Page 15 of Dynasty of the Wicked (The Wicked Princess #1)

15

Later that night, they found the building Feng Mian had sensed—an abandoned cabin that must have been someone’s home not too long ago. There were still baskets of rice, potatoes, and onions stored away in the lower level. The inhabitants must have left a week ago with only what they could carry in their hands, probably due to the war pushing this far into Huo territory.

Feng Mian sat by the hearth, which he had lit with his magic, the hungry flames licking at the melted snow by his boots. They had thrown together rice, potatoes, and onions into one of the three-legged pots they had found, cooked it with some melted snow until it became a thick sludge, and scarfed it down hungrily. It tasted terrible, but considering they had survived off bread and water for the past few weeks, Zhi Ruo was grateful for the food.

“Don’t you think they’ll find us because of the smoke?” Zhi Ruo asked, going through one of the small trunks shoved up against the wall. There wasn’t much stuff in the cabin; only a trunk, a few seating mats, a padded sleeping mat, and miscellaneous kitchen items strewn about.

Feng Mian spread his stiff, blood-cracked fingers over the fire again. “I put a thin haze of magic over this place; it’ll be harder for them to see us from afar. It will only deter them for a day or two, but I’m sure the storm is helping us too.”

Zhi Ruo glanced over at the single window in the house; it was a sea of white out there, the snow blasting over the glass panes, which were bordered with frost and ice. She turned back to Feng Mian; his bowl was mostly clean, with only a few grains of mushy rice stuck to the uneven, wooden rim.

She shifted her attention back to the trunk, flicking through threadbare blankets and old dresses. “There’s a dress or two in here,” she commented, pulling out a pale, grayish-blue dress with a faded red belt. She found some men’s clothing too, but they were too small for Feng Mian. “These won’t fit you.”

“The dresses?” He lifted an eyebrow. “I doubt they would.”

She stifled a laugh. “No, I meant there are men’s clothes in here.”

“Are they too small?” He stretched out his legs, wincing at the small movement. “Most standard sized clothes are too small for me.”

“I figured as much,” she murmured, eyeing his injuries. He had ripped the broken arrow out of his shoulder when they had first arrived here, but he hadn’t tried to treat his wounds yet. “When do you want me to take a look at your injuries?”

“Later.”

“Why are you prolonging it?” She placed the clothes back in the trunk and smoothed down her damp skirt.

He grimaced, and she wasn’t sure if it was from pain or something else. “I don’t want to do it right now.”

“But why ?” she pressed. “The longer we take?—”

“Princess, I don’t want to. Stop asking.”

An awkward silence fell between them. She didn’t understand why he didn’t want her to take a look at his injuries. If he caught a fever or infection from the wound, wouldn’t that make it so much harder to survive out here? Did he not want her to see the curse? She could still remember their conversation earlier, where he had told her their relationship was doomed and that he had no plans of living past the battlefield.

Tension continued to build in the pit of her stomach, twisting and coiling until she wanted to vomit everything she had eaten.

When she couldn’t handle it anymore, she blurted out, “Are you scared of showing weakness to me now that we’re not prisoners anymore?”

Feng Mian stiffened. “I told you to drop it.”

“I will not drop anything,” she started, anger rising. “There are very few people who can order me around, and you are not one of them.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Regardless of how you meant it, I’m not dropping the issue. Feng Mian, you’re injured badly. You took an arrow to your shoulder and you’re not showing me, or allowing me to help you. Is it because you’re scared of me seeing you when you’re weakened?”

He closed his eyes and flexed his hands. Black veins protruded from his pale skin; it was even more haunting in the firelight. “No, that’s not why.”

“Then why ?” Zhi Ruo felt like she was losing her mind with him; she didn’t understand why he didn’t want her to help him. She walked over to the hearth and dropped down to her knees beside him. She reached for his hand, but he snatched it away before she could even touch him.

“I’ll deal with it myself.”

“Feng Mian?—”

“It’s ugly to look at,” he finally snarled, his hands balled together tightly. His unseeing silver eyes flashed with a mixture between anger and shame. His lips curled back into a scowl, and he turned away from her, his voice dropping low. “Why would I want you to see my mottled, cursed flesh? I have been told it’s disgusting. The curse has ruined my body, Princess. I would rather deal with my wounds myself than have you see me in that light.”

