He sneered.
I did my best to sneer back at him.
Unfortunately, it didn’t have the same effect. He widened his eyes and laughed.
I frowned.
After a few seconds, Kenji’s laugh tapered off, low and jagged at the edges, like it scraped his throat raw. He leaned closer, and his scent brushed against my lips as he spoke, “We do the test first, then I’ll tell you why. Can you trust me, Tora?”
“Only if you can trust me.”
His jaw flexed too hard, the muscle twitching like it was fighting restraint. And his eyes, those dangerous, molten eyes, didn’t burn with desire this time. They flickered. A shadow moved through them, quick but undeniable.
My chest tightened.
It wasn’t lust that lined his face in this moment. It was stress. Not the ordinary kind either—not fatigue, not tension from war plans with his father. This was heavier. The kind of fear that pressed into bone and marrow.
What’s going on?
Testing me was such an odd thing as we lay in bed naked. I couldn’t even think of why he would want to and how it could even deal with the war he had going on. But my curiosity for the strange test won over my need for answers right now.
“Okay.” I shrugged. “Test me.”
Kenji’s mouth curved, but not with humor. “Good.”
Then he sat up.
The sheets slid from his body, and for a moment I just stared, stunned that he’d actually moved. My lips parted, my chest stuttered with a shallow breath.
Wait—what?
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and reached for his pants.
“Kenji?” I pushed up on my elbows, heart pounding. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer. Just stepped into the dark slacks and dragged them up his thighs with methodical precision. “Put on your robe. We’re going to have visitors.”
“Visitors?”
“Yes.”
I blinked at him, caught between disbelief and a rush of unease. “What? Kenji, you need to go to sleep.”
“After the test.” His voice was flat, almost cold. “I promise.”
I shook my head. “What sort of test needs visitors? What’s going on?”
“Do as I say, Tora.” He looked at me then. Not Kenji, not the man who had whispered love against my skin seconds ago. His eyes burned hotter, narrowing like blades being sharpened, and for a second I swore the air itself knelt to him. The room itself shifted with that stare, and then that dragon-shadow began to rise behind him.
My stomach clenched.
The intimacy we’d shared moments before collapsed into a suffocating pressure against my chest. A moment ago, his body had been my fortress.
Now it was a citadel under siege, menacing shadows leaking through the cracks.
Silence stretched.
He buttoned his pants.
