There were so many questions he wanted to ask, so much he wanted to say.
Instead he fell asleep in her arms as nightmare’s grip slowly faded away.
Alex smiled when warm fingertips brushed his cheek with the first rays of the morning sun.
“Good morning, hero,” said a voice both warm and throaty, and Alex couldn’t help grinning back at that beautiful smile.
“Good morning, yourself,” he said. He looked around, noting the bed of furs he slept on, a finely made wooden table upon which were countless wax paper packets of dried herbs, and a mortar and pestle. He couldn’t help smiling at the primitive apothecary setup. Then he immediately winced, realizing where he must be.
Sure enough, when he turned about, he noticed where he had smashed a great big hole in Ying Tai’s house, eyes widening to see thick bark and wood replaced by a meshwork of fresh green shoots.
Almost as if... no, definitely as if the tree saw the home as an extension of itself and was actively seeking to heal it.
Alex’s jaw dropped. For a second, he was breathless with wonder, witnessing natural magic far different from the cultivation gifts of flame and wickedly deadly martial arts that had comprised most of his experience with mystic arts as a cultivator. What he was witnessing now was far closer to the classic western ideals of druidic magic than anything he had seen in this world up to now.
But looking at the beautiful woman gazing so solemnly back at him, her features an exotic blend of Chinese and European, possessing high cheekbones, full lips, and delicately arched brows with eyes a wondrous shade of green, perfectly framed by rich crimson tresses that glittered like rubies in the morning light, he was forced to concede that this world was full of mysteries he had only begun to explore.
Her exhausted smile flushed with a tinge of something more. “Do I meet with your approval, hero?”
Alex flushed and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, it’s just...”
She gave a curious tilt of her head. “Surely you have mixed-blood families in your own settlement?”
Alex chuckled softly at that. “Yeah, that’s complicated, but the short answer is yes. I’m just, well, surprised.”
“How so?” she asked, unselfconsciously sitting herself next to him, soft delicate fingers clasping his own. Such a contrast, he thought, hardly recognizing his own roughened hands with their enlarged knuckles and strike points hardened by callouses. Absolutely nothing like the hands of the semi-spoiled good-natured kid who never truly knew what it meant to be forced to fight for absolutely everything he could get in this life.
Until now.
The hands of a killer.
But considering the way Ying Tai was holding his palm, pressing it against her cheek as she gazed at him so intently, maybe the hands of a hero as well.
Broken cords of Karma or no, he could always choose to follow the righteous path, and people could like him for the person he was, for how memory of his deeds echoed in their souls, no matter how cords of brilliant virtue or gloomy betrayal shone or no.
Just like on Earth.
He did not expect the taste of Ying Tai’s kiss, so like strawberries and mint, to inflame him with desire blazing and roaring through his soul, her breathless chuckle as he swept her into his embrace a gentle reminder to beware of his inhuman strength as he forgot who and what he was for a timeless moment, just savoring the fierce joy of losing himself in the passionate embrace of someone as desperate to forget the tumult of their life as much as he was.
For a moment, he was a seventeen-year-old all-star, feverishly making out with the beautiful cheerleader who had somehow stolen his heart.
Before feeling a sudden painful pressure that instantly froze him a heartbeat from doing the irrevocable, even as Ying Tai’s captivating gaze begged him to do just that.
Forbidden arts.
Slowly mastering techniques that could destroy him as easily as anyone who fought him, dare he put any pressure at all on a Dantian already forced into a strange, deadly alignment.
Absolutely perfect for cleaving through even an arrogant Silver’s off-handed wards who had so foolishly underestimated the cold-eyed Ruidian who dared the forbidden, cutting through his former geography and political science professor with all the force and fury of a tsunami.
And should Alex do anything but flinch and abruptly pull away, feeling the sting of Ying Tai’s hurt gaze burning his back, scorching his soul, those same waves would crash through him, destroying him more thoroughly than any of his enemy’s deadly cards, so eager to damn his soul.
