Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 154368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 772(@200wpm)___ 617(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 772(@200wpm)___ 617(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Plus, his body was close to mine.
His heat surrounded me, and I wanted to relish in it.
No.
I turned my face away from him.
The dragon-shadow responded, looming away from Kenji and getting in my view. It stretched its wings across the entire wall.
"Tora. . .look at me."
I didn't.
His hand caught my chin, firm but not cruel, and turned my face to his. His eyes burned into mine, dark, intense, yet utterly certain. "This is who I am, Tora."
No apology.
No softening.
Just truth, laid bare between us.
"This is who you're with. This is what it means to be mine." With his thumb, he began to trace my jaw. "You are now in an unfortunate position. Because I am never letting you go. You're too important to me. Too important to this family. You're helping me win this war. . .therefore. . ."
His grip tightened slightly on my jaw. "I will never let you go."
Those words should have terrified me.
Maybe they did.
But terror and desire were starting to taste the same in my mouth.
I stared up at him—this man I loved, this monster I'd let claim me—and felt the truth of it settle into my bones.
There was no leaving.
There never had been.
The moment I'd chosen him, I'd chosen all of him—the gentle hands, the warmth, and the death.
I shivered. "I don't want to leave."
Those words surprised me. But they were true.
His expression shifted—something like relief, quickly buried.
"But I can't—" My voice broke. I swallowed hard, forced myself to continue. "I can't ever wake up to this again. I can't open a curtain and see—"
Bodies.
Burning.
Liquefying.
Dancing in the flames.
"I need you to hear me." I put my hands on his chest, and felt his heart beating steady and strong beneath my palms. "I don't ever want you to make this kind of decision without me again."
His brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
"I mean you need to tell me." The words came faster now, tumbling over each other. Honestly, I didn’t even know if I were making sense or if it was something I could ask. However, I was too out of it to care.
I sighed. "Before you decide to kill over a hundred people and burn them in front of everyone who's loyal to you, you need to talk to me. We need to have a conversation. You can't just. . .you can't just do this without—"
"Tora." His voice cut through my spiral. “Are you saying I need to ask you for permission before I kill?”
“When it is this many people and I have something to do with it. Yes. We need to have a fucking discussion.”
“You mean I tell you I’m going to do it?”
“No. I mean we decide together if that is a good idea—”
"You don't want that kind of power."
"What?"
"If I do that—if I bring you into those decisions—do you understand what that means?" His eyes searched mine. "I have never answered to anyone. Not even my father. For me to answer to you. . ."
He shook his head slowly. "That puts you on a level no one has ever occupied. A level that should terrify you."
"I don't care."
"You should." His hand slid from my jaw to my throat, and those fingers settled over the bite marks he'd left there. "I've already claimed you. Bitten you. Already made you mine in ways you don't fully understand yet."
His thumb pressed against the bruised skin, and I gasped. "If I give you this power—the power to question my decisions, to shape them, to stop them—how much more do you think I'll need to consume?”
“Kenji—”
“How much deeper do you think I'll need to go?" His fingers trailed from my throat down to my collarbone, leaving a line of fire in their wake. Every nerve ending sparked where he touched, and I hated my body for it.
Hated how it leaned into him even now.
"I'm already under your skin. In your blood. If I go deeper. . ." His palm flattened over my heart, pressing until I could feel my own pulse beating against his hand.
The dragon-shadow pulsed behind him.
Eager.
Hungry.
He's warning me.
I understood that. He was telling me that if I demanded this, if I inserted myself into his darkest decisions, he would pull me even further into his world.
Into his fire.
There would be no part of me he didn't touch, didn't own, didn't burn.
And still. . .
I let out a long breath. "I need to know. I need to be part of this. I can't be kept in the dark while you. . ."
I gestured toward the window, toward the horror beyond. "I can't be protected from the truth and then stumble into it like this. It's worse. Don't you see that? It's so much worse."
“You weren’t supposed to see that—”
“Stop saying that. It’s not the point. I would have found out regardless—”
“You might not have—”
“I would have.” My heart boomed in my ears. “There’s ash falling all over the place and it fucking smells like someone is roasting meat all over the island.”