Page 69 of Dragon 7

She didn't move. “Do you want Betty?"

“No.”

All the guards left.

Deja stayed another half second. Her eyes searched my face. She wasn't looking for permission to stay. She was checking to see if I really had it in me to do what must be done.

Whatever Deja saw, she nodded once and she walked away. "I'll be right outside."

Kiko sneered. “And what do you think? That we will have some talk. Or you will get some revenge. My twins belong to Hiro. He won’t allow you to touch me.”

Yoichi remained. “Tora—”

“Please leave.”

His expression was the most unguarded I had ever seen it. Whatever had been an unreadable mask for years had thinned, and underneath was absolute grief. "Are you sure you are ready to do this?"

"I am."

"You will not be the same."

"I stopped being the same after that sacrifice."

Sadness filled his eyes. Yoichi nodded once and walked away.

The door closed behind him with a click. And it was only her, me, and the sound of babies crying down the hall.

I looked at Kiko and just like that the room dropped out from under me.

A luxury hospital room came up around me instead.

Fluorescent light. White sheets. A monitor beeping. A bed cranked to a half-sit. Machines on either side. An IV pole and a bag of clear liquid running into a thin, bruised arm.

In the bed was an old man. His body was gaunt under the sheets, gone half to bone. His skin was paper thin. His mouth was open. His eyes were sunken but alive and resembled Kenji’s.

In fact. . .his face was an older version of Kenji's mixed with Hiro's. Yet, older, ruined, twisted by years and sickness and whatever darkness lived in his blood.

But the details were unmistakable. The jaw. The shape of the brow. The way the cheekbones cut.

The Fox.

Kiko was in the bed with him.

Naked.

Climbing onto him.

Her body was smaller than I'd ever seen it. Her skin was unmarked. Her hips were narrow.

The IV line dragged across the sheet as the Fox's weak hand found her thigh.

His other hand fumbled at the side of the bed for the rail and missed.

She helped him, then pulled out his hard cock, and lowered herself onto him.

“Aww. Kiko.” His head pressed back into the pillow. His throat worked out a thin, satisfied moan. “My son will take the throne soon. I must gather my strength. I want you in place to watch him.”

“I’ll do anything you want.”