The flames continued to flicker and sputter, casting an orange glow on them both. Zhi Ruo opened her mouth to say something, to tell him that she would never find him ugly, or that he shouldn’t feel that way with her, but she found she couldn’t. So instead she placed her blood-spotted hand on top of his.

“Let me see,” she murmured.

He didn’t push her away, not even when she shuffled close to him and began pulling off the cloak he had taken from one of the corpses. It puddled onto the floor, and then she grasped the lapel of his tunic and slowly began peeling it away from his body. The material was stiffened with blood in some sections, and wet in others. Feng Mian grimaced, his teeth grinding together tightly as the material fell down to his waist.

Zhi Ruo bit the inside of her cheeks to keep from making any sound—particularly, any gasps or shuddered breaths that might give away her horror. Black, thick lines jutted out from his skin, some smaller and spidery and less pronounced, and others swollen with dark magic. His skin was partially pale and snow-like, while other sections were bruised black and purple—both from injuries and the curse. He was a patchwork of shadowy lines, splintering and cracking in different directions around his body. They spread down to his hands, and down his waist, where they disappeared beneath his clothes.

The flesh around the arrow wound was mangled, with congealed blood crusted over the opening, and fresh blood oozed out with every movement.

“This needs stitches,” she said quietly.

He didn’t answer, just sat there, head hung low. Zhi Ruo hesitated, and then began her work. She took one of the kitchen pots, filled it with snow from outside, let it sit by the fire, and then searched the cabin for a thread and needle. It didn’t take her long to cut down strips of cloth from the small clothes she had found in the trunk, dunk them in warm water, and clean the wound. Feng Mian remained tense the entire time, even after she stitched the wound and bound it with strips of clean fabric.

“You should clean your whole body now that I’m done.” She placed the rag on his shoulder, her gaze skating over to the hard planes of his chest, his lean abdomen, and then to his muscular arms—the shadowy curse did nothing to hide his beautiful physique, and she found herself blushing. “It … um, I’ve read that infection spreads faster when you’re dirty.”

“You should also bathe,” he said, taking the wet rag off his body and pressing it over his arm.

More heat spread to her cheeks. “But … that is … improper.”

Her voice was barely a squeak. Back home, it was unimaginable for anyone to see her naked, or be anywhere near her whilst she changed or bathed. She shouldn’t have been too aghast—they had been imprisoned together with virtually no privacy—but this felt different , somehow.

Feng Mian tilted his head to the side. “It’s not like I can see anything.”

“That’s true …” But just knowing that she would be naked while a few feet away from him sent a ripple of warmth over her otherwise chilled body. “But?—”

He dipped his hands into the warm water and ran it over his face and hair. Water clung to his lashes and eyebrows, dripping down the sides of his face. He only lifted an eyebrow. “This will probably be our only night of being able to clean ourselves before we have to flee again. Might as well use it.”

Zhi Ruo tentatively touched the front of her dress. “Well, I’ll turn around to offer you some privacy.”

“Suit yourself.”

She grabbed one of the fabric trips and dipped it in the water carefully, setting it down on the rim of the pot before she carefully undid the front of her dress. Her hands trembled, and she tried to keep from staring at him. In the corner of her vision, she could see him scrubbing off the dried blood from his stomach.

He wasn’t even able to see her, she reasoned with herself as she quickly let the dress drop to her ankles. She shivered, one arm wrapping around her heavy breasts and the other snatching the sopping rag from the pot. She inched closer to the fire and swiped the rough material over her grimy skin.

At first, she tried to wash herself quickly, not wanting to be naked for too long in front of him, but then she slowed her pace and worked on cleaning every aspect of her body. From the roughened patches of skin on her knees, the dirt between her toes, the sweat that had collected beneath her bosom, to the crusted blood in her hair. She was so focused on the methodical task that when Feng Mian spoke, she nearly jumped out of her skin.

“The fire is running low.”

