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Xie Lian is in the middle of attempting to dice a pepper with a butcher’s knife—and failing miserably—when Hua Cheng slides up, slips his arms around Xie Lian’s waist, and plasters himself to his back in their little kitchen on Mount Taicang. It isn’t an unusual position for Xie Lian to find himself in, so it doesn’t immediately strike him that something is on Hua Cheng’s mind, not even when he prompts:
“Gege?”
“Yes?”
“We’ve been married for three months now.”
“Yes?” He tucks his tongue between his teeth and concentrates. Seeds are stuck to his fingers. The pepper is in a dozen uneven strips. His focus is broken, however, when Hua Cheng’s arms leave his waist and his hands settle over Xie Lian’s on the pepper and on the knife, stilling them. He looks at Hua Cheng’s face as best he can with his husband using his shoulder as a chin rest. “What?”
“It’s been three months.”
“It has been. Is that important?”
“Mm. In the next few weeks, gege will have a heat. I want to know if I should be here, or if I should make myself scarce. I know you aren’t ready to break your cultivation, but we don’t have to do anything but nest.”
Xie Lian freezes. “My—”
“I don’t have to be here,” Hua Cheng repeats. “It’s whatever makes gege comfortable.”
“San Lang…” The bottom drops out of Xie Lian’s stomach. Anxiety overtakes him. Omegas have heats three times a year. Xie Lian is due for one. Hua Cheng is probably due for one. How could he forget about that?
“I can leave,” Hua Cheng says, quieter this time. “I can leave, gege. I can continue to suppress my heats, too. We don’t have to think about this at all.”
“It’s not that,” Xie Lian whispers. He sets the knife down, lets go of the pepper, and Hua Cheng’s fingers thread with his, sticky and covered with seeds. He stares at the red string on his mate’s middle finger. His mate—in name only, but his mate. The other half of him. His special someone. His precious San Lang. Guilty tears prick at his eyes. He was relieved when he discovered Hua Cheng was an omega too because then this didn’t matter.
Foolish. It does matter. It affects Hua Cheng. Might even disappoint him. Will upset him at the very least.
This would have been easy to admit before they became them. When Xie Lian was alone, his body being broken wasn’t a concern. Who was there to care but him? And he didn’t care. His cultivation path made it irrelevant, even if, sometimes, in the back of his mind, it unsettled him that his past, a hundred deaths, and so many centuries of solitude scarred him in a way he’ll never be able to repair.
Hua Cheng tries to pull away after so much silence, but Xie Lian doesn’t release his hands.
“I was presumptuous, gege. Forget I said anything. This San Lang overstepped.”
“No, San Lang,” he whispers, and this time, his eyes mist over. He tilts his head back to keep the tears from falling. “I guess with so much going on, this never came up.” He swallows. “You’re my mate. I know you can’t bite me, but you’re my mate and I want to share this experience with you—I do—and I want to be there for your heats—” He flushes. “If you want that.”
“I do. But?”
“I—” It’s now or never. “I don’t know if it’s all the injuries, or the years of instability, or my cultivation. But I can’t— I wasn’t entirely lying when I said that I can’t… In Ghost City when I said…” Why does his thick face always disappear with Hua Cheng? And why is this so hard to admit?
Gently, Hua Cheng prompts, “Get aroused?”
“It’s…a half-lie. I can…can…”
“I know, gege.” And he does. It’s not like Xie Lian has never gotten—interested when their kissing has gotten heated, and Hua Cheng has definitely felt it—has stopped things before they could go too far—but… “You can tell me.”
“I can… that. But. Not correctly, not really. The few times we’ve— I don’t— I don’t…”
“Gege gets hard. …But…not wet?” he surmises, voice patient and endlessly kind, not a trace of judgment. “Is that it?”
“Yes.” It all spills out. “Yes. This part of me doesn’t work. I don’t have heats. I’m not sure I could have children if I wanted to. I can’t even purr anymore. You’ve probably noticed I don’t have a scent. I—“ His tears pour over, and his nose burns. “I’m sorry, San Lang. I’m so sorry. I can’t give you a bite. I can’t give you anything at all.”
”Shh, gege.”
Hua Cheng squeezes him tight, engulfing him from behind. He peppers kisses into Xie Lian’s hair.
”It’s okay. You’re okay.”
