More heat pressed against my skin.
When Kazimir spoke again, his voice changed. It came out softer, almost thoughtful. “But I like what you’ve done today.”
I quirked my brows.
"Fire doesn't just kill, it transforms. A body becomes ash. A person becomes nothing. Everything they were, everything they knew, everything they did. . .gone." Kazimir's smile returned, but it was different now. Less predatory. Almost. . .approving. "Reduced to dust. Scattered by the wind. This is good."
The Lion’s approval of my pyre made my skin crawl.
This man was a monster. An insane, egotistical, psychopathic bully who had built his empire on blood and fear. He had done things that would make my worst nightmares look like children's stories.
He was everything I had sworn never to become.
And he thought we had just found common ground.
For some reason that made me think of Nyomi, and the way she'd looked at me this morning, trembling. The way she'd pulled away when I tried to touch her. The way she'd demanded to be part of these decisions because she couldn't bear to be protected from the truth anymore.
Kazimir turned back toward the fire and watched the flames with that same contemplative expression. The breeze caught his hair, lifting it away from his face, and for a moment he looked almost peaceful. Like a man watching a sunset instead of a mass grave. "Yes. I am quite impressed. I had little obedient dogs in your organization. Decent spies. Ones that whispered everything."
Rage rose within my chest.
He didn't look at me. "Now my little dogs have stopped barking. They’ve gone deaf and blind. I have not been able to get in contact with them."
My heart stopped for a second.
Kazimir laughed. "I believe all of them are in that fire right now."
I stared at the flames with new eyes. The traitors we'd found. The network Nyomi had uncovered. We'd thought they were allonlyworking for my father—feeding him information, helping him plan his counterattack. But some of them had been working for the Lion too.
If that's true, then my Tiger has helped me even more than I knew.
My heart swelled. She hadn't just rooted out my father's spies. She'd blinded the Lion as well. Stripped Kazimir of his eyes and ears without even knowing they were his.
Tora.
And she had no idea of what she'd done. No idea how dangerous that made her. No idea that the woman who'd trembled at my window this morning had continued to affirm that she was the most valuable asset on this island.
Mine. And I would burn every empire on earth before I let anyone take her from me.
God, she was magnificent. Brilliant. Fierce. Everything I didn't deserve and couldn't bear to lose. She'd walked into my world with nothing but her own strength, and she'd done more damage to my enemies in a few weeks than my intelligence network had managed in years.
I could not lose her.
Would not, lose her.
Whatever it took—whatever I had to sacrifice, whatever I had to become—I would find a way to always keep her in my hold.
Perhaps. . .she will get more power. . .
“It does displease me.” Still, Kazimir's smile didn't waver. "Whoever found my little dogs for you. . .they didexceptionalwork. Truly. I would love to meet them."
The world narrowed to a single point of ice behind my ribs. In Kazimir’s mouth, “meet” didn’t mean dinner.
It meant acquisition.
Recruitment if she could be bought.
Coercion if she couldn’t.
