Ace in the Hole

by Sedonia Guillone

  “Lily.” He whispered her name again.

  The gentle wave of sound caressed her on the inside, tenderly reminded her of how much she wanted him deep inside her. She rose up and shifted until the head of his dragon pushed her slick opening. Then she lowered herself down just a tiny bit…

  A tendril of fear curled through her chest. She reminded herself that she was truly in control. Tenzin would never hurt her. She felt certain of that. His hands pressed into her hips but there was not a hint of force, even though his yang must be causing pain by this time in his loins.

  She lowered herself a bit more. Her moist cave swallowed up Tenzin’s dragon past the head. She gazed down into his eyes. He watched her from under heavy lids. “Lily, you feel so good.”

  The raggedly whispered praise made her smile. She leaned over and kissed Tenzin’s lips. The movement caused her hips to shift down, and his dragon farther slid in. The thrust of hard heat in her cave made her gasp. Even though her inner channel was tight from years of Tigress exercises, the slickness of her yin, and the swollen openness swallowed him up to the root.

  He grasped her arms, and his eyes flew open. “Did I hurt you?”

  She stared down at him. Pleasure tingled in her sex. She squeezed her lower muscles, and his breath caught. “Certainly not,” she whispered.

  Before he could answer, she rocked her hips. The way his eyes rolled back in his head and his grasp on her arms pleased her to no end. “Lily.” Her name came out in a strangled whisper. His yang flooded him. The heated scent of his yang filled her nostrils. This force was rendering him immobile, unable to do anything but lay there, sheathed deeply inside her and accept the massage of her inner walls on his shaft.

  She began a rhythm, an even tempo, rising on her knees and shifting forward against his dragon. Each rock forward made his dragon lick at her most sensitive spots, places she’d long forgotten, even when she used her own fingers to stir her yin.

  She moved a bit faster. Each rub of his shaft against her yin pearl heightened the blaze, the warm rumbling of enjoyment deep in her woman’s cave. Her mind softened, quieted, and with her eyes closed, she saw only soft clouds.

  She was floating, lost in the sheer pleasure of Tenzin’s male scent, the hardness of his dragon inside her, his gentle caress on her hips. A warm flush of yin spread through her chest.

  Another figured appeared in the clouds. A beautiful face with huge dark eyes.

  Lily’s breath caught. Kwan Yin, the goddess of compassion was looking at her. Lily felt tears rush to her eyes. “Am I in Heaven?” she asked the beautiful, peaceful face.

  The goddess laughed softly. “You most certainly are. And so is he.”

  Lily turned and saw Tenzin. He stood next to her smiling. Love filled his gaze. Peace and compassion radiated in golden rays all around her. Lily felt love from herself and for herself that she’d never experienced in her entire life.

  She reached out toward Tenzin. His hand came up to link with hers ‑‑

  Yank! Lily felt herself falling. The clouds vanished, replaced by blackness and the piercing sounds of a woman’s screams.

  Something hard and warm came up underneath her. She opened her eyes, blinked. The screams continued.

  She sat up, feeling pressure between her thighs. Tenzin. She was hunched over him. Her legs straddled his hips, and a heated pressure swelled in her cave. He was still buried deep inside her.

  His eyes too were wide, dazed. Then she remembered. Heaven. Kwan Yin. Tenzin had been there and had reached for Lily just when the screams began. He must have dropped from Heaven at the same moment she had.

  Another scream ripped through the dawn. “Help!”

  She recognized the terror-stricken voice. “Oh no! Fei Liu!” She vaulted off Tenzin, but he was as quick as she, rolling off the bed and reaching for his trousers even as she snatched up her nightgown.

  Fei Liu’s screams filled the air.

  Lily ran toward the sound. Women poured from the various rooms, clutching their wraps. Fen Chow and several other women emerged from the main hall. Tenzin passed her, sprinting in the direction of Fei Liu’s quarters, and barged through the swinging doors of the chamber.

  Lily ran in behind him. And froze.

  A large figure hunched over Fei Liu, pinning her to her mattress. Her slim arms and legs flailed in her vain struggle to escape.

  “Get off her!” Lily screamed and lunged, stopped by a firm hand. Tenzin.

  The creature turned. Blood stained its face and vest. Its dark eyes too, glowed with an unearthly light. Lily saw its gaze lock with Tenzin’s.

