The Stone King's Lover (石王的愛)

Chapter 58

A/N: murder, death, violence

Wen Reian

2005 years after The Long Night

Lêung Shãn

<South Jiezhî>

The man had turned down another alley, toward the poorest part of the city. Reian could hardly see because there were no streetlights. Only the silver glow of the full-moon overhead highlighted and cast shadows across the freshly fallen snow.

He wasn't aware of anything past the sensation of his own breathing. Reian would inhale, the cold burning his lungs as he exhaled soundlessly. He kept to the darkest parts of the streets, until he saw that the man had turned into a dead end...

Feeling like a shadow himself, Wen Rei watched as the man practically stumbled into the wall at the end, then cursed and turned to go back. It was then that their eyes met.

What was apparent immediately; Jin Yu's father had the same eyes as his son. What was also clear was the fact that Wen Reian had stepped directly in front of the man, and wasn't moving.

A crooked grin spread across the man's dirty face. He stumbled a little as he reached down and grabbed an empty bottle off the street. He held it up, seeming to check if it really was empty, then frowned and smashed it against the stone wall.

"Scram, boy!" He growled.

Pieces of glass had shattered as far as Reian's feet, and he saw the way the man was glaring at him now, the sharp edges of the bottle in his hand glinting like fangs in the moonlight. But so did Wen Rei's eyes; shining with all of his hatred and grief.

"I said-"

As the man lurched towards him, Reian's mind flicked through every bruise and broken bone that Jin Yu had suffered by this monster's hand.

Why does he get to live, and not A'Yu?! It isn't fair-

"Hey!"

Wen Reian had slammed his hands into the man, knocking him so off balance that he fell. Hearing the scrabbling of filthy hands as he tried to grab onto anything; a shard of glass?! Reian's robes? The boy lashed out-

Gasping for air as a bitter taste like blood filled his mouth, Reian kicked. Over and over and over... until the man was hardly conscious. Wen Rei was shaking. Crying, feeling as if he was doing everything he could to kill a deadly snake that had threatened to bite.

You don't get to live! You don't get to hurt the ones I love-

As tears blurred his vision and his blood boiled, Reian panicked as he realised he could still see the rise and fall of the man's chest, the broken bottle still in reach of his hand.

No! You have to die!!

"Angh-" the boy was choking through his tears, every breath feeling like daggers sliding down his throat.

With what was left of him, what was left of his mind; hatred and fear and suffering... everything inside Reian suddenly rushed out at once.

He screamed-

And as he did, he felt something strange. A coldness at the back of his neck. It made his fingers tighten and his legs give out. Collapsing onto the wet pavement beside Jin Yu's father, Reian's stomach rolled, the boy seeing stars.