“There are other teachers,” she said before his words could wear her down. “Great masters who can help you discipline mind and body without the temptation.”
She hated the way she was speaking to him, especially when nothing she said baited him, and he continued to answer her calmly, with that kindness in his tone.
“There is no other teacher for me but you.”
“Ach!” She shot up from her chair and strode to the window. “Has anyone ever told you how maddeningly stubborn you are?”
To her surprise he chuckled. “Yes. My teacher told me.”
Lily balled her hands into fists, resisting the urge to smile. She forced her mouth to remain in a grim line, something she’d done often as a little girl. When she was angry, she would fight against the impulse to laugh or smile at anything her nursemaid said in an attempt to lighten her charge’s mood. She sighed.
“As I said, Lily, if you truly, in your heart, wish me to leave, I will.”
She drew in a deep breath. “I wish, truthfully, to apologize for something I said yesterday.”
She felt his yang shift; like a cloud it surrounded her.
“There is nothing for which to apologize, mistress.”
“Just Lily…please. And yes, there is something. I shouldn’t have suggested you go to Plum House. It was an insult, and I’m sorry.”
He bowed his head. “If you feel that way, then you’re forgiven.”
As usual, his humility softened her yin. Turning slightly, she pretended to be in thought when really, she was furtively experiencing her gratitude for his quiet presence. “That’s all I needed to say. Thank you.”
He lifted his gaze to hers and nodded. “I need to fix a leak in the roof of the main hall now.”
Lily turned to detain him, but he’d already gone. She swallowed the disappointment she felt. Even debating with him had made her feel alive in a way she hadn’t for so long.
Perhaps she shouldn’t be so glad he hadn’t left.
But she was.
Chapter Twelve
The white must seek the green, when fusing the yellow is seen. The Tigress must seek the Dragon, when uniting the illumination is seen.
‑‑ Madame Lin from The White Tigress Manual
Tucked in the alleyway behind Plum House, Zao opened the vial of chicken’s blood he’d brought with him and poured it on his silk caftan. There was no fear of running into the Tibetan at the door, for several nights of spying had proven a large mortal man guarded the entryway instead.
Zao smeared more blood on his face, threw the vial aside, and then mussed his hair, ripped his clothes. With a knife, he lacerated his own skin, on his arms and chest, anywhere that would make him a convincing victim of either thugs or the indecent White Lotus Sect, notorious for attacking anyone they believed to be supportive of the foreign presence of the white ghost people in China.
Making certain his cuts were deep enough not to seal up too quickly, he staggered out into the main thoroughfare, moaning and clutching his chest. He made certain to fall into a heap just beyond the doorway of Plum House.
Eyes closed, it was a mere few seconds before the sounds of women’s cries poured from the doorway and surrounded him. He kept his eyes closed and groaned, the sound of a man in intense pain.
“We have to bring him to the compound. My herbs are there to treat him,” one woman said. “Fen Chow, carry him, please.”
“Yes, Fei Liu.” A pair of large hands hoisted Zao up.
“Careful, you’ll hurt him worse. The poor man.”
Zao felt himself being carried and played up the role of dying victim by groaning and letting his body go limp. Deep down, he felt an ache in a place he thought he no longer had and cursed his own weakness. As a mortal, he’d been a fighter, eager for glory and strength. Now his greed had come back to haunt him. Such deceit of these unsuspecting people was wrong…worse because of what he would do to them next. He had truly become a demon of the worst kind. And not because Wei Yen had made him one of the undead.
But because he would stop at nothing to please her.
* * * * *
They were grabbing her again. Her mother and auntie held her small body in tight grips. She writhed and screamed, desperate to get away from them. If they had their way with her feet, she’d be in pain, unable to walk properly for the rest of her life.
A hand pulled off one of her slippers and a knife sliced into her foot. Lily screamed and twisted. Another arm gripped her across her chest, holding her shoulder tight. Lily clamped down on that arm with her teeth.
Her auntie screamed and let her go. Lily twisted her legs from her mother’s grip and fell to the floor. She scrambled to her feet and ran.
