I Sealed the Demon Lord for a Hundred Years, Now He Wants His Jailer novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Hot Pool

Wuhen felt the hand on his ribs go still.

"What?" he said into the quilt.

"Nothing." Chenjue's mouth moved against his shoulder. "You're warm."

"You're a poor liar."

"I'm an excellent liar. I'm only choosing not to."

He eased out, wiped them both down with the inn's thin towel, and turned Wuhen onto his back.

For a moment he only looked at the skin below the ribs, where nothing showed now.

Then his face smoothed over.

"We're going home," he said.

"I'd like to see what you saw."

"There's nothing to see. The innkeeper's wife will make you soup and I'll hear about it for a year."

He pulled the sheet up.

"Home. Hot water. You're shaking."

"I'm not," Wuhen said.

"Your hands are."

They were, a little.

Wuhen looked at them and closed them into fists.

He let himself be carried through a doorway of black fire a second time.

The spring air of Peach Ford turned into the warm, heavy air of the east wing.

He had expected the bedroom.

Instead Chenjue carried him down a long corridor, through a door of carved cedar, and into steam.

It was a cave, hollowed out under the palace.

The walls were bare rock, black and shining, and the ceiling was hung with red lanterns.

In the middle lay a pool, round and wide as a threshing floor, and the water was milk-white and boiling gently at the edges.

"The hot spring," Chenjue said.

"You have a hot spring under your palace."

"I have several. This one's the nearest," Chenjue replied.

"Of course it is."

Chenjue set Wuhen on a flat stone ledge and knelt to untie his sash.

His hands moved calm and quick, untying the knot with practiced care.

Wuhen let him, because there was no sense in fighting it.

Then the black robe was gone, and the white ribs showed in the lamplight, and Chenjue's hands paused.

"Don't stare," Wuhen said.

"It's rude not to."

"Then be rude somewhere else."

Chenjue stripped himself with the same economy, boots, belt and trousers, and when the last of it fell the lanterns showed all of him.

Wuhen made himself look at the water.

Chenjue slid into the pool first, and the milky water rose over his hips, his waist, his chest.

He held up both arms.

"Come."

"I can walk to the edge," Wuhen answered.

"You can fall off the edge."

"I can hold the edge," Wuhen said.

"Come here, Jailer."

Wuhen slid into the water, and the heat closed over him up to the collarbones.

It was perfect.

It was so good that his head fell back and his eyes shut, and a groan escaped him.

Chenjue's arms came around him.

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