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)
She blushed. “Aww. I would love that.”
My jaw tightened.
Across the room, Hiro saw my face and laughed.
After a few more minutes passed, Nyomi clapped her hands. "Alright. Everyone follow me to the next surprise. Fair warning, this one is a bit. . .somber, but we need this."
She turned and began walking toward the opposite side of the ballroom where the second draped section was.
Hiro had a new lollipop in his hand, lapping at the top. The liquid swished inside. He got to my side. “I’m serious about the marrying her.”
“I gathered that. My only question is who do you think is marrying her?”
“Exactly.” He winked and headed off.
I shook my head.
Everyone fell in behind her in a ragged line.
The jazz band continued to play upbeat songs. I could tell that I was feeling too good because for a few steps I wanted to shake my shoulders with the rhythm, but I fought through it.
Instead, I picked up my pace and got back to her side, placing my hand right at the small of her back again.
She slowed her steps and leaned against my palm. “Do you think they’re enjoying themselves?”
“I think they’re having too much fun.”
“There’s no such thing.”
“If all of them think they’re going to be cuddled up in our bed tonight, I’m going to fucking murder them.”
“I think you’re tipsy.”
“Is that what you think?” I lowered my hands to her ass and squeezed.
She shrieked and then chuckled.
Hiro muttered behind us, “Strike two, Kenji.”
I rolled my eyes.
We arrived at the second draped section. It was taller than the first. Heavier silk. More shimmer. Two tuxedoed guards took their positions at either side.
Again, they waited.
Nyomi nodded.
They pulled and the curtains swept apart in one clean motion and fell silent against the walls.
Every voice died.
Every Claw stopped walking.
Hiro's diamond fangs caught the light as his mouth opened and he dropped his lollipop. It shattered on the floor and sprayed liquid everywhere.
A woman hurried over to clean it up.
“Oh.” Kaede trembled.
Daisuke turned his face away.
The twins reached for each other's hands.
And Reo, beside me, made a sound like a man who had just been struck.
Tora. . .no. . .this isn’t good. . .
Chapter twelve
Whiplash
Kenji
No. Not this, Tora. Anything but this.
All the loving warmth of the ballroom had died at my back, leaving me inwardly shivering in cool air thick with incense and wax that clawed at my throat.
The band went silent.
The violinist returned with the saddest melody that pierced my chest and twisted between my ribs.
Dark notes.
Gutting rhythm.
Fully stripped bare.
Too raw.
Too real.
The bow dragged across the strings, drawing blood.
Flaying.
Severing us.
This is not okay.
My gaze found the horizon of flame first—a long unbroken line of candles burning along the base of a black silk wall. The tiny fires glowed within the haunting darkness of that space.
Then my gaze climbed.
Pictures.
Faces.
All dead.
Lit from behind.
Glowing in gold frames against black silk.
I recognized all of them, even the ones for the Claws. Because when Hiro first brought them to me with the idea for us to truly form an indestructible beast. . .I took the time to learn their wounds.
My eyes moved along the wall.
Kaede's dead grandfather smiled back at me. An old man in a charcoal haori, silver hair combed back. The photograph captured him mid-laugh. Kaede’s mother had left him with his grandfather before he could even form a memory of her face.
The grandfather had raised him alone in a house full of books and tea. He had taught Kaede to draw. To read three languages. To sit still long enough to let the world reveal itself. He had died in his sleep when Kaede was thirteen and Kaede had found his body in the morning. Tea still warmed on the stove. Kaede had burned the tea set that day and never touched tea again.
Where did she get this picture?
An odd thing happened, I began to smell tea brewing around me. The scent curled through the air in soft spirals—warm, floral, and sweet. The aroma deepened with each breath. Heat gathered low in my chest.
I shook my head and went to the next photo.
Daisuke's baby sister.
A little girl.
Three years old.
Round cheeks.
Two front teeth showing in a wide grin.
In the image, she held a stuffed rabbit by one ear, and the rabbit dangled against her white dress.
Daisuke had been five years old the night his father came home angry about a debt and beat his mother, him, and his sister.
They all took it like they usually did, but it was his little sister that would never rise again. The little girl had just remained on the floor with a purplish bruise on her forehead and the rabbit next to her feet.
The police took in the father the next day and his mother had never been the same. A year later she sold him to an illegal textile factory where he worked most of his childhood.