Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 66993 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66993 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
“A Fang does what needs to be done. Quietly.”
My skin prickled. “You say that like it should make perfect sense.”
Silent, he simply reached for his cup of sake and took a long sip.
I tilted my head. “Is Yoichi one of your Fangs?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw.
“And Kaoru?”
That did it.
His entire expression changed—subtle, but unmistakable. It was in the slight narrowing of his eyes and the flicker of sharp anger passing through his features.
He set the cup down. “You know their names?”
Shit.
I tensed. “Was I not supposed to?”
Kenji didn’t answer. Instead, he turned his head slightly, glancing past my shoulder and toward the trees.
I followed his gaze.
Farther back, under the pink glow of lantern light, the two men who had stood there silently for most of the night—one lean and with long pink hair, the other broader with a shaved head and black gloves.
Under his scowl, they didn’t move much. Just a small step to the left, a hand falling naturally to a belt, a shoulder rotating. But I could feel the tension ripple through the garden like a dropped stone in still water.
Kenji turned back to me. “Yes, those two are my Fangs too.”
“You seem mad about something. Did I say something disrespectful?”
“No. I’ll just need to talk with them later.”
“Why?”
His voice came out calm though threaded with warning. “If you know their names, then they spoke to you. My Fangs are not to speak to you.”
“Why not?”
“Because. . .from the moment you stepped into my office, I decided that I am going to be completely possessive of you.”
My heart thudded so hard it almost knocked the sake cup from my hand.
“That’s. . .” I cleared my throat. “Intense.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Yet. . .I think you’re probably like that with any woman you date.”
“No, Nyomi. You’re different.” The way he said it hit me right in the chest. There it was again, that molten pull between us, the electric thread strung tight.
I leaned forward slightly, pushing past the swirl of nerves and wonder. “Look, I understand you’re protective. I even kind of like that. If I’m going to be in your world—even for a little while—you can’t treat me like I’m glass.”
He tilted his head.
“Let me talk to people,” I pressed. “Let me see what I see. I’m a writer. Observations and questions are how I survive.”
He lifted a brow.
I swallowed. “If your Fangs are fascinating, I’m going to want to know more about them and ask them questions. Honestly, don’t you want me to be happy as you court me?”
He stared at me for a long moment.
The garden was quiet again, save for the distant, aching song of the shamisen rising through the blossoms.
I didn’t look away from Kenji.
Not this time.
Not even when the air between us felt like it could split from the heat of his gaze alone.
Because I’d already made a decision.
Maybe not out loud, maybe not with some grand speech, but in the part of me that had watched my mother shrink in every room my father walked into.
The part that had learned early that love meant silence.
That being good meant being obedient.
That a woman’s power existed only in the way she could make herself small enough to fit beside her man.
I was not going to be my mother. Not here. Not with him. Not even if Kenji was the most dangerous man I’d ever met.
I’d spent my life turning things that scared me into stories. I’d bled every wound onto the page. I’d built a life from my voice. From the things I noticed. The things I asked. The truths I forced people to admit.
So if I let him silence that—even a little—it wouldn’t just be me I’d lose.
It would be everything I was.
So. . .what’s it going to be dragon?
Chapter sixteen
Fangs and Worship
Nyomi
Kenji leaned back a little and then tapped his finger once against the side of his sake cup.
“Your will. . .” he said finally. “It cuts in a way I am not prepared for.”
“I hope that’s not a bad thing.”
He gave me a look that was too complex to name. Somewhere between admiration and warning. Want and calculation.
“It’s not bad,” he said. “It’s just dangerous.”
The word sent a shiver down my spine.
I forced myself to sit taller, even though part of me wanted to slide under the table and vanish into the moss. “You said I was a tiger. They have fangs too.”
He blinked and then chuckled. God, he was beautiful when he was caught off guard. His dangerous facade cracked just enough to let something human slip through.
“You’re very good,” he murmured.
I smiled. “So I’ve been told.”
He lifted his cup again. This time he didn’t drink. He just held it between us like a delicate truce.
“I’ll tell you this, Tora,” His voice went low. “You can ask about them. You can watch them. But my Fangs are not to speak to you unless I say so.”