Page 39 of The Dragon Wakes with Thunder (The Dragon Spirit Duology #2)
“It is inevitable—” the dragon snarled. But I was gone before his words could reach me. My eyes flew open and I jolted awake, once again returned to my body.
I was lying on the hard dirt, and there was someone leaning over me.
A man. One of Kuro’s rebels. Terror and fury surged through me, each strengthening the other.
His hand rested on my shoulder, his eyes hungry in a way that made my body lock in conditioned fear.
Though I was no longer a prisoner of Ximing, no longer bound in chains, my body remembered.
It remembered the paralyzing fear from the war, when General Huyi loomed over me, reveling in my helplessness.
“You’re awake,” the rebel said, surprised. “Did you have too much to drink, doll?”
I snarled, an animal-like sound, and threw him off me with such force that his body struck a neighboring tree. Stunned and bewildered, I looked down at my hands, before understanding that I’d used my lixia.
The world was tinted red with my thirst for violence. I advanced toward him as he groaned and clambered to his feet. “Look,” he said, holding out his empty hands. “I only—”
His mind lay open to me, like a nest of baby chicks to a hungry hawk. You will never touch another woman again , I told him silently.
“Cut off your thumb ,” I ordered.
His body went rigid, his face turning vacant. From his boot he drew a hidden dagger. Then, without hesitation, he began to saw at his left thumb, barely blinking as blood poured from the wound.
The scent of blood only quickened my hunger. I would make him suffer, I decided. I would make him suffer so badly he would wish for his own death.
I smiled, baring my teeth. “ Now your hand. ”
He was bleeding profusely already. But under the spell of compulsion, he ignored his injuries and directed his attention to my order. Shaking, he lifted his blade in the air.
“Meilin?”
I turned at the sound of that voice, that low, crackling baritone. I glanced at him, and what he read in my face must have frightened him, for he seized me by my shoulders and shook me. “Meilin!”
“ Release me ,” I ordered. But although he trembled, he withstood my compulsion.
“Meilin, look at me. Look at me!”
His voice carried no spirit power, but it held a strength of a different sort. I looked at him, truly looked, and at last, I saw him.
“Lei,” I said, my shoulders slumping as the haze of violence cleared. “You’re recovered.”
Behind him, I heard the rebel saw through bone. “Stop!” I cried out. “ Stop. ”
At the commotion, others emerged from their tents. The man named Hanwen approached hesitantly, before spotting the rebel bleeding out on the dirt.
“Lan!” He crouched beside the unconscious man. To me: “What have you done?” His eyes were both accusatory and afraid. “You—you monster.”
I was shaking all over. “He attacked me,” I said, my voice thin and frightened.
But, I wondered, had he? Or had he only been checking on a sleeping girl lying on the forest floor?
How could I have jumped to such conclusions?
How could I have tried to prolong his pain—I, who had experienced no scarcity of suffering?
My knees buckled. Lei caught me before I collapsed, steadying me against him. My veins were so black they looked like streaks of ink against my paper-white arms.
“Kill me,” I whispered. “Just kill me now—before I ruin myself.”
“No,” he said, his grip tightening around me.
“Get away from me!” I struggled against him, but he locked my arms to my sides. “I’ll hurt you too,” I whispered, shaking uncontrollably. “I’ll corrupt you.”
He shook his head, refusing to let me go. “I’m safe from you,” he said, with complete conviction.
He lifted me in his arms, carrying me back into his tent. I tried to sit up on his pallet but my journey to the spirit realm had left me exhausted beyond reason. Had the bandits’ ambush only been today?
I had lost control of myself because I’d overused my lixia, back in the Zoigen Marsh.
It was a parasitic relationship, I realized, with power inextricably tied to madness.
How foolish I’d been to believe I could be the exception.
No one was immune to power’s inevitable corruption—not even the most powerful man in the world.
“I’m so tired,” I whispered, my voice wobbling. “I’m so tired but I can’t rest. If I fall asleep”—I swallowed—“I may lose myself again.”
His eyes bored into mine. “I won’t let that happen,” he said, and he spoke with such certainty I felt the lure of trusting him.
“How can you be so sure?” I asked. “What if the dragon tries to corrupt you? What if I hurt you—” My voice broke at the possibility, at the helplessness I felt over my own body and spirit.
He came over to me then, drawing me into his arms. My body was ice-cold, but his was warm as a low fire.
“If you must know,” he said, his chest rumbling beneath mine, “I lack a spirit disposition.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, struggling to stay awake against his soothing warmth.
He adjusted me so that my head rested on his shoulder. It was so comfortable I could hardly keep my eyes open.
“It means I cannot perceive or possess lixia in any capacity,” he said, his voice like the crackling of a hearth. “As for you”—I could hear the smile in his voice—“I think I have some sway over you.”
I relaxed, nestling closer against him. In my sleep-deprived state, I did not fully understand what he meant, but I trusted his judgment, and moreover, I trusted his ability to think a step ahead of me.
Then I recalled his recent bout of illness. “Is this okay?” I asked, lifting my head to peer at his face. “Am I too heavy? Does it hurt anywhere—”
He laughed softly, pushing me back down. “Sleep, Meilin. I prefer you here, like this.” He brushed a tendril of hair from my face. “With me.”
Perhaps he did hold some sway over me, because his voice was like compulsion. Unable to resist the intoxicating sense of safety, I succumbed to dreamless sleep in his arms.