"I'm already under your skin. In your blood. If I go deeper. . ." His palm flattened over my heart, pressing until I could feel my own pulse beating against his hand.
The dragon-shadow pulsed behind him.
Eager.
Hungry.
He's warning me.
I understood that. He was telling me that if I demanded this, if I inserted myself into his darkest decisions, he would pull me even further into his world.
Into his fire.
There would be no part of me he didn't touch, didn't own, didn't burn.
And still. . .
I let out a long breath. "I need to know. I need to be part of this. I can't be kept in the dark while you. . ."
I gestured toward the window, toward the horror beyond. "I can't be protected from the truth and then stumble into it like this. It's worse. Don't you see that? It's so much worse."
“You weren’t supposed to see that—”
“Stop saying that. It’s not the point. I would have found out regardless—”
“You might not have—”
“I would have.” My heart boomed in my ears. “There’s ash falling all over the place and it fucking smells like someone is roasting meat all over the island.”
But it’s. . .bodies. . .
That sent my mind into hysteria.
Dear God.
I shook my head, trying to clear the horrible scent of charred human flesh from my nostrils.
My stomach churned. “You shouldn’t have burned the families.”
He put his hand back on my throat. “This is our way.”
“Then, change it.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. "Change it?"
"Yes."
"You speak of things you don't understand." An edge hit his tone. "This tradition is older than me. Older than my father. Older than his father before him. It exists for a reason."
"Then tell me the reason."
He released my throat and stepped back, and the loss of his heat felt like punishment. "If a man knows that only he will die for his treachery, he can weigh it. He can decide his life is worth the price. But if he knows his wife will burn? His mother? His father?"
Kenji shook his head slowly. "Then betrayal becomes unthinkable. The tradition doesn't just punish. It prevents."
"So, you're burning innocent people to send a message."
"I'm burning innocent people to save innocent people." His eyes never left mine. "Every family member on that pyre is a future betrayal that will never happen. A knife that will never find my back. A bullet that will never find yours or. . .our kids."