“You’ve known my secondary gender for hundreds of years. You saw me—at Beizi Hill. I know me being like this wasn’t part of your plans—”
“Do I have to remind you of your own words again, gege?” With slow movements, he spins Xie Lian around and wraps his arms around him, kissing his forehead with cool lips: a long, firm press. He speaks against Xie Lian’s skin. “What matters is you. You’re everything I’ve always wanted. Nothing about you has ever disappointed me.” He kisses Xie Lian’s forehead again, then tilts his head down so that their gazes meet. Xie Lian’s vision is foggy with tears. ”I can’t have children, either, gege, not as a ghost. That part of me also doesn’t work.” Xie Lian nods faintly, a tear sliding down his cheek. Hua Cheng smooths it away. ”I could still have a heat, if you’d like me to. We could make a nest together. I could rub my scent over you, stop suppressing it. You could take care of me.” He pecks Xie Lian’s lips. “I could take care of you, however you want.”
“You want to?”
“I want everything with you. And you can practice purring with me, too, gege. I haven’t ever done it. You might have to teach me.” He smiles, and when Xie Lian smiles back tentatively, Hua Cheng kisses his jaw—over and over and over—then nibbles at his neck until he laughs, ticklish.
”I really would like to be there for your heats,” Xie Lian says. “I only had a few before I started suppressing them with meditations from the Temple, so I don’t know much about them, but my mother would lie down with me and rub my stomach to help the cramps.”
“Would gege rub my stomach for me?”
“Of course I would.” He brushes a strand of hair behind Hua Cheng’s ear, then asks, “You’ve really never purred?” Hua Cheng shakes his head. “Has anyone ever purred for you?”
“My mother, a very long time ago.”
“Oh. Well.” He frowns, then pushes up onto his toes and pecks his mate’s lips. Afterward, he cradles his face. “I’ll do my best for you.”
“Me too, gege.”
________
It takes three days for Hua Cheng’s heat to come after he lets go of the vise he keeps on his biological urges. When the first cramp seizes his uterus, kneejerk panic tears through him, screams at him to find a place to hide and stay there, stay there, go, go now, don’t let anyone find you! He breathes through it. He’s safe. He’s a Devastation, and he’s here on Mount Taicang with his mate, not a village or a soul for thousands of li in any direction. Nothing bad is going to happen. Nothing—
“San Lang?”
Hua Cheng realizes he’s wrenching one of Xie Lian’s spare robes and stops. “Sorry, gege.” His skin itches—his teeth—every part of him, not just to hide, but to build somewhere to hole up. A nest. He wants a nest. He— “Gege, can I…”
“Oh. I thought you smelled a little different just now. Is it time?” With a gentle smile, he sets down the basket he’s been soaking sticks for and weaving over the better part of the morning. From the open door and the windows, warm spring air and sunlight pour in. It smells like blossoms and the rain they had a few hours ago.
Hua Cheng clenches his teeth. His body is coiled tight—wanting. Like he needs to pace circles or hurry, do something. He’s unsettled. He twists Xie Lian’s robe again, presses it to his nose and mouth, then bites it. It tastes and smells like his mate. Not his pheromones—he still isn’t producing any—but like his skin and hair and the soap he uses. Hua Cheng salivates, jaw clamped. His heart sprints in his chest, but a sense of calm washes over him like the tide coming in the longer he sucks on the fabric in his mouth: a bit at a time. He can’t let go of the robes.
Xie Lian doesn’t try to take them away. Instead, he heads for the chest the two of them packed full yesterday with blankets and pillows and sheets and worn robes that belong to them both. He removes a single pillow and hands it over. Eager, Hua Cheng snaps it up and tucks it onto the straw mat in the corner. He returns, robes still in his mouth and clutched in one hand, seeking another item, which Xie Lian passes over: a silk blanket they used the last night they slept at Paradise Manor. Hua Cheng spreads it over the straw mat.
Item by item, he constructs a deep nest with tall walls. It’s crimson and white, their colors braided together, their smells, their lives intertwined. A safe place. When Xie Lian strips off his outer robe for Hua Cheng to finish off the nest with and Hua Cheng tucks it firmly into place—his nest finished, complete, his, theirs—the tightness in his body unclenches at last. He warms looking at his handiwork—feels a little hazy, loose and sweet like dragon’s beard candy.
He’s purring, he realizes after a while—purring around the robes in his mouth. He purrs harder when Xie Lian sidles up to his front, wraps his arms around Hua Cheng’s waist, and lays his head on his shoulder. In the comfort of his mate’s embrace, he’s finally able to unlock his teeth. The cloth between them falls free. Without it and with his lips parted, his purring intensifies in volume, almost tickles his tongue—vibrates between him and Xie Lian when his mate leans up and kisses him.