“Huh?” She had just finished dunking her whole head in the pot and water dripped down onto the floor, sopping against her shoulders. She glanced sharply at the fire; it was now flickering softly, the sparse firewood more than halfway gone. “We might need more wood.”

It was then that she noticed that he was impeccably clean, his hair wet and his body free from all the blood and grime that had accumulated over the past few weeks. He only had a blanket wrapped around his waist; his dirtied clothes were neatly folded beside him.

“We’ve burned maybe half of the wood,” she told him, averting her gaze to stare at the flames. They had been in a hurry to collect wood, so she wasn’t surprised that they had miscalculated how much they would need to keep the cabin warm.

He cursed softly and raised his hand toward the fire. All at once, the fire roared back to life, sputtering and popping like never before. Zhi Ruo leaped back in surprise, her foot sliding on the wet floor. She yelped, hands flying to grasp something, and tripped backward onto Feng Mian.

Her elbow connected with his face, and he cursed again, their bodies tangled together on the floor. Zhi Ruo struggled into a sitting position, her wet hair slapping him across his injured shoulder.

“I’m so sorry,” she began, chest rising in embarrassment. Her hands were splayed over his chest, one knee on his hip and the other beside his thigh. He kept one hand on her hip, the other rubbing his face where she had accidentally smacked him.

They both stared at each other—well, more accurately, she stared.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he whispered, voice gruff.

“I … No, I shouldn’t have tripped.” She sounded breathless even to her own ears. She tried pushing herself up, but he held her tighter until her breasts smooshed against his chest. Her eyes widened. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” His eyes darkened. “Do you dislike it?”

Her lower lip trembled. She should have lied, should have told him that she hated it, that this was improper, that … she shouldn’t like being touched by him, but the words never came. The shame and guilt that should have been there was nowhere to be found.

He was her husband, after all.

“No.” Boldness bubbled up to her chest and she traced the thick, pulsing black lines marring his body.

He froze under her touch.

There were so many anxieties warring together inside of her—the fear that Wyer would catch them and imprison them forever, that Father would punish her for disobeying him, using magic, and marrying Feng Mian, and the fear of the unknown of their relationship. That they were doomed to begin with. That they would never survive in Father’s court. That … something would tear them apart in the real world. But she pushed all of those thoughts aside.

She didn’t care for any of that right now. Not when she was in love, not when she was free in this moment. Free from Wyer, from Father, from the empire that would scorn them both.

Zhi Ruo ran a finger down the column of Feng Mian’s throat, over the swelling, swirling veins of cursed magic. He remained still, waiting, like a beast barely restrained.

“What are you doing, Princess?”

“Nothing,” she countered, mimicking his earlier words. “Do you dislike it?”

The corner of his mouth curled. “No.”

And then she smashed her lips against his. A gasp shuddered through her body as he grabbed her hips and kissed her harder. They were a tangle of limbs once more, their hands exploring each other. Nothing had ever felt more right than it did with him; she wasn’t the wicked princess around him. She wasn’t even a princess. She was just Zhi Ruo .

He flipped her over until her back was on the floor, his mouth trailing kisses along her neck and body. She clawed his back, legs wrapping around his waist.

“I love you,” she whispered into his ear.

He hesitated, his mouth hovering over the hollow of her throat. “I am a monster, Princess,” he murmured. “You shouldn’t love me.”

“But I do.”

He kissed her again, this time gently, more intimate. Like he was in love with her, even though he wouldn’t say the words himself. But Zhi Ruo didn’t care. She had never thought anyone would actually love her, anyway, so she didn’t need to hear those words. All she needed was to feel his love, because she didn’t think he would ever admit it to her.

Her nails dug into his back, her gasps growing louder, their bodies melding into one. She had never felt this way about anybody. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her back arching, toes curling. She wanted to feel more. She wanted to fall deeper into this madness, into this dance that sent jolts through her body, that made her feel closer to him than anything else.

She moaned his name and threaded her fingers through his hair.

I love you. I love you. I love you .

She didn’t know how many times she said it; it fell off her lips like a prayer. This was what was missing from her life. The closeness, the gentle caresses, the wild beating of their hearts. She had never felt more alive than in that moment.