Burning Tigress

by Jade Lee

  The guard's muscles bunched and the sword descended. Thud. Hard and clean. Zhi-Gang felt the impact in the earth from his feet all the way through his entire body. It was done. She was dead. Her sobs had stopped on a kind of gurgle, and now silence filled their tiny circle of rocky ground.

  Only now did he realize he'd shut his eyes. Silly that, since he could barely see anyway. He opened his eyes, steeling himself for the spreading stain of dark blood from a prone body. He saw the guard straightening from the right, tensing to pull his sword from the dirt. But when he looked down, he saw Jing-Li crouched above the woman, body vibrating with fury.

  Zhi-Gang looked lower. The woman was still alive. Her breath was silenced on a gasp, her eyes were still wide with terror, but she spoke not a word. He doubted she even breathed.

  "What is the meaning of this?" Zhi-Gang demanded of his friend.

  Jing-Li dropped into a kowtow, his forehead pressed almost but not quite into the dirt. When he spoke, his tone was nearly—but not quite—subservient. "Honored sir, your anger is justified, your righteous fury reaches to Heaven. Of course this whore should be killed, her blood is yours by law. But stay your hand, I beg you. Your concubine must confess her deceit so that we may know how deep her lies have soiled the ears of your friends and family." Then Jing-Li raised his head, and his eyes held a desperate warning. "Kill her later, great sir, at your leisure. I will see it is done painfully. You need not poison all those around with the stench of her soiled spirit."

  Zhi-Gang didn't answer: his throat was closed tight. Revulsion boiled in his blood, but his mind was separate enough to recognize his own irrationality. He had no cause to kill this woman, and no reason to hate the very air she breathed. And yet, he did.

  It was his sister, he realized. It was the Chinese girl who begged and pleaded in his memory. She was the one he wanted to kill. Or more exactly: the memory of her, of what had been done to her. Anything that reminded him of her—even this innocent white woman—would always be ruthlessly suppressed. Especially since this white woman was not innocent. That, too, he knew to his core.

  He straightened from his chair, his footing unstable on the shifting ground as he stalked forward. The guard had managed to recover his sword. Zhi-Gang saw now that the blade had struck just to the side of the woman's neck. Jing-Li must have blocked the downward stroke. Grabbing the sword from the startled guard, Zhi-Gang kicked his friend aside.

  "Please," Jing-Li gasped, even as he struggled to recapture his breath. "Your concubine—"

  "My concubine?" Zhi-Gang bellowed. It was a lie, but an effective one. If others thought this woman his lawful wife, then he could do whatever he wanted—including killing her—without fear of reprisal. "My concubine!" he agreed.

  His hands twisted on the heavy sword. The heat made his hands slick with sweat and the hilt would not settle securely in his scholarly hands. The damn thing was much too heavy compared to his deer-horn knives. So he tightened his grip and raised the blade high. The woman tried to scramble backwards, her voice still silenced by shock, but a guard—a new one—caught her with his boot. Two more appeared beside the newcomer, adding their boots to her body. All had come to see the show.

  What am I doing? The thought slid through his mind, repeated over and over. But like ink mixed too thin, it had no substance. He would kill this woman. Had he not felt the truth in her qi? She would be the death of him. She would change his world irrevocably, and he could not afford another such life-shattering change.

  Jing-Li found his breath and this time banged his head for real against the dirt. "Master Tau! Master Tau! Where is your reason?"

  Gone, he thought. And he did not know why. The sword was slipping in his hands. All too soon it would descend whether he willed it or not. He tensed his stomach, intending to kill her with a single stroke. Nausea rolled in his belly, but he fought it down. Then he met her eyes. He was close enough to see them clearly: round, light brown, and rimmed red from her tears. He saw the streaks of wet on her cheeks that revealed the pale white color of her skin. And he saw her rough lips, chapped and swollen from the sun, now swelling where she had bit down, her blood welling thick and dark across her white teeth. Nothing appealing about her at all, and yet he knew she was beautiful. Something about her fired his blood, and that made him all the more angry.

