Sword against knives. Advantage. One against four. Distinct disadvantage.
‘Come on, dogs!’ he goaded. Because that’s what you did in a fight.
The bandit who headed the attack had what looked like a fresh cut across his face. Han struck at him, keeping his attack controlled. Han split his attention to the other bandit moving in behind him. These men were accustomed to fighting together. Han was accustomed to avoiding this sort of situation. At least he had been until he’d met Li Feng.
A thrust came from in front, low and aiming just beneath his ribs. The man at his back closed in as well. Han had to jump out of the way. He cut as soon as his feet found purchase. He smelled blood and felt the graze of steel against flesh. The rear bandit clutched at his forearm and his hand came away red.
Contact, but not enough. Han attacked again, aiming for the man who was already injured. The others were moving into position. Killing was slow, maiming was quick. He needed to disable elbows and knees. Eyes were good. An exposed throat would be best, but these bandits weren’t as easy as that.
A familiar voice interrupted the fight. ‘I told you to
run
.’
Li Feng came flying into the circle, blade flashing. She cut two of the bandits before they could regroup.
‘Fox-whore,’ the scarred one roared. She threw a knife at him.
Han and Li Feng were then on the run together, charging uphill side by side. The outlaws labored behind them.
‘We can defeat them.’ Han was breathing hard and certain that the fight would be easier than this climb.
‘No.’
‘I’ve seen your sword skill.’ Exhale. Inhale. ‘You’ve seen mine.’
‘Stop wasting your breath,’ she panted, sliding the blade back into her sleeve. ‘Come on.’
Li Feng picked up speed. She was moving like air, as if the earth had no hold on her.
‘Don’t slow down,’ she shouted over her shoulder.
‘What?’
He was a few strides behind her. As the ground leveled out, he saw the edge of a ravine drop off in front of them.
Her words drifted over the wind to him. ‘If I can do this, you can do this.’
Li Feng reached the edge and continued forwards. A surge of energy pulsed through him and suddenly the ground disappeared from below him as well.
He was falling, flying. Practitioners of the fighting arts spoke about feeling and not thinking. He certainly wasn’t thinking when he’d leapt after her. He wasn’t thinking of how far the other edge was or how high up they were. Strange how time can stretch on for ever and yet stand still. Was this the mind of birds and dragons as they soared on high?
His mind and body joined back into one as he crashed hard against the earth. The impact jolted through his legs as the ledge gave away beneath him. For a heart-stopping second, he slid downwards. His hands clawed over dirt and rock before digging in enough to hold on. Li Feng dangled beside him over the ravine. Panting and huffing, they pulled themselves up over the ledge.
Han rolled on to his back once he was on solid ground again. Relief flooded him. For a moment, they merely lay there in the grass with the sound of the river flowing below.
Li Feng turned her head to him. Her hair fanned out in the grass like black water and her eyes were bright with surprise and delight.
‘You made it.’
‘You didn’t have any doubt about it on the other side,’ he accused.
‘I knew how far I could jump and since you’re bigger and stronger—’
‘And heavier,’ he interrupted her excited chatter. ‘I’d fall faster and harder.’
She turned her face up to the sky and laughed. Han realised, looking over the flush in her cheeks, that he didn’t quite know her as well as he thought. Maybe he would never know her, but he wanted to. She was the most fascinating woman he’d ever encountered. There was something not quite safe about Li Feng.
Her laughter rang free and child-like in the forest, intertwining with the driving rhythm of his pulse. His body still hadn’t recovered from the jump and Han was at once angry and elated and uncommonly aroused. He rolled himself over her and kissed her.
She sighed into his mouth. Her lips were warm, soft. Her body curved against him as he pressed her gently into the grass. She was a live and wild thing and he was mad with the taste of her. He broke the kiss to frame her face in his hands. He ran his thumbs over the shape of her cheekbones and kissed her again, claiming her in the only way he could.
Her heartbeat skipped against his chest, resonating into him, through him. The rush of the jump was still in their blood, headier than the strongest of liquors. The chase freed her from her ghosts in a way nothing else could. The chase freed him as well, taking them past the boundaries of law and society. It was no mistake that they found each other in it.
‘Li Feng.’
‘Hmm?’
