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)
His eyes closed, and more rage rose through our bond. "Did they give you something for the pain?"
"No."
The rage shifted to a thundering storm, spilling out of me and filling up the entire room.
"Oh, Tora. . ." He pulled me back into his arms and held me tight.
Then, his grief poured into me along with his guilt and his helplessness.
And I knew he hated what was done to me. I knew he hated that he had not been there. I knew he hated that his body—trained, feared, and worshiped across this entire country—had not been the body between me and that hook.
"You were not supposed to bleed for us, Tora." His mouth was against my hair. "Not you. Not my Tiger. You were not supposed to feel any pain or lose our child for the sake of this fucking victory. This war was to protect you and keep our children safe. And I failed you."
"No. Don’t say that"
"I will spend the rest of my life making it up."
I buried my face against his chest and sobbed.
How long did we stand there?
With him holding me as I cried.
With his love and sadness wrapping us together.
The bond made it more intense. I could feel all the things he could not say because the pain of losing our daughter had crippled him. And I knew he no longer cared about the victory. His arms told me. His breath in my hair told me. The empire he had built with his teeth had gone quiet inside him.
Like I’d done in the forest. . .he did in this room. . .he mourned.
I wiped my tears away. "It was not your fault, Kenji."
"I will kill all of the Silent Ones—"
“You can’t. They’re your mother's people—"
"Then why do I feel like they betrayed me?"
"Kenji. . ."
"I love you, Tora." He slid his hands up to my braids. "And not just because you are mine. Not just because you are beautiful, sexy, and you make me feel so fucking good.”
I trembled in his hold.
“I love you because you taught me all the levels of love in every facet the human heart can create—love of family, love of strangers, love in sacrifice. . .”
I swallowed.
“You deserve better than me, but I will never let you go. I would kill over you again and again. There would be no escape. There could be no escape. Because you have my heart. My soul. My brain. My brother. My men.. My dragon-shadow. What am I without you? What is life if you’re not in front of me?"
More tears left my eyes. “Baby. . .”
“My parents kept secrets. We are not them. We don’t keep secrets. . .”
I closed my eyes.
“We don’t, Tora.”
“Okay.”
“And you are to never make a decision like that on your own and deal with all that fucking pain by yourself, I don’t care who is coming for us. I don’t care about how many enemies, let me fucking die before you—”
“No.” I opened my eyes. “No.”
“You weren’t supposed to bleed for us, Tora. We. . .were supposed to bleed for you.”
And then his all-consuming love roared through our bond.
It came like wildfire racing through a bone-dry forest, devouring every wall I'd built inside myself. The inferno detonated the guilt. My fears curled inward and became smoke. My grief shifted and glowed into dying embers that began to hiss and crack beneath the unbearable heat of his devotion. One by one, those carefully stacked defenses surrendered to the blaze until nothing remained but us, standing in the burning aftermath.
The fire didn't consume my pain.
It burned beside it, fierce enough to keep me from freezing inside my own sorrow and his.
It did not ask my pain to leave.
It simply wrapped itself around every broken piece of me, fierce enough to keep the darkness from reclaiming what his love had already chosen as its own.
It was hard to speak.
All I could manage was. . . "I love you, Kenji."
"Thank God for that." And then, he kissed me.
His mouth met mine, and the whole night tilted. He tasted like desperate merciless want held too long.
Dark, greedy need.
Overwhelming hunger.
The warmth of his mouth spread across me, and the war moved out of him. I felt it come up through his chest to meet my lips—every bullet, every battle, every moment where he had believed he might not come back to me crashed into that kiss.
My breathing grew ragged.
I opened my mouth and sucked on his tongue.
A searing hot primal groan left him.
Kissing me some more, he raised his hands and ran his fingers through my braids. Every place his fingers pressed into my scalp sent heat cascading downward, pooling low into my pussy. And soon he gathered a fistful of my braids, and he tilted my head back, so his tongue could go deeper.
Oh.
I closed my eyes and drowned in a symphony of sensations. The world narrowed to him. Colors bled behind my closed eyes—deep reds and amber, pulsing in time with my own heartbeat.