I stared at him. “How does he see it?”
Reo's jaw tensed. "The old texts were not specific on that detail.”
Goddamn it.
I pictured a battlefield.
My men moving. A shadow passing over one of them, showing their deaths, and me only having two minutes to keep them safe.
Or two minutes to watch them die.
My hands curled at my sides. "What else did you find out?"
The elevator hummed.
"There’s a big price to this ritual.”
I looked at him. “What is it?”
“The ritual binds you to the woman permanently."
I put my gaze on the elevator doors. "Define binds."
"My understanding is that the rite braids her soul to yours, and it can't be undone." Reo held my eyes in the elevator doors’ reflection. "If you die, she dies too. And vice versa."
The elevator dropped past the second floor.
I said nothing.
My Tiger.
Tied to me like that.
Into the grave.
I thought of the war ahead. The men I hadn't killed yet who were coming for me whether I was ready or not. If I died in battle, then she would too.
That’s not right.
Reo let out a long sigh. “To do the ritual, a large hole must be dug in the earth. Then, nine lotus blossoms are placed within for her to lie upon. It has to be done on a full moon night."
I pursed my lips.
"You cut your palm. She cuts hers. Both of you bleed into the soil. That's the first binding—blood to earth." Reo paused. "Thenyou make love inside the hole under the moonlight. That's the second binding—flesh to flesh to earth."
The elevator kept dropping.
I stood there trying to hold all of it in my head at once.
A hole in the ground. Lotus flowers. Her blood. My blood. Moonlight on both of us. Her underneath me. My dragon-shadow above us watching. And after—if it worked and this was actually fucking real—a shadow beast at my back for the rest of my life, weakening my enemies and my Tiger’s life braided to my soul so tight that death couldn't separate us.
Crazy. This is all fucking crazy.
I was a modern man in a tuxedo about to walk into a dinner party. And I was standing in an elevator seriously considering an ancient rite my mother's dead bloodline practiced in the mountains a thousand years ago.
But Nyomi had seen my dragon-shadow, and her hairstylist saw Rin’s serpent-shadow. It made me think that none of this was bullshit.
And if that was true, a shadow beast might be the only thing that kept my men alive in this war with my father.