When she crossed the threshold, she found herself grown up. Still in her family home, she sprinted across the courtyard sobbing. A single door lay ahead of her. She burst through the door into a shadowy room. A sudden cloud of peace surrounded her.
Tenzin. He was there on the bed, his eyes closed. He wore only a golden robe, and his strong legs were folded in lotus posture. He opened his eyes and held his arms out to her.
She sprang forward and collapsed in his arms. He pulled her close, and she curled up as if she were still small and sobbed into his robe. He simply held her and let her cry.
When she finally looked up, he was gazing at her, a peaceful smile curving his full lips. Peace flooded her. Her heart felt so full in a way it never had before. Bursting with gratitude, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.
Ohhh, his lips were so soft and his love for her came through in the gentle way he kissed her back…
“Mmm.” The gentle vibration of sound made her eyes flutter open. The sound that woke her had issued from her own throat. Something soft pressed to her lips. Gentle hands cradled her back.
What? Not again!
Terror seized her, and she scrambled back, feeling the soles of her feet hit something hard, then her bottom hit the stone floor. Pain flashed through her behind. She stared up, blinking.
“Lily, are you all right?” Tenzin’s face hovered over her in the grayish light. He reached out a hand.
“You’re in my room again.” Something wet was on her cheek. She brushed the heel of her hand over her skin. She’d been crying.
“No. I wouldn’t do that.” His hand remained outstretched, but she stayed where she was and looked around. Moonlight filtered through the carved screen window, casting shadows on a small table with one chair and a narrow cot.
“You’re in my room, Lily.”
She blinked again. “How did I…?” Dream and reality felt blurred. Her stomach and head reeled.
Strong hands closed around her arms and lifted her. The softness of the bed met her bottom, and Tenzin lowered her gently down. “You were dreaming.”
She looked at him. Tears clung to her eyelashes, and she blinked them away. The moisture made her remember her dream. “I…I’m sorry. I must have walked in my sleep.”
“It’s all right. Would you like a drink of water?”
She shook her head. It was wrong to be here in Tenzin’s room. He could see she’d been crying. She’d walked in her sleep. So un-Tigress-like. Her cheeks burned with the humiliation. She wanted to get up and run out, back to her room.
So why did she remain seated, as if someone had bolted her to the bed?
Tenzin’s quiet presence hovered near her. Not close enough to heat her personal space with his yang, but enough that she could hear his gentle breathing and sense his concern.
She released a long breath and let her shoulders sag. “I apologize.”
“It’s all right, Lily. Just rest.”
The kindness in his tone almost brought forth fresh tears. She glanced at him then away. These were not the words of a man who would deliberately violate her.
She’d fallen asleep in her own bed and therefore had come here of her own volition. There was no doubt of that. For several days now, she’d seen Tenzin only out in the courtyard,
doing chores. He hadn’t been in her room since…A strange shiver passed suddenly up her spine. She looked up. “Tenzin, that night when you…when we…please, tell me what happened.”
He cleared his throat and looked away, averting Lily’s gaze. Suddenly he rose from the edge of the bed and paced to the window. The moonlight outlined his strong body, bare-chested with only a pair of baggy, drawstring trousers covering the lower half of his physique.
“When I returned from Plum House, I wanted so badly to see you. I stood outside your room.” He half-turned, showing her his soft, concerned expression. “I heard you call out my name. I thought perhaps you were in distress. But when I found you, you were…naked, in the throes of a dream.” He looked down and sighed. “I should have left right then. I couldn’t, Lily. You were so…” He swallowed, and she saw the muscles of his throat work. “…beautiful. I could only stand there and look at you. I…knelt down at your bedside. You…reached out and pulled me onto the bed.”
A chill passed along Lily’s arms and up her spine. She covered her face with one hand.
Suddenly Tenzin was on his knees, his hands over her free hand. “Lily, I swear to you I was wrong. I should have left. Your eyes opened, and I thought you were awake. I should have known better.” He bent over and pressed his forehead to her hand.
