Page 1 of The Dragon 1

Prologue

The Sound That Follows Surrender

Kenji

I was eight years old the first time I watched my father choke a woman.

Not in anger.

Not out of violence.

But because he needed to feel women surrender the way other men needed air.

Power—in his hands—became a kind of worship.

And the woman?

Maybe, she wanted to be choked.

Perhaps, stillness—in his grip—felt more like being claimed than restrained.

That night, I’d crept into his study to find a special fantasy book—When the Dragon Swallowed the Moon.

I didn’t know what the story was truly about, only that the cover shimmered in hues of obsidian and deep gold, like dragon scales dipped in moonlight—and the title’s letters curled acrossthe surface in silver ink so fine it looked like it had been written with a whisper.

The study door had been cracked open, just enough for me to slip through.

I kept the lights off so my mother and the servants wouldn’t know I was awake.

When I entered, several distinct smells hit me. First, clove smoke and aged leather, the familiar scent of my father.

The aroma of charcoal rose from the small hibachi brazier glowing in the corner of the room, its embers burning low beneath a mesh screen.

Yet there was another scent—black amber and ripe plum.

Dark.

Sweet.

Warm, like the breath of a secret sin, clinging to silk trapped beneath hands that knew how to take their time.

I didn’t understand it, then—not the weight of it, not the pull. Something inside me bloomed in its wake; feral, quiet,hungry.

I spent the rest of my life chasingthatscent.

Not in gardens.

Not in perfumed brothels or between the thighs of eager women.

But in the moments when breath hitched, when silence trembled, when power hovered on the edge of surrender.

Barefoot, I tiptoed along the study’s warm marble floor, trailing my fingers along the spines of books and searching for the shimmering cover.

Shadows moved along the bookshelves like beasts waiting to be named.

Then I heard it.

Not a scream.