Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
Resurrection
Kenjia
After I finished the war room meeting, I pulled Rin aside, and we went to my office.
I closed the door behind us and laid the book from my mother's belongings on the desk—The Rites of Burial and Becoming.
Then, I opened the book to the drawing and broke it all down.
The hole in the earth. The lotus blossoms. The two cuts.
The bindings. Blood to earth. Flesh to flesh. Souls to earth.
I spoke for a long time.
Rin listened.
But when I got to the cost—if she dies, you die, no matter where you are— Rin's demeanor shifted. His shoulders dropped. His eyes lowered to the page. His hand came up, rested on the edge of the desk, and fisted.
And then Rin began to speak.
"All those women in my past. . .” Rin let out a long breath. “I covered their faces with leather first, then linen. And then I landed on silk. Always I tied the bags behind their heads, barely touching them.”
I leaned against my desk.
"Due to my family and. . .what they did. Somewhere deep inside me, love had spoiled into fear. And I never learned the true shape of passion and desire."
I pursed my lips.
He continued, still looking at the book. "And it wasn’t just that I feared seeing my mother’s face during the act.”
His bottom lip quivered. “It was also that. . .faces made things real. Eyes made things dangerous. A mouth gasping. . .No. All I wanted was a body arching beneath me. That required little."
Rin unfisted his hand and his thumb moved once against the wood of my desk.
"So I covered them all, and the women allowed it.
Some laughed. Some obeyed. Some thrilled at the darkness.
Afterward, I left them with trembling thighs and aching pussies while the deepest parts of me remained untouched and unnamed. "
The room held very still.
Finally, he looked up at me, and what I saw in his face made my heartbeats stutter.
There was madness and desire in his gaze.
"And then I met Deja. She’s got a sharp mouth and a strong will, and there was no bag I could put on her face.
And in the end. . .I didn’t want to anyway.
I yearned to see her face as I pushed inside of her. ”
I cleared my throat.
“And. . .I told her why I needed that bag.”
I widened my eyes. “You told her?”
“I did.” He nodded. “And she looked at me as though every ruined thing inside me was gorgeous and treasured. She told me about something from her past. . .something that. . .broke her. That makes me want to kill the person after we finish this war.”
I pursed my lips. “Give Reo the name and the person will be dead by the evening.”
“Good.” A cruel smile spread across Rin’s face. “I will. Once it’s done, send me his head.”
“Okay.” I swallowed, not used to Rin showing so much emotion even if that smile was drenched in brutality.
Rin swallowed. “And after she told me about. . .her wounds, she said, 'Still no on the bag. I'm not hiding from you and you're not hiding from me. I want you to see who's loving you tonight.'”
I swallowed.
He glanced down at the book again and stared at the drawings of the Burial Ritual. “Her touch. . .”
I quirked my brows.
“And I’m not just talking about sex. I’m talking about. . .her washing my hair and braiding it. Her caressing my skin. It’s. . .”
“What?”
“It’s melted the frozen places buried deep within me." Rin lifted his eyes from the book and looked past me, focusing on the window. “When we made love. . .I saw every emotion move across her face. Wonder. Heat. Hunger. Affection. I’m addicted. . ."
That confession hung in the air between us.
I thought of my Tora's eyes when she rose over me this morning. The way she had looked at me without flinching and told me how much she loved me.
I understood exactly what Rin meant about addiction. I had lived my whole life surrounded by bodies. Women had moaned beneath me. Climbed into my lap. Trembled around my cock. Worshipped the Dragon because of fear, power, money, violence, and reputation.
Yet none of it had ever reached the deepest part of me.
Then came my Tiger.
And now I craved things that would have once sounded absurd coming from my mouth years ago. Her eyes finding me first thing in the morning. Her fingers drifting through my hair while she talked. The sound she made when she laughed too hard and tried to hide it.
The way she touched my chest absentmindedly as though her body sought mine without permission from her mind.
I was addicted to her seeing me. That was the terrifying part too.
I was addicted to being witnessed by her because when she looked at the ugliest parts of me, she didn’t recoil.
She stepped closer.
And that had become more intoxicating than violence ever was.
“Kenji. . .for my entire life, sex had been hunger. With her, it became resurrection.” His voice cracked on that last word.