Lily peeked between her fingers at his bent head. She’d often sleepwalked from the youngest age, waking in the morning in the kitchen or somewhere in the courtyard, not knowing how she’d gotten there. Her mother had stories of coming to her room at night and having conversations with her that Lily had thought she’d dreamed. Oh dear.
Tenzin’s breathing rasped harshly through the small quiet room. Here she’d accused him of violating her when she’d been the one who’d pulled him onto her while in the midst of an erotic dream about him. If there was fault in this situation, it certainly didn’t lie with Tenzin.
Unthinking, she reached out and caressed his head. He didn’t look up, but a surge of breath escaped him, and he leaned more firmly onto her hand. She said nothing and continued to stroke his head. “Tenzin, I can never apologize enough to you for what I believed.”
He looked up and she read the denial in his eyes, glistening with unshed tears. “I should have ‑‑”
“Don’t say anything.” Her voice had fallen to a near whisper. “I was wrong. Let me apologize.” She reached out and cupped his cheek. The way his eyes shone onto her made her yin soften. A gentle sigh shuddered through her. One of her teachers had once told her that dreams were often the mind’s way of telling the soul its forbidden wishes and desires. After two dreams that had thrown her into Tenzin’s arms…and more…perhaps her mind was trying to tell her the same thing.
Perhaps her relationship with Tenzin wasn’t merely about attaining the immortality of her soul that would match the immortality of her body. A flutter erupted in the pit of her stomach.
Tenzin’s hand closed gently over hers. Almost imperceptibly, his thumb brushed over her skin. The whisper of touch sent a pleasant ripple through her. “Come sit on the bed,” she said softly. “It’s wrong for you always to kneel before me.”
Wordlessly, Tenzin rose and settled down next to her. He sat closer, and she felt the low vibration of his yang. To her surprise, he reached up and touched her cheek. His fingers stroked her skin with a reverent hush.
She looked down, loving his touch but afraid to tell him so. “I thought you’d left the following morning. I sent for you, but you weren’t to be found.” She heard the tremor in her own voice.
His hand slipped from her cheek. “I wouldn’t leave you. I was ashamed and distressed so I went wandering through the city.” He cleared his throat softly. “I…came upon a young man. He was dying. I stayed with him to…say prayers for his soul.”
Lily stared at him. The moonlight cast his face in shadows, a striking contrast of sharp cheekbones, long brush-like lashes and soft lips. The sight made her yin soften again.
“Every night I have these nightmares,” she whispered. “They torment me.” Her heartbeat sped up. “With the exception of my dream about you. That was the first in so long that was pleasant. The other ones, though…they haunt me.”
“I know.” He turned, causing the shadows to shift and she sensed his hesitation, as if he were about to say something that would anger her. “I…see your dreams, Lily.”
Her face burned suddenly with her shame. “What…do you see?” No one had ever been privy to her secret fears, not even Fei Liu, her dearest student.
“I’m sorry. I beg you, don’t be angry. I don’t do it on purpose. We’re…connected…in our hearts.” He said the last word more slowly, his eyes scanning hers as if for her reaction.
Lily covered her face with her hand. “I’m not angry…I’m…” Relieved. She was relieved. Someone…Tenzin, knew of her past and didn’t judge her. She felt a hand pass gently over her hair. The gesture was so tender, so sweet, she uncovered her face and looked at him with a tiny smile.
“How did you escape…him, Lily?” Tenzin’s gentle voice cut through her shame as his fingers recommenced their soft strokes against her forehead. The compassion with which he asked the question made it impossible not to answer.
Just before she spoke, Tenzin touched her hand. As before, he held it gently and brushed his thumb back and forth across the soft flesh of her palm.
She pulled in a deep breath. Never had she spoken to another soul of her childhood, not even to Master Wong in the years she’d been his pupil. She’d trusted Master Wong with her life, but not with her soul.
Was this possible? Did she really trust Tenzin with her soul? With her heart? Perhaps she was simply desperate to unburden herself, to cleanse her spirit through admission. However, she couldn’t ignore the reality that it was Tenzin who’d been fated to hear her story.
