Chapter 34
The evening continued like it had before, with Daiyu feeling more and more uncomfortable as she realized she was drawing closer to the night of the wedding. It was only when the night progressed that she even allowed herself to think of what would happen next—and the thought filled her with another layer of dread and anxiety.
She had never been with a man before. Even with Heng, they had never done more than hold hands. And now she was expected to do so much more, for a man who had more experience than her. The thought alone sent her heart rate plummeting and a cold shiver took over her body.
“Let’s retire for the evening,” Muyang said at some point.
Daiyu wanted to throw up, but she nodded stiffly.
He rose from his seat, holding her hand as he did, and everyone in the room dropped down to bows as they walked through the hall. Daiyu could barely keep her head up, her mind swimming with what was to come. It wasn’t until they entered the less dense hallways that she felt like she could breathe again.
“Are you well?” Muyang squeezed her hand and she could only stare up at him with wide eyes. “You look pale.”
“Me? No, I’m fine,” she managed to sputter.
“Really?”
“Mhm.” She couldn’t reveal to him that she was terrified out of her mind. She hadn’t allowed herself to think too much about the wedding night, forcing herself to gloss over the details and focus on other things—like on Wang Yanlin, the actual wedding itself, and what it meant to be married to the emperor—but now that she was walking to their wedding night room, she wished she had prepared herself mentally.
She knew what was supposed to happen: he was supposed to deflower her. But all the details surrounding it were hazy for her. She had heard her married friends from the village giggle about what happened between a man and a woman, and she knew the anatomy behind it, but that was as far as her modest mind had wanted to know. She never ventured to find out more.
But now she wished she had more knowledge. More to prepare herself with. More to make her … not make a fool of herself.
After going up a few flights of stairs, they stopped at one of the doors in the hallway. Daiyu barely remembered the way there. She hadn’t noticed the twists and turns they took or the servants who bowed at them from the corridors. It was only when Muyang tugged her hand that she realized they were at their destination.
“Daiyu? Are you sure you’re well?”
“I’m fine,” she whispered, touching the ornate, gilded dragon doors.
When she walked through the threshold of the room, her stomach twisted into a tighter ball of nerves. Jade-painted pillars with gold embossed designs along the columns were erected on the sides of the room, the hexagonal caisson ceilings had dragon carvings engraved in the center, and the gold-stamped gray-tiled floors gleamed beneath the orange glow from the hearth. It was all too luxurious to take in, but the most intimidating feature of all was the giant framed bed sitting in the center of it all.
Muyang pressed a gentle hand on the small of her back. He leaned forward, his breath warming her ear. “Is the room not to your liking? I can have us moved to my bedchambers if you’d like.”
“N-No, the room is fine,” she squeaked, pulling away from him and entering the room with hurried steps. Her head felt heavy with the gold headdress, which seemed to pull her hair back too tightly against her scalp. Her steps were light, even as her belly seemed to be filled with a thousand butterflies. “It’s as fancy and luxurious as I would expect from the royal palace. I have no complaints.”
She didn’t even know what she was saying, the words tumbling out of her in quick succession. Daiyu brushed a hand over the ruby-colored silk sheets and covers, her fingers trembling all the while. She laced them together and sat stiffly on the edge of the mattress, her smile feeling as strained and painted on as the rest of her makeup.
Muyang shut the door behind himself with a final click and glanced around the room as if he were seeing it for the first time as well. His fingers danced over the mahogany dresser, his leather boots clicking against the polished tiles menacingly. His dark gaze swept over to her and she nearly jumped where she sat—there was such a deep, deep darkness hidden within the black depths that made her feel all the more nervous.
“You’re finally mine,” he murmured, crossing his muscular arms over his chest and leaning back against the dresser. “I knew the moment I saw you that I must have you, and here you are, mine. Finally.”
Daiyu bound her hands together tightly to keep the trembles at bay. “Your Majesty, I thought I was always yours?”
“Muyang. How many times must I tell you to call me by my name?”
“Forgive me,” she murmured, unable to meet his eyes. “I’m unaccustomed to any of this.”
“You had a fiancé at some point, did you not?”
“I did, but …” Heng was different than Muyang in every way. She wasn’t nervous around Heng, she didn’t feel like she had to tiptoe around him, and they never interacted with each other flirtatiously or intimately. The way she felt about Muyang was otherworldly; he was a completely different beast. Every gaze, every touch, every breath she took in his presence made her feel like it would be her last and left her aching for more. “But it’s not the same.”
She could feel him staring at her, but she didn’t lift her head, not even when he crossed the distance between them. It was only when he stopped in front of her that she finally peered up at him.
