Chapter Forty-Nine
DRINKING WAS A MISTAKE.
Not because I was drunk but because I was struggling to stay in control.
I was too warm, too...sensitive.
As the sun continued to transform the dark night into a golden dawn, my awareness grew sharper, hotter, sensing things I shouldn’t be able to feel. It felt as if the sun reached inside me, connecting me to every living thing.
Not just Rook or Whisper but the fucking flowers and trees. The scratchy, stinging sensation kept getting worse.
I had to be losing my mind because I swore I could hear life itself.
I could hear the bonsai that framed the terrace.
Heard them growing—a million microscopic pulses all scritching and stretching—each stunted branch reaching for the sun as electrical sparks raced through their roots like tiny, frantic heartbeats.
A blast of fire quickened my heart.
Rook shifted and planted her feet down, making sure the black shirt she’d borrowed covered her. It only came to mid-thigh. It’d been the perfect nightgown while we’d had a nightcap on the terrace. But now it was just torturous.
My need for her was out of control.
It took all my strength not to touch her, take her.
“You feel it too, right?” I snapped, burning up.
She scowled, her skin glittering with frost like it had been all evening, driving me utterly insane. “Feel what?”
“The connection.” I made a vague motion between us. “The pull. Like there’s a string tied from my heart to yours, letting me feel everything you do.”
She shivered but then nodded shyly. “I’ve felt it for a while, but it became unavoidable when you were burning in the caves. It guided me straight to you.”
“I can smell you,” I confessed. “Not the soap you used in the shower but you.”
“Me too.” Her eyes glimmered with that perfect silver ring.
“What exactly is it?” I begged her to have the answer, but she just shrugged.
The sun suddenly breached the top of the peaks, flooding us in bright bronzy light. A rush of heat shot through me as if it made me some sort of conductor, feeding off its energy.
Devouring her energy.
Buckling toward her, my hand wrapped around her nape, jerking her into me.
She almost fell off the lounger as I dragged her close and kissed her. Not gentle or careful but demanding and deep.
Fire surged the second our lips met.
Her skin flashed ice cold beneath my grip.
She melted into me, pressing her hands against my chest for balance.
I plunged my tongue past her lips and she met me, lick for lick.
We lost ourselves as we kissed hard and drunk and messy.
The longer we gave in to the exquisite urge, the more the power in me strengthened.
The terrace became far too loud as growing things buzzed in my ears. The inferno around my heart threatened to get loose.
I deepened the kiss, sliding my fingers through her hair.
Pulling her off her lounger, I braced my thighs for her to straddle me. Wrapping one arm around her, I pulled her down and groaned as she rubbed against the part of me that was desperate for her.
The world narrowed to her mouth. Her heartbeat. Her snow settling over the crackling flames in my blood.
Whisper grumbled as if trying to get my attention, but I couldn’t tear myself away.
The air grew thicker.
Warmer.
I needed her.
I needed to—
“XIAO LU!”
Tearing myself away, I blinked into the blinding sun.
Rook leapt from my lap, wobbling a little from alcohol or lust or both.
Whisper growled as a man flung up his hands and staggered toward us. His eyes went straight to the neat row of potted bonsai trees, complete with ribbons snapping in the mountain breeze.
The bonsai that were now on fire.
“My babies!” Uncle Wen raced to the scene of my crime in navy trousers and a dark green shirt, his silvering hair slicked back and horror etching his weathered face. His mouth dropped open as his ornamental trees smouldered like sacrificial offerings.
Rook glanced at me, wincing.
Her lips were slightly swollen and with the state she’d left me in, I most definitely wasn’t fit for company. Doing my best to adjust myself, I arched my chin at the tiny trees.
“Do something,” I whispered under my breath.
“What? With him standing there?” she hissed back.
She...had a point.
Groaning, I pinched the bridge of my nose before striding forward to console Uncle Wen and figure out how to help his beloved bonsai.
“What in the heavens happened?” he wailed as I drew to a stop beside him.
“My poor plants.” Spinning around, he searched the terrace, lingering over the many earthen jars and empty plates we’d devoured.
Giving up trying to understand how his plants spontaneously combusted, he shuffled as fast as his arthritic knees would let him to the hose by the pond.
While he fiddled with the tap, I studied the blazing trees.
Fuck, if this was what my power could do by accident...imagine what I could do when it was aimed.
Turning on the water, Uncle Wen hurried back and drowned the entire row of badly charred bonsai. Only once the last wisp of smoke had disappeared did he return the hose, turn off the flow, and come back to me.