“My father sold me to Xu Yu because my feet could not be bound, as you saw in my dreams.”
“Yes.”
“My father said he would not allow a woman in his household to shame him so. Xu Yu was an older man with several wives. He was as physically big and powerful as he was financially. He was a buyer of my father’s silks. Father was relieved that a man would take a woman whose feet were unbound and who did not care that she’d put a blot on her father’s name.” She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain, the agony of her father’s hatred and shame.
Tenzin squeezed her hand. The tiny movement filled her with a sense of safety.
“My father kept me at home until I was twelve. That’s when Xu Yu offered to buy me. For several years, Xu Yu didn’t…didn’t touch me. But then, when I was fifteen he…took me.” She closed her eyes against the agony. In that moment, she couldn’t consider going on. But then Tenzin laced his fingers with hers, and she felt bolstered. “He raped me. Every night.”
“Lily.” Tenzin’s whisper was full of compassion. His fingertips squeezed her shoulder. It was as if he experienced her pain and shame with her. Could there really be a connection between the two of them as he claimed?
She took a shuddering breath. She’d gone this far and though the pain resurged, clawed at her heart, she felt a bit freer. “Xu Yu fed on me as well. He was a vampire.” She opened her eyes to see Tenzin’s reaction. He nodded, but his face was turned, shadowed, and she could not see his expression. His hand, however, remained gently entwined with hers. “He didn’t suck enough of my blood to kill me or make me one of his kind, but enough to make me hate him.”
“How did you get away from him?” Tenzin’s voice was heavy, thick with an emotion that conveyed to her the agony he felt from hearing her story.
“A servant in the house took pity on me. She was an older woman. She said she had seen so many helpless young victims of his. One day, after Xu Yu had just left me, she gave me a knife and told me what to do. She told me she’d once slain many vampires and described to me the exact spot on their bodies that would let them die if stabbed. When she prepared me for his visit the next nig
ht, she made my bonds looser so that I could pull them easily away and slay him as he fed on me.” Lily winced at the image her words conjured.
“I ran away to the north, to Laoxin. A woman there took me in and taught me the way of the White Tigress. I had never heard of this path, but when she told me that it was a way to control sexuality, to control the life force of both myself and any man I came into contact with, I became her willing student. She told me I would never have to suffer a man’s penetration again if I didn’t wish it. I felt empowered, in control, and believed I would never have to fear again what had been done to me.”
She glanced at Tenzin again. He’d tilted his face slightly more toward her, and she sensed that he listened with careful attention even though his eyes reflected deep sadness.
She looked down at their joined hands. The sight brought a sweet ache. “When my family died,” she continued softly, “I returned here, to my home, and made it into this shelter for women. I vowed to continue the work of the White Tigress to help girls who had been harmed the way I had been at the hands of men.”
She fell silent and took a deep breath. Although she felt cleansed, she tensed, waiting for Tenzin to slip his hand from hers and coil back in horror. A tiny corner of her mind knew this was irrational, yet she felt it just the same. When she dared a glance at his face, her mouth dropped slightly open.
A tear rolled down Tenzin’s cheek. He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed them softly into her skin. His eyes closed, he nuzzled her hand with a tenderness that intensified the sweet ache.
Finally, he lowered their joined hands and gazed at her. The moonlight in the room had brightened, and Lily could see the track the teardrop had left on his smooth cheek.
“It’s a wonder you don’t hate men altogether,” he said softly. “But I haven’t seen you ill-treat any of the men you bring to this place. They are housed, fed, and clothed. They…perform services for you, but are not forced into doing so, as far as I can discern.”
“You are right. No man is forced into a sexual act. Their services are freely given. Some pay for a Tigress to pleasure them, a few wish for training as a Jade Dragon. Anyone in need is free to come and go as he or she wishes. This is a school, a safe haven, not a prison.” Lily realized she had been gripping Tenzin’s hand all this time. She loosened her hold. “I’m sorry.”
Ace in the Hole Page 13