For long moments he clawed the furs, panting with a painful, feral hunger, desperate to hunt, to flee, to surrender to the passions inflaming his soul.
“Why?” A quiet word. A bit sad, a bit forlorn. Mostly hurt. Confused.
With that single word she made it clear she knew he knew what it meant to love a woman, that he had accepted her as the single mother she was, had risked his life to save her, had already touched her heart, vicious killer that he might be... only for him to abruptly turn away.
He swallowed, gasping, forcing the words out.
“I learned a forbidden technique. For that power, I must pay a price.”
“I see.” Soft words said with a sigh that scorched his heart.
“Silver Swan channels the power of the storm, the sea, and winding rivers, all at once. But it does something to your Lower Dantian. Shifts it to better facilitate a killing technique maybe closer to Gold than Silver... and I dared to learn it as a Basic cultivator.”
“So, you really are a Ruidian Cultivator,” she said. “Of course, what else could you be? But...”
“It’s something else to hear me actually admit it.”
He could sense her nod. “Exactly.”
“Can I tell you a secret?”
She chuckled ruefully. “Please tell me something, so I don’t feel quite so foolish.”
Alex grinned at that. “You have nothing to feel foolish about at all. Believe me, the only fool in this room is one who turned down the strikingly beautiful woman who was kind enough to comfort him when he was carrying on like an idiot.”
A warm hand squeezed his shoulder. “You’re not an idiot, Alex. Just a man who came to the aid of a desperate village in its time of greatest peril.”
He gasped when warm arms wrapped around his naked torso. “A hero to whom I will always be grateful. For the sake of my own life, my daughter’s life, my village.”
Alex swallowed. “Ying Tai...”
He heard her sigh, feeling warm lips nibble on his shoulder blades. “Are you truly oathbound to touch no woman?”
He jerked a nod. “A virgin I must stay until I’ve broken through to Silver, at the very least.”
A rueful chuckle and he shuddered, feeling her hot breath caress his ear, his tingling nerves suddenly feeling absolutely everything as soft warm lips caressed and nibbled his lobe.
“Then I fear my hero might be fibbing just a tad. I saw the way you looked into my eyes. And the way you held me, in a grip tight and sure. You’re no virgin, hero. No more than I.”
Alex swallowed, flashing a rueful smile.
“I am in this life, Ying Tai. That much is true.”
She froze, her captivating fragrance and the warmth of her presence immediately fading as she stepped back. “A reborn soul.”
“Pretty much.”
She sighed, quickly putting on her qipao, adorned with so many ribbons of forest green and brown, and Alex felt his cheeks blaze anew, only now truly appreciating how close he had come to jeopardizing absolutely everything.
As much as he would have adored the passion they would have shared, desperate for a connection with someone, the escape into warmth and tenderness and someone holding them through the storms of their lives that they both desperately craved.
“What happened?”
He smiled at her words, sensing her gentle curiosity.
“My body was riddled with tumors, and I was frozen alive. Then
I woke up in the bowels of a ship, looking no older than I do now. Feeling no older than I do now, for all that my body was then as fragile as any mortal’s.”
“Wait. So, you’re saying you really are just a youth just on the cusp of adulthood, even though this is your second life?”
Alex nodded. “Second life, or one of dozens. It amounts to the same thing. I wake up as an eighteen-year-old, or close enough to it, with the memories of my first life and my first night in this world, and then, well, I guess it’s a fresh clean slate every time.”
She gave a sympathetic shake of her head, Alex forcing himself to look her way and resist acting like a hungry fool. “It sounds like the fates enjoyed playing their tricks on you.” She flashed a teasing grin. “Or maybe you’re just a pawn of the gods, like all the heroes in the tales.”
Alex chuckled at that. “Oh, I wouldn’t be surprised a bit if that were the case,” he assured. “Though we’re not pawns so much as chips of ivory and jade upon a game board as vast as the entire planet, with gods flipping the cards of fate to bless or damn any piece that catches their gaze.”
