My pulse hit a frantic staccato.
Kenji was going to burn someone tonight.
Several someones.
Alive.
And my mind—traitorous, vivid—began to paint the scene.
I heard the first scream before I even realized I had imagined it. A raw, animal sound echoing against concrete walls.
A body thrashing, tied to a metal chair.
The hiss of Totoro’s ignition, a whoosh of hungry air collapsing in on itself before the flame bloomed bright and furious.
The smell—God, the smell—seared into my imagination: hair singeing, skin blistering, layers of tissue melting into grotesque shadow-puppets dancing on the wall behind the victim.
I squeezed my eyes shut, but the images didn’t stop.
They only sharpened.
Kenji, standing over all traitors, face carved from shadow and bone. Calm. Controlled. Beautiful in that terrifying way of his—beautiful like a storm at its peak, when the wind has decided to tear roofs from houses and doesn’t care about any harm.
The traitors’ screaming turning hoarse, then soft, then silent.
Smoke curled upward in elegant gray ribbons, the same way steam curled in my shower minutes ago.
My stomach twisted at the grotesque mirror of it—cleansing versus destruction.
I forced myself to breathe through my nose.
But the choking phantom scent lingered: charred flesh, burnt hair, fear sweating out of pores in thick beads.
I opened my eyes.
The room was serene again. Silver moonlight, silk sheets, the soft hum of the air vent.
He’s really going to burn people alive. . .
And the twisted thing—the thing I couldn't admit to anyone, barely even to myself—was that part of me found it arousing.
Not the violence itself.
Not the screaming or the suffering.
But the power of him. The absolute certainty with which he protected what was his.Iwas what he was protecting.
The thought sent a dark thrill curling through my belly. Kenji, wreathed in firelight, eyes blazing with cold fury, burning the world down for me. My nipples tightened against the silk of my pajamas.
What is wrong with me?
But I knew the answer.
I'd changed.
This world had changed me. And the woman I was becoming wanted things the old Nyomi would have run from. This was the world I had stepped into. A world where betrayal wasn’t handled with stern conversations or courtroom battles. A world where a man like Kenji protected what he loved with annihilation.
And I was what he loved.