  "I curse you," she hissed in clear Chinese. "I curse you to taste forever the tears of all women, to feel the aches of their broken feet and taste the blood of their lost virginity. I curse you out of all men in China to know what you have done to me." Then she spit her blood at his feet and stretched her neck to wait for the sword.

  As one, the guards leaped backwards. Curses were no small thing, and the curse of a dying woman carried the ugliest taint. None wished to share in this damnation.

  "So be it," Zhi-Gang acknowledged, accepting the punishment. Then he pulled the sword down with all his might.

  The blow never landed. Though smaller of stature, Jing-Li had always been faster. There had been no time to leap from the ground to stop the sword, and yet, there his friend was, his hands gripped around the sword, desperation lending strength to his arms. They grappled for a moment, sword twisting awkwardly between them—two scholars unused to such a weapon. But in the end, Jing-Li won. He knocked the sword to the ground such that it clattered loudly against the bamboo chair.

  "You cannot take such a curse upon yourself!" Jing-Li cried. "You will kill us all!" Then he glared at the guards, mobilizing them into action. "Take her to our boat. Chain her. I will kill her there."

  All was accomplished with amazing speed. The woman was dragged off, the sword sheathed and gone. Even his chair disappeared, taken by his true servants. All that remained was himself and Jing-Li, locked one against another.

  "Where is your mind?" Jing-Li rasped, his breath sour with fear.

  Zhi-Gang acted without thought. He threw his friend off him with a curse. In raw strength, he had always been mightier. Then he stood over Jing-Li, his breath hot on his lips and in his lungs. He had no answer for his friend, and that made his blood boil even hotter.

  "You will not touch her," Zhi-Gang rasped. "I will kill her with my own hands. I will drain the blood from her body and have her heart for my dinner." Then he twisted, leaning forward until his forehead nearly touched the smear of compressed dirt on Jing-Li's. "Interfere again, and you will be the one in chains sent as a special gift to the Empress Dowager."

  He waited while his words spread into Jing-Li's spirit. Then, with a last curse, he spun and stalked away. His heels ground into the rocks with every step and his hands itched where he'd clenched them into fists. As he walked, he narrowed his eyes and prayed he didn't trip.

  It wasn't just that his poor vision washed the world in fuzzy gray. It was that his spirit seemed covered in an oily blackness. It coated his thoughts, polluted his moods, and ate at his reason. How could a man chart a clear course when his every action, his every thought was haunted by fury? By moods so black that they caused him to threaten a woman just because she was white. Just because she was on the Grand Canal where no white was allowed. Just because she reminded him of another woman who begged and pleaded and received no mercy. Why should a white woman receive pity when his sister had not?

  He stopped his angry progress across the shifting dirt, closing his eyes as he tried to steady his qi. He was the Emperor's Enforcer. He'd been charged by the Son of Heaven to eradicate the poison that threatened China. And yet, how could he purify China when he could not even steady his own spirit? And what was he going to do with a lone white woman who traveled in a place no white was allowed?

  Questions spun in his thoughts, distracting his focus and muddying his spirit. But even as they cluttered his mind, he knew they were completely unimportant. The real problem had come as a whisper. These questions were merely his attempt to drown out the tiny ripple that continued to roll through everything he did.

  He had touched her qi and knew she would change his life. She would
change everything about him, starting at the deepest foundation of his spirit. A white woman would change his life.

  No. No! A thousand times no! He would kill her before he allowed such a thing. Of that he was absolutely certain.

  Tempted Tigress

  The Way of The Tigress

  Book Six

  by

  Jade Lee

  ~

  To purchase

  Tempted Tigress

  from your favorite eBook Retailer,

  visit Jade Lee's eBook Discovery Author Page

  www.ebookdiscovery.com/JadeLee

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  Award-winning

  White Tigress

  The Way of The Tigress

  Book One

  Excerpt from

  White Tigress

  The Way of The Tigress

  Book One

  by

  Jade Lee

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  WHITE TIGRESS

  Awards & Reviews

  4 Stars! Romantic Times

  2005 PEARL Best Erotic Romance finalist

  ~

  "White Tigress is an exotic, unique, and sensual journey to a wholly interesting time period and culture."

