Chapter Seventeen
WILLIAM KISSED the back of Xian’s hand, setting off the faint, foreign tingle of arousal low down in Xian’s belly. But something of the sensation was disjointed; part of him and yet not at all.
‘What is this, William?’
Xian knew his wants too well to mistake this sudden sense of desire for his own. His trembling intensified; fear and excitement melding, sensing he stood at a great threshold.
‘This is merely a warm up.’ The Englishman’s eyes were entirely amber; flickering sure as any flame. ‘Best you brace for what is next.’
He moved again at a reckless, headlong pace. And landed his lips upon Xian’s mouth.
The meeting of flesh was shocking, swift and intentional. The gentleman who named himself a daemon was just suddenly there, his hand cupping the back of Xian’s neck, his arm sweeping around Xian’s waist and pulling him into the intimacy.
A compulsion to pull away lived only shortly, as Xian was overwhelmed by the superb, velvet caress against his mouth. He’d kissed rarely, and enjoyed it never, and though it would be a stretch to say he enjoyed this now, he did not protest.
If this man, who was not a man, wielded any magick, he managed it in such a way as to prevent Xian from slapping him across the face.
Xian barely moved except to part his lips.
William led the way entirely and combined subtlety with command.
His breath, warm of course, grew ever warmer.
The press of his body against Xian’s was so heated there was soon uncomfortable dampness beneath Xian’s robe.
His lungs ached with the need for air; shock robbed his mind of a way to breathe.
The wooden beam at his back tormented every knot of his spine as William’s forceful presence pushed into him.
By all rights, Xian should have been terrified, and searching for escape. He put up a protest only once. Pulling William’s hand away when it sought to cup his scarred cheek.
The man obliged easily, showing no umbrage at being declined.
A tingling began in Xian’s fingertips, light at first, but rapidly intensifying into a pins and needles sensation. Now Xian sought to draw away, his head light, his body awash with heat.
‘What—’
‘Hold on. I told you it would hurt.’
William’s words were perfectly clear, even though his mouth was back atop Xian’s.
Before there was a chance to wonder at that, everything shifted.
The sharp prickling in Xian’s fingertips raced down the lengths of his arms, pressing a cry from his throat, a noise that William seemed to swallow as he worked his mouth over Xian’s own.
Arms afire, Xian struggled against William’s embrace, making sounds of protest against the velvet kiss. The man, the daemon, did not let him go. His hold was rock solid, irrefutable. And now, hot as embers.
Xian wriggled and squirmed and wondered if this was the moment he would join his mother and Mercy in the afterlife.
The fiery pinpricks scored their way through his torso, teasing at the scars already made by true flames, and pouring down into his legs.
Xian whimpered. Truly afraid.
‘Keep steady. These knots are tight.’
A flash, as though lightning had struck the room, then scalding memories joined the fire that spread through Xian’s body.
Memories his mind had shielded him from, now slipping through the cracks.
They have killed me, but they will not take you, my dearest son.
His mother’s voice filled his skull. The pressure of her body over his, driving him down.
I will give them no reason to hunt you, my bao bao huli. Forgive me, Xian, for what I take from you to save you. Forgive me.
A scream birthed in the pit of Xian’s stomach and rose like the fenghuang; the avenging phoenix tearing a path through his body. The cry burst from his lips, its strength sending the daemon hurtling backwards.
William Black landed hard on his backside, halfway across the room, his skirts pooling around him in a lake of mist-coloured satin. ‘Fuck.’
Xian found himself on his knees, with no memory of falling there. He dripped with sweat, his hair clinging to his cheeks, and his breath escaping him in sharp gasps.
A knock came at the door, a muffled voice raised in concern. Xian was too exhausted to even raise his head.
‘Lady Margaret? Are you alright?’ The enquiry was hesitant; the English stilted.
‘Do you servants never sleep? I am very well, I assure you,’ William spoke in Mandarin, but with a voice undeniably female, husky and rough with exertion. ‘Go away. You are ruining a perfect moment, and I am not yet done.’
He got to his feet, fixing the wayward slip of his gown.
‘My humble apologies, my lady.’ The quickened tap of retreating footsteps grew distant.
Xian raised his head, his sweat-covered body icy.
‘William,’ he breathed. ‘You are…’
How did he describe such a thing?
‘I am?’
Feverishly, Xian searched for the word. ‘Aglow. There is a…light around you…’
William Black’s wolfish smile reappeared. ‘Are you sure it is not a trick of the light?’
‘I am very sure.’ He’d never been more certain of anything at all.
