Page 67 of Dynasty of the Wicked

“Please, you have to believe me.” He framed her face in his hands, thumbing her tears away. He sounded genuine, and it tugged at the broken remnants of her heart, digging sharply into her flesh. “You … you are all I ever wanted. Please believe me.”

She couldn’t.

“You’re the only one for me. Please, you have to believe me. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t want to come here because I knew you’d be in danger. I could have warped here the instant those restraints were off me. I could have taken us away, but I didn’t. I wanted to find a way to keep you safe first.” He tightened his hold on her face. Not tight enough to hurt her, but enough to make her stare up at him. “Zhi Ruo. You … you are the only woman I’ve ever wanted. Truly.”

Her lower lip trembled. Was it this easy to sway her emotions? She tried to steel herself to indifference, but hope kindled in her chest, sparking and thriving like he had told her something valuable, believable.

“If you want me to believe you, then you need to answer me.” Her eyebrows came together as the words slipped out. She needed to crush any false hope, longing, or any misunderstanding. “Do you love me, Feng Mian?”

He hesitated, a look of panic flickering over his pretty face. She could have pretended it was the dim lighting that was making her see that, but her heart knew better. She slowly breathed out, each exhale shuddering out of her body.

“Zhi Ruo …”

She laid down on the padded mattress and turned her back to him, yanking the blanket over her body. She willed herself to keep her tears away. She was too spent to cry anymore, but there was a void in her chest that kept deepening like an abyss. It was more numb than the arm the ghoul had attacked.

“Go to sleep, Feng Mian,” she said. “I’m too tired to hear your argument.”

“I’m not trying to argue with you.”

“It shouldn’t be a hard decision to make. You either love me or you don’t.” It came out harsher than she intended it to, but the pain was clear in her clipped voice. “I can see you’ve made your choice.”

He was quiet for a moment, but then he began to shift beside her, lying down. His body warmth was toxic; she wanted to lean into it. She wanted to go back to last night, when they were in each other’s arms. But she had been a naïve fool. An oblivious, naïve, lovestruck fool.

22

Zhi Ruo awokein the middle of the night to a nightmare she couldn’t remember. She lay there, breathing heavily, drenched in sweat and staring at the tented ceiling. Something felt off. She couldn’t describe it, but she had an unsettling feeling that someone was calling out to her.

It almost … sounded like a child crying. Sobbing for her, or anyone, to come to their aid.

A shiver ran down her spine and she hugged herself tightly. She couldn’t remember the dream, no matter how hard she tried to pull at the ebbs of it, but the corner of her eyes stung at the abandonment, thepain.

Because she had been a child like that. Crying for someone to help her. Trying her hardest to be loved. And … and completely alone in the end.

She slowly sat up in bed. It took her a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Feng Mian was fast asleep beside her, his chest moving up and down rhythmically and the dark cursed veins on his neck pulsing slightly. He didn’t stir, even when she pushed the blankets off her body and moved around him.

Running a hand through her dark hair and slipping her feet into the boots Lanying had given her—boots that actually fither, as opposed to the previous pair she had worn—she headed toward the flap of the tent, but not before throwing a cloak over her body. This, too, had been given by Lanying.

She pushed her way outside. All at once, a cold burst of wind blew against her, and she hugged her arms to her chest. Tiny flurries blasted around the camp in thick swirls, coating her lashes in seconds. She didn’t know what she was doing, or why she was even leaving, but her legs seemed to move on their own. She pushed through the snow, her boots crunching over the frozen ground..

Most of the camp was asleep; she could make out their sleeping outlines where their tents were lit up with small candles. Fires enclosed in rings of stones burned between every couple of tents. A few soldiers sat beside the fires, drinking, or speaking softly to one another—they were guarding the camp from intruders. A few nodded in her direction. None of them seemed suspicious of her.

Zhi Ruo kept walking, pulling the cloak closer over her body. Her hair whipped over her face, and her cheeks felt more wind-chapped and frozen the more she weaved through the tents. Her shins slogged through the thickening snow.

It wasn’t until she reached a specific tent that she halted in her steps. The wind continued to batter against her relentlessly and she stared at the entrance, where the two flaps were constantly flicking up and down and side to side.

For a moment, she only stood there, staring, and then she quickly glanced at her surroundings. This tent was set further aside than the others, and it was near the storage area, where barrels and boxes of goods were set aside. The tented area for horses was nearby, too, and even through the frigid, dense air, the smell of horseshit and hay was strong.

She hesitated, before pushing her way inside. Almost immediately, her eyes adjusted to the barely flickering orangecandlelight in the small room. Heavy, metal chains clanked on the ground, followed by a low growl. Her gaze skated from the candle to the center pole keeping the tent together, and then to the chains circling it tightly. She followed those chains to the corner of the room, where angry, glowing, red eyes stared back at her.

A childlike being sat on his heels. Long, greasy black hair fell over his shoulders and down his waist in messy, knotted strands. Black and silver scales ran up his arms and neck and over the spots of his chest she could see through his tattered, threadbare clothes. Lighter silvery-black scales covered his cheeks, and there were two giant black horns on his head, which curved upward, the tips silver-touched. He had long claws, sharpened to black tips, and sharp teeth that he bared at her.

She remained rooted in place. The child couldn’t have been older than eight. Maybe younger by a few years. She had no way of knowing, since he was clearly a different creature altogether.

He continued to growl, low and throaty, his teeth showing more. Smoke curled at the corner of his mouth, and she feared he would breathe fire in her direction.

A … dragon.

This child was adragon.

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