by Aja James
Jade took a couple of steps back, her hand tightening on the dagger-axe.
“You’ve shown your thanks,” she said, “now go away. I don’t like to be disturbed.”
As if he sensed her apprehension, he took a step back as well and put up his hands.
“I’m sorry if I startled you, healer. I only meant to help. The roof is better thatched and much sturdier now. You should have no problems when next it rains.”
She nodded curtly, waiting for him to leave.
“If you ever need anything, healer, just look for me. I am easy to find in the village. Everyone knows my name and my father’s. May I know yours too?”
Jade debated telling him.
But she had a feeling he wouldn’t leave unless she said something. She could tell that he had a stubborn streak a mile away.
“Jade,” she muttered. “Now go.”
He did. Whistling cheerfully as he strode away with a loose, long-legged gait.
Jade watched after him until he disappeared down the dirt road.
She sighed.
It had been an eternity since a handsome young man flirted with her. Since she’d allowed any man within ten feet of her who was upright and with all his faculties intact.
She’d better not get too attached though.
That way lay folly.
But a few days later, Jade found herself wandering through the village looking for a house-builder’s establishment with the sign of “Ling” in the front.
When she finally found it, the entire house was draped with white sheets.
Someone had died recently.
Jade pulled her scarf over her face and hid herself in the throngs of villagers gathered around the house.
“What’s happened?” she asked a bystander.
“Ling’s eldest son passed away last night,” the villager whispered back.
“It was a gruesome death.”
Jade tried to disguise her shock.
Good thing she hadn’t allowed herself to daydream about the young man, or the pang of loss in her chest might hurt a lot more than it already did. Ling had been full of health and vitality when he left her hut a few days ago, how could this be? Unless he was not the eldest son?
“He was just recently healed of the illness he caught up North,” the villager continued, disabusing Jade of any hopes she might have had, “but perhaps it came back. Maybe the healers in the Jade Lotus Society hadn’t really healed him but made him worse.”
Oh, she was very certain she’d healed him, Jade thought. There was no mistake.
“What do you mean it was a gruesome death?”
“His body was like a cadaver when his mother found him in his bed in the morning,” the villager whispered sensationally.
“But…his manhood was stiff and his face had a smile on it. As if death came for him in the middle of…you know…the act.”
Well, that was unusual, Jade thought.
Though, if it were true, at least Ling-the-son had a roaring sendoff to the afterlife.
“What do you think caused it?” she asked as delicately as she could.
“Don’t you know about the nine-tailed fox spirit that haunts the village?” another villager joined in their huddle.
“This is the third death in the last month. Each one was a young man, and each one passed the same way.”
Jade had heard of such a creature from the gossipy maids when she was a human.
Fox spirits were capricious and dangerous. They had the power to take on different human forms, especially that of a lovely young woman. They sometimes possessed human bodies too, inserting their spirit into any vessel they chose. By doing so, fox spirits could live indefinitely, leaving a body when it grew old and choosing a new one.
They also grew their powers by feeding off the vitality of others, often through sexual intercourse.
Now that Jade knew personally there were other Kinds in the world besides humans, she wouldn’t make the mistake of discounting the fox spirit as imaginary.
“Ling and the village elders are organizing a hunt to capture the fox spirit,” the first villager said.
“They’re planning to raid the Jade Lotus Society tonight.”
“What?!” Jade couldn’t help but blurt out.
“But that’s ridiculous! The Society is a sanctuary for healing. The women there could have nothing to do with these deaths.”
“How would you know?” the second villager asked suspiciously.
“Do you know the kinds of women who reside there? Whores, concubines, thieves and beggars. They might call themselves healers but they’re just a bunch of misfit females rejected by good society. Why else would they hide in underground compounds? My bet is that they’re harboring the fox spirit in their midst. Perhaps there is even more than one.”
Jade didn’t say more after that. She tried to make herself as inconspicuous as possible.
At the earliest opportunity, she extricated herself from the growing gang of angry villagers and ran all the way to the South entrance of the West Lake.
Rain must have returned from her trip by now. She needed to be warned! All the women needed to be warned!
But, dear Goddess! The angry hordes were cresting the hills.
All the men in the village must have been gathered, and many of their womenfolk too. There were hundreds of them.
But there were only a few dozen relatively defenseless females in the compound, along with ailing patients. There was no way they could escape in time. No way to prepare for this onslaught.
Well, fuck.
In a split second decision, Jade retraced her steps back toward the village rather than toward the Jade Lotus Society.
She stripped the scarf from her face and took out the pins that held up the intricate coils of her ankle-length hair.
As she’d expected, the villagers halted just below the hill when they saw her walking toward them, her unveiled beauty stunning the men into gaping silence.
When she was close enough to be heard, she stopped.
“There is no fox spirit within the Jade Lotus Society,” she declared. “You’ve come all this way for nothing.”
One of the village women finally found her voice, jealousy mixed with bitterness and vengeance underlying her tone.
