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didn’t have electricity or running water. It was like I had stepped back in time to the Tokugawa era, from what I had seen. I didn’t remember how I had gotten here, because one moment I was being led to the server room by the scary lady and her Reavers, monsters I knew about from working on Heiseg’s reports, and then we were all here. Wherever here was. It didn’t seem any better than Boylston Street, because I was still a prisoner and this Samojirou person wanted me like Heiseg had. I shuddered at the thought.
    “Does it matter?” Samojirou asked after I fell silent. He looked concerned for a moment but then smiled. “If you are done, then we should seek out Tan’yu-san.”
    “I’m done, Samojirou-sama,” I said. Why did it matter if I was done? I was his property, and he could do whatever he wanted with me.

    FELICITAS IVEY
    22
    He got to his feet gracefully. I was less than graceful and ended up stumbling and falling. I was surprised when Samojirou managed to catch me, because he had been across the room a moment before. I still flinched at his touch.
    “I should have known,” he murmured. “No matter. Keno, please trust me.”
    “Do I have a choice, Samojirou-sama?” I asked softly.
    I waited for the hit I deserved for questioning him. Most of the Trust personnel would have hit me for being that rude. The techs had a tendency to slap me―“to keep me in line” was the phrase they used.
    The strike teams just grabbed at me in odd places and called me a pretty boy and other names. Early in my captivity, I had taken to hiding down in the server room to avoid both groups. I had known for a while that what Heiseg did to me was going to happen, since my door didn’t lock. I just didn’t know that it would hurt so much.
    “Not really,” he admitted ruefully.
    Samojirou leaned down to kiss me again, and I let him. This kiss was just as demanding as the last one had been. It hurt a little because of the bruises on my face too. When he finished, Samojirou had an odd look on his face. He wasn’t happy about how I kissed, or maybe it was because I just let him kiss me. Well, it wasn’t like I really knew what I was doing. I hadn’t been interested in kissing anyone before the Trust grabbed me, and afterward, the one guy I had wanted to kiss acted like I was a kid.
    I’d had a huge crush on Wolf Dieter for the last couple of years, which was stupid because he was the man who had dragged me out of my dorm room and taken away my life. But he was the only one who really talked to me, since he spent time with me in either the cafeteria or my room when he didn’t have to. I knew that it was stupid to have a crush on Wolf when I knew he was straight, but I was pathetic enough to have the hots for the man who had imprisoned me. I thought part of it might have been that I wanted Wolf to be my first, no matter what happened afterward. It didn’t happen though, and now I was the captive of a scary man who was trying to be nice to me.

    23

    DREAMLANDS

    SAMOJIROU

    TAN’YU shook his head and started to examine Keno when I introduced him to the healer. I let them have the privacy they needed for this and retired to the garden outside Tan’yu’s rooms to think. Keno was an odd mixture of submission and cleverness. I knew he was still confused about what was happening to him, but he also was studying me and this place despite all his downcast looks and subdued manner.
    The world he had come from was so different than this one.
    From what my lady Tamazusa had said, his world ran on electricity, the power of lightening harnessed. He was noticing there was nothing like that here. The Dreamlands are a simpler place because of the magic they contain, which is at odds with modern technology. It takes a while for the new ones to adjust to this. My lady and I live in the traditional manner of our time in natural surroundings with servants and the sprawling gardens we enjoyed.
    Thinking of Tamazusa brought her to me, and I