His fingers curved around her face to tilt it towards him. She touched a fingertip to his chin in answer. Her cheeks were tipped in pink like a ripened peach. Every bit of her glowed warm and enticing. He had the urge to drag clothing aside and sink his body deep inside her.
But they were in the woods. They’d just been chased. And he’d seen Li Feng practically in the arms of a bandit.
‘Who was that you were with?’
She tensed beneath him. ‘An interrogation? Now?’ Her fingers curled into the front of his robe. ‘This is why we can’t be friends.’
He stood and offered his hand to her. She took it without too much ill humour and they stood side by side, looking across the ravine. Despite her earlier laughter, Li Feng’s expression was one of turmoil. Blood rushed through his veins. Every part of him was awake and acutely aware of the woman beside him.
‘We’re not friends, Li Feng,’ he said, breathing deep to take in the grass, the sunlight, the moment. ‘We’re much, much more than that.’
Han should have thought much harder before leaping after her, but he feared any attempt at caution was far too late.
Chapter Thirteen
T
hey returned to the city, walking side by side with hardly a word between them, but in her mind, Li Feng was still running. When her brother had sent his men after Han, she couldn’t hold back. She had spared Liu Yuan a single glance before setting off, knowing this would strain the tenuous bond they had just formed.
No matter how strong the ties of family were, Zheng Hao Han wasn’t meant to die in a thoughtless ambush in the woods. It went against the code of honour of the rivers and lakes. It also went against everything she had started to feel for him, emotions that had remained unspoken because she didn’t have the words for them. Li Feng could only speak through action.
There was a rightness in fighting beside Han. He moved well, fought well. It had felt good to run with him, to fly blindly through the air without a care. And then the kiss.
The kiss.
Han held her as if he would never let anything get to her while he thoroughly devoured her, caressing her with lips first, then tongue. Their teeth met as the kiss deepened, the brief clash sending a primal thrill down her spine.
That kiss had promised things. But the moment she had returned to earth, her brother was still a murderous bandit and the man that she desired was still a thief-catcher. She was torn in two and needed time to gather the pieces of herself back together.
So she continued through the gates and let Han lead her past shops and taverns, back into the shelter of the city. It was a place where she could hide, but only for so long.
Han took her down a side alley and into the back door of a restaurant. The kitchen was evidently a busy one with bowls clattering and the hiss and crackle of food being cooked. His hand rested at the small of her back as he led her down a shallow staircase. It was a lightly possessive touch. More promises.
And just like that, she was inside a small, bare room and alone with her thief-catcher. The furnishings were sparse: a woven pallet that served as a bed, a bare wooden table, a single cabinet in the corner. A window had been cut out of the exterior wall and covered with a roll of bamboo slats. There was no lock on the door as there was nothing to steal.
She began a circle around the room. ‘This is your place?’
‘I paid for this cellar when I first came to the city. Although for the last few days, some seductress lured me to an abandoned shrine.’
‘She sounds wicked.’
‘I was weak.’
Li Feng smiled, but it felt forced as did the rest of the conversation. Usually their words flowed together effortlessly, but not now. There was something unfinished between them and from the dark look in Han’s eyes, he knew it as well. She didn’t let her gaze linger on the bed, though her throat went dry at the thought of Han in it.
‘Something amuses you?’ He sounded very close though he still remained at the door. Her every sense had become keenly aware of him.
‘I never imagined that you actually went anywhere once I escaped from you.’ She cast him a slanted look. ‘I just thought you disappeared, like some demon.’
‘I shut myself in a room every time and brood about letting you escape. Then I scheme and plot about how to capture you once more.’
She completed her circle to end face to face with Han again. He was grinning at her with one shoulder against the doorframe and his arms folded over his chest. He was a handsome sight with that hard jaw and startlingly soft mouth. Those eyes that laughed and wooed her. He was beautiful in the weathered, untamed way that mountains were beautiful.
Heated air wafted in from the kitchen above, making the atmosphere tepid. She wiped the back of her hand over her brow.
‘It’s hot,’ she said. Which wasn’t particularly clever. Her heart was beating too fast for cleverness.
Han pushed off the wall with a shrug of his shoulder. ‘Wait here.’
A moment later he returned carrying a basin with a tray balanced over the top. A washcloth was draped over his arm. Han set the basin down and lowered the tray beside it. He took two cups from the tray and arranged them side by side before picking up the wine flask.
