Trust. I didn't know if sex was happening tonight, but Keno was willing, despite the fact I knew it had been a long evening for him. He tasted like tea and the sweets he had been nibbling on.

"A very good evening,” I agreed, kissing him back, running my hands up and down his back, savoring the feel of his skin. He made a small murmur of pleasure, melting into my touch.

I felt him fumbling with my
hakama
and stepped out of it when he got it untied. Keno undressing me would be delightful foreplay. I didn't miss his hands lightly brushing over my shaft underneath my kimono, and it was my turn to moan. I let him undo my obi and open my kimono before I unknotted his
fundoshi
, stripping him bare. He rubbed against me shamelessly, twining his arms around my back and pulling me closer to him. I almost spilled myself at his boldness.

"So bold,” I teased.

He laughed. “I think that I should show you how bold I can be."

With that he dropped to his knees and started to tease my shaft, licking the tip of it briefly before taking the whole thing in his mouth, tasting the entire length of it before pulling back to flick his tongue over the head of my shaft again. I groaned in pleasure, my fingers twisting in his hair. Not to control him, but because he made me lose any sense I had when he did this.

"Let me get more comfortable,” I pleaded with him after an endless time, my world centering on the pleasure his hot mouth and talented tongue were giving me. My legs were shaking, and I felt that I was going to spill, but I wanted to savor this longer.

Keno didn't say anything, but he sat back on his heels, looking wanton and wild with his swollen lips and the way he exposed his body to me. I managed to lie on our futon. Keno slowly licked his lips when he saw me lie down, a gesture that made me groan. I almost lost it when he rocked forward and started to crawl toward me, wild and submissive at the same time, holding my stare boldly. He was still staring at me when he took me deep in his throat and bobbed up and down slowly, driving me insane.

It wasn't too long before I was writhing underneath his mouth, his fingers stroking my thighs and sac as gentle as a butterfly. “I'm—” I choked out, before I spilled into his mouth, feeling him drink it down eagerly.

When I was done, he went back to teasing licks to clean me up. When he finished, he smiled at me, smug and satisfied, even though his own shaft was hard and he had not taken his own pleasure.

"Touch yourself,” I ordered hoarsely. I wanted to see his eyes when he did that. “Take your own joy."

He smiled, stroking his shaft slowly, but even that was too much, and he spilled, whimpering in pleasure as he coated me with his seed. When he was done, I grabbed him and held him tight, smearing the seed over him too.

"I liked that,” he said sleepily as he nuzzled my chest. I was amazed by how quickly he could go from being a seductive creature to the sleepy puppy he was.

"I did too,” I told him, not trying to hide the amusement in my voice.

I fell asleep shortly after he did, enjoying the feel of him in my arms.

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Mason

After the second incursion from the Dreamlands, the Trust pretty much shut Boylston Street down. The place was quietly quarantined within a week of our final, carefully edited report, one that never mentioned that either Wolf or I were some weird mystical warriors called
Hakkenshi
or their avatars or whatever Fuse had told us. There was nothing in that report about the fact that Keno had been one of them too or that the mean fuckers who had invaded us were related to him in some way.

Quarantine meant they filled the lower levels with poisonous gas and cement to shut the monsters off from the rest of the world. Not that I thought that would do jack-shit against Tamazusa, because she seemed to be able to pop in here anytime she wanted, wherever she wanted, and I wasn't going to tell these fuckers anything different. The research sections were shifted to other locations, like the Lowell and Fall River branches of the Trust.

Keno's choice to leave us hit me hard, but Wolf was devastated. He ended up going to a lot of shrink sessions over it. Not with McGann, but to some guy out of Waltham, at the nuthouse, which was convenient, since Wolf was now stationed there. McGann was up in Lowell, making nice with the state-run university located there, as our liaison.

