Page 49 of Dragon 7

I did a long inhale.

The scent of blood was everywhere.

Thick.

Close.

Wrong.

Fast, I turned off the fire, shoved my guns into their holsters, and crossed the clearing. "Tora!"

The Death Guardian spoke. "Kenji, this is not a reunion. We need to do the ritual."

“Tora?” I caught her against my chest.

Two of the figures holding her backed away, while the other two helped Nyomi balance against me.

“K-kenji. . .” She shivered. “We have to start—"

“What happened?”

“I’m okay—”

“You’re not.”

Her weight grew soft and small in my arms. Right now, she was nothing like the woman who walked into my war room long ago and bent that space to her shape. "Kenji. . .I'm okay. We need to do—"

"I'm going to kill everyone here!" I scanned the hoods over her head and tightened my grip on her. "Every last one—"

"No." Her head fell to my shoulder and she shivered again. "They're on our side. We have to finish the ritual—"

"Where are you hurt?" I pulled back to find her face. My gaze ran down her, hunting for the cut, the tear, the wound, the fucking place the blood came from—and caught on the pin on her robe.

I blinked.

Is that Reo's pin?

It sat on the front of her robe like it belonged there.

What the fuck? When did this happen? Did my Roar brand my Tiger?!

The thought came fast, ugly, and territorial, and I almost let it take root—then one of Akiro’s planes screamed low over the trees and the anticraft guns answered it, and I crushed the thought flat.

Goddamn it! Not now.

The enemy had arrived and there was no room in me tonight for anything but keeping her alive and winning this war.

"Tora, where are you hurt?"

"Kenji." She weakly lifted her head up and her lids dragged low. "We don't have time for that."

“We’ll make time. I will tear this island down to the rock!”

“Kenji. . .”

All night, I’d hardened myself for war, and now I’d gone soft with her fragile body in my hold.

What was the purpose of this war if she was not okay?