‘That man was my brother,’ she said abruptly, in answer to his earlier question.
Han paused mid-pour before continuing. He handed her a cup before taking one for himself. It was rice wine, the taste of it slightly sweet. Han downed his in one swallow and set about pouring himself another.
‘I didn’t know you had a brother,’ he said.
‘I didn’t know either, until now.’
It was pointless to hide it now that everything had changed. She watched for his reaction, but as usual Han was as unmoving as a stone lion. He was an experienced and intelligent thief-catcher. He had to know by now that it had been Liu Yuan and his gang who murdered Cai Yun. There was no way he could let that go.
‘He tried to kill me,’ Han said.
‘Liu Yuan is family,’ she insisted though her throat tightened. ‘He felt threatened when you appeared. My brother is like that. He’s been cornered and beaten so often that he lashes out.’
It was pointless to defend a killer to a thief-catcher, but Liu Yuan was her only family left and she had been alone for so long.
‘We’re bound by blood.’ There was nothing more she could say than that.
‘Yet you’re here,’ Han said. ‘With me.’
‘For now.’
Only for the moment. Han narrowed his gaze on her, weighing her words before coming forwards. Gently, he pried her fingers from her cup. She hadn’t realised how tight she’d been gripping it. He poured her more wine and she sipped it slowly, pulse racing. Every action suddenly seemed like it was an act of fate, a step towards the inevitable.
They were indeed friends, but they were also adversaries. Between the wine and the excitement of the shared escape and the way he was looking at her, they were likely to become lovers before the night was even upon them. But that was all they could be—lovers for one night.
Han rolled up his sleeves and dipped the washcloth into the basin. The muscles in his forearms tensed as he wrung out the excess water. In the moments that passed, they had reached a tacit agreement. No more questions.
‘You have a smudge here.’
His knuckle caressed her cheek before he handed her the washcloth. The seemingly casual gesture sent a rise of heat up her neck that had nothing to do with the swelter of the kitchen. She ran the damp cloth over her face, letting the cool water slide over her skin. Han averted his eyes to allow her some privacy as he finished his wine.
When she handed the washcloth back to him, he paused with his hand on the cloth. His look focused keenly in on her. Han extracted the cloth from her fingers and dipped it once again into the basin. ‘Here, let me.’
He smoothed the damp cloth over her forehead and down her cheek, taking much more care than she had given to herself. She blinked as water dripped over her eyes, but she didn’t dare close them. Han was watching her face with such intensity, his breathing growing heavier with each pass.
She held her breath as a trickle of water ran down her throat to disappear into the valley of her breasts. Her pulse throbbed beneath Han’s fingertips as the cloth followed the same downward path. His eyes were still focused on hers as he parted her tunic. Her breasts were wrapped under a plain swathe of cloth. Han’s fingers slipped deftly beneath the material to tug it loose. The tip of his thumb grazed lightly over her nipple and she shivered. A delicious ache formed low in her belly.
This was for her. For her and for Han and no one else. She was selfish to want it, but she wanted it all the same.
Han peeled away her tunic and let it slip to the floor. Her bindings followed soon after and she was bared from the waist up. Han caressed the washcloth over her breasts, his hand separated from her by a thin layer of material. The cool water brought her nipples to a hard peak and she inhaled sharply, her throat tight with desire. Her heart pounding. Li Feng closed her eyes and longed for Han to kiss her. She longed for him to do so much more.
He finally did kiss her. A passionate, insistent kiss that parted her lips. There was no more washcloth, only his strong, sure hands rounding her breasts and stroking her stomach. She moaned around his invading tongue, sucking gently. He responded with a low, almost feral sound as his arousal pressed hard against her.
The rhythm had changed. Her heartbeat was like a drum beating faster to urge on the next act. His breath was hot and ragged in her mouth. He pushed her back on to the pallet and eased her trousers down past her hips. At the same time, she dragged his robe open and ran her hands over wide shoulders and the lean, sculpted muscle of his chest. He was hard all over, his skin smooth and warm.
She was naked while he was partially undressed above her. Han pulled his trousers down just as much as he needed to free his erect organ. Li Feng stared up at him. His brow was damp and furrowed as if in deep concentration. He tugged her roughly downwards to position her beneath him. Her body quivered with anticipation. She had been waiting for this for a long time.