“You will always be mine, Daiyu.” He kneeled down until they were at eye level. Grasping her chin in his rough hand, he examined her keenly. Searching for something. “You are too beautiful, too free, too much to belong to such a villainous monster as me, but I promise to love and treasure you for as long as I breathe.”
She released a ragged breath. “You’re not a monster.”
“You can only say that because you haven’t seen what I’ve done.” Muyang cupped her cheek with one hand. “What I’m capable of.”
“I didn’t marry a monster.” Daiyu stared at him—really stared at him. At his dark eyes, framed by even darker lashes. At the angular planes of his face and jaw. At the smooth paleness of his impeccable skin. At his impossibly perfect features. And once more, like she had thought the first time she had met him, he was too beautiful for the wickedness he possessed. “You may be a villain to many people, Muyang, but to me, you’re … not that. Not anymore.”
“What changed?”
“Nothing and everything.”
They both stared at each other. Daiyu’s heart throbbed in a way she had never experienced and every nerve in her body seemed to jolt with electricity. He leaned closer to her, his eyes flicking down to her lips. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, or what to feel when his soft mouth brushed against her lips. Her whole body stiffened, her eyes squeezing shut as his lips moved against her frozen ones. He tasted sweet, like a summer’s night, but with a touch of coldness that made her gasp.
She wanted to breathe in more of him, more of his jasmine scent and honeyed taste, but she was as rigid as stone, sitting on the bed and bracing her hands on the edge of the mattress like a lifeline. Muyang grasped her face in one hand, tilted her head slightly as he deepened the kiss, and placed another hand on her hip. Warmth pooled in her belly, her skin tinged with heat everywhere he touched her, and yet she couldn’t move.
Finally, after a few seconds, she broke off the kiss by turning her face away. She was a patchwork of warmth and blushing skin, her head feeling heavy and heady, and her heart hammering like never before. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but lock up.
“Daiyu?” Muyang’s voice was low and dangerous, but his expression was anything but that. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not ready for this,” she blurted out without thinking. She clamped her mouth shut, feeling as though the floor was opening up beneath her feet and would swallow her whole. “I don’t know what to do and I can’t—I can’t?—”
Tears burned the back of her eyes and she blinked them away rapidly, hating the way her voice trembled.
“I’m sorry, just give me a few minutes and I’ll be fine. I just … I just feel so overwhelmed right now and so—” So useless. It was her duty to please her husband and yet she couldn’t do that. She didn’t even know what to do and now that her nerves were getting the better of her, she feared she would never be able to move from this spot.
Muyang watched her with furrowed brows. If he was displeased, he didn’t show it. In fact, if she didn’t know any better, she would say he was actually concerned about her. Him, the cruel and evil emperor, concerned about his wife? It should have been laughable, especially considering he had been likely waiting for this moment. It was his right to take her. And yet she was resisting.
She hated the way her body seized up. The way she couldn’t think beyond how much she was already failing at being a wife.
“Daiyu, shhh.” He gently took her face in his hands and brushed her tears with his thumbs. She hadn’t even realized she was crying until she looked at him in that moment, his image blurring. “Why are you crying so much?”
“Because I know what I’m supposed to do, but I just …” She pressed her quivering lips together. “I’m sorry. I’ll be fine?—”
“Daiyu, you don’t have to do this. I hope you know that?” Muyang searched her face, his midnight-like eyes softening. “I would never force myself upon you. Do you hear me? I would never want you to force yourself to be with me either. You don’t have to be so scared. I would never hurt you and I would never want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”
“B-But it’s my duty?—”
“It’s not your duty.”
“But …” She blinked away the tears clinging to her lashes. “But it is?”
“Not like this. Never like this.” He wiped the last of her tears and scanned her face again. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, not with his shuttered expression or the calmness of his voice, but she was sure he wasn’t frustrated with her. “We’ll go at your pace,” he said, surprising her further.
“My pace? What does that even mean?”
“It means that you are in charge, Daiyu.” He held on to one of the many pieces of jewelry intertwined in her hair and pulled at it softly. It came out without much resistance and, one by one, he began unraveling her hairstyle. Her face warmed and she was reminded of their time together months ago by the garden pond, where he had similarly pulled her hairpins out of place.
When the last of the ornaments were taken out and placed on the top of the nightstand, Daiyu tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and said, “What are you doing?”
“All of these look uncomfortable,” he said with a small shrug, loosening his own hair crown and dropping it atop her jewelry. He took her hands in his and rubbed his thumbs over her knuckles, his expression softening. “Take as long as you need, Daiyu. And as slow as you need. I’m not going anywhere.”