Alex clenched his jaw, his sky-blue eyes locking with her own. “Pray your own piece never does.”
Ying Tai paled and looked away. “We have enough troubles with the depredations of man. I pray my tribe never catches the attention of the gods above. I doubt any of us would even survive.”
“Ying Tai, I’ve been meaning to ask. How is your village, now that...?”
“Now that those damned monsters are dead? And you, our hero, resting in my bed, just one act of weakness away from claiming my heart?”
Alex flushed and lowered his gaze, recalling once more how much passion and practicality blended together in this world, especially amongst the peoples surviving its most perilous outskirts. To embrace sweetest passion from unexpected places, understanding the promise implicit in those first passionate kisses.
A woman who would love and cherish you, and care for the children you gave her.
A family you would protect and call your own, through thick and thin.
She sighed. “We lost ten brave souls, and nearly our entire village. Had you not arrived when you had, before that monster could fully ascend, finding black transcendence in flaying us with flame, leaving a dozen women and children savagely scarred...” She wiped away her bitter tears. “But you did. You came just when we needed a hero, answering my desperate prayer to the forest whose bosom we live within.”
Alex couldn’t help smirking at that, hardly feeling like he was the forest’s messenger.
But what had compelled him to race through each day, springing through the trees at a constant pace? Forever savoring the wonders of this vast, majestic forest. Never staying in one place for longer than it took to eat his kill or sleep through the night. Always pressing on. As if compelled by… something. Until he finally caught wind of her captivating voice and raced through the forest like never before.
“And, much to our heartfelt relief, our men had returned from the trade city early, having netted record profits and purchased what supplies we needed to see us through the seasons ahead.”
Alex nodded in agreement, then frowned. “It’s damn lucky they came when they did. But your men don’t leave on trade expeditions that often, do they?”
Ying Tai solemnly shook her head. “No more than twice a year.”
“Then how did the slavers know to attack precisely when they did?”
Ying’s captivating gaze widened. “And how did they make their way so expertly through our maze of hedges and sharpest thorn? No wandering merchant, road-weary traveler who lost his way, or scout for any raiding party ever did so before. So how did those monsters now nourishing our home manage that feat?”
It was all Alex could do to not brush those crimson curls back and kiss her with a drowning man’s passion, cultivation base be damned.
He swallowed and averted his gaze. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
She gave a thoughtful frown, biting her finger in a way Alex found impossibly seductive.
And he didn’t miss the way her qipao had slipped to reveal those creamy shoulders, and a hint of the sensual secrets the fabric was only holding onto because the beautiful woman had been gifted in ways sure to make any suckling infant happy.
“Either someone in our community betrayed us, or someone in the city.”
Alex swallowed. “We’re pretty far away from the major metropolises of ten million or more souls, right? You mean a small trade city like Erjizhen?”
Ying Tai frowned. “I’ve heard of that city. They have a powerful administrator with connections to Baidushi proper there, don’t they?”
Alex blinked. “It’s not Erjizhen? It’s another city, then?”
She chuckled throatily. “If memory serves, the city you’re talking about is nearly three hundred miles away, Alex.”
He blinked at that number. Three hundred miles? Had he really traveled so far? And in a straight line? He shook his head, truly confused. For all that every day had passed by in a pleasant blur, a sort of moving meditation, he realized that he always had been constantly in motion. For all that he’d embraced the savage joy of the hunt upon each day’s dusk, every morning he’d get up, eager for nothing so much as seeing what lay beyond the horizon, the brilliant sun warming his left shoulder where it seemed to belong, before caressing his right in a goodbye kiss every night.
The way he just knew it should be.
As he traveled to the capital city that was, in a sense, waiting for him still.
He suppressed a shiver, wondering just how much of a pawn of destiny he truly was, no matter how many cards his patron’s clan had thrown atop his piece in a fit of spite.