Hua Cheng loses himself to it immediately. He slides a hand into his mate’s hair and a tongue into his mouth. His body melts as he holds Xie Lian, as he’s held back in turn, firmly, like Xie Lian has no intentions of letting him go or letting anyone else have him. He’s owned, protected. Belongs. Is wanted. Loved.
“Gege,” he says.
Xie Lian kisses his chin. “Your voice came back. I was worried. You looked lost.”
“M’okay, gege,” he mumbles, body and bones liquid. If Xie Lian weren’t holding him, he might slide to the floor. He kisses along Xie Lian’s jaw and chews at his neck—his scent gland. A small, surprised moan pops out of Xie Lian’s mouth. Hua Cheng wants to keep this skin between his teeth, too—gnaws at it lightly, sucks. Mate. My mate. My mate. Mine.
“I’m sorry,” Xie Lian says. “I still can’t… Can I scent you instead?”
Excited, Hua Cheng releases him. His purring increases tenfold when Xie Lian presses a kiss to his scent gland. His body is as bright as a firework, sparking and booming as Xie Lian licks over his neck, kisses it several times, and rubs both of his cheeks along it, spreading Hua Cheng’s scent all over him. Mine. Mine. Mine. Everyone can smell he’s mine.
Overcome by instinct, he sweeps Xie Lian up into his arms and bears him down into the nest—their nest. Arms wind around his neck as he kisses the breath out of his mate, but he winces when another cramp seizes him, strong this time, like a hand twisted in his guts, rooting around and yanking a fistful. Their lips part with a smack, and he groans through a third cramp, then whines high in his throat. He forgot how much this could hurt.
“I’ll be right back,” Xie Lian says. He’s only gone for a few moments, but it feels like an eternity. He returns to their nest with a waterskin, a heating talisman plastered to the outside of it. When he places it low on Hua Cheng’s stomach, heat radiates through his robes and deep into his skin. “Better?”
Hua Cheng sighs. “Mm. Thank you, gege.”
Xie Lian turns them both onto their sides so that he can curl up behind Hua Cheng, an arm slung over Hua Cheng’s middle so that their fingers interlace on the waterskin. When he was young, he never thought he’d have anything like this, not just because of his curse but because Xie Lian’s secondary gender was advertised as soon as he presented. The crown jewel of Xianle, the king and queen’s prized omega son. Hua Cheng crossed his fingers for three years after falling on Shangyuan—please let me be an alpha.
He’d presented as an omega two weeks before Xie Lian had spoken to him in the shrine and told him not to kill himself.
“Is gege ever disappointed I’m not an alpha?” he asks.
“What?”
He squeezes Xie Lian’s fingers. Outside, a bird sings. “I always hated that I was like this. I knew gege was an omega, and I’d wished…” He squeezes his mate’s hand again. “It wasn’t easy, when I was young. I learned how to hide. In shrines. In the woods. In alleys. Even in the army, I had to find places to hide. I thought— I thought after I died, I was done with this. But then I got to Tonglu. I went into heat. A ghost and I still had to deal with fucking—this. I suppressed it all as soon as I became a Devastation.”
“Hm.” Xie Lian hugs him. “I never cared about who you are. I was surprised when Tonglu opened and I could smell you for the first time, but it didn’t change the way I already felt.”
He’ll never get tired of hearing that Xie Lian loves him. It feels like a dream. “Gege had feelings for me then?”
“The first time we saw each other in Ghost City, my heart felt very…” He hides his face between Hua Cheng’s shoulder blades. “You’re very easy to fall in love with.”
“Most people would disagree.”
“Since when does San Lang listen to most people?”
Hua Cheng chuckles. Then his breath catches when a cramp grabs his insides. It unknots a few moments later, and Xie Lian kisses his shoulder blade. Feeling a bit playful—and a little irritated at his body despite how enjoyable being taken care of is—Hua Cheng pouts, “Won’t gege give me a kiss where I want it to make me feel better?”
“…” Xie Lian clears his throat. “San Lang’s going to have to turn around.”
So he does, incrementally, keeping the waterskin in place. Once on his back, he turns his head expectantly, but he doesn’t have to wait long for Xie Lian’s lips to meet his. It’s perfect, as always. How did he get so lucky, to be loved by someone as wonderful as Xie Lian? He weaves fingers into his mate’s hair and luxuriates in a series of kisses that meld together, surprised when his throat rumbles again with a purr. Never did he think it would be so easy, that if he simply let go of his tight hold on his body that his instincts would surge up.
