Page 99 of The Dragon 1

“I’m aware of that.”

“Yet. . .I think you’re probably like that withanywoman you date.”

“No, Nyomi. You’re different.” The way he said it hit me right in the chest. There it was again, that molten pull between us, the electric thread strung tight.

I leaned forward slightly, pushing past the swirl of nerves and wonder. “Look, I understand you’re protective. I even kind of like that. If I’m going to be inyourworld—even for a little while—you can’t treat me like I’m glass.”

He tilted his head.

“Let me talk to people,” I pressed. “Let me see what I see. I’m a writer. Observations and questions are how I survive.”

He lifted a brow.

I swallowed. “If your Fangs are fascinating, I’m going to want to know more about them and ask them questions. Honestly, don’t you want me to be happy as you court me?”

He stared at me for a long moment.

The garden was quiet again, save for the distant, aching song of the shamisen rising through the blossoms.

I didn’t look away from Kenji.

Not this time.

Not even when the air between us felt like it could split from the heat of his gaze alone.

Because I’d already made a decision.

Maybe not out loud, maybe not with some grand speech, but in the part of me that had watched my mother shrink in every room my father walked into.

The part that had learned early that love meant silence.

That being good meant being obedient.

That a woman’s power existed only in the way she could make herself small enough to fit beside her man.

I was not going to be my mother. Not here. Not with him. Not even if Kenji was the most dangerous man I’d ever met.

I’d spent my life turning things that scared me into stories. I’d bled every wound onto the page. I’d built a life from my voice. From the things I noticed. The things I asked. The truths I forced people to admit.

So if I let him silence that—even a little—it wouldn’t just be me I’d lose.

It would be everything I was.

So. . .what’s it going to be dragon?

Chapter sixteen

Fangs and Worship

Nyomi

Kenji leaned back a little and then tapped his finger once against the side of his sake cup.

“Yourwill. . .” he said finally. “It cuts in a way I am not prepared for.”

“I hope that’s not a bad thing.”

He gave me a look that was too complex to name. Somewhere between admiration and warning. Want and calculation.