Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 101427 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101427 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
What is that? A kanji? What does it mean?
Kenji must have noticed me watching them. “Don’t worry, Tora. They are my Eyes.”
“Oh.” I looked back at them.
These are the Eyes. Wow.
I assessed them again. Both men were tall. Silent. Dressed in tailored black, their postures so still they didn’t seem human. But it was the tattoos that kept my full attention.
Kenji didn’t look back as he fastened the last button of his shirt. “They’ll be with us for the rest of the night.”
I glanced at the one on the left. The ink by his eye looked sharper when he tilted his head. “What are their names?”
Kenji adjusted the cuff of his sleeve. “Their names are Eyes. That is it, Tora.”
I frowned. “But surely they have names.”
Kenji shook his head. “For you. . .they don’t have names.”
“So, what am I supposed to say when I talk to them, Kenji?” I raised a brow. “Hello, Mr. Eye One and Mr. Eye Two?”
One of them—Eye Two—smiled. Just slightly. But then his expression vanished, as if pulled back behind some invisible code of conduct.
I caught it, though.
That flicker of humor.
Kenji didn’t smile. Instead, he frowned. “You won’t be talking to them.”
I rolled my eyes. “If they’re going to see me naked, then I can at least know their names.”
The room’s temperature shifted. The calm fury that had simmered on him earlier flared bright and immediate.
That dragon-shadow reappeared, turned its head toward me, and rose behind him.
What the fuck?
I parted my lips in shock.
That massive shadowed body unfurled along the floor, slithering fast, eyes unseen but burning, as if it had smelled the word naked and decided it needed to remind me who I belonged to.
I couldn’t move.
I could only stare as the darkness stretched toward my feet.
What is happening right now?
Then—just as fast as it appeared—that dragon-shadow vanished, dissolving back into nothing.
Kenji’s voice didn’t rise, but I felt it hit my bones like a sound made from thunder. “They will not see you naked.”
His jaw locked. His eyes darkened. His fists clenched at his sides like his body had to physically hold back the violence that wanted to be let loose.
“Okay.” My voice came out quieter than I intended. “Got it.”
Behind him, the Eyes exchanged a look, and it wasn’t fear, but. . .I think it was shock.
Kenji’s shoulders remained stiff for a moment longer. Then, slowly, he exhaled and rolled his neck like he was letting go of darkness. His eyes found mine again. Still hot. Still watching. But no longer burning to kill.
I sighed. “You told me that. . .they watch. . .everything.”
“I did, but things have changed. Your body is not for their gaze.”
My throat tightened.
He prowled over. “If you strip down, it will be for me. No one else. Not even ghosts.”
I grinned. “Ghosts?”
“Yes.” He stopped three feet in front and towered over me. “If you moan. . .it’ll be because of something I did. No one else. A sound I ripped from your throat because you couldn’t hold it in. Because my cock earned it.”
As soon as the word cock left his mouth, the air changed again.
The temperature didn’t rise—it dropped.
Thickened.
Warped.
And that shadowed-dragon slithered back into being, no longer hiding within the seams of darkness but stretching bold behind him.
My heart pounded in my chest.
His eyes locked on mine—stormy, relentless, and beautiful in their feral devotion. “You need to understand something, Tora. After tonight and your surprises. . .there is no calm in me where you’re concerned. No middle. No brakes. There’s only hunger and prayer.”
I exhaled, but it came out shaky.
“I want to protect you. Feed you. Worship you. Drown in you. Lock you somewhere only I can reach.”
I widened my eyes.
He closed the distance between us and gently placed the wrapped gift on my lap.
Then he looked back at the Eyes. “Wait for us on the roof.”
Without a word, they both nodded once and disappeared through the door like they’d never been there at all.
I tilted my head and let my gaze rise to his.
He stood over me now, right in front of the throne, broad and looming.
It took everything in me to push the next words out. “We’re going to the roof?”
“Yes. There’s a helicopter waiting for us.”
“It sounds like there is still a lot of fighting all around the building.”
“There is.”
“Are we in danger?”
“The only people in danger are our enemies.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but then he moved forward and lowered to his knees right in front of me. And the moment Kenji's knees touched the marble, something unholy bloomed inside me.
Shit.
Next, shock shattered the little bit of calm I had been holding on to.
Kenji Sato—the Dragon, the shadowed thing made of rage and myth, the one whose name could probably quiet rooms—knelt before me.
I didn’t command him.
I didn’t lift a finger.
And it undid me.