None of us who had been on that mission were allowed to talk about it, even with each other. We didn't see each other anyway, not really. Murphy ended up being semi-retired, not that he ever wanted to talk to me again after what happened; Anya was out on the West Coast; Wolf was at Waltham. I was sent down to Fall River, which was all research. My job was to make sure the eggheads got what they wanted, which usually involved a Dunkies run and making sure they didn't get attacked by a rogue test tube. A big letdown from what I had been doing, and the commute was a bitch, but it was better than getting
permanently
retired by these people.

I was getting to know the eggheads down in Fall River after being there for a couple of weeks when I got a message that there was an assignment for me in Boston. I was really surprised when I got to the meeting and the people there were Elizabeth Adams, Caitlynn McGann, and Wolf Dieter.

Elizabeth Adams was a Trustee, a sweet little old lady who was tough as nails. She protected Fuse, which was one of the things that saved our asses, given the fact that Fuse's kids were mean fuckers and not too happy about Murphy stealing their mom and Keno. They had been almost as pissed about it as Tamazusa and her boy toy had been. Mrs. Adams had taken charge when Collins had disappeared and kept all of us from being terminated, I swear. Most of the Trustees would have been happy to see some of us in the lower levels while they were pouring in the cement to close them off.

"Ma'am.” I nodded to her. Being on a desk had taught me to act a little more polite to people, sometimes. Besides, she probably was the reason I was still breathing, so I should be polite to her.

"Mr. Kairns.” She smiled. “It's good to see you."

"I was told to report here,” I said. It sounded kind of like a question, mainly because the three of us had been separated and it had been hinted that it would be very bad for us if we ever talked to one another again. Good part about that was Anya had to find some other poor shit to screw over besides Wolf, because she had been part of that mission. Bad part was I didn't get to see Wolf. Not to sound too fucking touchy feely, but he was a good friend, about the only one I had. In our line of work, you didn't get friends who lasted.

McGann looked tired, but she was still in a killer suit, and her hair was pulled back in some sort of fancy bun. Wolf looked older, not quite there almost. He seemed to have changed a lot in the last couple of weeks. I didn't like seeing the changes in him. He looked like he was on the edge of breaking down. Losing Keno had really hurt him for some reason. I figured it was because he felt responsible for him in some way and that he hadn't known the kid had had the hots for him. Me... there were nights I stayed awake with a bottle because of the guilt, but Wolf's was eating away at him. Mine was just keeping me company. Keno had made a good choice, staying with the monsters, since they were a lot better to him than we ever had been. Wolf would never believe that, though, and that was what was killing him.

"The Trustees have a mission that we want you to go on,” Mrs. Adams said. “We have managed to recover both Mr. Heiseg's notes and Mr. Fairinox's work."

"What the fuck for?” popped out of my mouth before I thought about who I was talking to. That it took this long for the Trust to want to plan a return trip to the Dreamlands again meant something. I just didn't know what. Maybe not everyone thought this was a good idea?

McGann looked at me, and Wolf just shook his head, Mrs. Adams was amused, though. “It seems that the Trustees would like to see more of the Dreamlands, thinking that we can make allies there. I doubt that we would be able to work with the Nipponese, though, from the blunders that we made there. From the research that Caitlynn and Anya have done, there are a number of other nations we could deal with. The Trustees want to contact one of them."

I stared at her. “Are they—” I started to say before I shut my mouth.

"While I don't think that this is a good idea,” McGann said, “I will work with the Trustees."

That made sense, since those fuckers could make McGann's life miserable because she was a ‘path. “Once in, never out” wasn't just the motto for some fucking terrorist organization. No one walked away from the Trust. Keno had been the first one I'd known of. Most of the time, the lucky ones died, and the unlucky ones ended up in a nuthouse, whether they needed to be there or not.

Wolf was still thinking about Mrs. Adams's offer, but I could see he was interested. I didn't blame him, since it was something for him to hold on to. Me, I thought that it was a bad idea, starting with the fact that you needed to kill someone to get us there and ending with getting back was something that I didn't understand how it worked.

"I don't like it,” I said into the really uncomfortable silence. “And you know why."

