Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 104141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
The elevator dropped past the second floor.
I said nothing.
My Tiger.
Tied to me like that.
Into the grave.
I thought of the war ahead. The men I hadn't killed yet who were coming for me whether I was ready or not. If I died in battle, then she would too.
That’s not right.
Reo let out a long sigh. “To do the ritual, a large hole must be dug in the earth. Then, nine lotus blossoms are placed within for her to lie upon. It has to be done on a full moon night."
I pursed my lips.
"You cut your palm. She cuts hers. Both of you bleed into the soil. That's the first binding—blood to earth." Reo paused. "Then you make love inside the hole under the moonlight. That's the second binding—flesh to flesh to earth."
The elevator kept dropping.
I stood there trying to hold all of it in my head at once.
A hole in the ground. Lotus flowers. Her blood. My blood. Moonlight on both of us. Her underneath me. My dragon-shadow above us watching. And after—if it worked and this was actually fucking real—a shadow beast at my back for the rest of my life, weakening my enemies and my Tiger’s life braided to my soul so tight that death couldn't separate us.
Crazy. This is all fucking crazy.
I was a modern man in a tuxedo about to walk into a dinner party. And I was standing in an elevator seriously considering an ancient rite my mother's dead bloodline practiced in the mountains a thousand years ago.
But Nyomi had seen my dragon-shadow, and her hairstylist saw Rin’s serpent-shadow. It made me think that none of this was bullshit.
And if that was true, a shadow beast might be the only thing that kept my men alive in this war with my father.
Two-minute warning to save my men from death.
I closed my eyes.
Mom. . .should I do this?
The elevator chimed.
I opened my eyes as the doors slid open.
Warm light spilled in from the corridor as the doors parted.
My other guards were already waiting for us.
We stepped off. The air changed the moment my shoe hit the marble. Garlic seared in butter. Ginger. Citrus notes with a savory aroma.
The kitchen had been working for hours and had filled the whole house with the evidence of that.
Reo kept my pace. "Tomorrow night is a full moon."
My heartbeat picked up.
"Do you want to do this?"
I looked at him. "What do you think I should do?"
Reo shook his head. "This is a big decision. If all of this is really true. . .this is a choice that only you and your Tiger could make.”
“And do you think it could be true?”
"I'm smart enough to know I know nothing about the mysteries of this world. Anything can be true."
We walked forward.
The corridor stretched ahead.
Servants passed and bowed.
My face gave nothing, even though a war had ignited inside my chest.
Should I do this ritual?
I turned the question over and over until the thought began to cut parts of me.
A man asked a woman to be his wife. That was one thing.
A man asked a woman to bleed into the dirt with him and braid her soul to his until the grave. . .that was something else. That was not a question a man put in front of the woman he loved.
That was a chain.
And what kind of man offered his woman a chain and called it love?
I swallowed.
But the war was coming. My father and brother were plotting.
And I had men behind me with wives and mothers and children waiting at tables for them to come home.
If an answer existed—even a strange, half-believed, ancient answer—could I walk past it? Could I look those mothers in the eye later and tell them I'd held the answer in my hands and set it down because the price felt too high for me?
I could not live with that.
And yet.
If I asked her—if I laid the whole rite in her lap and she said yes—I'd be walking her into a war she held no blade in.
If I fell, she fell. I’d get shot and she would die in a kitchen, garden, or asleep beside a book, and she would never see the bullet that took her.
A cold shiver ran through me.
Was it love to offer her that? Or was it the most beautiful cage a man could ever build?
The dragon inside me wanted her tied.
Wanted her braided.
Wanted her so far inside my soul that even hell could not find a seam to pry.
The dragon did not care about the cost.
But, the man within—the one my mother had raised—cared about the cost more than he would ever say out loud.
Reo looked back at me. “Should I have a place prepared for the ritual?”
“Do it, but I’m not sure it will happen. I am going to let my Tiger choose.”