  ~All About Romance

  ~

  "The relationship between alpha male Ru Shan and Lydia is powerful, going beyond sensuality into the spiritual realm as Lee guides the readers as much as Ru Shan leads Lydia to uncover the mysteries of life and sensuality."

  ~Romantic Times Book Club

  If God lets Shanghai endure,

  He owes an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah.

  —Shanghai missionary

  ~

  Chapter 1

  Shanghai, China—1897

  "Aaaah-ho. Aaaah-ho." The low, dirgelike chorus drifted across the Wangpu River, settling into Lydia Smith's ears until she shivered in excitement. She had heard stories about the sound. It was the mournful beat of the poor Chinese laborers—the coolies—as they built houses in ever-expanding Shanghai. And now, at last, she was hearing it for real.

  "Aaaah-ho. Aaaah-ho." It was a slow sound, monotonous and dull, like the low beat of the city's heart, and Lydia strained to hear every pulse. Just as she struggled to hold the smoky air inside her lungs and see the white bungalow houses behind the brick walls of this new and flourishing city.

  She couldn't, of course. The forest of masts obscured all but the boats that clogged the port, and yet Lydia still stood, grasping the rail with her smudged white gloves as she tried to absorb it all.

  "It's so beautiful," she whispered, though it wasn't. The sky was overcast, and the air caught thick and moist in her throat. And it tasted faintly of ginger. Still, she repeated over and over, like a litany, "Beautiful Shanghai. My new home."

  "Yer sure no one's meeting yuh at the docks, Miss Smith? Not even yer fiancé's servant?"

  She jumped as the captain's broad shadow darkened the railing. She turned, wariness mixing with the excitement in her blood. She hadn't liked the looks of him from the beginning, but the temptation of a discounted passage from England to China helped her overcome her scruples. Especially as that meant she was now arriving a full two weeks early.

  She couldn't wait to see Max's face when she surprised him.

  Meanwhile, the captain was shuffling his feet, apparently concerned for her welfare. "It ain't safe in Shanghai. Not fer a lady alone."

  Lydia smiled as she clutched her fiancé's last letter to her heart. "I have his directions and Chinese coins. I shall manage just fine."

  "But you don't speak the language, miss. Not a word," the captain pressed, and Lydia felt herself relax at his concern. The man had grumbled about her presence nearly the entire trip, but now that they had arrived, he was obviously worried about her. In truth, he reminded her a bit of her father—gruff on the exterior, but with a heart of gold inside.

  "Oh, I know a great deal more than a word." She wasn't fluent, but she was getting the hang of Chinese. "The crew has been teaching me some, and I had an instructor before that. A missionary who'd lived here for years."

  He grimaced and began to walk away. "Shanghai's a dangerous place," he grumbled. But if he said any more, she didn't hear it; her attention had turned back to the docks.

  Normally, the business of docking at a port would interest her. She'd learned quite a bit about sailing during the journey, had even made some friends among the crew, so she would have liked to be interested in their work right now—these last few moments among her own countrymen. But, of course, nothing could compete with the slowly clearing view of Shanghai. She saw now that it was a cramped city—not unlike London in that regard. The rich and the poor moved side by side, neither noticing the other except to grumble. The rich looked just like they did in London, including the latest fashions and equipages. Even the poor coolies seemed familiar, appearing like sailors to her, with their shortened pants and no shirts they squatted on the muddy banks. Behind them, the tenement houses rose inside bamboo scaffolding, imposing and ugly, in the way of all such buildings.

  In short, the scene was no more intimidating than any other big, dirty, living city—or so Lydia reminded herself. She had no reason to feel untoward. After all, she had lived in London nearly all her life. Although no Englishman, no matter how poor, would work without a shirt. But strange sights were to be expected among heathens, or so Max always said.

