Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 154368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 772(@200wpm)___ 617(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 772(@200wpm)___ 617(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
She opened her mouth to answer—
"Enough!" My father's voice cut through the space like a blade.
He stood in the doorway.
Tall.
Cold.
His arms crossed over his chest. His eyes moved from my mother to me to the blood on my knee and back to my mother. "You're filling his head with nonsense again."
My mother's hands fell from my face. She rose slowly and bowed her head. "It's not nonsense."
"It's fairy tales mixed with bullshit." My father stepped forward and his shadow stretched long across the floor.
And although I loved him, I did not see a beast within it.
It was just a man's shadow.
He glared at my mother. "It’s not truth. Just stories your grandmother told you to make you feel special. There are no shadow beasts. There are no hunters. There is only blood, power, and the will to take what you want."
He looked down at me. "Clean yourself up, Kenji. My son doesn’t get to cry over a scraped knee."
He turned and left.
My mother watched him go and she fisted her hands at her sides.
Once he was completely gone, she knelt in front of me again and whispered, "He's wrong. You are a dragon, Kenji. And one day, someone will love you so much that they’ll see it too. Remember that."
“Okay, Mommy.”
I blinked.
The war room came back into focus. The glowing miniature Tokyo. The candles. The ice cream melting in its bowls.
And Nyomi. Watching me with concern. Her beautiful face tilted. Her eyes searching mine.
I found my voice. "You see a dragon behind me?"
"Yes."
"What does it look like?"
She paused. Considered. Her gaze moved to the space over my shoulder, and I watched her eyes track across something I couldn't see. "It's like a shadow, but not a regular shadow. Scarier. Thicker, yet translucent. Wispy. Like black smoke given form."
Oh shit. She really does see it.
She gestured with her hands, tracing a shape in the air. "Sometimes it's small. Hovering close to you. But other times it expands. Gets massive. Overbearing."
I widened my eyes.
She shook her head. "It's hard to explain. It's dark, but not like darkness. More like... depth. Like looking into something old and powerful."
My chest tightened.
"And its eyes." She met my gaze. "It has eyes. They watch me. Sometimes they seem protective. Sometimes, curious. I’ve thought I was seeing things, but. . .in the same breath I just accepted it too. I guess that’s the South in me. Superstitions, ghosts, hoodoo. All of those things were just as normal in my childhood as sweet potato pie and big dinners after church."
My blood roared in my ears.
She sees it. Truly sees it.
The realization crashed through me like a wave breaking against rock. My hands trembled. My heart slammed against my ribs. I felt like the floor had dropped out from under me and I was falling, but the fall felt like flying too.
I didn’t know which truth to get high off first—the fact that this pointed to her being my true soul mate or that my mother’s stories held solid proof.
Tora. . .
All I knew was that I couldn't breathe.
Couldn't think.
Could only stare at this woman who had given me a gift no one else ever had.
She must have misread my silence because her face shifted and then uncertainty crept into her eyes. "I know you don't believe me."
She let out a nervous laugh. Looked away. "Maybe I'm crazy. I've been seeing it for a while now, and I thought maybe it was stress or lack of sleep or—"
“No.” I grabbed her hand.
Firm.
Tight.
Unrelenting.
My voice came out shaky. "I believe you."
Her eyes snapped back to mine. "You do?"
"Yes."
"So. . .you remember what your mother told you?"
I blinked. “What did you say?”
"I saw the paintings when I was on the hunt for your spies. . .your mother’s paintings on the walls. All the different animal-shaped shadows behind people.”
Something caught in my chest. "Yes."
"And then Hiro told me that your mother used to tell you both stories about that."
A smile tugged at my lips. "I'm surprised he remembers. We were so young."
"He remembers. He said she told the stories with so much love."
She did. She always did.
Nyomi leaned closer. "What else do you know about it? This has never happened to me before. I almost don't want to believe it, even though—" She pointed to the space beside me. "He's right there. Staring at me."
I turned my head and looked at the empty air over my shoulder.
Nothing.
"To me, he's just right there," Nyomi continued. "His eyes are wide open. Kind of surprised. Like maybe he didn't know I could see him either. I thought he did."
Even my dragon-shadow was caught off guard?
I turned back to Nyomi and studied her face. This woman who could see part of me that I had never seen myself. Part of me that had been with me since birth, watching through eyes I didn't know existed.