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 Dragon was the man who had cocooned me all night. The man who had cocooned me all night was the Dragon. Loving me and lethally destroying another were not two different settings. They were the same setting, expressed differently depending on what the room required.
The Dragon held me because he loved me.
The Dragon would burn the world for the same fucking reason.
And he was waiting for my answer.
Jesus Christ. . .If I say yes. . .he will really do it. . .
I was new to loving a man who meant his warnings literally.
He waited for my response, and his gaze never left my face. His eyes had gone dark, almost pitch-black. The brown gone deep enough to disappear. And what lived behind them was the unyielding grip of a beast, ready to strike. Its hissing breath laced with poison and malice. It was an unrelenting force, an endless void with jagged edges that threatened to swallow everything in its path, leaving only emptiness and destruction in its wake.
Kenji was waiting.
No.
The Dragon was waiting for his Tiger to tell him whether to set a pregnant woman on fire, and I had to gather myself for that fact. Knowing that whether I liked this part of him or not. . .there would be no escape.
Then, the dragon-shadow rose from his back, his shoulders, the breadth of him that was caging me against the silk. The shadowy wisps uncoiled out of his spine. Long, dark ribbons of smoke peeled away from the line of his shoulders first.
Then more.
Then more still.
Soon, the smoke gathered itself in the air above us, thickening, darkening, taking shape as it climbed.
A neck unspooling.
Scales appearing and then shimmering.
A massive body forming and taking up the entire fucking ceiling.
Shit.
Its serpentine spine stretched the full length of the bedroom. Its body arched along the ceiling and pressed against the corners of the room until the corners weren't corners anymore but the soft inside curve of a shadowy beast that had filled the whole space. Its tail dragged down the wall in a slow, shimmering coil and laid itself across the foot of the bed like a chain made of obsidian.
The wings unfurled along the walls and stretched themselves wide.
Its head tilted down toward me. Those eyes were still gold and they watched me, probably waiting for my answer too.
It’s still. . .big from the party. How long will it last? Is it. . .stronger somehow?
I swallowed. “Kenji. . .she’s pregnant and—”
“Just tell me—”
“She’s fucking pregnant—”
“This is not a question of morality. This is a question about how my Tiger feels—”
“Kenji.”
“Do you want me to kill her?”
Every sane cell in my body shuddered.
“Do you, Tora?”
My breathing picked up.
“Because I would for you.”
My bottom lip quivered. “She’s pregnant.”
“That’s why this conversation needs to be careful.”
“You can’t kill her.”
“And you cannot ever feel threatened—”
“I was just explaining—”
“My Tiger will never feel threatened by anyone. I would kill them first. Set them aflame right in front of you so you can watch their skin melt, liquify, and crumble into nothing. So you can smell the stink of their burning hair and flesh. So you can touch their ashes when it’s all done. Pick them up in your hands. Let them slip through your fingers and blow in the wind. Rub your palms together until they’re gray and grainy from their cooked bones.”
The dragon-shadow sneered above us.
My stomach twisted. “Kenji. . .stop. . .”
“Do you want me to kill her?”
My eyes watered. “No.”
“You would never need to know how it happened. Your hands would not be dirty from—”
“Don’t.”
“Whether those babies are mine or not our peace is not threatened. I could kill her afterwards—”
“Kenji. . .” Shivering some more, I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“We need to.”
“We don’t. Because you’re. . .scaring the fuck out of me.”
“This is who I am.”
“I know. . .”
“We can never pretend about this part of me.”
I swallowed. “I know.”
“You don’t.”
“I’m learning.”
“Be quick with it because like you. . .I’ve realized with every fiber in my body that I am maddeningly, insanely in love with you. . .in a way that has no boundaries. No morality. No fucking conscience. Nor guilt or logic. And it is not a calm feeling in my heart. It is a storm. Wild. Raging. Constantly craving more.”
The dragon-shadow’s gold eyes glowed.
I shivered.
“And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do. Nothing. To make sure that it remains.”
“You will not kill her.”
He tilted his head and watched me. Part of me was scared that in his head he decided to kill her anyway.
The dragon-shadow left the ceiling, lowered a foot, and studied me too.
Both of their eyes on me at once. The man's brown gone almost black, dark as river stones beneath deep water. The dragon-shadow's molten gold, ancient, magical, and mysterious.
The man and the beast.