Page 8 of Dragon 7

The slow conquest of her body.

The surrender of mine.

I wanted her riding me slow in the dark until neither of us could remember our own names.

Since she had walked into my life, I had stopped craving blood. I craved her. Quiet mornings. Slow hours. A life where my hands learned her body instead of how many ways to end a man's.

Love instead of war.

I had spent my whole life learning how to take.

She had taught me how to receive.

I was supposed to be with her tonight. Buried in her. Counting her moans like a man counts his blessings. Drowning in her and truly living.

Then Kiko called the Fox.

And the soft night I had earned turned to ash before I ever touched her.

And now I stood over a map deciding how many men would not see morning.

“All hope is not lost.” Reo stood across from me at the long table. “We at least have home advantage, and that matters.”

A freshly painted map of the island rested between us. Needing to do one as quickly as possible, the artist had used a brush too wide for the coastline and the green had bled into the blue in places.

Reo tapped the center of the island. "Most of the open ground is gone."

I leaned in.

Across the painted forests and roads, small wooden blocks had been placed in clusters— trucks parked at angles, towering stacks of metal sheets, brick walls hauled up within the hour and stacked three stories high.

Reo pointed at them. “Our men have spent this hour turning every clearing, every flat field, and every wide road into a wall of obstacles.”

I traced one of the clusters with my finger. "How tall?"

"Some metal stacks are at three stories. Bricks at two. The trucks are parked nose to tail across the runways and the wider roads. All have lights on them so the height and width can be seen from the sky by Akiro’s pilots." Reo gestured down the length of the map. "Nothing with wings is landing in the middle of this island tonight."

“Perfect.” I followed his hand across the map.

The East Coast was blocked. The West Coast too. The interior fields where Akiro's pilots would expect open ground were also blocked.

“Only two stretches of the island had been left clean for Akiro’s pilots.” He picked up a red plane from the side and placed it on one part of the map and then the other. “The North landing zone and the South landing zone.”

"We decide where their planes go.”

"Akiro's pilots will circle the island once, maybe twice, and realize they have two choices. North or South. Anywhere else and they crash into a brick tower or a stack of steel which will destroy their planes for us."

I studied the two cleared zones.

Both sat far enough from the mansion to give Akiro's men the illusion that they had picked a smart drop point. Both had natural cover at the tree line—heavy forest, ridges, and places a man could believe he could regroup.

Both were lies.

I tilted my head. "And the Scales?"

Reo pointed at the North zone first. Tiny black marks dotted the trees around the cleared field. “We have dozens of them here, ringed in tight.”

Next, he moved his finger to the South zone. “The southern tree line is packed with armed Scales already in position.”