  In a flash, Tenzin glided across the room, grabbed hold of the creature, and hauled it so hard it sailed through the air and hit the wall. Plaster and wall hangings cascaded down with its fall.

  The demon rose up and launched its large body at Tenzin. It plowed into Tenzin who grabbed the creature and rolled with it. Tenzin ended up on top, pinning the vampire, much larger than himself, to the ground. Lily stared. Tenzin’s eyes glowed, and his lips were curled back, revealing a pair of sharp incisors. He looked up, eyes meeting with Lily’s. “Stay back,” he ordered.

  For an instant, his expression became apologetic, but then the vampire underneath him struggled to free itself. Tenzin’s pushed down on it. The muscles of his arms flexed with an iron strength that Lily had never guessed at. The demon cried out as if in pain and smoke curled from the points of contact of Tenzin’s hands with its flesh.

  Lily’s mouth dropped open. She stared at Tenzin, at his glowing eyes and bared fangs. Was this the same gentle, humble man who had been making love with her moments before?

  No. It couldn’t be. Her mind reeled. The gentle monk who’d gone onto his knees before her was a…a…

  Tenzin was a vampire.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Dragon peeks into the Tigress’s den.

  ‑‑ Madame Lin from The White Tigress Manual

  “Get out!” Tenzin said. His voice had taken on a deep, unearthly tone. Lily thought he’d spoken to her, but the eerie glow in his eyes was directed firmly toward the vampire underneath him.

  The vampire grunted in obvious pain as smoke continued to curl from the skin Tenzin touched. Tenzin rose to his feet, dragging the vampire up with him. Something about Tenzin’s grip seemed to drain the other’s strength, and the creature backed up swiftly.

  To Lily’s shock, Tenzin released the vampire’s arms. The creature bolted.

  Lily followed it to make sure it didn’t turn back around for Fei Liu, but the creature kept running, screaming all the while into the courtyard. It fell on its knees, flesh still smoking.

  The contact of sunlight with its skin made a sound like oil sizzling in a wok. Mouth of fangs wide open, it wailed until there was nothing left of it but a pile of ashes and torn silks in the middle of the cobbled courtyard.

  Lily stared at the wisps of smoke rising from the pile and swallowed past the dryness in her throat. Xu Yu had died much the same way under her slaying knife.

  A whimper pulled Lily from her frozen stare. Fei Liu! She ran back to the room.

  Tenzin knelt by the injured woman but Lily jostled him aside and leaned over her. “Fei Liu!”

  The poor woman was bloody. Puncture marks covered her throat. Her rasping breath was labored, and her eyes were half-closed.

  Hot tears rushed to Lily’s eyes “Fei Liu, I’ll help you.” She looked over her shoulder. “Jade!”

  Jade appeared in the doorway, face tearstained, bottom lip trembling violently. Behind Jade, Lily could hear the sniffles and whimpers of the other women. “Jade, bring my herbs and boil water. Now!”

  “Yes, Mistress Lily.” Jade disappeared, her sniffles echoing.

  A soft touch on Lily’s shoulder made her turn. She looked up to see Tenzin. His eyes still glowed. “Please, move away, Lily.”

  She glared at him, at the embers that were his eyes. “No,” she said and turned back to Fei Liu. The Tigress’s breath was rasping, a
nd her eyes stared out, glassy, unseeing. Lily ripped a strip of cloth from her nightgown and pressed it to Fei Liu’s wounds, hoping that the gentle pressure would be enough to stop the flow. “Fei Liu, fight, please.” She gave the order though she knew it was in vain. Lily smelled death hovering around Fei Liu and could hear the woman’s heartbeat in her own ears. The rhythm was slowing too rapidly.

  She reached up to smooth back her favorite Tigress’s mussed hair. Blood gushed from Fei Liu’s puncture wounds, and Lily could see she was almost dead. Herbs wouldn’t help, but she had to try.

  Lily shrank down, over Fei Liu. Grief wrung her heart, and mixed within that painful emotion was a stinging sense of betrayal. Tenzin had lied to her about what he was.

  “Lily.”

  She turned and narrowed her eyes at him. “What?”

  “I need to ensure that she’s prepared for her next embodiment,” he said softly. His voice, no longer gritty, resumed its smooth, kind tone. “Trust me, Lily. Please.”

  “Trust you?” Lily’s heart pounded. The pain felt almost too much to bear, losing her beloved Fei Liu and the one man in the world she thought she could trust, all in the space of a few heartbeats.

