We spent the ride to the castle in unexpected silence. What I agreed to and how Tojiro approached me still shocked me, but I was also unsure what to talk about. This time he didn't walk in front of his horse. He sat on the saddle right behind me. I had been in this situation millions of times before, but not a single one had my heart skip beats the way it did now. There was a strange thrill I had felt last night in the hot spring. I had accepted a bargain that probably no one in my situation would. I could also escape, but I didn't. Curiosity was dangerous; it opened doors to new words, not all good, but here I was, taking a blind risk and putting my faith in a human.

Calling his castle impressive would be an understatement. I had seen the construction in the past but never walked the steep road that led to the main entrance. My kin didn't have houses or similar structures for us to live in, nature was our home, and we had learned to exist together. But I always admired the persistence of humans to build their elaborate shelters and fill them with items no one truly needed or probably remembered.

"Your lords wouldn't be happy to see me." I finally spoke as we walked through the main gate.

A page ran to help his lord, Tojiro dismounted, and to my surprise, he helped me get off the animal. The man had been stone-cold throughout our journey, yet this simple gesture sent me so much warmth. The servant looked at me but then focused his attention on the horse and leading to the stables. Was that normal? His lord leaving for a ride and coming with a random woman?

"My lord, this is...." A familiar man approached us, his hand was on his sword as soon as he saw me, and it was apparent his words were directed at me.

"The woman that tricked you, yes," Tojiro responded with great amusement in his voice.

For a second, I wondered if he even brought me here so my punishment would be more public, my death seen by all, not just by him. The young lord defeated the yokai that was pestering his lands. What fool I would be for falling into that trap.

I didn't feel guilty. Whatever I had done was my nature, and I had no regret. I turned my eyes to Tojiro, who made a step forward, placing himself between the retainer and myself. No one had ever done that for me. All my life, I had taken care of myself, and like the simple gesture of helping off the horse, that too sent a warm wave through my skin I had never expected or needed.

"My lord, she is a demon." The retainer pulled the sword a bit, revealing the top of the blade.

What do I do? Run away or leave my life in Tojiro's hands, the man who yesterday admitted he was looking for me to kill me. My breath stopped, not out of fear, but because it was in a foreign and unfamiliar situation, and I was letting humans resolve it for me.

"Kagetsuna, she is my guest." Tojiro moved in a way that I was completely behind him. His voice had power and command in it. I had heard gods talk in such a tone, and the mortals trembled in their presence. He wasn't a god, but right now, he had the presence of one. "Are you going to pull a sword in your lord's presence? We might have been friends since childhood, but do not mistake me; I am your master."

"As my lord commands." The other man said reluctantly and bowed.

I could see the emotions on his face. I knew he wanted revenge or to chase me away from his lord's presence, but he obeyed. Humans were exciting creatures bending to each other's will. Tojiro had power over this man. I couldn't explain. In our world, power was real and came from our abilities. Humans did not possess the abilities we did, yet this man was bending others to his will with words.

I was shown to a room by one of the servants. The woman led me through long, decorated hallways, but her eyes were pinned on the ground, and she didn't say a single word to me. I had to wonder if she had any idea what I was or if I was just some random woman her lord brought from his travels. I asked myself, how often did that happen? As a yokai, I always regarded myself as unique and better, but maybe I was put in a situation when non of that mattered.

She stopped in front of a screen door and opened it with elegance, making it clear this was where I was supposed to be. I stepped in, and she closed the door behind me. I waited a moment to hear her steps disappear in the distance, and then I looked around. It was spacious, with scrolls decorating the walls, beautiful art of animals and nature, and a small table on the far end with reading supplies and dressers that I had not seen before in any house or castle were at the far end. I came closer to them. The wood was not something I was familiar with, nor was the strange shiny finish on top of it.

I turned toward the entrance of the room as I heard steps, and the door opened again. Tojiro walked in, not in his riding clothes anymore, but in an informal black kimono covering his body. His swords, however, were still hanging from his waist as if he expected trouble.

"A merchant from faraway lands traded these to me. Did you know that his people sit at high tables and chairs to eat?" There was something new in his voice I had not seen before. Excitement, an emotion that made him seem more boyish than that of the mighty lord who had just bent a man to his will only with words. "It is fascinating also the weapons they use and the god they prey to. Do you know they claim there is only one god?"

I shook my head. I had never encountered foreigners in our own land. I had no idea there was someone who wasn't from here at all. But my attention was still on Tojiro and the excitement that had taken over him. Was it possible he was just attracted to everything strange and not typical for the day-to-day life here? It explained why he spared me and wanted me to be here. Like his high tables and chests from foreign lands, I was not 'normal' by human standards.

As I was still trying to figure out my situation, two servants walked in with food and started setting up a spread in the middle of the room. Tojiro didn't say anything, he acted as if they were not there, but his dark eyes were fixed on me. I met his gaze and didn't avert mine, he might be a lord in this castle, but he was a mortal.

