Sky, meanwhile, closed the gap between us. “Who was it?” he asked. His voice, a low growl, was a promise of violence.
“Princess Yifeng, wife of Liu Keyan,” answered Lei.
Sky’s face had gone white. “Where is she?”
“Dead.”
I thought Sky would react poorly to this, but he simply nodded. He regarded me, eyes hard, and I wondered if he would admonish me for my stupidity, if he would tell me again what a terrible soldier I was. Instead, he only lifted the back of his hand to my face, brushing his knuckles against the newly formed bruise on my cheek.
“Sky…”
He dropped his hand, turning away. Without another word he mounted his horse and rode off into the dark.
Thirty-Nine
Meeting you was like glimpsing the sea for the first time. All rivers and streams faded; only you remained.
—The Classic of Poetry, 532
Within the imperial bunkers, Ilistened to the rhythmic plink of water echoing through the walls, counting the seconds until I could count no longer. I could hear Kuro in the adjoining room to my right, his snores deep and unbroken.
Only a few hours remained before daybreak, and I knew sleep was vital for restoring qi. And yet, no matter how much I tossed and turned, sleep would not come to me.
At last I rose and tiptoed out of my room, hesitating outside the door across from mine. “Are you awake?” I asked him silently.
I felt him before I heard him, a tentative question in my mind like the brush of a hand against your arm. There was a rustling of blankets, before a bare-chested Lei opened the door.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice raspy with sleep. My gaze skipped down to his shoulders, the broadness of them, the hue of his skin, like fresh honey.
Blushing, I returned my gaze to his face. Perhaps this was a bad idea. “I can’t sleep.”
“Come in,” he said, holding the door for me, then letting hishand drop to my lower back as he saw me inside. His touch, although light, sent invisible tremors down to my toes.
His room was smaller than mine, barely the size of a storage closet. There was space for one pallet and a weapons rack. I gathered that imperial soldiers had once bunkered here during the Wu Dynasty, before the empire had splintered.
I sat on his pallet, pulling my knees up to my chest. “I can’t sleep. Or,” I amended, “I don’t want to sleep.”
“Why not?” he asked, settling beside me.
“I’m…afraid,” I admitted, keeping my voice low so as to not wake Kuro next door. “I can’t stop thinking about tomorrow. About all the ways we could fail.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, and his voice was as warm as a crackling fire. It was hard to believe this was the same man who had once spoken to me with such coldness I believed he would not care if I lived or died.
“Not really,” I said, and my eyes wandered again to his bare chest, the hollows and ridges of it, the heat that emanated from his skin, and with it, the scent of him, like jasmine and cedar and something else now, something distinctly male.
“Well…” he said, his voice teasing. “We don’t need to sleep.”
I cocked my head at him. “Do you think we should set out early?”
“Not really, no.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“There are a few other things I can think of doing,” he said, his smile amused and rakish. “Besides sleeping.”
And now I understood. “Kuro’s in the other room,” I hissed, smacking him lightly on the arm. Quick as a snake, he grabbed my wrist, pulling me to him. I lost my balance and he caught me,scooping me into his lap. My heart jumped into my throat as I was overwhelmed by the sheer presence of him: the texture of his exposed skin, the prominence of his veins, the strength of his arms, the intimacy of it all. Capturing me by my waist, he grinned at me lazily, a predator surveying a well-laid trap.
“I can be quiet if you can,” he said, and it sounded like a dare.
