I hadn’t even bothered to wipe the evidence of Nyomi’s wet pussy from my mouth. I walked out with that slickness on my lips. I wanted them to see it. To smell it. To know I’d just worshipped at my Tiger’s altar and returned as a God.
I will rip their fucking hearts out of their chests.
Her scent was still on my skin—black amber and ripe plum. Now blood would be the third note to form a holy trinity.
If my enemies had hoped to kill a man caught vulnerable, they had miscalculated. I wasn’t vulnerable. I was vibrating with bloodlust.
The door shut behind me with a whisper, and the hallway met me like a stage awaiting the final act.
I closed my eyes for one heartbeat.
Just one.
Then I opened them—and the god in me woke hungry.
I looked around the massive, long corridor.
What do we have here?
The space reeked of blood, gunpowder, and the sharp tang of betrayal.
Carnage was everywhere.
Further down and at the end of the corridor, my men—those who had lived—were forming a wide perimeter and staring at something in front of them.
They must have kept some of these bastards alive. Good.
Blood slicked the wooden floors. One of our young guards had been slumped against the corner with his throat neatly sliced. Blood spattered the walls. A few of the paintings had been shredded with blades.
Another body lay two feet away.
Not one of mine.
His suit was custom—gray wool, hand-stitched with Kyoto silk. No tattoos. No Dragon ink. No Fang or Eye marks. His boots weren’t ours either—clean, imported, too polished for a soldier meant to bleed.
But bleed he had.
Badly.
I stepped closer, tilting my head as I studied him.
The body was twisted—left leg tucked under unnaturally, neck at a sickening angle, like it had been halfway snapped but not enough to kill him right away.
His right eye socket was sunken, caved in from blunt force. His jaw was dislocated. His neck bruised with the shape of fingers
His lips were peeled back like he’d been screaming, yet his tongue had been severed mid-scream.
Oh. Reo did that.
My Roar hated screams. He grew up with them, right behind doors that never stayed locked long enough. Screams that tore through paper walls and haunted futons. Screams that sounded like his mother’s voice and never came with rescue.
Therefore in a battle, if Reo could slice off the man’s tongue first, he would, with no hesitation.
I took a few steps forward and stopped.
A dead man waited two feet away—half-splayed against the railing of the staircase. His skull caved in from a single, swift strike.
Kaoru’s work.