There was something in the way he looked at me, something no human I had ever met possessed - an intensity so strong that whenever I saw the shine in his eyes, I felt weakness in my knees that I was unfamiliar with. Somehow I had been served a taste of my own poison, and I couldn't even explain why or how it worked on me. I was afraid to name it, but it was an attraction. I had seen it in the eyes of others, but to think I would fall victim to it, sounded crazy. Yet, here I was, in a human castle, sitting across from this man who had managed to trap me without even using force.

The servants left, and we were alone again. Tojiro made a sign, and I sat on my heels by the food, admiring the dishes in front of me. As a yokai, I didn't feel hunger, at least not in the way humans did. My food was the little tricks and misery I brought with me, but even I could appreciate the spread before me, even if the taste meant nothing.

"You are not going to eat?" Tojiro asked as he started picking from the food.

"My kind doesn't feed like that." I smiled with as much charm as I could gather. "We are into more spiritual nature of nourishment."

"Does that mean you will starve if you don't play your little tricks?" He raised an eyebrow as he asked that.

"I don't know...." I hesitated as I responded. These words were not something typical for me. I had never been in a situation where I felt as if the answer would be unknown to me.

There wasn't a feeling of starvation or something missing from my life. In fact, I felt complete, and warmth crept through my skin every time I looked at the intensity of Tojiro's eyes, the sharp lines on his face, and the determination in his expression.

"I wouldn't want that to happen, but I also cannot have you spread conflict across my lands." His bearing was severe and focused. Was that a threat? Will he harm me if I am not nice and play with him? Like last night, my fascination with him was swinging between fear and desire, two things I never had genuinely felt toward a human.

"I do not plan on that," I responded defensively.

"Tell me something, why didn't you run away? You had multiple chances today, even now. Before I came in, all it was going to take was for you to turn in a fox and leave. Why not?" He left his bow and chopstick on the table and stared at me intensely.

I could lie. I could devise a clever or flirty response and move this meeting and conversation in a different direction. Instead, I decided to opt for the truth in front of a man for the first time in my life.

"Have you ever felt that you want more of a purpose?" It was a philosophical question, and he looked at me with newfound interest. "I have been around for hundreds of years, doing the same thing every night. It pleases me, I was created to enjoy it, and it is my purpose. But then you came along. Nothing about you helps me fulfill that purpose, yet I want to follow you. For whatever strange reason the universe had determined, I didn't want to just walk away."

Never in my life had I said something like that, especially not to a human. Slowly but surely, I was starting to realize that every emotion I had ever expressed was fake. I pretended to be interested in all these poor men. I acted as if their life stories meant something to me. Instead, the only satisfaction I felt was ruining whatever they had - good or bad. I didn't want to destroy him. I needed to possess him, but not in the destructive way I was used to. It felt like I was going against my nature, but simultaneously I was not scared of that.

"You and I have something in common." He finally said as he drank from his cup. "Ever since I was born, I had been trained for a purpose, take over that from my father, be better than my father, rule...my life had been a straight line, for the most part, I knew when I would become a lord - when my father died. I knew one day I would have to be married, a political alliance, then I would have children, and one day they would replace me. I guess we have that in common. We both want to step away from a line created for us, but we had very little to do with it."

It wasn't common for me to be speechless, but I had no idea how to follow that. While until this point, Tojiro was a human in my eyes, somehow different from other humans but a mortal nonetheless. I felt as if this human could understand me for the first time. I could maybe even consider him equal in strange circumstances. Not entirely, he was still mortal, with his very earthly problems, but for a second there, I saw a mirror, not of me as a yokai, but the individual I was, and it seemed I had forgotten until I met this man.

As I struggled with my thoughts, trying to figure out how real my emotions were, Tojiro reached across the table, pushing food and plates to the ground. Before I could even say a word, he was on top of me, my back pressing against the floor.

"I feel like you have enchanted me." He groaned. His face was as close to mine as it was yesterday in the hot springs. But the difference was, last night, I pushed myself on him. Today he was the one initiating. "Did you?"

"I have done no such thing, my lord." I had decided I would not lie to him. If what he felt was enchantment, it was not on purpose. But perhaps we were both enchanted because his reaction did not scare me. On the contrary.

I spread my legs as best as the kimono allowed and wrapped them around his, pulling him closer to me, wanting to feel more of him. His lips pressed against mine, making me melt and arch in excitement. Never before had that happened. Never before had I felt so much. It cannot be my nature to pull them towards destruction. There was nothing to destroy.

I let it happen. I gave into the feeling and passion between us and decided that the consequences should be damned. It was all natural to me, even if I was just a precious object to Tojiro. At this moment, being so close to his warmth and lips, I didn't care.