The most brilliant hues radiated from the man, hugging his every curve. Far too bright to be cast by the lantern behind him, which hung from a hook high up the wall; too high to have sent such a defined ring of light around the man’s outline.
‘What sort of light?’ William asked. ‘Tell me what you see.’
Xian still rested on his knees. His legs were far too jellied to stand, and he was grateful for it, because he saw now what he had missed before. He stared, making certain he did not hallucinate.
‘The light…it’s not around you…it is…’ he played the word in his mind before he brought it to his tongue. ‘It is beneath your skin. Firelight…’
‘Clever little fox,’ Sir William said, grinning as wide as his lips would allow.
‘What did you just call me?’
His mother’s voice still held him; Xian never wished to let its echo go.
‘Never mind that. What do you see beneath your own skin, little prince?’
‘Mine?’ Xian frowned. ‘I do not see…’ The words turned to ash as he stared down at his hands. Not firelight so bold as William’s, with its orange and red and gold, but the rich glow of sunlight on topaz hinted beneath his skin. ‘What have you done to me?’
‘Granted your wish, as promised,’ William sniffed. ‘Don’t get all odd about it now. I said I’d untie your knots and show you what you truly are. So, there you are. You’re welcome.’
Xian stared at his hands, mesmerised by the colours that shimmered like the summer heat off terracotta tiles. ‘Am I a…a daemon, too?’
William’s barked laughter made him jump. ‘Of course you’re not a bloody daemon. That aura belongs to a huli jing. Can’t say I’ve met many of you in the British Isles, plenty of damned kitsuné though. Come to think of it, you’re the first huli jing I’ve met here in the Orient.’
‘A huli jing?’ Xian pushed to his feet, stumbling as he reached for the wall. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Do you not see your own light? I know we do not see ourselves so brightly as we see others, it would drive us mad to see our own aura, day in and day out, but surely you do not seek to deny what is so plain?’
Xian’s head spun. Of course he saw the light, the glow of a gemstone emanating from him; seeping from his skin like a faint mist.
‘You are suggesting I am a fox spirit? A creature of myth.’
‘Not suggesting, telling. And clearly you are more than a story, aren’t you? Now see here, are you going to throw up? Because you look as though you are, and I’d rather be out of range.’
‘No…I’m not…I don’t think. I feel rather strange.’
Which hardly described the sensation at all. Xian would say of how he felt — so light and hollow of bone he was grateful for the ceiling which would stop him drifting away — was that it was not awful at all.
‘Oh gods, you’re not rabid, are you?’ Sir William backed away, and Xian raised his head.
‘Of course not.’
‘Well the moment you froth at the mouth, don’t think I won’t put you down.’
Xian sensed a darkness behind the jest, a hint of the daemon within, perhaps. He did not doubt William Black would do just as he promised.
‘I am not rabid, William.’ But he did feel unusual. A heat bloomed in his belly, soothing as the huangjiu Song Lim had given him to calm his nerves, but a shiver touched the back of his neck.
‘Can anyone see this?’ He held up his hand, the topaz aura swaying like wheat bending to the wind. ‘Shall Mandarin Feng…all the guests…notice this aura?’
‘See this comes of being buried for so long, you are not the sharpest fox, nor the cleverest.’ William patted his belly. ‘I am famished, what about you?’
‘No, I couldn’t eat a thing.’ Xian shook his head, pacing across the room, staying well clear of the window. ‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘Because it was a stupid one.’
‘I wish you to tell me.’
‘Gods, did my work break your mind?’ The Englishman returned to the moon-gazing chair, his hair dishevelled, his lips far redder than they’d been before all this began.
‘You know I am not actually a fairy godmother, don’t you?
Nor a djinn who shall grant you wishes, should you rub their lamp just the right way.
Now that is myth, I can tell you. The djinn I’ve met would no sooner grant you a wish than suck off a nuckelavee. ’
‘William.’ Xian balled his fists, causing his aura to billow like smoke puffed from a pipe.
‘You must tell me more than that I am…huli jing. What am I to do with that knowledge? I hardly feel much different than before.’ Not true, but Xian was on a panicked tirade, breathless as he’d been in the shrine.
‘Now I not only have scars, I have glowing scars…glowing…everything.’ He picked at the clasp at his wrist, relaxing the tight fit of his sleeve, and pushed the fabric up his unhindered arm.
A whimper escaped him. ‘What flows so strongly from me? Will I be drained?’
The topaz glow rose from his forearm in thin tendrils, tiny vines that snaked their way skyward.
‘When did you say your mother was killed?’