Sometime during the endless night, Xu Ling stood and felt her way around the small cell. Her ankle throbbed with every step, a reminding her of the hours she had spent climbing the snow-covered mountains outside and the sense of hope she had lost with six swings of a sword.
Her search for a way out had been unsuccessful. There was no window like the one in a fairy tale tower, no magical mirror to walk through. Nor had she found any bars to squeeze through or tunnels to dig into like in another story. Somewhere along the way, she had lost her cell phone. Not that she could get reception in the dungeon of a castle.
As time passed, the darkness seemed to close in tighter and tighter around her.
The mice had stopped squeaking, at least.
I just want to go home, she thought, once again huddling on the floor. She wanted to forget this whole experience. She could live with the voices now. She would live with them. Trying to silence them had cost her too much. Her job, perhaps. Her lifelong friendship with Dr Lucas, maybe. A piece of her sanity, definitely.
She would never be the same.
Jiang Lang's lifeless face would haunt her, awake and asleep, for the rest of her life. Oh God. Tears streamed down her cheeks, chilling with the cold. How many would she shed before her tear ducts dried completely? Before the ache in her chest faded?
Please, just let me go, a voice seemed to plead. Please. I swear. I'll never return.
Me too, she thought miserably.
"Have you been here all night, woman?"
A moment passed, the question still unanswered as Xu Ling tried to figure out where the sound came from. That voice... she would swear it came from the present, not the past. The rough, booming sound of it echoed in her ears.
"Answer me, Xu Ling."
Another moment passed before she realized it was the voice that had come to haunt her above all others. A voice that was somehow imprinted in her mind, even though she had only heard it a few times before. She gasped, her eyes straining through the darkness, searching...searching...but finding nothing.
"Xu Ling. Answer me."
"J-Jiang Lang?" No, surely not. It had to be a trick.
"Answer the question."
Suddenly a door was opened, and rays of light flooded the cell. Xu Ling blinked against the orange-gold spots clouding her vision. A man stood in the doorway, a tall, black shadow of menace and muscle.
Sweet silence - silence she had only encountered once before - enveloped her.
She flattened her palms against the wall behind her and slowly stood up. Shock pounded through her, and her knees wobbled. He wasn't... He couldn't be... This wasn't possible. Wasn't even imaginable. Only in fairy tales did something like this happen.
"Answer me," the man said yet again. There was violence in his tone now, as if he spoke with two voices. Both dark, thick, and thunderous.
She opened her mouth to respond, but no sound came out. That double voice was deep, turbulent, and yet sensual beyond her wildest dreams. Jiang Lang. She hadn't been mistaken. Shivering, she wiped at her tear-stained cheeks with the back of her hand.
"I don't understand," she breathed. Am I dreaming?
Jiang Lang - no, the man, for he couldn't possibly be Jiang Lang, no matter how similar the voices - stepped into the cell. His attention jerked to the side, away from her, as if he needed a moment to compose himself.
Golden rays of sunlight danced over him, gently touching his beautiful face. Same dark eyebrows, same thickly lashed violet eyes. Same sharp nose and full lips.
How could this be? How had her captors produced the exact likeness of the man she had met last night, down to that same wildness? A man who stopped the voices of the past with his mere presence?
A twin?
Her eyes widened. A twin. Of course. Finally, something made sense. "They killed your brother," she blurted out. Maybe he already knew. Maybe he was glad. But maybe, just maybe, he would take her into town, and she could report the terrible crime she had witnessed. Justice could be served.
"I do not have a brother," he said. "Not by blood."
"But... but..." Jiang Lang will be fine, the gorgeous man had said. She shook her head. Impossible. She had watched him die. But an angel could have been resurrected, right? A hard lump formed in her throat. The men of this household were most definitely not angels, no matter what the townspeople claimed.
His gaze swept back to her, down her body in a possessive way and up again. He scowled. "Did they leave you here all night?" His face darkening by the second, he scanned the rest of the cell. "Tell me they gave you blankets and water and only took them away this morning."
Still shaking, she smoothed a hand over her face and through her hair, wincing at the tangles. Dirt probably covered her from head to toe. Like that matters. "Who are you? What are you?"
For a long time, he didn't speak. He just studied her as though she were a bug under a microscope. She knew that look well. It was a favorite of everyone at the Institute. "You know who I am."
"But you can't be him," she insisted, not wanting to accept the other possibility. He was not like the others, the demons who had killed him. "My Jiang Lang is dead."
"Your Jiang Lang?" Something fiery flickered in his eyes. "Yours?"
She lifted her chin, refusing to answer.
His lips curving into what might have been a smile, he held out one arm and motioned for her to come over. "Come. We will clean you up, warm you, and feed you. Then I will...explain."
That hesitation made it clear he wouldn't be explaining anything. He had something else in mind, and his tone suggested that something would be intense. She remained where she was, scared to the core. "Let me see your stomach," she said, trying to buy time.
His fingers gave a swift jerk. "Come."
A part of her wanted to go to him, to follow wherever he would lead. Because he did look like Jiang Lang, and whatever else Jiang Lang was, he had still been the best thing to ever happen to her. But once again, she stood her ground. "No."
"Come."
She shook her head. "I'm staying here until you show me your stomach."
"I won't hurt you, Xu Ling." The words hadn't yet echoed from the walls - unsaid, but there all the same. Even more unnerving, the sound of her name on his tongue was rich, as if he couldn't help but savor it. And desire another taste. "Xu Ling," he repeated.
Another shiver went through her, and she frowned. He shouldn't desire her, and she definitely shouldn't desire him. "You can't be my Jiang Lang. You just can't."
That intense, fiery something flashed over his face again. "That's twice now you've claimed me as yours."
"I-I'm sorry." She didn't know what else to say. Jiang Lang had saved her from the voices, for a little while at least. She had watched him die. They were connected. He was hers.
"Don't be sorry." He sounded almost gentle just then. "I am Jiang Lang," he insisted. "Now come."
"No."
Tired of her refusal, the man closed the remaining distance between them. He smelled of intense heat and primitive rituals performed in the moonlight. "I'll carry you over my shoulder if I must, just as I did last night. If I'm forced to do it, however, I cannot guarantee you'll make it out of this cell with your clothes on. Understand?"
Oddly, his words were exciting when they should have been frightening. Comforting when they should have been intimidating. Only Jiang Lang knew the way she had been carried. He had switched her to his arms before entering the chateau and yelling at his murderers.
"Please," she found herself saying. "Just show me your stomach." The more she demanded to see it, the more she wanted to. Would she find stitched wounds? Smooth skin?
Would there be any sign that this man had been stabbed over and over again?
At first, he gave no reaction to her request. Then, finally, he sighed. "It appears I am the one who will not make it out of here with my clothes on." He reached for the bottom of his black shirt and slowly... slowly... raised it.
Despite her insistence, Xu Ling couldn't yet work up the courage to tear her attention from his intense violet gaze. She told herself it was because his eyes were so beautiful, so mesmerizing that she was lost in them, drowning. But she knew that was only half the truth. If he was stitched, was scabbed... if this was Jiang Lang...
"You wanted to look. So look," the man commanded, both impatient and resigned.
Do it. Look. Inch by inch, her gaze lowered. She saw a strong neck and a wildly beating pulse. A collarbone mostly covered by black cloth. She saw one of his thick hands gripping that cloth right above his heart. His nipples were tiny, brown, and hard. His skin was that otherworldly bronze she had admired in the forest, and he was built with strong, defined muscles.
And then she saw them. Six scabbed-over wounds. Not stitched, but red and angry. Probably Painful.