His fingers moved over her sex lightly as he positioned himself. It was enough to make her back arch with pleasure. Then he pushed his hips forward, exhaling forcefully as he came into her. Li Feng clutched at his shoulders. The initial shock of penetration took her to a precarious edge. Nothing else was like this moment of first discovery of how their bodies fit together.
He repositioned his hand at the back of her neck, the possessiveness of it unmistakable, and thrust deep. The completeness, the fullness of accepting him overwhelmed her and her flesh convulsed around him as she was consumed with heat and a rush of elation. She squeezed her eyes shut as the climax drained her of all thought and resistance.
‘So quickly,’ he murmured in astonishment.
His breath was hot against her ear. He was gloating a little bit, but she didn’t mind. Not when her body shuddered with so much blinding pleasure. Not when he was holding her tight against him. He continued holding her as he brought himself to his own peak and continued holding her afterwards, never letting go.
* * *
‘I did steal the jade,’ Li Feng confessed.
Han’s hand played along her spine. ‘I know you did.’
She lifted her head and propped her chin on to her hands so she could look at him. His eyes were half-lidded, drunk from an afternoon of lovemaking. He regarded her with an indulgent expression.
Han proved to be an energetic lover. They had joined together once again and she was now stretched out languidly on top of him, skin to dampened skin. She enjoyed the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath her. He was a much more comfortable mattress than the threadbare pallet and the hard floor beneath it.
‘Well?’ She tapped a finger against his chin and he made a half-hearted attempt to capture it in his lips. ‘You don’t believe I should still be punished?’
‘Certainly.’
She yelped as he dealt her a stinging slap on her rump.
‘There,’ he said, quite satisfied.
‘Scoundrel.’
She reared up and pinned his shoulders to the mat. He met her glare with a lazy smile.
But she knew him. Han wasn’t so stupidly male that he’d cast aside his beliefs after a few moments of passion.
His smile faded into seriousness. ‘I know you’ve been involved in questionable activities in the past, Li Feng. But I’ve come to know you beyond that.’
‘That’s a very open-minded sentiment for a magistrate’s son,’ she murmured.
He stiffened beneath her. ‘In many circles, thief-catchers aren’t thought of much higher than the thieves we bring in.’
‘But you’re no ordinary thief-catcher.’
A slow, satisfied grin spread across his face. ‘No?’
‘I meant what I said beneath the bridge, Han. We are opposites, you and I.’
‘Yin and yang.’
She shot him an irritated look. ‘
Not
yin and yang.’
Han was being purposefully thick-headed—or maybe he wasn’t. Han was regarding her with that same earnest expression that always got the best of her. He wielded a sword and fought like a warrior, but his heart and mind was that of a scholar.
‘I don’t want you to have any illusions about me,’ she warned him. ‘Or about this.’
She hadn’t always been forthcoming with him, but she wanted honesty between them for these last moments. And it had to be farewell afterwards.
‘I’m not as honourable or heroic as you believe,’ he said in all seriousness. ‘I joined up with the local militia at fifteen because I had no skills for any other profession. I didn’t become an officer either. I was a common soldier, working with my hands.’
He propped himself up on one elbow and she slid alongside him, their legs still entwined.
‘A couple years after that, I started hunting down fugitives for no other reason than the money,’ he explained. ‘It wasn’t considered very reputable, but it was work that needed to be done.’
‘But you did this as a sacrifice for your family.’
Even when Han lowered himself, it was for noble reasons. He might not see it that way, but she certainly did. She was willing to sacrifice everything for family as well, but there was nothing noble about Liu Yuan or about her. The events of fifteen years past had shaped her and Liu Yuan into what they were: angry and fighting against the world.
She had made a choice in the forest, siding with Han against her brother, but it was a temporary one. Family was life’s blood.
‘You asked me what I would do once my search was over.’ She thought of her brother and of the tragedy that had taken their parents. Han listened patiently as she struggled with her next words. ‘I don’t know what happens now.’
She couldn’t bring herself to say the last part, that this was farewell.
‘I know what happens,’ Han assured her.
The intensity of his gaze sent a flutter to her stomach. He rolled on to his back and is hands stole to her hips to lift her over him. His organ stirred and reawakened against her. Not stupidly male, but male enough. She shot him an admonishing look, even as her flesh warmed to him. She needed simple answers right then and this was the simplest, most basic truth there was.