“You look like a good candidate for the fox spirit, girl. You’re just the sort of slutty shell the foxes like to occupy.”
Jade threw the speaker a haughty glance.
“If by that you mean I’m beautiful and inspire lust in all who look upon me, then yes, I suppose I am a good candidate. Except I don’t belong to the Society. I have nothing to do with them at all.”
“She cannot be the one,” one of the men leading the charge said.
“I’ve tracked the fox spirit. I am certain she is a member of the Society, perhaps even the head of the Society herself.”
Jade quickly changed tracks.
“If you must know, I am the one who healed Ling. I might not belong to the society, but I sometimes go there to procure medicines and herbs. Ling was one of my patients. I had nothing to do with his death however. He was in full health the last time I saw him.”
“I told you,” the woman who’d spoken hissed to the man beside her. “She’s the fox spirit. She made our son…like that. She must be punished! I demand justice!”
And that was how Jade found herself bound tightly in iron chains the next morning, after a day and night of being tied to a pole in the village square so that men, women and children alike could throw things, spit and hurl insults at her for being the demon she supposedly was.
She sighed, though her chest couldn’t inflate much given how tightly she was bound, and peered through one slightly open eye at the gathering before her. The other one was swollen shut and caked with blood from her head wound.
Hopefully the villagers would leave the Society alone.
She’d confessed to being a fox spirit, after all. If there was any justice in the world, the Goddess
would watch over Rain and the other healers and let them have the peace they deserved.
Besides, it wasn’t as if Jade fit in anywhere. Her existence being snuffed out wasn’t any big deal.
She was tired of the loneliness and restrictions. If she were to have another chance at life, she’d want to indulge in every pleasure the world had to offer.
And she’d make sure she ruled it.
A few men came forth to secure a heavy boulder at the end of her iron chains. Then, they hefted her like a sack of grain onto a donkey cart, and the entire village led the way to the farthest and deepest part of West Lake, miles south of the Jade Lotus Society.
Death by drowning was the special of the day, was it?
Jade heaved another stifled sigh.
If only her end didn’t have to be so violent. Why couldn’t she just die in her sleep, ideally after a thoroughly satisfying bout of raunchy sex?
Not that she’d had any of those before. She’d been a genius at giving pleasure to others, the better to manipulate them to do her bidding, but she’d never been good at receiving it.
Or maybe all the men in the world couldn’t find a clitoris if their lives depended on it.
Well, that’s another thing she’d like to change if she were given another shot at life.
Sex.
Lots of it.
And she wanted to be in complete control. Of her own body and her body’s needs.
Time to take a deep breath, Jade thought as she was lifted by rough hands from the cart.
She wondered whether anyone would miss her when she’s gone.
Would Rain even know what happened to her?
Likely she’d be the only one to care.
Too bad they never became friends.
It must be nice to be missed.
Chapter Fifteen
The Creature returned to its lair and dismissed its guards with a distracted flick of its hand.
In the total darkness of its soundproof chamber, it sat on its massive bed and contemplated the events of the night.
Before it, the comatose Pure warrior lay on a steel table, dead to the world, but not entirely deceased. The various tubes of nutrients and blood kept the male’s physical shell functioning, but just barely, for the soul seemed eager to depart.
The Creature pulled out a nail clipper from its built-in bedside drawer and took hold of the warrior’s right hand.
Methodically, it began to trim his nails, the clicks of the clipper the only sound in the room.
“Tonight didn’t exactly go as planned,” the Creature told its erstwhile roommate, breaking the eerie silence.
“I had the Dark nobles eating out of the palm of my hand. But then their queen showed up.”
It tsked, as if deploring Jade Cicada’s poor timing or her audacity to intrude upon its show.
“I suppose I expected it, hence my timely rescue by those beefy thugs. I didn’t expect the nobles to make demands of her, however. If she indeed took a Consort or a Mate, I’d have to scrap all my designs and make new ones. That would change the entire game.”
The warrior on the table made no reply.
The Creature unfolded a nail filer from the back of the clipper and began to perfect its work.
“You know, I kind of admire the Dark queen, this particular one, anyway. In some ways she reminds me of our Mistress—the ruthlessness, the pride, the natural air of command. She’s a ruler, through and through; doesn’t take orders, that one. But in all other ways, Jade Cicada is a different animal altogether. I can’t put my finger on it, but she makes me feel…”
The Creature paused in its rather peaceful, menial task and twirled its hand this way and that, looking for the right words.
“She makes me wish I weren’t batting for the opposing team,” it finished, then promptly shrugged.
“What about you, gorgeous one?” it asked of the silent soldier.
“Do you admire your queen too? Little Sophia who’s got all her memories back? She’s changed from what you knew of her,” it told the warrior.
“She’s not entirely like the one you knew before either. She’s a blend of everything she was and is, all the lives she’s lived. Quite fascinating, actually, to watch her. She’s become…a lot more interesting. Unpredictable.”
