Page 70 of The Nightblood Prince

Yexue met me in an archery field, west of their camp.

I swung Siwang’s silver-tipped bow from my back and stepped into one of the lanes. “What are the rules? Best out of three?”

“You are impatient.”

Siwang doesn’t have the time to waste.

Yexue took a step forward and touched my brow, where my face still ached with bruises. “Did he do this to you?”

I pulled away. “No, he did not. It was another soldier, who thought I was a traitor….”

“Tell me who it is, and I will kill him for you.”

I laughed. “If I wanted him dead, I can kill him myself.” Yexue opened his mouth as if to say something, then turned away. “Best out of three.”

I nocked my arrow and got into position. Instead of following my lead, Yexue sneered. “I didn’t say we could start yet.” He came to my side and placed a finger over my hand, motioning to me to lower the weapon. “What would you say if I asked you to marry me?”

I stumbled back at the suddenness of this question. “Is that yourwish?”

He shrugged. “What would you say?”

“If you asked me to marry you right here and now, no strings attached, I’d reject you.”

His jaw tightened, ever so slightly. “What if there were strings attached? I hold the life of your prince and the entirety of Rong as leverage. What do you have?”

My breath hitched. “ Nothing. I have nothing.” A truth that I hated.

“I hold no power and no status. I am a country girl born with a prophecy I never asked for, and a magic I can’t control.

But that doesn’t mean I am powerless.” I held the silver tip of my bow to his chest. “I am not your toy, Lan Yexue. You might be a prince, but you cannot force your will upon me, not if you don’t want a fight to the death. ”

Yexue smiled, and his dimples dipped into existence. “The girl from the mountains is still here after all.”

He pulled my chin toward him, and I forgot how to breathe.

“Look at me,” he whispered. My breathing was too fast, my heart was beating too hard.

“Am I so repulsive, Fei?” He leaned a little closer, his lips brushing my jaw, my neck.

I felt him smile against my skin as he placed a tender kiss over a vein.

“I’ll be good to you,” he whispered, his teeth grazing my throat.

I felt like I was burning.

It took every ounce of dignity in me not to lean into his touch, pull him close until there was no space left between us. My head was light. The heat between my legs pulsed. I wanted him closer. I wanted to feel him kiss more of me, feel his hand on my skin.

I wanted and wanted and wanted until my legs were weak, until I could barely stand by myself.

Something inside me called to him. I could practically feel my blood vibrate for him.

My mouth was so dry, and the only thing I could think of was his blood. His sweet, nectar-like blood that filled my mouth and poured down my throat and made my body come alive in ways I didn’t know were possible.

Gods. I was melting in his hands, and he knew it. Touch me, I desperately wanted to tell him. Touch me. Touch me. Touch me….

“You and I, we are the same. I have known this since that night in the cave. Since the moment you drank my blood and I felt the power in you, so much like my own. In this life, you’ll never find any equal but me.”

With that, he bit me gently, teeth pulling and sucking at flesh. Not enough to draw blood, but enough to send my body into a burning torrent of wildfire. The sound I made was something caught between a cry and a whimper.

He chuckled. “It’s incredible how easily your body reacts to mine. You can hate me, despise me to your very bones, but your blood will always heed my call. You will always burn for me when I command youto.”

“You—” I gasped, pushed him away with all my strength, lost for words by what he was doing to me.

Like a veil slipping from my eyes, the glimmer of everything he’d made me feel slipped away like icy silk.

The fevered hum turned spine-chilling.

“Is that why you gave me your blood to drink, why you saved my life so many times?”

“You always assume the worst of me.” He laughed, a hypnotizing sound.

I knew that what I’d just felt was not real, but the shimmer of it all lingered on my skin like dusted sugar, glittering and entrancingly sweet.

“Both times I gave you my blood, it was to save your life. This was an unexpected bonus. I didn’t know it was something I was capable of until recently.

Most people whom I give my blood to, well…

They don’t exactly stay human. Or alive. ”

My mind was reeling. When he said he could command me, he couldn’t mean…“You have no right to make me feel those things! I’m not a puppet for you to play with!”

He clicked his tongue, shaking his head. “Those feelings were always there. I can’t coax a fire without some sparks. And if you want me to touch you, all you have to do is ask.”

I went cold. “You can hear my thoughts as well?”

