Sealed in the Secret Realm with My Rival novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Harmony of Cores
Standing apart fails, so Qin demands the quickest way and kisses his rival furiously; one crack in the sky closes, and Qin finds Lu's medicine in the cabinet.
They tried it the polite way first.
They stood three paces apart in the pavilion hall, under the hundred-wick lamp, and held out their hands.
Qin Heyan reached for his core and sent a thread of frost-qi across the gap.
Lu Baichuan sent a thread of ember-qi to meet it.
The two threads touched in the air between them and slid off each other.
"Again," Qin said.
They tried it five times.
The sixth time, the frost-qi turned the ember-qi to steam, and the steam hissed out the window.
Outside, the sky shed a little black dust.
"Harmony," Lu said, panting a little. "The tablet said harmony. That wasn't harmony. That was a quarrel."
"Then we do it the other way."
"What other way?"
"The way the tablet means." Qin heard his own voice go cold and careful. "Skin to skin, qi to qi. Until we both finish."
"Finish what?"
"Don't," Qin said.
Lu's dimple showed.
"I'm only asking. Young Master Qin has a reputation for exactness."
"Fine," Qin said. "Until we both come."
The word sat in the quiet hall.
Lu stopped smiling.
He looked at Qin for a long moment, at his mouth and the pin in his hair and the mole under his left eye.
"You're sure," Lu said.
It was not a joke, and it was not a check-in either.
It was the voice of a man who wanted to hear the answer.
"I'm sure," Qin said. "Take your clothes off."
"Is that an order?"
"Yes."
Lu's gaze dropped, and his breath went out of him in a short laugh that had no teasing in it at all.
"Say it again."
"Take your clothes off, Lu Baichuan."
Lu pulled his red headband off with one hand and dropped it on the floor.
His crimson outer robe went next, then the black one under it.
Qin did not look away.
He had seen Lu shirtless at the Tournament baths, a hundred times, across a steaming room, with his heart beating hard enough to hurt.
He had never been allowed to look for as long as he liked.
Lu was broad and heavy-shouldered and warm-skinned, with old scars across the ribs and a long pale seam down his left forearm.
His stomach was hard and flat.
Below it, his cock was already full against the black cloth of his trousers.
"Your turn," Lu said, and his voice had gone rough.
Qin unwound the pale blue sash.
He took the white jade pin out of his hair, and the half-knot came down in a long black fall over his shoulders.
His outer robe hit the floor.
Then the grey inner one.
His fingers did not shake until the last of the cloth slid off his hips.
Lu's eyes went over him once, slowly, from his throat to his thighs, and Qin felt that look.
"Ten years," Lu said, hardly above a whisper. "Ten years I've wanted to see you out of that armor."
"Then stop talking."
Lu crossed the floor in two steps.
He took Qin's face in both his hands, and kissed him.
It was not gentle.
Qin had a moment to be furious that Lu tasted of smoke and tea and was good at this.
Then his own mouth opened, and he was kissing back as hard as he fought.
He bit Lu's lower lip.
Lu made a low sound in his throat and pushed him backward until his shoulders hit a lacquered pillar.
The wood was cool.
Lu's whole body was hot.
Qin's hands found Lu's hair, the thick black chin-length mess of it, and gripped hard.
"Tell me," Lu muttered against his jaw. "Tell me what you want."
"Your hand."
"Where?"
"On me," Qin said, and heard how desperate it sounded and did not care. "Now."
Lu's palm closed around his cock.
Qin's head hit the pillar.
Lu's grip was rough and warm and sure, and it dragged one slow stroke from root to tip that made Qin's knees go loose.
"There," Lu said, delighted. "Look at you."
"Shut up."
"Make me."
Qin reached down and took Lu in his own fist.
Lu jerked against him with a groan, and the sound went straight to Qin's spine.
They stood in the lamplight, hips pressed together, chests heaving, each with a hand around the other.
Lu was thicker than Qin had imagined, and he had imagined it more than he would ever admit.
The skin was hot and silky over iron.
Qin gripped him and stroked, and Lu bit down on Qin's shoulder.
"Faster," Lu said into his skin.
"You don't give the orders."
"Then give me one."
Qin's pulse stuttered.
He had never been asked.
He said, low and sharp, "Look at me while you do it."
Lu's head came up.
His eyes were very dark, and they were fixed on Qin's, wide open, with nothing hidden in them for once.
His hand sped up.
Qin's did too.
Their qi came loose without warning.
It poured out of both their cores at once, frost and fire, and this time it did not slide off.
It twisted together between their bodies in a spiral of white and red light, and Qin felt it climb his spine.
"Oh," Qin said, stupidly.
"There you are," Lu breathed. "That's it. Come on. Come for me, Heyan."
He had not been given permission to use the name.
Qin came anyway.
It broke through him in hard, rolling waves, his back arching off the pillar, white heat spilling across Lu's fist and his own stomach.
Lu followed a breath later.
He shuddered all over, forehead on Qin's shoulder, and groaned something that might have been Qin's name.
The spiral of light burst.
A long, soft sound passed through the Garden, like a sigh.
They stood there with their foreheads together, shaking.
When Qin could see again, he looked through the window.
One of the black seams in the sky, a short one above the lake, had closed.
It had sealed to a thin gold line.
"That worked," Lu said hoarsely.
"It worked," Qin said.
Neither of them moved.
Qin's heart was still going hard against Lu's chest, and he realized that Lu's was too, quick but steady now, no stumble in it.
Then Lu pulled back, grinning, and kissed the tip of his nose.
"Don't," Qin said.
"You liked it."
"I tolerated it."
"You said my name. Well, you said 'oh', and then you screamed my name."
"I did not scream."
Lu laughed, bent to fish a cloth from a basin by the wall, and wiped Qin's stomach with it before his own.
It was a small thing, and it surprised Qin more than the kiss.
He went to look for a water-jar, to give his hands something to do.
The pavilion had a cabinet in the back room, low and black lacquer, with narrow drawers.
Qin pulled the first one open, looking for towels.
It was full of small blue bottles.
Each had a paper label in a neat, brisk hand, and a round red seal at the bottom of each label.
Qin turned one over.
Ember Court Physician, the seal read.
Under it, in ink: Lu Baichuan, one pill morning and night, Gong Yue.
There were forty bottles.
He heard Lu's step in the doorway, bare feet on the boards.
"Looking for something?" Lu said, in a voice that was very light.
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