It leaned in closely until its lips brushed the male’s ear.
“How would you feel if I told you that I’ll be the one beside her in the days and nights to come while you lie here like an empty, useless husk? I’d be by her side like I used to be way back when.”
The Creature noticed in fascination as a slight tremor pulsed through the male’s body, the first sign of life in many months.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” it continued, patting the male’s hand almost affectionately.
“I was in a different form, then. She loved me, you know. And she’ll learn to love me again while you’re asleep.”
The table rattled as the male shook from head to toe as if in the fit of a seizure.
The Creature watched unblinkingly, a sadistic twist on its mouth, as the male began to foam at the mouth, his lungs likely filling with fluids as he struggled to breathe.
The Creature waited until the last possible second to turn a dial on the machine nearby, the one that kept the warrior alive.
Immediately, the male’s seizure subsided to small quivers and quakes, and finally, to the deep rises and falls of his chest, his breathing controlled once more.
The Creature stood and placed its long-fingered hands on the warrior’s chest, and the thick muscles jumped reflexively beneath its touch.
“It’s amazing how you manage to keep muscle tone when you’ve been lying here like a limp stick for months,” the Creature muttered.
“Must be that powerful Pure blood running through your veins.”
It smoothed one palm over the male’s feebly beating heart, which immediately sped up in tempo, as if it had incited the warrior’s wrath with its touch.
“Poor you,” the Creature crooned.
“Torn between life and death. If you live, you’ll continue to be a mindless, soul-less pawn used by me and our Mistress. If you die, who will protect your dearest Sophia?”
The Creature’s upper lip peeled back to reveal two sharp fangs, ready to penetrate a thick, juicy vein.
“But this is your fate, Dalair Al Amirah. You might as well accept it. You are doomed to be her downfall no matter the time or place. No matter how you try, you will never be able to save her.”
With those ominous words, the Creature struck.
And the warrior, whose body was indeed a paralyzed husk, still felt and heard everything in the suffocating darkness.
His soul howled in fury and pain at the Creature’s taunts.
In that moment, the warrior chose life.
No matter what it took, he’d find a way to protect Sophia from their enemies’ schemes.
Even if he lost her forever.
*** *** *** ***
When Jade awoke, it was morning.
She could tell from the way her body chemistry vibrated with a different hum, the one that synchronized with Seth’s, given the amount of Pure blood she’d consumed over the past few days.
“How long was I asleep?” she asked drowsily, burrowing deeper into his body, her arms tightening around his waist as they lay on their sides facing each other.
“Over twenty-four hours,” was his raspy reply, his own voice laden with exhaustion and the remaining vestiges of slumber.
“What?!”
Jade abruptly raised her head, but he gently pushed her back down, laying a heavy arm around her torso and holding her cheek in his calloused palm.
“But that means I only have what? Three days left? I can’t believe I wasted so much time!”
She didn’t bother to hide her panic, pushing at his chest with one hand to loosen his hold.
“Be still, my lady,” he murmured, exerting more pressure with his arm.
“We n
eeded to rest. It was not time wasted. I have never left you all this while. I am still inside you now.”
He demonstrated by flexing his hips subtly, reminding her that he was indeed still clutched greedily inside of her, his undying erection pulsing pleasurably deep against her core.
“But I don’t want to miss anything,” she grouched, her hand moving from his chest to the perfect hard globe of his ass, trying to push him even deeper into her.
He obliged and shifted until he was lying mostly on top of her, his penetration the fullest at this angle, his luxurious weight making her all but purr with delicious bliss.
“You won’t,” he said. “I am with you even in your dreams.”
She looked up into his beautiful gray eyes and considered his words.
She didn’t recall what she dreamed about, but she did have the notion that he’d been with her all along, when she needed him the most.
“Only for three more days,” she whispered, a flood of longing and despair crashing through her, clogging her throat.
He didn’t reply.
Instead, he covered her mouth with his in a chaste, tender kiss.
When she tried to push for more, her hand clawing into the satiny skin of his gluteus, he pulled back.
For long moments, he simply stared into her eyes, searching.
She wondered what he was looking for.
“Have your eyes always been blue?” he asked finally, rubbing a thumb across her long, straight lashes.
She shook her head.
“They were brown when I was human, and when I was a Pure One. After I drowned and was reborn as a vampire, they suddenly turned blue. Maybe it was the death by water that did it.”
She talked about her own terrible death as if it was nothing, as if the only impact on her was the change in the color of her eyes.
“You weren’t given the choice to become a vampire?” he asked, “you were simply reborn?”
She nodded.
“Whatever the Goddess or Dark Goddess wanted from me, eternal death was apparently not it. I’m glad I was reborn as a vampire. I finally have all the power I could ever want. Total freedom. No inhibitions.”
She arched up and dragged the tips of her generous breasts against his chest in a voluptuous undulation, taking the opportunity to lick her tongue from the base of his throat to the tip of his chin.
