I blinked.
“I was told that Hiro just collapsed onto his bed. The guards on the floor reported that they could hear him snoring seconds later. Deep. Steady snoring. The kind that meansrealsleep, not that half-awake state he's been stuck in for. . .too long."
Pride surged through me.
Tora. . .Did you do that?
My beautiful, impossible Tiger who could walk into a kitchen with my broken, grief-shattered little brother and somehow piece him back together with food and her presence.
She'd healed him with one breakfast. Given him what we couldn't give him in weeks of trying.
Thank you, Tora.
But right behind the pride came something smaller, pettier. Something I wasn't proud of but couldn't suppress.
More jealousy.
Again.
Hiro had gotten hours with her. Hours of her laughter, her attention, her nurturing warmth.
She'd taught him things.
Fed him.
Healed him.
Reo had gotten to taste her cooking, to experience the magic of her hollandaise sauce.
My guards had gotten banana bread with her little drawings on the bento boxes.
Everyone was getting pieces of my Tiger, and I was stuck here in paradise feeling like a petulant child because I wanted to hoard every moment of her for myself.
Fuck. Will this feeling ever go away?
I was being ridiculous. I knew it. But the jealousy sat in my chest anyway, big, hot, and incapable of being ignored.
Reo smiled. "Nyomi has a gift."
“And that gift is mine.”
Reo’s smile widened. “I was told by your guards that you lifted the food ban this morning.”
My Roar was stalling.
And I was letting him.
Because if Reo was afraid to say the bad news aloud, then maybe, for a few more seconds, the world was still fine.
I played his game. “My Tiger and I are still discussing the matter of her sharing her food. Don’t get too excited.”
“Noted.”
And again Reo remained quiet on thetruereason he had come.
The Dragon inside me stirred, sensing the shift before my mind did. The air felt heavier, charged. My instincts screamed that the horizon was about to darken, but not yet.
Not this second.