He sighed and shook his head, realizing it could just as easily have been whim, or perhaps the forest summoning him forth, knowing a champion would be needed, however many days he had traveled, springing from tree to tree like a chimpanzee or flying squirrel, exhilarating in the constant motion, never having felt so delightfully free as when he was one with the forest all around.
“Alex?”
“Yes?”
“What are you thinking?”
He shivered at the husky words, catching her warm gaze, knowing how effortless it would be to give in.
He had Rank 10 in a divine technique, and had reforged his peripheral meridians countless times, such that they were now stronger, not weaker, than they had ever been before.
But he was no fool to take unnecessary risks, straining his Lower Dantian as a whole.
Not when he might be fighting for his life against impossible odds at any moment.
He smiled, catching her gaze when he spoke. “Regretting more than ever before the fact that it might be years before I hit Silver.”
She flashed a gentle smile. “I understand very few ever do.”
Alex nodded “One in a hundred thousand. At best. Probably rarer.”
She allowed her qipao to drop in a silken heap and step free, revealing a body stunning in its beauty. A mother she might be, but her body had the natural grace of a gymnast in her prime. “One in a hundred thousand odds are terribly steep, Alex. If you’re truly strong enough to achieve that goal, savoring a few kisses with a girl who hungers for your touch should be nothing in comparison.”
Alex barked with laughter. “You beautiful little minx, you!” His gaze turned apologetic, yet serious. “Ying Tai...”
She chuckled softly, robing herself once more. “I know, Alex. I was just teasing, I suppose.” She flashed a curious smile. “Would it really hurt you, Alex? Or just... slow down an advance very few can accomplish anyway?”
Alex sighed. “Truth is, I don’t know. But if I were to give in...”
“And truly hurt yourself? All teasing aside, Alex, I would never forgive myself if I did that to you after all you’ve done for me and mine.” She chuckled throatily. “I guess you can see this as a test you passed.” She flashed an arch smile. “Just promise me that befo
re you give in to some silly thing you meet at a wine house, you won’t surrender your cultivation base you’re fighting so hard for, so cheaply.”
A lacquered fingertip gently caressed his lips. “You can always come back to me, if you find yourself unable to endure, and I’ll fill your heart with love and our home with children you’ll be proud to call your own.”
Alex blinked and flushed, incredibly flattered, and having no idea what to say.
Her smile grew impish. “And even if you did find yourself falling, I can show you paths to power that have nothing to do with any cultivation base or the jewel on my father’s brow, and everything to do with woodland communion, a connection I sense you’re already starting to develop.”
Alex swallowed, finally bowing his head. “Thank you, Ying Tai. I will remember your words, and your kindness.” He squeezed her hand, softly kissing her cheek. “I hope you and Mie Tai can look forward to many happy and healthy years free of fear or hardship.”
Struck by sudden inspiration, he slowly unwound his leather choker, earning a bemused smile from the young woman before her eyes suddenly widened at the prizes he plucked free of his gorget and placed in her hand.
“Alex! I... this is a fortune!”
Alex nodded. “I know. Those five lesser beast cores will net you a spirit pearl, or handful of platinum. And don’t worry, they’re all fully juiced. I’ve only tapped into one that I’ve claimed, so far.”
She gave him a curious look at that, shaking her head in awe. “We’ve reached an accord with the forest and its predators. The trees are friendly, and the wild ones leave us completely alone in return for a winter tithe of choice roots and berries, as we have done since I was a little girl. But we’d never even think of hunting them. To invite their wrath... and spirit beasts are so much more cunning, fast, and tough than their mortal counterparts...”
She paled when Alex flashed his hunter’s smile. “It is they that learned to fear me, Ying Tai. And now that I think about it, maybe that’s the main reason why I was always heading north. It’s like they could sense with the death knell of one of their own that a new apex predator had arrived. And then they went from wild, boastful, and cocky, to furtive and cautious.”
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Redeemed: A LitRPG/Wuxian Novel - Book 5 Page 5