Mrs. Adams had the balls to look guilty for a second, before turning professional. “I know, but.... We have managed to work out some of the details and a much better plan. It won't be the wild goose chase that Collins organized.” She paused for a second, taking a deep breath. “We are losing this war,” Mrs. Adams continued carefully. “Allies are needed, and hopefully we can find them there, because the Dreamlands are where all the monsters originate. We can bring the fight to them and stop their incursions here."

"And you don't think that they're some poor fuckers that got lost?” I nearly shouted. Shit, I had been thinking about that for a while, which was probably the reason that I was rent-a-cop now and not a Trouble Consultant.

"Mason,” Wolf said. “I don't think that we have a say in this.” He then clicked his heels and bowed to Mrs. Adams. “I am yours to command."

Wolf sounded nuts, but he looked less worn all of a sudden. I didn't know what was going on in his head, but McGann looked thoughtful. I was surprised Wolf wasn't pulling a shit fit about what I'd just said. I was going to ask McGann about that later, if she could tell me. ‘Paths had rules they worked under, and one of them was they couldn't tell about anything they picked up in someone's head.

"Mrs. Adams,” McGann said. “I won't commit myself to this without seeing more of the mission statement, no matter what I've been told."

"Caitlynn, I assure you that the Board's threats are meaningless. You are valuable to us."

"So why send her on what might be a one-way trip?” I asked, wondering if that line sounded as strange to McGann as it did to me. “She had her shit together on the last op, but if you're sending us someplace nasty, sending any woman wouldn't be good. I know that her and Anya got all the intel on the place, but you got their notes and shit. You don't need to send either one of them."

I was feeling protective of Wolf and McGann, because neither one of them was showing a bit of sense about this. I felt guilty about Keno and wasn't happy with my life, but I didn't know if I wanted to do
this
. But I would go along with these two, because, shit, they needed someone to watch their asses and I was the one to do so.

McGann just looked at me, kind of surprised I was arguing about protecting her virtue, I guess. Mrs. Adams just looked speculative. “I hadn't thought...."

I sighed. “I don't think McGann ain't got the balls to get the job done, but how nasty is where we're going? Tamazusa was a tough lady, and she'd've killed us if we weren't so fucking funny to her and her boy toy while we were there. But I swear she wouldn't have done anything really
bad
to us."

"Bad?” Mrs. Adams asked, sounding amused by my statement. McGann just watched me. I thought she knew where I was going on this. You didn't need to be telepathic to figure it out, just street savvy.

"Rape and torture us,” I said bluntly. “You're a nice lady. You don't think of those things. I knew that Wolf didn't. Not that he's stupid, he just hadn't been in a situation that he had to think about it. He's a damned Boy Scout. Basically, this trip should be guys. Big fuckin’ bruisers that no one's gonna look at and think that they'd be a good wife. You want to do the nice-nice with these people, that's gonna be the second or third trip when you know they're worth it, as much as I hate to say it."

Not that I actually wanted to do multiple trips to this place after how it happened last time, but I knew that given the fuck-ups previously, we were going to have to do a lot of negotiation with whoever the Trustees were trying to hook up with.

Mrs. Adams looked at McGann, checking for her opinion. “While Mason's assessment is a bit rough,” McGann said, “he does have some valid arguments. The Nipponese are very civilized. Lady Tamazusa is a very powerful woman, and, from what I found out, the only female lord in Nippon. Very few pre-industrial societies allow women that power. I must confess I didn't think about the other thing that he mentioned."

"I don't think that—” Mrs. Adams started.

"You been in prison?” I asked, wanting her to see some sort of light. “You ever have to watch out for the nasties? Besides the other Trustees?” Maybe that wasn't the right thing to say, but I wanted her to know how serious I was about this. “You're a nice lady who don't have to worry or think about this shit. Because if you did, you'd've protected Keno's ass. You're thinking that these guys are going to be playing by the rules. They ain't or at least not rules that we know and understand."