Chapter 8: Your Turn

Yuxi's room in the heir's courtyard had a bed, a desk, and a peach-wood chest that had belonged to her mother.

Nothing else in it had ever been hers by choice.

Tonight she had lit one lamp and sent every servant away.

Wanning came in over the roof tiles and dropped through the shutter without a sound.

She landed in a crouch, looked around at the neat white walls, and whistled low.

"It's like sleeping in a scroll."

"Close the shutter."

Wanning closed it.

She turned, and her smile faded.

Yuxi stood very straight in the middle of the room with her hair down and her sash in her hand.

It was the white sash of the heir, folded in a long band.

"You said teach you to lead," Wanning said.

"You said tell you what I want and then do it."

"I did."

"So." Yuxi's voice was low and clear, the voice she used on the training ground. "Take off your clothes."

Wanning's eyebrows went up.

"Is that an order, Heir?"

"Yes."

Wanning laughed under her breath and began to strip.

She was fast and unselfconscious about it, boots, trousers, black shirt, the red sash last.

Her skin was tanned to the collar and paler below.

Her breasts were full and heavy, tipped with dark nipples, and a long white scar ran across her hip.

Yuxi's mouth went dry.

She stepped forward, her heart pounding, and touched the scar with two fingers.

"Where's this from?"

"A bandit on the Linhe road. I was seventeen."

"I'd like to kill him."

"He's dead." Wanning caught her hand. "Don't change the subject. You're leading."

"Get on the bed."

Wanning got on the bed.

She lay on her back against the white pillow, naked and flushed in the lamplight.

She watched Yuxi with bright eyes.

Yuxi held the sash up between her hands.

"Give me your wrists."

For the first time, Wanning hesitated.

The laughter went out of her face.

"I don't let people do that," she said quietly.

"I know."

"I mean it. Not ever."

"Then don't." Yuxi lowered the sash. "Tell me no."

Wanning stared at her for a long breath.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Sect Leader's New Daughter Has Her Hands on My Hips from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.