I should’ve left while he was distracted.
I should go now—
“Luxin?”
I jolted as his calloused hand landed on my arm. “Are you okay? You’re not looking so good.”
I backed up and forced a smile. Whisper padded silently to my side, still wary of the people who’d helped raise me. “I’m fine.” I cleared my throat. “Just drank a bit too much.”
Rook stayed behind me. I couldn’t see her, but I could sense her. Sense her worry that I would say the wrong thing. That Uncle Wen would figure out it was me.
Apparently, I couldn’t even be trusted to kiss her without setting something alight.
“Are you feverish?” He rose to his tiptoes and pressed the back of his hand to my forehead. “Heavens, you’re burning up.”
I backed away from his touch. “Like I said, I’m fine, Uncle Wen. Just need to get some sleep, that’s all.”
“Did you catch something on the journey here?” He dropped his arm. “Mei has studied TCM over the years. She has an apothecary full of herbs and tonics. I’m sure she could help.”
“I’m not sick.” I backed up again, putting distance between us just in case.
“If you need sleep, why have you been up all night drinking?” He scowled.
“You know better than to skip sleep, Xiao Lu. Look at you. You look like you’re on death’s door.
Your skin is all patchy and you’re far too hot for my liking.
” His eyebrows drew together in fatherly command.
“Go.” Pointing at Rook standing in her black shirt, he added, “Take my niece and go to bed.”
Niece?
Fuck.
I wasn’t prepared to deal with how that word made me feel.
A word that implied she was already my wife.
One of the crisped leaves on the closest bonsai tried to ignite again. “You know what? That’s a great idea. Goodnight.”
“Wait.” Drawing himself up, Uncle Wen blurted as if he’d been choking on questions ever since I appeared from the grave yesterday.
“Where have you been all these years? Why have you never visited? Why haven’t you just called us?
” Tears appeared in his eyes. “Do you know the toll it took on us, thinking you were dead? We lit incense for you every day. We never left Ashfall Cliff—even though it was haunted by you and your parents. Mei never lost hope that someday you might be back...and now here you are, yet you won’t tell us anything. ”
He slouched and shook his head. “What are you hiding? Why are you avoiding us?”
I hated that I’d caused him such grief but...I couldn’t answer any of those questions.
Not without making him feel a thousand times worse—
“Uncle Wen.” Rook stepped forward.
She didn’t sound drunk anymore, but calm and wonderful.
Locking down a crest of heat, I sucked in a breath as she slid to my side and threaded her fingers through mine.
Soothing coldness darted through me.
“It’s my fault.” She smiled softly. “I’m not good with big crowds and Lucien was protecting me yesterday.
It was also me who couldn’t sleep and he kindly accompanied me so I wouldn’t be lonely watching the stars.
You’re right that we got carried away with the wine but.
..” She smiled at the sun as it kept creeping higher and higher into the sky.
“You’re right that sleep is important and.
..I’m tired now. Do you mind if I steal him away one last time?
When we wake, you guys can catch up properly. ”
Just like I hadn’t stood a chance around this woman, Uncle Wen suffered the same fate. His face softened, his eyes turned liquid, and he looked like he wanted to tuck her under his arm and never let her go. “You look after him very well.”
“He looks after me.” She smiled.
They shared a look that I didn’t fully understand. Emotions bled off her that felt soft and gentle before she nodded at something unspoken.
Uncle Wen flung up his hands. “Ah, forget it. Shoo, both of you. Go to bed. I’ll tell Mei not to disturb you. When you wake, come find me and we’ll share a meal, okay?”
And just like that she diffused the head steward of Ashfall Cliff—a man who had a well-deserved reputation for being a dog with a bone.
“Sounds good.” Rook answered for me, tugging me—
“Oh, by the way.” Uncle Wen glanced at Whisper as the cat lashed his tail. “Is he safe? Mei told me last night that he was pretty aggressive when she went to deliver some things.”
“You have my word he won’t hurt anyone,” I said. “Just treat him like the strays we used to adopt when I was little.”
He didn’t look convinced, but nodded. “Fine. Fine. Away with you.” Turning around, he studied his destroyed bonsai. “Now, what in the heavens am I going to do with you?”
I knew what he could do with them.
If Rook and I combined our blood and watered each one...they’d be perfect come nightfall but...
Rook shook her head, following my thoughts.
Guilt filled me for accidentally killing them—especially considering they were Uncle Wen’s prized shrubbery that he’d been cultivating since before I was born. But...if they suddenly came back to life?
That would open far too many questions.