He saved her. Somehow she knew it would be him. Not the emperor, as she might dream, but the man who plagued her awake and asleep: Sun Bo Tao, Master of the Festival. She heard his voice, a deep, angry bellow that cut through all the high screeches.
She felt no more blows, only a dull ache from head to toe. The pain would grow worse later, but she already knew that nothing had been broken. The girls had been intent on a beating, not murder. The master was still bellowing, and she heard the noise of people withdrawing. Then she felt his hands, large but oh so gentle, on her back.
"Where are you hurt, Ji Yue? You must tell me. I cannot help otherwise."
Deep in her spirit, she wanted to answer. She'd never had a sister, and she had naively believed that some of her fellow virgins would be her friends. She was a foolish, foolish woman to have thought such a thing. She knew that now.
"Chen Ji Yue, you must answer me!" His voice held a tinge of panic, so she opened her eyes to look at him.
"Once many years ago," she said, "I was climbing to reach something I was not supposed to have." She blinked away her tears. With his help, she began to uncurl, wincing as she moved. "I don't remember what it was. A sweet perhaps or, more likely, my father's brushes. But it was too high and I was too small, so I fell and broke my arm."
"Ji Yue, where are you hurt?" He brushed his thumb across her cheek and it came away smeared with white paint and black charcoal.
"The pain was unbearable," she said, retreating to the memory of her mother's arms wrapped about her, and her father's voice, high and threaded with panic. "I screamed until my throat hurt as much as my arm, and still I did not stop."
"Ji Yue…" he murmured, clearly frustrated. He was running his hands down her body—her arms and her ribs, then her legs. There was nothing familiar in his touch, simply a quick pat everywhere to check for breaks.
She leaned forward and touched his arm before he reached her big feet. "This was a beating," she said. "Nothing more."
He froze. "I have already summoned the women's doctor."
She shook her head. She did not want to see that woman again or go into her examination room. "Send her away. I would know if something inside were broken."
He shook his head. "Not always," he said grimly as he handed her a cloth for her face. "Have you been beaten before?"
She wiped the worst of the paint from her face then pulled the now broken board from her hair. "Once by my father for practicing my brush strokes upon his fine paper. And once by my brother's tutor for doing his homework for him."
He frowned. "You did your brother's homework?"
She shrugged, then immediately stopped. Already her back was beginning to swell. "I was bored. And I didn't think the runt would claim my work as his own."
He smiled. This close, she could see the way his brow puckered when he was worried, and how his smile smoothed the furrows away. "Can you stand?"
She nodded. He gripped her hand, but there was something between their palms. He pulled back and turned her hand over. The mangled butterfly hairpin lay in her palm. She had ripped it back from the lying bitch who'd stolen it.
"I am sorry," he said. "It was a pretty piece."
It was mutilated beyond repair. The jade stones were broken or missing and the gold wire was twisted. She looked at the misshapen thing in her palm and something inside her broke. She began to cry, and once the tears began, they would not stop.
He tried to speak to her. She couldn't understand the words, but she heard his tone. He sounded much like her father had that day long ago when she'd broken her arm: alarmed, anxious and completely uncertain what to do. In the end, Bo Tao simply swept her legs out from under her and carried her from the virgins' palace. She didn't know where he was taking her, and frankly she didn't care. His arms were larger than her father's, his voice was deeper than her father's, but the comfort was the same. His touch was just as tender, and she wanted nothing more than to be held by him forever.
Then he stopped walking. He stood still for a moment while she listened to the steady beat of his heart. She liked the regular rise and fall of his broad chest. Then he eased down on a bench, gently resting her on his lap.
"We are alone now," he said. "You can cry as much as you like."
She smiled and wished she could rub her face against the skin on his neck, but his collar prevented it. "I am done crying," she said, her voice raw. Instead, her mind was consumed by the feel of his arms, the warmth of his body and the strength that surrounded her so completely that she thought she could never be harmed again. "Don't leave me yet."
He tightened his grip around her. "Are you sure you don't need to see the physician?" he asked. With her ear pressed to his chest, his voice was a deep, echoing rumble like the sound of thunder in the distance.
"I am fine so long as you hold me."
He didn't answer, except to lean back enough to settle her even more deeply into his arms. She smiled, happy to think of nothing beyond him. But that thought led to others. Her heart beat harder, and she remembered another time when his hands had been on her body, when his chest had been pressed tight to her back, and his hands…
"Where are we?" she asked by way of distraction. She knew they were in a bower of sorts. She could feel the breeze, but in the darkness, she could see little more than the stone bench upon which they sat.
"It is a garden near the emperor's palace."
She jerked in alarm. "But he cannot see me like this!"
His grip tightened on her, keeping her in place. "No one comes here at night but me. Certainly not Yi Zhen. And even if he did, we would hear him long before he could see us."
Reassured, she relaxed back against him, acutely aware of the way his thighs rippled as he adjusted to her. And of the burning heat pressed intimately against her. "But where is this place?"
"It is my aunt's garden. Well, not specifically hers, but she was the only one who tended it."
She frowned. "You have an aunt in the Forbidden City?"
He nodded. "She was part of Emperor Dao Guang's lowest harem. That is how I came to be friends with Yi Zhen. My mother was visiting her sister. One day I escaped them and found him."
Ji Yue smiled. "My brothers often ran away from me, as well." She straightened, intrigued by the idea of meeting one of Bo Tao's relatives. "May I meet your aunt tomorrow? I would love to talk with her. I like gardening, too, and would often help the workers when I was little."
He shook his head. "I'm sorry. My aunt was selected to be buried with the emperor."
She swallowed, understanding the harsh fate that sometimes awaited members of an imperial harem. Being buried alive with the emperor was one of the worst. Still, she spoke the words that were expected of her. "She was greatly honored."
Bo Tao grimaced. "I have never thought it much of an honor, but I know she believed it."
Ji Yue sighed, uneasy with the idea of what could very well be her own fate someday. "Did she…Was she awake in the tomb?"
"I hope not. I brought her poison sealed in a perfume bottle. She should have fallen asleep, then died quickly while at rest." He took a deep breath, and Ji Yue felt it shudder inside him. "I hope it went like that. We will never know if it did not."
"I'm sure it did. I'm sure she was very grateful."
His hands tightened on her, and she went where he silently urged her: back into his arms. She listened to the night birds and the whisper of the wind through the leaves. But mostly she felt the wildness building inside her again. Would he touch her like he had before? She shouldn't want him to, but she did. She should be aching for the emperor's caress, the emperor's hot press of body and groin, the emperor's…