What am I going to do?
Chapter one
A Pyre of Souls
Nyomi
Kenji stood across the room from me, face carved from stone.
Calm.
Patient.
Like we had all the time in the world.
Like there weren't over a hundred bodies burning twenty feet from our bedroom window.
In the strange half-light, Kenji looked like something out of a Renaissance painting. A fallen angel, maybe. Or a god of death dressed in mortal skin. The shadows carved his cheekbones into blades, pooled in the hollow of his throat, traced the hard line of his jaw.
He was so fucking beautiful it made my chest ache.
Every part of him.
Especially that hard muscle covered in tattoos.
And behind him, his shadow-self spread across the wall like wings of smoke—terrible and majestic, a dark mirror of the man who pretended to be human. Those shadowed eyes fixed on me with a fury that made my skin prickle.
The shadowed-beast wanted to roar.
Wanted to lunge.
Wanted to punish me for my rejection.
The man just watched. "Tora."
My bottom lip quivered. I had one arm wrapped around my stomach, the other hand braced against the wall because I wasn't sure my legs would hold me.
I was still shaking.
Couldn't stop.
Every time I blinked, I saw them—the bodies, the flames, the flesh sliding off bone, the hand reaching out of the pile and liquifying.
Stop. Stop. Focus.
“Tora. . .”
I looked down at the floor to center myself. “Yes.”
"Don't ever. . ." Kenji’s voice went low and dangerous. "Don’t ever tell me not to touch you."
The words landed like a slap. My head snapped up. My eyes found his. Anger and disbelief hit me.
Are you fucking kidding me right now? Hundreds of people are burning outside.
He stepped forward.
For a split second, I saw it—what he could do if I kept refusing. The dragon-shadow behind him seemed to lean forward, eager.
