Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 92392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
I blinked.
Is that Reo's pin?
It sat on the front of her robe like it belonged there.
What the fuck? When did this happen? Did my Roar brand my Tiger?!
The thought came fast, ugly, and territorial, and I almost let it take root—then one of Akiro’s planes screamed low over the trees and the anticraft guns answered it, and I crushed the thought flat.
Goddamn it! Not now.
The enemy had arrived and there was no room in me tonight for anything but keeping her alive and winning this war.
"Tora, where are you hurt?"
"Kenji." She weakly lifted her head up and her lids dragged low. "We don't have time for that."
“We’ll make time. I will tear this island down to the rock!”
“Kenji. . .”
All night, I’d hardened myself for war, and now I’d gone soft with her fragile body in my hold.
What was the purpose of this war if she was not okay?
What meaning did I have?
How could I even focus on victory if she were barely holding on?
Suddenly, a boom rolled across the island from the far shore. Then another. The antiaircraft guns opened up after them, hammering at the sky, and a plane droned off in the distance.
Please. . .let no more of Akiro’s planes arrive.
Then, the night split open into gunfire. Distant first, then closer, then layered over itself until it became one long tearing roar.
Goddamn it.
Tons of engines droned overhead.
They’re here.
Then, a plane tore low across the forest, speeding right over the clearing.
The war had arrived, and still. . .all I could think about was how my Tiger was hurt.
"Put out the torchlights. The Fox's men are here." The Death Guardian's voice carried across the clearing. "Nothing stops this ritual. The Tiger has sacrificed too much for it to be wasted—"
I went still.
"Sacrificed?" The word seized fire in my chest. I looked down at her. "Tora."
“Kenji. . .don’t. . .”
I did my best to keep the rage out of my voice. "What did you sacrifice?"
Her bottom lip quivered. A tear broke loose from her eye, ran down her cheek, and fell from her jaw into the dark between us. “Kenji. . .n-not now. . .”
There was so much grief and sadness in her eyes that my heart crushed within my chest. “What did you do, Tora?”
“The war is here. We have no more time.” The Death Guardian stepped close and raised a large bowl between us. "You must drink."
I did not let go of Nyomi. "Tora? Answer me."
"Let go of me and drink." Nyomi’s eyes could barely stay open now. "P-please."
Out past the trees the guns kept firing: rifles, then heavier ones, then the antiaircraft batteries answering a plane overhead.
More hooded figures came over to grab Nyomi.
I tried to move her out of their reach, but they wouldn’t let me. "Tora. Answer me—"
"Drink, Kenji." Her fingers curled into my shirt and pulled, weak, insistent. "P-please. H-hurry."
Gunfire rolled up the slope behind us.
Men roared as they fought.
More planes sounded.
The war climbed the island toward this clearing, and she was asking me to drink while she bled from a wound I could not find and cried for a sacrifice she would not name.
There is no war without her. There is no focus if she is in pain.
“Let me go, Kenji.”
“I can’t.”
“You must. T-the war. . .”
Yoichi got on my side. “We’ve got her, Kenji. Let them hold her—”
“What fucking sacrifice?!” I yelled at him. “Is she going to be okay?!”
“Yes. She will be okay.” Yoichi nodded. “She’s fine. She’s just weak from the sacrifice. That’s it—”
“What happened?”
“The war is here.” Yoichi pointed to my other side. “Finish this.”
I looked and the Death Guardian held the bowl in front of me. “You must drink. There is no other way. Do not let your Tiger’s pain be for nothing.”
Her pain. . .
My eyes watered.
With her eyes still closed, Nyomi whispered, “Hurry.”
The Death Guardian gestured to the bowl. “Once you do this, her strength comes back, and she will be fine.”
I turned to Yoichi. “Is that true?”
He nodded. “When you do the sacrifice her energy and immediate healing will occur.”
“You better not be lying to me.” I let go of Nyomi and quickly took the bowl.
They held her.
“Thank. . .you. . .” Nyomi let out a long breath and leaned her head against the chest of one of the red figures.
Please, God. Don’t let anything happen to her. She’s more than just my Tiger. She’s my Heart. My Soul. My everything.
Another plane came in low over the clearing.
We all looked up.
It was so close that the wind of it pressed the hooded figures' capes flat.
Next, an antiaircraft shell screamed up after it and burst just wide of the wing.
Missed. Damn it.
The plane zoomed across the dark, and in the half-second of moonlight I saw the size of it—one of the massive ones, broad-bellied and heavy.
That one carries men. Probably hundreds of them. There’s no more time.