My fingers came up and found the dragon tattoo on his chest. I moved my fingertips along its inked spine.
His heartbeat was slowing.
Mine was slowing with it.
Several silent minutes passed.
I tilted my face away from his chest, turned my eyes to the ceiling.
The dragon-shadow was completely gone. The ceiling was just plaster and the soft morning shadows from the drapes again. The corners of the room were corners again. The wings that had stretched along the walls had folded back into wherever they had come from. The gold eyes had closed. The obsidian tail had withdrawn from the foot of the bed.
The whole beast had returned to Kenji.
I stared at the empty space above us for a long moment.
Kenji's voice rumbled under my cheek. "What do you see, Tora?"
I turned to him.
He was watching me. His head was tilted slightly against the pillow so he could see my face. His brown eyes—Kenji'seyes again, not the Dragon's—were patient, loving, and curious.
"Your dragon-shadow was here. He was above us when we were talking."
His brow lifted. "Onlywhen we were talking about Kiko?”
"Yes. It's gone now. Back inside you, I guess. But it was there."
“Why do you think it came out?”
“From what I’m seeing. . .he comes out when you have intense emotion. Anger. Grief. Serious horniness.” I glanced up again at the ceiling, then back at him. "I don’t know. I’m still figuring this out, but this morning. . .he was fuckinghuge."
The slow grin started at one corner of his mouth and spread. "Huge?"
"Yes."
His chest puffed under my cheek. Just slightly. Enough that I could feel howpleasedhe was."How huge?"
"He took up the whole ceiling. Almost the whole room. So big that his wings were on the walls. Tail across the foot of the bed."
“Hmmm.” Kenji hummed, completely satisfied.
I tilted my head and studied him. "And I think it gotbigger, by the way, because you cried at your mother's altar. It had something to do with the strong emotional release."
The grin paused. His eyebrows came down. "I did not cry."
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you cried.” I rolled my eyes. "You sobbed."
"Tora."
"You did. I was there. I saw it. Hiro was there. Reo was there. The Claws were there. The monks were there. I'm pretty sure even Bunzo saw it from the kitchen."
"No tears left my eyes."
I lifted my head off his chest and propped my chin on my fist. I looked down at him with the most exaggerated innocence I could manage. "Oh, really?"
"Yes."
"Not one tear?"