“Resurrection?”
“Maybe not resurrection.” He ran his fingers through his braids. “All I can say is that. . .I entered her arms a monster. I emerged from them reborn into something else.”
“What?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out. All I know is. . .when I close my eyes now, I do not see darkness anymore. I see her looking back at me.” Rin frowned. “I would do anything for you. Do you understand that?”
“I know.”
“You saved my life.”
My jaw tightened.
“But we just started, and she saved my life too. She pulled me out of a place no woman has ever reached. The place where I had been alone since I was that young man that raced away from the palace.” Rin grabbed the book and closed it.
“I won’t take her life away, if I fall in battle tomorrow night. ”
I respected the answer.
How could I not, when I felt the same way toward my Tiger?
But as he walked out of my office, I understood something I had not understood when we walked in.
My Fang was in love.
Deeply.
Completely.
Quietly.
If I could see his serpent-shadow, I imagined it would not even be with Rin, but coiled around Deja’s heart.
Tora, your hairstylist came because of you and now. . .she has transformed my hardest Fang.
After Rin left, I sat alone in my office for a long time.
The book stayed closed on my desk. My hand rested on top of it. The leather was warm where his fingers had been.
The sunlight shifted across the floor.
I did not move.
I simply thought about how the whole island was changing due to my Tiger’s presence. Hiro spoke of killing our father with focus now, not rage. He had been a man who killed for sport once. Now he killed for purpose, and the difference sat in his shoulders.
Reo had climbed a dragon's claw for joy. My Roar, who had spent his entire life being strategic and not taking risks, had thrown his body up a thirty-foot claw for the thrill of the moment.
The Claws had fucked themselves stupid the night before a war and woken up hungover and smiling. Men who once carried grief like a second skin had let pleasure scrape some of it off.
And my Tora had walked into my life as a journalist with a notebook and would walk into a hole in the earth tonight to bleed for my bloodline, threading her soul with mine.
The Dragon I had been six months ago would not have recognized the man sitting at this desk. And the man at this desk did not want to be recognized by him.
None of us were who we had been a season ago.
Whatever rose on the other side of this war would not be what had entered.
Now, hours later, I stood at the edge of the burial pit and watched the sun lower itself toward the sea.
The sky was bleeding. The horizon had cracked open and poured out blackening gold. It was now a deep arterial red along the underside of the clouds. The light moved across the water in a long shimmering road, and the road pointed east, toward where the full moon would rise.
Will this Burial Ritual work? Am I doing the right thing?
I studied the sky.
In an hour, silver would meet gold and the full moon would crest above the trees.
Tonight, sunset would be death, and the moonrise would be rebirth. And perhaps, the seam between them was where a soul could be magically braided to another soul.
How much will this change us?
I lowered my view.
Below me, the Scales were finishing the pit. Twelve of them worked the soil with shovels.
Reo had set them to digging this morning.
The hole was nearly deep enough now—wide enough for two bodies, deep enough that when we lay down inside it, the lip of the earth would rise above us like a cradle.
The walls were clean. The corners were rounded.
The dirt at the bottom had been combed smooth.
I turned to the left. Two Scales carried out a long table, placed it by the pit, and dressed it in white linen. The cloth rippled in the cool breeze.
Two other Scales set candles down, but didn’t light them. A few more put down the place settings—gold and black plates, crystal glasses, a silver bucket of ice for the plum wine.
I turned to the right where the other table held the ceremonial items. Two knives lay side by side on a black silk cloth. The blades were thin, curved, and no longer than my palm. The handles were wrapped in dark indigo cord.
Beside the knives, a shallow stone bowl held lotus blossoms. They were white at the base, deepening to a soft blush at the tips, with golden centers that glowed in the slanting light. Their stems had been trimmed clean. Their petals had been left wide open.
Past the lotus bowl, two robes lay folded—deep red silk for Nyomi, deep black for me. Each had a dragon embroidered along the back in gold thread.
And beyond all of that, near a smaller table set up close to where the path met the clearing, Chef Bunzō tended a charcoal grill.
The fire glowed soft orange under the dimming sky.
Skewers of marbled wagyu rested on the side, waiting to kiss the heat. A small iron pot simmered next to them. I caught the aroma of miso and tamari.
This has to be special for her.