The lower pits of her belly warmed and she could only nod, her throat tightening unexpectedly. She hadn’t thought he was capable of being so tender, so … comforting.
Muyang brought her hands to his lips and kissed them softly, his gaze never straying from hers. “Tonight, you’re the empress, Daiyu, and I’m nothing more than your husband. So do what you want with me. Kiss me. Embrace me. Love me. But don’t hate me.” Another gentle kiss against her knuckles. “If all you want to do is sleep in my arms, then so be it.”
Her body trembled with another wave of nerves, but this time, it didn’t scare her as much as the first. This time, she could feel the giddy excitement. The slow realization that she was in charge made her feel even more comfortable in her bones. Slowly, she could feel her body relaxing and her breathing calming.
Daiyu tentatively touched the side of his face, her fingers fitting so well against the planes of his jaw. “Don’t be too sweet to me, or I might expect it every time you and I are together.”
Muyang chuckled, the sound reverberating in his chest. “Expect it every time then, Daiyu, because I would never force myself upon you. And you should expect this type of behavior from your husband. Whenever we are together, I want every moment of longing, of passion, and of love to be mutual.”
He was supposed to be cruel. She had expected it. Maybe even mentally prepared herself for it. And yet, all she found was a tenderness that stoked something from deep within herself.
It terrified her how easy he was making all of this. How easy it would have been to fall in love with him in that very moment. To drop into his arms and love him with every fiber of her being.
Muyang pushed himself to his feet, kicked off his boots and ceremonial clothes until he was clad in nothing but a simple black tunic and pants, and crawled into the spot on the bed beside her. Daiyu eased herself onto the bed, her heart racing. For a moment, neither of them did anything but stare at the ceiling. Daiyu could feel the exhaustion weighing her bones down on the soft mattress, but her flesh was tingly with anticipation. With a startling longing.
Daiyu abruptly sat up and peered down at him. He glanced over at her, dark eyes appearing like two beautiful chips of starless, midnight sky. He was too beautiful for her to ignore in that moment. Too handsome for her to ignore the embers that sparked and burned within herself. She had wanted to touch him for such a long time but had held back.
But now he was hers. And he had given her permission to take things as she wanted them. At her own pace.
So she touched the side of his face with hesitant fingers. Her skin tingled with electrical pulses, her body warming and firing at the sight of him. At the power she held in that moment.
“It’s not fair for you to look like this,” she blurted out. It took her a second to realize what she had said, and her cheeks bloomed with color while he grinned.
“To look like what?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m not actually sure.”
“You’re too …” Beautiful. A piece of art. A villain who embodied the idea of sweet poison. But she couldn’t say those words out loud, not without laughing and thinking she was being too honest. Instead, she shook her head and smiled. “You know what I mean, Muyang. You’ve likely been told your whole life how you look.”
The corner of Muyang’s lips rose and her stomach clenched even tighter. “Isn’t this the time for me to be telling you how beautiful you are? Not the other way around?”
“You told me that we can take things at my pace,” she said with a light, playful tap to his forehead. Unlike him, she didn’t have experience in these matters, so she had no idea what she was supposed to say or do, but she didn’t want to say that out loud for fear of marring this moment between them. Instead, she took the reins again and inched closer to him. “You should surrender yourself better, Your Majesty.”
“Surrender myself? To you?” His tone was playful.
“To your empress, yes.” Before she could second-guess herself, or feel too embarrassed, she climbed atop of him and straddled her thighs against his waist. Her hands splayed against his chest and she quivered with an astonishing sense of nervousness, desire, and most surprising of all, power.
Muyang’s gaze darkened with obvious need and he grasped a strand of her hair. “What do you want me to do with you, Your Highness?” he murmured, kissing the lock of her hair.
A thrill ran down her spine.
She felt like the most beautiful woman in the empire—in the whole world.
“For tonight, I want to feel like you’ve never loved anything more than you love me, and that you’ve never coveted something more than me.” She cupped his face in her hands and leaned closer to him. “And I want you to beg for me, Your Majesty. I want you completely as you are.”
“As you wish, my empress.”
Their lips locked with one another and a pulse of electric desire ran through her body like a wildfire, coursing through her veins and lighting up every piece of her. She moved against him, her hands exploring his body, her nerves disappearing as their bodies collided with each other. She had never felt so empowered in her life. She was the most important person in that moment and he was so much more than just Drakkon Muyang—the usurper and villainous emperor.
He was her lover, her husband—but mostly, he was hers.