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“Sneaking onto enemy grounds just to kill an already dying woman? Lifeng Fei, do you think so little of me?”

I thought back to the battlefield, the broken bodies of my comrades.

I thought of him in his snowy-white robe against all that red. His demons with their monstrous fangs.

I thought of the fireside stories told by soldiers who had lost everything because of him. Their recollections of the vampires were so terrifying I’d once thought they couldn’t possibly be true—until I had witnessed the horror with my own eyes.

And those demons served one master: the Prince of Lan.

“Yes,” I whispered. “I do.”

He leaned closer so that his nose was almost touching mine. I could tear off a chunk of his face if I wanted.

Under the sheets, my hand searched for the dagger I always strapped to my thigh and found nothing. The physician must have removed it.

“Be careful what you say, my goddess. You don’t want to make me your enemy. Especially since I can kill you as easily as I can save you.” Yexue pulled away, bit into his palm, and offered it to me, the same way he had all those moons ago. “Keep drinking if you want to live.”

“Why are you doing this?” I had stabbed and abandoned him in the forest a year ago. Why would he want to save my life after that?

He laughed. “Did you think I came all the way here to watch you die?Drink.Before the cut closes.”

“What’s in it for you?”

The prince shrugged, and I couldn’t help but notice how close he was, how intimate this moment felt. He was cradling my body in his arms, my face resting against his chest, and his arm wrapped around me, holding me upright. “Maybe I’m just a merciful man. Maybe I don’t want to lose the only other person who knows what it’s like to be plagued with an ungodly magic. Maybe I want to claim your prophecy and become the emperor of all emperors. OrmaybeI just want to repay a debt? After this, I think the two of us will be even, and I no longer owe you anything.”

“I never should have saved you in those mountains.”

Yexue broke into a smile, clearly amused. “You can tell yourself that, my fallen goddess. Now drink.”

“No.I don’t want your blood. I don’t want anything to do with a monster like you!”

“Drink,if you want to live,” Yexue whispered. An order, and I did as he said.

Blood poured in. Though I refused to satisfy his wish, the moment I tasted its sweet nectar, I couldn’t stop. I felt that sensation again. With every drop, my body sang for him. As the euphoria began to take me under, I felt my wounds begin to tingle and burn as my body healed itself just like last time.

“I’m sorry you were dragged into this war. However, I am happy to see you again, my fallen goddess.” Yexue leaned closer and placed a kisson my forehead as my eyes began to close. “But you need to leave, Fei. I don’t want you to get caught in the cross fire of this pointless war.”

I lapped up every last drop of his sweet, heavenly blood. “If this war is so pointless, why don’t you stop attacking us?”

“I see your prince still has a habit of keeping secrets from you.” A soft laugh before his thumb brushed my forehead. “Seven days. I will give you seven days to remove yourself from this war. I don’t want to watch you get hurt again—because I may not be around to save you the next time you flirt with Death.”

42

“It’s a miracle,” the imperial physician murmured to himself the next morning when he saw that I was alive and well. His face came alight like that of a man in rapture.

Then he fell to his knees and wept.

I smiled. “Morning.”

“It’s a miracle!” the physician cried again, running to throw open the tent flap. Two men stood guard beyond it. Were they also here last night? How did Yexue get past them? How did no one notice the enemy prince who had snuck into our camp?

“Send word to the prince! Tell him he doesn’t need to bury me alive!”

I laughed.

Within minutes, I was surrounded by physicians checking me over while they murmured that this was impossible. The injury on my neck had completely healed, with not even a silvering pink scar left as evidence. The stab wound in my chest had closed, too, though the skin there was still soft and tender, pinkish in hue.

“How?” the head physician tried to ask.