Chapter Twenty-Two #2
“But will you recover?” Heng showed such concern that guilt swamped Leander.
Heng was too good, not just for Leander, but for anyone.
He didn’t even know Xi, and yet his concern was so genuine his entire face twisted with it.
Ten years. That was how long Leander had ignored Heng.
He’d never answered a single letter or call, and yet not only did Heng take him in, but he cared about a stranger who’d followed Leander.
A stranger Leander had taken into his bed.
Although Leander and Heng weren’t in a relationship, Leander still felt as if he’d cheated.
Leander cleared his throat and pushed all the dark emotions into the smallest possible box in the back of his mind. “Master Teacher Wang Bo says that Xi will fully recover, although he should not be using his magic until he heals.”
Xi snorted. “I’ll rest my magic when we don’t have people trying to kill us.”
Heng seemed to think about that for a moment before he nodded. “Do it,” he said to Leander. He smiled and laid back down on the bed. The trust he was showing took Leander’s breath away.
“Wait,” Min objected. “You should not risk your life on the unknown skills of an outsider.”
Heng glanced in her direction. “I do not ask that you follow me on this, but I would rather be healthy sooner rather than later. I was always the one who took my mother’s hangover cure because a moment of misery was worth a quicker recovery. That is especially important if we have enemies near.”
Leander came to the side of the bed, and Heng smiled up at him.
Guilt crawled out of the box where Leander had shoved it.
They hadn’t been together as a couple for a decade, but there also had been no one else until Xi.
Before that, Heng had been the only person other than Finn who Leander had ever shared his body with.
It was such an intimate thing, sharing a physical body with another.
He knew others didn’t feel that way, but he always had.
When Leander allowed someone to touch him, to run their hands over him and make him shiver, to control how fast he breathed by making him pant with the need or hold his breath in anticipation, that was power.
Leander did not share his power easily.
He’d shared that with Heng, and now he had given the power to Xi instead. He wished he had the privacy to confess to Heng and ask for his forgiveness. The man was kind enough that he would likely offer it, but Leander would not speak in front of Min.
Leander forced himself to focus on Heng’s body, to sink into his magic and chase the poison in his cells.
The teachers at the school had provided a vast range of poisonous plants, and within a minute, something familiar teased Leander’s magic.
The poison was warm. Inviting. It danced with Leander’s magic, but he could feel the toxic corrosion hiding in Heng.
It took him several minutes before he realized it was night-scented lily.
From there, Leander drew the poison from Heng, forcing it into Heng’s lungs where the poison gathered and thickened until Heng started coughing. He sat up in bed and leaned over the edge and hacked out a clot of corruption and phlegm before taking a deep breath.
“How are you?” Leander asked. There had been very little poison in Heng’s system, but Leander still could have damaged him by pulling it out.
Heng took several deep breaths. “Much better. You are a talented man.”
“That’s what your mother keeps telling him,” Xi said with a chuckle, “but you know Lian. He never listens to compliments.”
“Very true, but my mother does not say what is not true.” Heng sat up. “Min, allow him to cure you.”
“I do not require the assistance of outsiders with their strange magics,” Min snapped. “Not even Master Teacher Bo can remove poison from the body. I do not trust these Americans with their weak magic.”
Heng frowned. “You have seen the proof with your own eyes.”
“I cannot see into your body to see the damage that one might have done,” she shot back. She sat up, her hand braced against the wall. “I will allow my body to heal naturally.”
“Magic is natural,” Heng said. “Do not allow your fear to rule you, Min.”
“I am not afraid. I am also not blindly trusting.”
Leander didn’t like the vitriol on Min’s face.
He sent his magic out into the air, dancing with the traces of flora that existed everywhere.
The frame of the bed remembered being a tree.
The sheets carried hints of bamboo growing in muddy soil.
But then Leander found the night-scented lily, not in Min’s direction, but toward the dresser.
Leander stood, and the quiet argument between Heng and Min fell silent. “What are you doing?” Min demanded when Leander walked to the dresser. “Stay out of my possessions.” She hurried to him, shoving him to one side. Leander yielded rather than get in a physical fight with Heng’s friend.
“Why do I sense the poison in there?” Leander demanded.
