Blood on the Altar (HuaLian TGCF)

Chapter 17

Xie Lian can see the moment his words hit home, see the way Hua Cheng's eyes widen, see the way his lips part, hear the way the ghost's unneeded breath catches in his throat. The shock is written so clear across Hua Cheng's face that it brings the uncertainty writhing to the surface of Xie Lian's mind. What if he got this wrong? What if Hua Cheng doesn't want him after all? What if...

All the confidence he's had to muster to speak his mind burns away in an instant and he looks away, beginning to pull back, hot humiliated tears forming in his eyes and an apology beginning to form on his lips, only to be brought up short as the arms still wrapped around him tighten, refusing to let him go.

"Your highness, don't mistake me." Hua Cheng's voice is low and there's something about that tone which brings Xie Lian up short as much as the arms holding him in place. One of those hands untangles from around him and comes to cup the side of his face, turning it gently back so that their eyes can meet. Hua Cheng's expression has changed in the moments since he looked away, the shock is still there, but it's shifted in quality so that it's more like wonder now, and there's something else besides, something burning in Hua Cheng's eye. Hunger. Just the sight of it makes Xie Lian's heart beat faster.

"You just surprised me, that's all." Hua Cheng's thumb brushes across Xie Lian's cheek, his hungry gaze moving over Xie Lian's features as though searching for something. "I would be honored to fulfill your highness's request."

Much as the words make his heart pound, Something about them also brings Wu Ming's mask floating to the front of his mind.

"Wait. I don't want this to just be an honor for you, I mean, I don't want you to do this as an honor, only if you want to."

"Gege," A smile curves the corners of Hua Cheng's lips. "I always want you."

"Oh..." Xie Lian says it softly the words slipping between his lips in a flustered whisper, his eyes widening. There's heat in Hua Cheng's eye, hunger that is becoming more and more obvious by the moment. It washes over Xie Lian in waves and for a moment his heart stutters, the urge to pull away rising up quick and strong and automatic, pull away, chant sutras, burry these thoughts, preserve is cultivation.

The memory of his first night in Paradise manor flashes through his mind again, the fear and the panic that the sight of this very bed brought to him. Fear for his cultivation which rose quick and hot in him while fear of other things, of pain of humiliation of degradation, they had been secondary things, things that some part of him had already been resigned to, because having suffered the mistreatment of his body in every other way how could he not suffer this as well?

At those memories the urge to pull away slips from him drowned under the memory, under the desperate emotions that drove him to speak so boldly in the first place, because he doesn't want to wait for the day someone takes his body and his cultivation by force, because he doesn't want to spend his fear and his panic trying to preserve some ideal of a pure body which has long since stopped holding any real meaning for him, because he wants...

He wants.

It's a strange thought A foreign terrifying thought. He's not supposed to want, not like this, not now, not ever. And yet... And yet he does want.

He wants the only person who has seen him at his worst and still stayed at his side.

He wants the only person who knew him since before he was a god yet has never demanded that he be the pure and perfect prince, never demanded that he be anything other than himself.

He wants the person who saw him covered in mud and raging in a mask and bleeding on an altar and still thought he was worth saving.

Something of his swirling emotions must have shown in his eyes because Hua Cheng runs his thumb over Xie Lian's cheek in a reassuring caress and leans in, his mouth so close to the prince's that, if he breathed Xie Lian is sure he would feel the ghost king's breath on his lips.