A Phoenix Rising - An Untamed Story (Book 1 In Series)

Chapter 32

When Lan WangJi arose from his meditation, he found his husband's head lying over his crossed legs. "This can't be comfortable," he observed.

"It's not," Wei WuXian agreed. "But it's the next best thing to sitting in your lap." He rolled over and kissed Lan WangJi's hand where it rested on a knee. "Did you ever play 'what if' during those years I was gone?"

"What if I stayed with you in the Burial Mounds? What if I pulled you up the cliff?"

"Yeah...."

"Of course. Why?"

Wei WuXian shrugged in the darkness. "I was just thinking... What if your uncle was right? Would it be better if Uncle Jiang had left me on the streets? All the trouble I've caused.... The lives I've destroyed. Even you... you're a cut sleeve because of me." Wei Ying yelped as two hands shoved their way under his armpits and hauled his body up until he was sitting on Lan Zhan's lap.

"What lives have you destroyed?" Lan WangJi asked, wrapping his arms around his husband's waist. "When have you ever struck first? Defending yourself and the people you care about is not destroying lives.... The Wen murdering your family is all on them. Su She murdering Jin ZiXuan is on him. Your Shijie saving you from being stabbed in the back is on her. Not you. You didn't cause any of that. You were just a convenient excuse.

"As for me being a cut sleeve.... I don't think of myself like that. I don't love you because you're a man. Or even in spite of you being a man. Lan Zhan loves Wei Ying. It's as simple as that. You are my soulmate. I think that if Jiang FengMian had not found you, there would have come a day when I was walking to or from a night hunt in YunMeng, and I would have seen you there.... And just like when we were teenagers, I would have fallen in love with you. And you with me. We are fated to be together.

"Playing 'what if' is pointless. What if I told you I loved you in XuanWu's cave when you teased me about liking MianMian? What if I told you I loved you the night you killed Wen Chao? What if I told you I loved you when I followed you back to the Burial Mounds? What if I told you I loved you on the rooftop at the Nightless City the night you died? What if I told you I loved you when we went to Cloud Recesses after I found you on Dafan mountain?"

Wei Ying reached out in the dark to pull Lan Zhan's head over and silenced his 'what ifs' with a kiss. Hearing those love words made him so hard! They had time, barely, for another round. He nudged Lan Zhan's lips open with his own and deepened the kiss, increasing his desire. He could feel the proof against his hip that he wasn't the only one aroused. But Lan Zhan had other ideas, and gentled the kiss so that it was soothing rather than arousing, loving and tender rather than fierce and wild.

Long minutes later, they pulled back from the kiss. Wei WuXian lit a fire talisman, stood up and straightened his robes. "It's time. How do I look?"

Lan WangJi noted that Suibian still lay on the floor of the box, while Chenqing was held loosely in the other's hand. He looked up to see his beautiful spouse's eyes already rimmed with red and swirls of resentful energy surrounding his body. "Wei Ying..." he warned.

The Yiling Patriarch smiled back, coldly. "You already own me, body and soul. How can resentful energy harm something that is yours?" He climbed out of the box and lifted Chenqing to his lips.

Lan SiZhui limped to a stop and almost fell as the boy supporting him, Jin Ling, decided to sit down. Neither of them were in any condition to walk on their own. He, too, should have fallen, but OuYang XiaoDan stepped in to hold him up. He shook off her help, and stared at the inferno; his father's room was surrounded by more of the men in black. And obviously, the building was under some sort of spell. While the buildings next to it had already collapsed, this one was different. The walls were gone and part of the roof had caved in, but the main supports of the structure were still standing.... How can anyone survive in that....