Heng stood. “Are you certain?”
“Absolutely,” Leander said. “And I do not sense any poison in Huang Min.” He crossed his arms and dared her to contradict him. Given she’d leaped across the room and shoved him aside, she didn’t have many symptoms of the poison that had left Heng miserable.
She looked from Leander to Heng and back, her eyes narrowing in fury.
“Min, what have you done?” Heng whispered, his voice full of horror.
“I hoped it would bring us closer. We were here, and you did not choose my bed.”
“I would not dishonor you so,” Heng said.
“Yet you take your qidi back after he has taken a wife and fathered a child. His life is back with his wife’s family, with his family. He should not be here.”
“He has no family. You know this. I told you of this.” Heng held out a hand as if trying to placate her, but her fury only grew.
“You told me you were done with being a qixiong, yet your parents hosted a ceremony and you have done nothing to stop them.”
“They wished for a grandson, and Lian has given them one.”
Min slapped away Heng’s hand. “I could give them grandchildren. There would be space in the Nie home for us to have a half-dozen children, and yet you reject me.”
Heng stepped back, his own anger bubbling to the surface. “I told you I was dedicating myself to cultivation. I cannot seek a relationship while I seek to distance myself from worldly matters. You know this. You were a cultivator before you sought worldly knowledge.”
Min threw her hands into the air. “You encouraged me to believe you would follow. I gave up my place in the school for you, and I was left working for a man who treated me worse than his donkeys. And I accepted my role. I believed the universe would lead me to my success. Only then did you come out of the school for him. For them.” She poked her finger toward Leander and Xi with such violence it was clear she wished she had a sword in her hand to stab them.
“You came to search for outsiders when you never once came to see if I had a safe home in the outer village.” Her voice rose until she shouted and spit flew.
“I never wanted to interfere with your choices.”
“I made choices for you! Always for you!” She threw herself forward and punched Heng with both her fists on his chest. He toppled over backward onto the bed, and she ran for the door, shoving Xi out of her way before fleeing into the hallway.
“Whoa. That was a lot of drama,” Xi said softly. “So, does that mean she murdered the pill master or did she just take inspiration from his death and my near-death to... I don’t know... what was she doing?”
Heng had fallen on his bed, and now he sat up. “She had been nursing me. I imagine she hoped I would feel grateful. But I do not know if she was responsible for the poisonings back in the village. She certainly sounds jealous enough to poison one of you.”
“Me,” Leander said softly. He understood jealousy that crawled into a person’s heart and destroyed everything it found. “Xi got sick because he touched the basket, but she hoped to kill me.”
“I feel like a great fool.” Heng pushed his hair away from his face. “I thought she was a friend.”
Leander gave a wry laugh. “I will not talk. I’m the one who trusted a drug dealer.”
“Not elaborating on my stupidity is a great kindness,” Heng said, his voice weary and thin in a way Leander wasn’t used to hearing. “Thank you for coming to my aid.”
“I don’t think you would have needed aid if not for me.”
“I’ve seen a lot of obsessed partners. She would have come after him eventually,” Xi said.
“Since I have no interest in a relationship with her, I agree. If she was determined to be my wife, we would have come into conflict eventually. I am only regretful that her schemes nearly cost your life,” Heng told Xi.
He shrugged. “It’s not the first time someone’s tried to kill me. I doubt it’s the last.”
“I would hope that it is the last. Magical China is not so dangerous that one must watch for assassins. This is not a historical drama, even if we prefer to take fashion tips from one.” Heng smiled, and while he was still pale, there was genuine humor there.
“There are three people watching the hotel who might challenge that assumption,” Leander pointed out.
“Oh shit,” Xi said. The profanity didn’t translate well into Chinese, but Leander understood the general meaning, and Heng looked concerned enough that he must have as well. “Little Ms. Obsessed has just walked into the shadows with our watchers.”
“En... his mother,” Heng cursed at the idea of Min helping their watchers.
Not even Xi’s confused expression at the literal translation of the vulgar term was enough to dent the horror Leander felt.
She could lead them straight to Leander and Xi, even back to the village.
If those were Druwolf’s men, that was all the help they would need to kill all of them.