“No. I feel them. I feel a lot of your emotions, actually. It doesn’t matter where you are; my blood inside you calls to me. But when you are close enough, I feel everything you feel.”

I picked up my bow, abandoned when he began to touch me. “I should kill you for this.”

The sound of his laughter was more beautiful than anything had the right to be. “I’d like to see you try.”

I raised the bow, nocked an arrow, and pointed it right at Yexue’s heart. Even this wasn’t enough to wipe that infuriating smile off hisface.

“You are not going to waste an arrow on me, are you?” he said. “Even if you strike me in the heart, it will be an immediate forfeit. No points unless your arrow lands on that sheet.”

I remembered how my knife had bounced right off him the last time I had tried this. But Siwang’s silver knife had cut him. The tip of the bow would be a perfect weapon, but did I actually want to stab the Prince Regent of Lan?

I turned, directed the arrow toward the target, and caught a glimpse of gold before firing.

Bull’s-eye.

“You are not my equal, Lan Yexue.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Yexue picked up his own bow and arrow and fired.

Bull’s-eye, slightly tilting left, but he hit the center without question. He was good. Vexingly so.

I picked up another arrow.

“Are you really choosing Siwang?” Yexue asked just as I drew the bow. “You know his heart is rotten; you just don’t want to admit it.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. I thought of Siwang’s feral eyes when he’d tried to justify his decision to burn Changchun just to weaken Yexue.

But I also thought of all the times when Siwang had held me when my heart was heavy with fear of the future and hate for the towering red walls that kept me prisoner.

All the times he’d broken his father’s rules and snuck me out to see my family because he knew how much I longed for them. All the times he’d held my hand and wandered the night markets with me, ate sugared candies until our teeth ached when he didn’t even like sweet things.

When I thought of my childhood, I thought of the palace, I thought of loneliness and fear and rage and sorrow…

and I thought of Siwang. My single ray of light.

A boy who’d do anything to make me happy.

A boy who loved me so much it used to terrify me to no end, because what if he didn’t love me, but the prophecy?

If this was the fate that awaited me, then I’d rather not have it at all.If I was to give myself over to love only to have my heart broken, then I’d rather not love at all.

“Neither of you is worthy of my hand in marriage,” I said, my voice trembling. I swallowed and let the arrow go a moment too early.

It hit the mark, but not the center ring. I blinked away the tears in my eyes.

“Not bad,” Yexue said, though that smirk said otherwise. I wanted to slash a knife across his perfect face.

“You did that on purpose,” I accused through clenched teeth. He had felt everything I had just felt. He knew the effect those words would have on me.

“You have your advantages, and I have mine.”

I laughed.

“When will I be worthy of you, then?” Yexue asked while he toyed with the arrows in his quiver.

“What do I have to do for you to just look at me, give me the chance Siwang has never earned? Do I have to kill him to make you forget him? Because if so, I’ll do just that.

Whatever it takes for you to care about me just half as much as you do him. ”

With that, Yexue nocked an arrow and fired.

Bull’s-eye. I was officially losing.

“I’ve only ever wanted three things in life, Fei.” Yexue kept talking as he moved closer; my pulse grew faster.

Focus.

I nocked the next arrow and forced my heart to calm. I would not make the same mistake twice. I would not let what he said get to me. I’d already had one misfire. I couldn’t afford another. If I hit the bull’s-eye this round and got him to make a mistake next round, I could still win this.

I would win.

I had to.

For Luyao. For all the soldiers on both sides of this war. All the innocent lives that had yet to be ruined. For my family, our little village, which was currently too close to the front lines for comfort. And most of all…

For Siwang.

I won’t let you die.

“My mother’s love, my father’s acceptance, and to live as bravely as you.

These were the three things that I wanted,” Yexue continued.

“I never got the first two, but I’ve been reaching for the third since that night in the cave.

I want to be worthy of you, Fei. Be it by earning it, by trickery, or whatever else. I’m not going to give up.”

He leaned in once more, and I felt the coldness of his breath fanning my cheek, my neck.

Focus, Fei.

“Maybe I’ll use my wish on you after all. Because if I can’t have you, neither can Siwang.”

“If you use your wish to chain me to you, then you’re more despicable than I first thought,” I hissed, setting the bow and arrow down. “If you won’t give me peace and quiet to finish the game, then what’s the point of playing?”