  Tenzin remained unmoving. The glow in his eyes, like jade fire, unnerved her. It made him seem so alien. “Lily, do you believe in your heart that I would hurt her?”

  A groan of pain pulled her attention to the dying woman. Fei Liu’s eyelids fluttered, and her heartbeat moved at a crawl. Lily’s mind clouded. Allow Tenzin to touch her? After he’d concealed his identity from her? And yet…

  Nothing made sense. The goddess of compassion Kwan Yin herself had smiled upon her union with Tenzin. He had been in Heaven beside her and had fallen at the same moment when Fei Liu screamed.

  “What are you going to do?” she whispered. The sound was a labor to make past the painful lump in her throat.

  Tenzin squeezed her shoulder gently. “I must make her dying moment peaceful.” He gazed into her eyes another moment. “Please, Lily. I beseech you. If you don’t move, I will need to thrall you. I don’t want to do that, but I will if I must.”

  Her heart squeezed. Truthfully, Fei Liu could not be hurt more than she already was. “Tenzin, if you harm her further, I’ll slay you.” Her own words made her wince, but she felt cornered.

  “If I harm her further,” Tenzin said softly, “I’ll want you to slay me.”

  Lily’s mouth dropped open. Fei Liu groaned. The agony in the sound urged Lily to scoot aside so that Tenzin could crouch by her. Just then, Jade appeared in the doorway with jars of herbs. Lily waved her back. She watched Tenzin kneel down by Fei Liu and smooth a gentle hand over her brow. He murmured a chant of some sort, but Lily didn’t recognize the language. Then he bent down and pressed his lips to Fei Liu’s neck.

  Lily caught her breath as Tenzin closed his lips over two of the punctures. She held one of Fei Liu’s hands between both of hers and rose up slightly, ready to attack Tenzin at the slightest sign of cruelty.

  Fei Liu released a soft sigh. The sound held such enjoyment in it that Lily stared. The dying woman’s dark eyelashes fluttered. She giggled softly. “Ohhh,” she murmured, sounding like a woman in the throes of passion. Her hand trembled a moment between Lily’s, and then went still again. Lifeless.

  Lily kept hold of Fei Liu’s hand. The woman had been her favorite, her loyal follower, and devotee of the Tigress path. Fei Liu’s quiet presence had brought Lily great comfort. Lily’s bottom lip trembled. An ache washed through her, and the world seemed the darkest it ever had.

  Tenzin swiped his tongue over Fei Liu’s wounds and sat up. Lily was horrified to see droplets of blood on his lips He didn’t appear to notice as he bowed his head and continued to chant, a deep rich sound that seemed to come from the deepest part of his soul.

  She peered down at Fei Liu. The dead woman wore a peaceful expression. Her lips were curved upward in a tiny smile. Aside from the blood staining her blouse and skin, she looked at rest. Before Tenzin had touched her, Fei Liu had most definitely been suffering horribly.

  Lily stole a look at Tenzin. All this time, she’d never once sensed that he could be a vampire. For a moment, she wondered if she’d just imagined the glow in his eyes and the way he’d frightened the murderous vampire by merely touching it. Maybe she’d imagined the way Tenzin had drunk Fei Liu’s blood.

  But no. When she glanced at him again, droplets of blood still clung to his full lips. His eyes were closed now, dark lashes resting on his high cheekbones. He’d pulled a string of beads from the pocket of his trousers and worked them, one by one, between the fingers of one hand.

  In the growing daylight, Lily watched the beads rotate smoothly between Tenzin’s fingertips, and noticed with a soft gasp that the beads were carved into the shape of tiny skulls. She looked back up at him. He seemed in a trancelike state, his whole consciousness focused on some sort of ritual over Fei Liu’s body.

  It made Lily feel like an intruder, as if her presence were a hindrance. Silently she rose and slipped out. Her tears continued unabated.

  The other women were huddled together outside Fei Liu’s chamber, clinging to Fen Chow. A surge of anger swept through her. A vampire could only have come into the compound with an invitation. Lily narrowed her eyes, needing desperately to blame someone for Fei Liu’s death. “How did a vampire get in here? Which one of you let him in?”

  Jade inched forth from the huddle of women around Fen Chow. She bowed her head. “Mistress, no one knew what he was. He fell down in front of Plum House, cut and bleeding, groaning in pain as a dying man. Fei Liu made Fen Chow carry him here so she could treat him with her herbs.” With that the Tigress began to sob.

