Page 1 of The Dragon 1 (Tokyo Empire #1)

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 across the 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 chasing that scent.

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.

Not a gasp.

A moan—sharp and quiet.

Someone trying not to be heard.

My fingers froze in mid-reach, I turned my head toward the sound.

At the far end of the study, a woman was pinned to my father’s desk, it wasn’t my mother. His hands were at her throat, not squeezing hard, but just enough to hold her still.

His face wasn’t twisted with rage.

It was calm.

Focused.

Like he was reading her body the way I read my books—slowly, hungrily, taking in every line.

She looked up at him with her mouth parted and her eyes full of something I couldn’t name then, later I would call it surrender .

Her fingers clutched the edge of the desk, knuckles white, yet not in fear.

Her dress had slipped from her shoulders, one silk strap dangled uselessly down her arm.

I remember all the sounds of that night. The sound of her breath; raspy, fast. The slick rustle of his suit. The low, guttural growl he made when she whimpered.

My heartbeat had thundered in my ears.

I didn’t understand what I was seeing, not really.

But I knew it was sacred.

Private.

A ritual of power wrapped in intimacy.

In that moment, I understood why my mother had always forbidden me from entering his study after dark—why she never crossed its threshold herself, day or night. She only ever glared at the door then hurried past it as if old ghosts might leak through the keyhole and cling to her skin.

Shocked and the book now forgotten, I backed away slowly and slipped out of the study.

However, right as I left, the woman let out a gasp.

Soft.

Shattered.

Sacred.

The kind of sound a woman made when ruin and rapture claimed her in the same breath—when hands didn’t just hold her, they unmade her.

It would take me years to understand what I’d witnessed.

Even then, I knew.

Power didn’t always roar.

Sometimes, it whispered.

Sometimes, it moaned.

And other times—it wore the face of love just before it devoured you.

Many nights that moment replayed in my mind. Each time, I wasn’t sure if I remembered the woman’s face correctly anymore.

But I remembered the scent—black amber and plum; I remembered how it clung to the air like prophecy.

Decadent and dark.

Oh, so impossible to forget.