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 made a note to tell her that.
The doctor reached my cot.
He was middle-aged, tall, with a thin face and tired eyes behind small round glasses. He bowed once to Yoichi, then turned to me with a bright expression. "Tora, may I check you?"
"Yes."
He picked up my wrist for a pulse, and I looked at his face for the first time properly.
Then, I left the space again.
A hospital room came to me and beeping from a machine. An old man lay in a bed with his eyes closed and his mouth open. A tube was taped to his lower lip.
The doctor sat beside the bed in a hard plastic chair with his shoulders shaking. His hands covered his face as he cried. “Father, I’m going to miss you.”
And then the monitor flat-lined.
I gasped.
The doctor blinked down at me. "Are you in pain? Tora, where—"
"I'm so sorry about your father."
His hand stilled on my wrist. "My father?"
"Yes." I swallowed. "You have my condolences."
“Thank you, but. . .” His brow knitted. "He passed ten years ago."
"Oh." A shiver ran down my back.
"How did you know that my father passed?"
"I. . .uh. . ." I glanced around and saw the lantern, Yoichi, and the women laughing in the background as Deja said something else. "I think I saw you crying by his hospital bed."
The doctor stepped back. “But no one else was in there when that happened. And. . .I have told no one this.”
"You saw it, Tora?" Yoichi raised his eyebrows.
I nodded. "Y-yes."
"Even more interesting."
The doctor stared at me like I'd grown another head. He cleared his throat and looked at Yoichi. “Should we—”
“She’s fine.” Yoichi gave him a slight nod. “Just check her vitals.”
The doctor went back to checking my pulse. His fingers shook a little.
I turned to Yoichi. "Is this all my imagination?"
"I doubt it. You're to get gifts too from the sacrifice." He held my eyes. "And you've always been an inquisitive individual with the ability to read people. Sometimes the gift is an amplification of talents already present within."
"An amplification."
"Yes."
That's a real diplomatic way to say I'm seeing inside people's lives without permission.
The doctor wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm and pumped it. The pressure climbed and released. He wrote a number down on a clipboard.
Next, he listened to my chest. Once satisfied, he pressed two fingers to the underside of my jaw. "Your vitals are good. Better than when you were first carried in here. I thought you would need a blood transfusion after your sacrifice.”
I widened my eyes. “You. . .know about that?”
Yoichi spoke for the doctor, “He’s part of the Silent Ones.”
The doctor moved the blanket away and tenderly touched my stomach. "You are recovering quickly. Surely, the ritual sealed the wound. You'll have soreness for a few days, but you are healed."
Healed.
I tested the word against the dull ache between my hips and against the hollow place in my womb where a baby girl had been.
Will I ever truly be healed?
I lifted my chin and pushed all that down somewhere I could deal with later. "Thank you, Doctor."
He bowed and stepped back to make notes.
Across the room, Deja stood up from her chair. “Alright. That’s enough for now.”
The Japanese women clapped. One of them pressed both palms to her cheeks like she'd received a revelation.
Deja grinned and caught sight of me slowly sitting up. Her whole face changed. "Oh my God. She’s awake."
Deja started across the room, and the space dropped out from under me once again.
I was in a dark, luxurious bedroom with dozens of lit candles surrounding me. Rin lay naked on his back on a low bed with his muscular arms above his head, and a red silk bag pulled down over his face.
A silver chain ran along his throat.
Deja was naked and on top of him with her hands flat on his chest. “Do you feel that, baby?”
Rin groaned. “God, yes.”
“Who’s fucking you?”
“Deja, my queen. My master. My everything.” He lifted his hips to meet her rhythm.
“Damn, baby. Your dick is perfect.” Moaning, she rolled forward and his groan came up muffled through the silk. “Are you ready, baby?”
“Yes, master.”
“Beg for it.”
“Please, master. Let me see your face. Please.”
Then her hand moved, and she slipped the silk bag off his head.
Rin opened his eyes and stared up at her like she had walked out of a story he hadn't read yet. “I want to be inside of you for the rest of my life.”
She licked her lips. “That costs a lot.”
“I’ll pay any price.” He lowered his hands to grab her full breasts. “You’re mine, master. Mine in every way. No one else will serve you but me.”
“We’ll see.”
“No.” And with that Rin flipped her over.
She shrieked. “Baby?”
“We’ll see?” Rin pumped into her. “No, you’ll see, master. You will see as well as the world.”