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)
"He took up the whole ceiling. Almost the whole room. So big that his wings were on the walls. Tail across the foot of the bed."
“Hmmm.” Kenji hummed, completely satisfied.
I tilted my head and studied him. "And I think it got bigger, by the way, because you cried at your mother's altar. It had something to do with the strong emotional release."
The grin paused. His eyebrows came down. "I did not cry."
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you cried.” I rolled my eyes. "You sobbed."
"Tora."
"You did. I was there. I saw it. Hiro was there. Reo was there. The Claws were there. The monks were there. I'm pretty sure even Bunzō saw it from the kitchen."
"No tears left my eyes."
I lifted my head off his chest and propped my chin on my fist. I looked down at him with the most exaggerated innocence I could manage. "Oh, really?"
"Yes."
"Not one tear?"
"Not one."
"Hmm." I nodded slowly. "Because I could've sworn I saw tears on your face."
"You imagined it."
"Kenji."
"Tora."
"I saw tears."
"You saw moisture due to the candle light and the fact that I had strong alcohol."
“Ah. That’s what it was.” I burst out laughing.
He grinned wider, holding his composure for about two seconds before he started laughing too—that low, warm laugh of his that I had not heard nearly enough of.
The laugh moved through his chest and into mine because I was lying on it.
The laugh made his stomach flex against me.
The laugh made his arm tighten around my shoulders.
And that laugh told me that our love was getting stronger and stronger.
"Moisture?" I snickered. "Moisture, Kenji?"
"That is what was on my face."
"It was on your face because it came out of your eyes. Which is the definition of crying."
"It was very humid in the ballroom."
"Oh my God."
He shrugged against the pillow. "The body produces saline for many reasons."
“Ah. Well thanks for teaching me.” I laughed so hard I had to bury my face against his chest. He laughed with me, and his hand stroked the back of my head, and the entire bedroom—which had been an intense space several minutes ago—became the warmest place I had ever been in my life.
When the laughter softened, I lifted my head and kissed him.
Soft.
Slow.
Yearning.
A kiss that said, thank you. Thank you for choosing the DNA test, instead of death. Thank you for letting the murderous Dragon go back inside. Thank you for laughing about your tears with me when most men would have closed up and avoided it all.
He kissed me back the same way.
When I pulled away, I rested my forehead against his and stayed there.
His thumb traced the line of my jaw. "Tora."
"Yes?"
He went quiet.
I felt the shift before he spoke. Not a Dragon-shift this time. A different kind. Something serious that wasn't violent. Something that had been sitting on his chest while I had been laughing on it.
"I have to ask you something."
I lifted my head off his and looked at him properly. That was when I saw it. Worry rose within his gaze. I thought about the dream. “Kenji, what's wrong?"
His hand came up and traced my cheekbone with his thumb. "You can see my dragon-shadow."
"Yes."
"Rin told me that Deja can see his serpent-shadow."
“What?!” I left him and completely sat up straight. "When did he tell you that? I don't remember you two talking at the party. Deja had him leashed and close to her."
"When we talked about this is not important."
"But—"
"What's important is that it made me want to go deeper into researching my mother's bloodline. And from that research. . .I found something interesting and had Reo look into a process called the Burial Ritual."
“Okay.”
“And. . .I think I want to do it, but it would involve you too.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“What would I need to do?”
“It could be dangerous for you, Tora.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “But what would I need to do?”
And then Kenji told me everything. He explained that the rite came out of his mother's people—the old Shinigami hunters from the mountains of Japan, who believed the earth itself was a living body. Soil was flesh. Roots were veins. The lotus was the earth's heart flowering upward.
He explained that the ritual had to be performed on a full moon night, with the moon at its peak. A large hole had to be dug into the earth, big enough for two bodies. There would be nine lotus blossoms placed inside for me to lie upon.
He told me about the two bindings. He would cut his palm. I would cut mine. Because both of us would need to bleed into the soil.
That was the first binding—blood to earth.
Then I would lie down on the nine lotus blossoms inside the hole, and he would come into the hole with me, and we would make love under the moonlight. That was the second binding—flesh to flesh to earth.