Tempted Tigress Read Free Page B

newcomer, adding their boots to her body. All had come to see the show.
    What am I doing? The thought slid through his mind, repeated over and over. But like ink mixed too thin, it had no substance. He would kill this woman. Had he not felt the truth in her qi? She would be the death of him. She would change his world irrevocably, and he could not afford another such life-shattering change.
    Jing-Li found his breath and this time banged his head for real against the dirt. "Master Tau! Master Tau! Where is your reason?"
    Gone, he thought. And he did not know why. The sword was slipping in his hands. All too soon it would descend whether he willed it or not. He tensed his stomach, intending to kill her with a single stroke. Nausea rolled in his belly, but he fought it down. Then he met her eyes. He was close enough to see them clearly: round, light brown, and rimmed red from her tears. He saw the streaks of wet on her cheeks that revealed the pale white color of her skin. And he saw her rough lips, chapped and swollen from the sun, now swelling where she had bit down, her blood welling thick and dark across her white teeth. Nothing appealing about her at all, and yet he knew she was beautiful. Something about her fired his blood, and that made him all the more angry.
    "I curse you," she hissed in clear Chinese. "I curse you to taste forever the tears of all women, to feel the aches of their broken feet and taste the blood of their lost virginity. I curse you out of all men in China to know what you have done to me." Then she spit her blood at his feet and stretched her neck to wait for the sword.
    As one, the guards leaped backwards. Curses were no small thing, and the curse of a dying woman carried the ugliest taint. None wished to share in this damnation.
    "So be it," Zhi-Gang acknowledged, accepting the punishment. Then he pulled the sword down with all his might.
    The blow never landed. Though smaller of stature, Jing-Li had always been faster. There had been no time to leap from the ground to stop the sword, and yet, there his friend was, his hands gripped around the sword, desperation lending strength to his arms. They grappled for a moment, sword twisting awkwardly between them—two scholars unused to such a weapon. But in the end, Jing-Li won. He knocked the sword to the ground such that it clattered loudly against the bamboo chair.
    "You cannot take such a curse upon yourself!" Jing-Li cried. "You will kill us all!" Then he glared at the guards, mobilizing them into action. "Take her to our boat. Chain her. I will kill her there."
    All was accomplished with amazing speed. The woman was dragged off, the sword sheathed and gone. Even his chair disappeared, taken by his true servants. All that remained was himself and Jing-Li, locked one against another.
    "Where is your mind?" Jing-Li rasped, his breath sour with fear.
    Zhi-Gang acted without thought. He threw his friend off him with a curse. In raw strength, he had always been mightier. Then he stood over Jing-Li, his breath hot on his lips and in his lungs. He had no answer for his friend, and that made his blood boil even hotter.
    "You will not touch her," Zhi-Gang rasped. "I will kill her with my own hands. I will drain the blood from her body and have her heart for my dinner." Then he twisted, leaning forward until his forehead nearly touched the smear of compressed dirt on Jing-Li's. "Interfere again, and you will be the one in chains sent as a special gift to the Empress Dowager."
    He waited while his words spread into Jing-Li's spirit. Then, with a last curse, he spun and stalked away. His heels ground into the rocks with every step and his hands itched where he'd clenched them into fists. As he walked, he narrowed his eyes and prayed he didn't trip.
    It wasn't just that his poor vision washed the world in fuzzy gray. It was that his spirit seemed covered in an oily blackness. It coated his thoughts, polluted his moods, and ate at his reason. How could a man chart