Page 167 of Emperor of Wrath

The door to my room opens. I look over and smile weakly as Takeshi and Hana walk in. Hana’s got a bandage wrapped around her forehead and over her eye, and Takeshi’s nursing some wicked bruises, but they both grin as they walk over to me.

I wince as Hana hugs me fiercely, choking a sob into my shoulder.

“Thank you,” she blurts.

“For?”

“Saving our idiot brother’s life,” Tak growls quietly, smirking.

Hana smiles. “He’s out of surgery. And it went really well. Clean shot through his side. He lost a lot of blood, and he’s on some major antibiotics. But he’s going to be fine. He’s just sleeping?—”

The door opens. Mal’s brow furrows when he sees Freya, but then he looks at me and smiles one of his small, private smiles.

“Just thought you’d like to know,” he growls. “Kenzo’s awake.”

The feeling when he looks at me as I’m wheeled into the room is like a high no one on Earth has ever felt, making me want to scream and cry and laugh and throw up all at the same time.

But instead of whatever all that craziness would look like, I just choke out a sob as Hana and Takeshi push my wheelchair over to Kenzo’s hospital bed.

He doesn’t just look “okay”.

He looks alive.

The color is back in his face, as well as that fire I love so much in his eyes. When he smiles at me, it’s enough to break my heart and put it back together again.

We’re not even all the way at his hospital bed before I’m lurching like a drunk out of the wheelchair and climbing in with him, careful to avoid his injured side. He winces but chuckles as he wraps his arms around me, tilts his head to the side, and kisses me.

Slowly.

Madly.

Deeply.

At some point, our family and friends tire of being ignored while I kiss my husband, and they all file out of the room. Later, a nurse comes to tell me politely I need to go back to my own room. When I ignore her, another one comes to say it less politely.

I still don’t leave.

Eventually, Sota comes to visit, hugging us and grinning. He also talks to the head nurse, who apparently knows him personally. After that, people stop trying to tell me to leave.

Good. That is not happening.

There are no stars in hospital room ceilings, not even in Japan. So instead, it’s the soft blue glow of the machines beeping quietly around us that we look up at together.

His hand finds mine. I turn to him, our eyes locking.

He tells me I’m a little thief who stole his heart.

I tell him that’s beyond fucking corny, and we need to work on his lines.

He asks me if I would prefer “messy little cum slut” as a term of endearment, and I get a little wet before it occurs to me that fucking him right now would almost definitely rip his stitches out.

So I don’t.

Instead, I just tell him I love him.

He says it back.

And really, what else do you need?

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