The thought had shocked me.
I'd never wanted to bite anyone before.
I thought about Nyomi. About the way Kenji looked at her—like she was the sun and he'd happily burn. About those bite marks on her shoulder, fresh and red, evidence of a hunger that went beyond sex, beyond possession, into something primal, terrifying, and real.
My brother had found his person.
Someone he desperately yearned to bite.
I looked at Kitty and then at Puppy's purple hair splayed across the pillow.
I didn't want to bite them. Not once, in all our years together, had the urge ever crossed my mind. And suddenly, that felt like the most important thing in the world.
I should find my person.
The thought settled into my chest like a stone.
I should find someone I desperately yearn to bite.
Someone who made my teeth ache. Someone who made me want to mark and claim and possess. Someone who looked at me the way Nyomi looked at Kenji—like I was worth burning for.
I will have to let Kitty and Puppy go. Soon.
They deserved someone who wanted to devour them whole. And I deserved to stop pretending that warm bodies and willing mouths could fill the void.
I thought of Nyomi again.
Any other time, Kenji would share with me, and I would share with him, and we would lose ourselves in pleasure together the way we had since we were young men discovering what our bodies could do.
But Nyomi was different.
She was his Tiger.
His Heart.
The woman who had saved him from thirty-four snakes in a single night. The woman who made him breakfast and looked at him like he was more than a monster.
Kenji would share her food. He would share her conversation. He would share her laughter and her presence and the warmth she brought to our family.
But nothing else.
Not her body.
Not her intimacy.
Not the sounds she made when pleasure took her.
That belonged to my brother alone.
And I had to accept that.
Hmmm.
I closed my eyes.
Perhaps, the dream had been a warning. A reminder of how easily desire could twist into something destructive and make you fall to your death.
I was in pain—that was part of it. Nura's death had hollowed me out, left a void in my chest that screamed to be filled.
