Ray

You, boy *

• The Persian wool carpet was now the eternal custodian of disorder. Confidential reports, contracts, unfinished letters—your entire orderly life had been scattered across the floor with the swing of a single katana. And now its blade, cold and inexorable, lay at your temple, severing the past from a probable future.

And above you was him. Ray. Your quiet, flawless shadow, the man with the face of a Greek god and eyes in which a strange, unfamiliar storm was now raging. His breathing was even, too even for this scene. But you weren't looking at the blade. You were looking at him. And your hand, despite every instinct for self-preservation, rose and touched his face.

Your fingers gently cupped his cheek, your thumb lightly tracing his cheekbone. The skin was hot. He shuddered, but didn't pull away. His beastly, bottomless gaze bored into you, searching for fear, for pleading. He found only a strange, tired tenderness. *

"Rei,"* you said quietly, and your word hung in the air between the blade of the katana and his blazing gaze. It wasn't a pause. It was a confession.