“Àn’ying!”Yù’chén’s voice is sharp. He draws me to him and lifts my finger. It isn’t until he touches it that I realize I’m bleeding. The blossom cut me.
A muscle twitches in Yù’chén’s jaw. “Àn’ying, I told you not to touch the flowers.” His voice is still like music to my ears. He’s talking about how these flowers are poisonous, how they will send mortals into a state of delirium that they won’t even remember, but I barely hear his words. A delicious, hot feeling is tingling through my arm. I smile as I tilt my head up at Yù’chén. I’m not sure why he looks so angry, but for some reason, it pleases me.
“It was another red scorpion lily,” I tell him. “You tried to gift one to me the first day we met, remember? Such a horrid gift.”
He makes an exasperated sound between his teeth as he studies my bleeding hand. “I remember.”
“Why would you wish me a fate of loss and tragedy?” I swipe a hand at his neck, but I can’t remember why I ever wanted to cut it open. My crescent blade rests against his skin, and I lean forward, my fingers pressing against the cords of his muscles, admiring how warm he is.
“I don’t wish such a fate upon you.”
“Then why are you so wicked?” I barely know what I’m saying anymore, but the words float out like puffs of cloud, drifting between us. “You help me, and then you push me away. Why?”
Yù’chén’s throat moves; his chest rises and falls with hisbreaths. “Because I can’t have you,” he says quietly, “but I can’t stop wanting you.”
The air between us shifts as I lift my gaze to his, the words running circles in my head. My thoughts won’t pull together, so I stop trying and let instinct take over, trailing my fingers down to his chest. “I can feel it,” I say. “The beat of your heart. That’s how you tricked me at first.”
He lowers his gaze to my wrist, his lashes casting impossibly long, beautiful shadows on his cheekbones. His jaw clenches. He swallows again and gently pushes me back. The distance between us feels cold. “Enough,” he says, but the world around me is sliding in and out of focus and I barely understand his next words. I vaguely make out that he needs to extract the poison. I’m about to ask how when he lowers his lips to my finger.
The touch is the spark that sets my body ablaze. I sway, shivers running up my arm as he sucks on the cut the flower made, taking my blood in his mouth and swallowing. I blink. The heat is beginning to drain from my body, but I don’t want it to end. When Yù’chén straightens, frowning, I close the gap between us and press my lips to his with a sigh.
His mouth is sweet and tinted with a metallic tang, and I curl my fingers into his hair as I have dreamt of doing for so many nights. He tastes like bitter sugar, and a part of me wonders if this is the poison of the flower. A delicious, intoxicating poison I would gladly drink into oblivion.
He leans forward, and then he is kissing me back. It is nothing like the desperate, fumbling kiss of the hot spring. His mouth moves softly against mine, and his hand comes to cup my chin. Gently, gingerly, as though he holds something breakable in his palm. With his other hand, he skims hisfingers along my hair, down to the sensitive spot behind my ear and my neck. He is tender. Cautious. No one, I think, my eyes fluttering shut, has ever held me like this.
“I want you,” he whispers against my lips. “So much.”
Gently, he pulls me against the wall of night blossoms, their pollen swirling around us, lighting his face and settling in his hair and clothes. The way he touches me, fingers tracing my jaw and thumb caressing circles on my neck, feels like more than just desire.
I suddenly realize I’m cold. That my head is no longer pounding or hazy, that my surroundings have filtered back into sharp delineation. That I’m in control of myself again, and I’m kissing Yù’chén.It’s not real,I think as the discordant shock that registers in my mind wars against the hazy desire driving my heart.It’s not real.
I wrench away, turning my face to swipe the back of my hand against my mouth.
He’s a mó,a voice inside me screams.What are you doing?
What am I doing?
I squeeze my eyes shut, my fingers trembling against my lips. When I open them again, I find Yù’chén watching me. His lips are flushed, and he’s breathing hard.
He quickly looks away.
For several moments, neither of us speaks. As the last of the poison cools from my body, I realize what he said.
Because I can’t have you, but I can’t stop wanting you.
“The poison should be gone from your system,” Yù’chén says quietly. “You should feel like yourself again.”
I can’t bring myself to look at him.
“Follow,” he says, turning and beginning to walk more briskly.
We are nearing the end of the passage. There is a light, a scene that looks like a faded portrait compared to the visceral beauty and colors of this passage—but it is one that I find more beautiful than anything else in this world.
Home.
My chest swells at the sight of my village’s old pái’fang, the faded wordsXi’línlooking exactly the same as on the day I left it. We step out from between two cathayas, and I stumble toward my home at a full run. I could hug the pillars of the pái’fang; I could kiss the dirt road at my feet.
When I glance back, the passage of flowers has vanished, as Yù’chén promised. Yù’chén himself is still standing just outside the pái’fang. He presses a hand to the wood and winces, pulling it back as if he’s been burned.