  The sounds, she realized, were very different, and she pushed her bonnet back in the hopes of hearing more clearly. Early by the clock—not more than nine in the morning—the city was already alive and cacophonous. The high-pitched nasal tones of the Chinese language bombarded her from all sides, only growing in volume as she was at last allowed to disembark. She heard hawkers' high-pitched squeals as they sold their wares. The more rounded tones of her own countrymen added a kind of trumpet accompaniment, an occasional ornamentation rather than the main melody. And beneath it all came the steady drone of the coolie aaaah-ho.

  It was all so wonderfully different, and Lydia could barely keep herself from dancing up the dock toward the row of rickshaws awaiting passengers.

  A strange sight, indeed, this line of cabbies without cabs. Though she had heard of rickshaws, she had never actually seen one. Now she found them comically bare, with no more than a bench set upon an axle between two large wheels. They had the addition of two long poles extended from the sides for the driver—or runner, really, as a coolie served the function of a horse, pulling the carriage with his every step.

  Thinking carefully, she chose a larger conveyance, one that included an umbrella-like covering for shade and a long extended cart for luggage.

  "Take me to this street," she said in Chinese, holding out the written characters for Max's address. She would have tried to speak the name, but Max had not given her any indication of how to say the strange symbols, so she could only pray that the driver could read.

  Apparently he could not, because he barely even glanced at the page. Still, he smiled warmly, showing his crooked teeth, and gestured for her to climb into his carriage. Meanwhile, all around her, the other runners began speaking and gesturing as well, all in a loud jumble of language, none of which she understood.

  Fear made her mouth taste bitter. Things were not quite as easy—or as comfortable—as she'd imagined.

  "Do you know where this is?" she repeated in her stilted Chinese.

  The driver merely grinned stupidly and tried to help her climb into his rickshaw.

  Frustrated, Lydia yanked away, turning to the entire row of drivers, raising her voice to be heard above the din. "Does anyone understand me?"

  "Yer speaking in the wrong Chinese, miss," came a familiar voice behind her.

  Lydia spun around to see the captain standing there, a grin splitting his coarse features. "It's like I f
eared, miss. You learned the language from Canton. These here speak Shanghai."

  She frowned, surprised. "They do not have one language?"

  "They's ignorant savages, miss. They ain't got the same of anything anywhere." He sighed, folding his arms in an irritated gesture. "I ain't planned on this, but I got a bit o' time. And my own regular driver over there." He gestured to a covered rickshaw and a driver in a cone-shaped hat who grinned and dipped his head at her. The captain took her letter and quickly scanned the page. "We can take you where ye need to go."

  Lydia smiled, suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude for a man she'd barely tolerated for the last month. "That would be a great help, sir," she breathed. "I had not thought there would be different kinds of Chinese."

  He didn't answer except to gesture for his driver to take up her luggage. It was not a great lot for her bridal trousseau—only one trunk—but after her father's death, she and her mother had been forced to practice some rather stringent economies.

  "Follow me," said the captain as he escorted her down the line to his waiting rickshaw.

  It was then she heard another sound, this one from one of the other drivers in a mixture of English and Chinese. "No, no, laiiddeee. Come wid me. Not wid him. No, no."

  She turned, trying to understand what the frantic man was saying, but the captain grabbed her arm in a bruising grip. "Stay with me, Miss Smith. They are thieves and ruffians, every last one of them."

  She didn't argue. Indeed, she knew that even London cabbies could be devious if one didn't look sharp. She didn't want to contemplate what could happen to her here without even the right Chinese language to assist her. And thank God the captain was her countryman—a familiar rock amid this sea of strangeness.

  So she allowed him to guide her as she stepped uneasily into his rickshaw. The bamboo seemed too flimsy to hold herself and her luggage, but to her surprise, it did not even bow beneath her weight or that of the captain as he shoved his massive body in beside her. Then, before she had time to gasp, they tilted backward. The coolie had lifted the poles and begun to run, quickly pulling them along.