Choices

18 - Morning After

A/N: The awkward morning after, immortal style. Also, courtship, as only Donghua Dijun can.

Because, love can make people do stupid things, and our single-minded deity is no exception.

-----------------------------------------------------

When Fengjiu woke up for the second time, it was late in the afternoon, and she was in a bright, unfamiliar room, with the leftover scent of white sandalwood lingering in the air around her.

She was alone, amidst clean sheets that surprisingly held no traces of last night's impiety. Though, a delicious pain ran through her lower body as she tried to sit up, and with it came the memories of shared kisses and mingled scents, sweet nothings whispered in the dark, intimate touches and caresses exchanged beneath the sheets. Then there was the recollection of how things arrived at this point, in particular her boldness at asking to be taken and Donghua's reluctant capitulation.

A blush suffused her cheeks, and she covered her face with two hands as she thought: what have I done?

Fengjiu had no regrets, even if she understood that it would be just this one time, and that she would be tossed out of Donghua's bed just like countless others before her. It didn't even matter that her family would surely skin her alive for this, for going against repeated warnings against harboring affections of any kind for a man as cold and cruel as Donghua Dijun. How she acted last night may have been way out of character, and Fengjiu doubted if she will ever know where she got her boldness, but she was fully conscious of the decision she made, and the repercussions it would have.

No, the only misgiving she had is the fact that because of this, she would have no choice but to disappear now from Donghua's sight, totally and completely, preferably before he threw her out.

In fact, this would be a perfect opportunity. There was no sign of Dijun anywhere; whether by his design or not, at least Fengjiu was given a chance to walk out of here without losing much of her face.

She sat up and tried to get down from the bed, only to have her knees crumble beneath her as the pain on her lower back intensified. Her face hot with embarrassment, Feng Jiu spent several moments of deep breathing to calm herself, and took the chance to take stock of her surroundings.

This room, while undoubtedly Dijun's, wasn't his chambers in the demon realm, nor was it his courtyard in Fanyin Valley. Is she perhaps in his Taichen Palace at Jiuchongtian? But the ambience here felt different from the Nine Heavens; the spiritual energy suffusing the place was much too concentrated, too overwhelming.

"You're awake."

Startled, Fengjiu grabbed the sheets with haste and used it to cover up her naked self, just as Dijun pulled aside the gauzy curtains hanging over the entrance and stepped into the room. The unfathomable expression in his gaze was replaced with something warm and intense as he regarded her there, sprawled on the floor beside the bed, the thin bedsheets doing nothing much to hide her figure, or the love marks that she wasn't even aware dotted the smooth, ivory skin of her back.

"Uhm...yes. Good - good afternoon? I think I overslept?"