  Lily sighed, and her shoulders drooped as her anger drained rapidly. There was no one to blame. She glanced up at the now bright blue sky. The day was magnificent and yet, to her, appeared darker than hell itself. “All of you, put this house in order and prepare for Fei Liu’s funeral. When you’re finished, come to me.” Best to keep them all busy until she figured out what to do. A bad feeling simmered deep in her bones.

  “Yes, Mistress Lily,” Jade said.

  Lily turned and went to her study. She paced the carpet, keeping her body in motion while she focused her thoughts.

  The vampire. He’d obviously feigned his injuries to gain access to the compound. But why? A vampire in need of blood could either seduce or accost an innocent and take what he or she needed. Why plot in such a way to gain a victim? And had the vampire needed to lacerate poor Fei Liu the way he had? To drain her so horribly she died? Lily’s heart lurched in pain.

  Yes, the vampire had intended to murder Fei Liu. Lily knew the ways of vampires, and if he’d intended to feed merely for pleasure or even to make Fei Liu into a vampire, the process was not so bloody and fatal.

  That feeling of trouble in her bones intensified. For some reason, that vampire had targeted the compound. She pictured that moment, the nightmarish moment of running in and seeing it bent over Fei Liu’s flailing body. It had turned, eyes glowing, chin dripping with blood.

  Lily gasped. That face. She’d seen that vampire before. Her breathing tightened, and she clenched her fists as the memory resurfaced.

  The gambling den! He’d been there…not on the stage, but with the woman vampire, the one who’d played against her for Tenzin.

  Lily gasped again. She coughed as if an iron fist were closing off her air. Memories flooded in, memories she’d suppressed for so long. How could she not have recognized that woman’s face? How could she not have remembered Xu Yu’s daughter?

  Wei Yen had been a girl then, but Lily had seen her so many times, the resemblance was unmistakable.

  “No!” Lily hugged herself and bent over, panting.

  Footsteps sounded outside on the stones. “Lily!”

  Tenzin rushed to her side. “Lily, what is it?”

  Lily stared at him. Her bottom lip trembled and the lump in her throat made speech nearly impossible f
or several seconds. “She…she’s come for me.”

  * * * * *

  Tenzin forgot the hesitancy with which he’d entered the courtyard in search of Lily. He’d wanted to tell of her Fei Liu’s safe passing when he heard Lily’s cry. Lily’s face was paler than he’d ever seen it.

  “Who, Lily? Who has come for you?” He searched Lily’s face, seeing the shock and torment in her eyes.

  “Wei Yen.” Lily’s voice was a near whisper.

  Tenzin eased his grip on her shoulders. He reached out and smoothed back her hair. He could only pray that she forgave him his lie and trusted him now. To his grief, she pulled back.

  “Wei Yen was Xu Yu’s daughter.” She glanced at the door.

  Tenzin turned and saw several of Lily’s students crowded in the doorway. Their expressions ranged from fear, to mistrust, to kindness.

  “Leave us, please,” he said.

  They hung in the doorway as if uncertain as to whether to obey. Of course that was natural. Lily was their teacher, not he.

  Lily nodded at them. “Please. I must speak to Tenzin alone.”

  “Yes, Mistress Lily.” That from Jade, the one woman in the small crowd whose expression showed compassion toward him. Without another word, they moved away, and Tenzin heard their slippers shuffling on the stones.

  He turned back to Lily. He didn’t want to release her arms, but felt it inappropriate to keep touching her. With a brush of his fingertips he let her go. Thankfully, she stayed in the same spot.

  “She’s the vampire who played against me for you,” Lily went on. “I didn’t remember her. I did just now. She was a girl when her father enslaved me, but…she looks so much like him. It must be her. She’s exacting her revenge on me.” Lily stood silently for a moment, and then her expression shifted, saddened. She swallowed hard, and Tenzin saw the delicate muscles of her throat working. He thought of Fei Liu.

  “Poor Fei Liu,” Lily said softly, as if reading his mind. He saw the struggle on her features. She took a deep breath, and an eerie calm settled over her delicate face. She looked up at Tenzin, and a flash of anger passed through the almond shapes of her eyes. “What of her passing? You said you were going to help her. How could that be? You’re a vampire.”