Chapter 1 A Pyre of Souls
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.
And I hated that my body responded to the danger.
Hated that some broken part of me wanted to see what happened if I pushed him.
“No.” I threw my hand up between us. My palm surely was a barrier that meant nothing against his strength but I didn’t care. "Kenji. What the fuck is going on?"
He stopped. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”
Even though he wasn’t near me, I could still feel the ghost of his body against mine. The imprint of his arm across my waist. The phantom heat of his chest against my spine. My skin remembered him even as my mind recoiled.
The bite marks on my neck throbbed in time with my heartbeat.
"That’s not an answer. Why are there people burning outside our window?" My voice cracked. I hated it. "What is this? Is this. . .normal? Does this happen all the time?"
"No." His jaw tightened. "It's not normal. Reo wasn't supposed to put the pyre on this side of the house. He was supposed to position it where you couldn't see."
Pyre.
The word echoed around me, settling in the pit of my stomach. Pyre. A funeral beacon. A heap for burning the dead. It was a monstrous word, a word of death and despair.
My throat grew dry, but at least I wasn’t vomiting.
"It’s the traitors," he said it like it was obvious. Like I should have known. "This is what I decided to do with the rest of them. Everyone Sako gave up during interrogation and connected to the betrayal."
The floor tilted beneath me.
Last night, I’d gone off with Hiro and the twins on a Scooby-Doo mission to find the snakes. We’d discovered a whole nest. And then when Kenji tortured Sako, he found out that there were even more.
Now. . .I felt like I'd struck the match myself, watched it flare, and fed these people to the flames one by one with my own hands.
Their screams belonged to me.
Their charring flesh was my doing.
And the worst part?
Somewhere beneath the horror, beneath the nausea and the shaking and the ash in my throat—there was a whisper. A terrible, treasonous whisper that said: At least they can't betray him now.
I hated myself for thinking it.
But I thought it anyway, and I knew I wouldn't be innocent of the traitors’ deaths but this? This was beyond sin.
Beyond redemption.
Beyond anything human.
A void opened inside me, black and ravenous, threatening to devour whatever was left of my soul.
I swallowed. “You said it was around fifty people.”
“I did.”
“That looks like over a hundred.”
He pursed his lips.
What? Did he lie or is there more horrible shit for him to confess?
I shivered. “Kenji. . .why are there more than fifty? Did it end up being more traitors?”
"They're not all traitors."
I let go of the wall and my stomach, and held out my hands. “Okay. So. . .who are the other people burning outside our fucking window?”
He didn't answer.
"Kenji?" My hands shook at my sides. "Who else is in that fire?"
"Some of the traitors' families."
No.
The room spun. I grabbed for the wall again, missed, and stumbled back. My vision went white at the edges and I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't. . .
Families. He burned their families, and I’d been the one to help him do it.
Panic crashed inside my chest. "Children?"
"No." His voice was firm. "Never children, Tora."
The relief lasted half a second before the horror rushed back in.
"Then who?"
"Spouses. Some parents."
“Parents?”
“Yes.”
“Their h-husbands or w-wives?”
“Yes.”
“Burning because of what they did. . .”
“Of course, Tora.”
I'm going to be sick again.
And I didn’t want to be weak or soft. I wanted to be a fucking beast and push through this.
A tremor ran down my spine, ice cold, like I'd been plunged into a winter river.
No. Get your shit together. We’re not going to lose it right now.
I clenched my jaw so tightly I thought my teeth would shatter.
Kenji watched me with that calm dragon mask of his, and his silence roared louder than his words ever could.
Through the swirling nausea, my mind spun with the images of the pyre. A wave of dizziness washed over me. I stumbled, my heartbeat pounding in my ears.
“Tora,” His voice was softer now, but I didn’t want soft, I wanted answers.
“Just give me a minute.” I closed my eyes, hoping to shut out the world, the fire, the burning bodies, Kenji. My fingers brushed across the rough stone wall, grounding me. I took a deep, shaky breath, feeling the chilled air fill my lungs to the brim.
It tasted like ashes.
I opened my eyes, and saw that the dragon-shadow had closed in his wings. Yet, the dark beast still watched.
Ask the question. Just do it. You know the damn answer, but ask anyway.
I cleared my throat. “So. . .the traitors’ families. . .these spouses and parents. . .were they innocent?”
“Most likely, but that’s not the point.”
Dear God.
My knees buckled. I slid down the wall, unable to hold myself up anymore, and Kenji moved fast.
"No." I held up my hand again, but he was already there, already reaching for me.
"Don't ever tell me no." His hands closed around my arms and he lifted me up and then steadied me against the wall. “I’m here, Tora.”
“The families were innocent?”
“Yes.” His thumb found the pulse point in my wrist. I hadn't even realized his other hand was holding my arm. His thumb pressed gently against my wrist.
Reading me.
Monitoring my heartbeat.
"Breathe, Tora."
I couldn't.
His touch was too gentle for what he'd just confessed. Too careful. Those same hands that had signed death warrants for innocent spouses were cradling my wrist like it was made of glass.
Plus, his body was close to mine.
His heat surrounded me, and I wanted to relish in it.
No.
I turned my face away from him.
The dragon-shadow responded, looming away from Kenji and getting in my view. It stretched its wings across the entire wall.
"Tora. . .look at me."
I didn't.
His hand caught my chin, firm but not cruel, and turned my face to his. His eyes burned into mine, dark, intense, yet utterly certain. "This is who I am, Tora."
No apology.
No softening.
Just truth, laid bare between us.
"This is who you're with. This is what it means to be mine." With his thumb, he began to trace my jaw. "You are now in an unfortunate position. Because I am never letting you go. You're too important to me. Too important to this family. You're helping me win this war. . .therefore. . ."
His grip tightened slightly on my jaw. "I will never let you go."
Those words should have terrified me.
Maybe they did.
But terror and desire were starting to taste the same in my mouth.
I stared up at him—this man I loved, this monster I'd let claim me—and felt the truth of it settle into my bones.
There was no leaving.
There never had been.
The moment I'd chosen him, I'd chosen all of him—the gentle hands, the warmth, and the death.
I shivered. "I don't want to leave."
Those words surprised me. But they were true.
His expression shifted—something like relief, quickly buried.
"But I can't—" My voice broke. I swallowed hard, forced myself to continue. "I can't ever wake up to this again. I can't open a curtain and see—"
Bodies.
Burning.
Liquefying.
Dancing in the flames.
"I need you to hear me." I put my hands on his chest, and felt his heart beating steady and strong beneath my palms. "I don't ever want you to make this kind of decision without me again."
His brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
"I mean you need to tell me." The words came faster now, tumbling over each other. Honestly, I didn’t even know if I were making sense or if it was something I could ask. However, I was too out of it to care.
I sighed. "Before you decide to kill over a hundred people and burn them in front of everyone who's loyal to you, you need to talk to me. We need to have a conversation. You can't just. . .you can't just do this without—"
"Tora." His voice cut through my spiral. “Are you saying I need to ask you for permission before I kill?”
“When it is this many people and I have something to do with it. Yes. We need to have a fucking discussion.”
“You mean I tell you I’m going to do it?”
“No. I mean we decide together if that is a good idea—”
"You don't want that kind of power."
"What?"