He wants to lie on Xie Lian and purr all day long, to soothe his mate as well as let him know how content he is, how perfectly his mate is taking care of him. More than that, though, he wants these kisses, kisses that turn deeper and deeper the longer they go on until Xie Lian is licking across his tongue and biting at his lips. Hua Cheng whimpers, and the beginnings of arousal build between his legs. Like he can sense it, Xie Lian shifts, crawling on top of Hua Cheng, body between his legs, waterskin pressed between their bellies.
He feels exposed in his position, thighs around his mate’s hips. Imagines Xie Lian pushing his knees toward his chest and sinking his cock into the slick mess he’s forming below. At the thought, Hua Cheng moans and cramps up. For months, he’s wanted Xie Lian like this. No. For years. Centuries. Wanted him every way he can have him—but during heats in Tonglu? He fucked himself on sculpted cocks and fantasized about Xie Lian inside him. Never anything with a knot, though. But he wants one now. Wants Xie Lian to knot him the only way he can.
“Gege can touch me. Gege can touch me however he wants,” he pants, and sucks on Xie Lian’s bottom lip. “Mine.”
“I’m San Lang’s.” His face is flushed, eyes bright amber in the sunlight filtering through the window over the bed. It brings a light warmth with it, almost makes Hua Cheng sweat against his will.
“I brought something,” Hua Cheng says, a little nervous.
“What is it?”
With one last kiss, in case he ruins the mood, he unlatches his vambrace, sets it aside, and roots through his sleeve. His hand emerges with a beautiful, white jade cock—modest, slim. It widens smoothly into a knot at the base that’s about half the size of his fist. At the sight of it, Xie Lian blushes as red as a maple tree in autumn. He slaps a hand to his face like he can disappear. “San Lang.”
Sex isn’t necessary during a heat and Hua Cheng isn’t more aroused than he normally is in his mate’s presence, but it does make a heat pass a little quicker and the pleasure is good for overriding the pain.
“I didn’t know if gege was ready to break his cultivation,” he says, because as much as he wants Xie Lian inside him, he’s happy enough for Xie Lian to use this or to watch him use it on himself. “I wanted to be prepared for everything, in case you didn’t mind if my heat took a turn like this.”
Xie Lian lowers his hand, a soft look on his blushing face. “That’s very considerate.”
“Would you like me to put it away?”
A pause. Then a faint shake of the head. “We can use it. And…” He swallows, gaze slipping off to the side. It drifts back, meets Hua Cheng’s head on. “I think I’m ready to break my cultivation. With you. I knew it might happen if you had a heat, so I gave it some thought, and…I’d like to.”
He could interrogate Xie Lian—press him—see if this is really what he wants, but Hua Cheng is hot at the opportunity he’s been offered, so his question comes out in the form of a squirm of his hips and a breathy, “Gege wants to be inside me?”
Xie Lian’s jaw clenches and unclenches. He nods, eyes clouding over with lust. “I do.”
“Gege wants to feel how wet I am?”
Xie Lian whimpers.
“Wants to put his fingers in me and find out how ready I am for him? Hold me down and make me beg for it?”
“San Lang,” Xie Lian says helplessly.
A nervous, excited shiver runs through Hua Cheng. He drops the jade cock and grabs Xie Lian’s hips—rolls his half-hard dick into him. After centuries, he’ll finally know exactly how it feels to be impaled on his god’s hot, rigid, throbbing length— Filled with his— Dripping with— He moans. “Gege, please.”
He’s never stripped out of his clothes so fast, waterskin set aside, tossed on top of the jade cock. Xie Lian forgets to strip himself when confronted with Hua Cheng’s naked body, his gaze drifting from Hua Cheng’s pectorals to his muscled stomach to his dick, stiff and aching. Entranced, his mate stares, and his hand floats out and ghosts down Hua Cheng’s length. It twitches.
“In me, gege. I want you in me.”
Snapping to attention, Xie Lian snatches back his hand. “Right. Um.” He sits on his heels and touches the tie of his inner robe, the only layer he’s wearing.
“Take it off, gege.”
Xie Lian stares at Hua Cheng again, his face, his body. He gulps, then unknots the tie of his inner robe. Slides it off his shoulders. It slips down to the floor of their nest, joining the rest of their items, and Xie Lian is left nearly naked. All that jade-pale skin. Hard nipples. Delicate musculature. Hua Cheng’s ashes hanging down his chest. Mine.
His pants are tented. A lewd picture, far more enticing than the few times Hua Cheng has seen his body when he’s walked in on his mate bathing and he’s politely excused himself.
He wants me. He’s aching for me.
Hua Cheng spreads his legs a little further, reaches down and slides his fingers through slick, his fingertips meeting his hole. When he slips two inside himself, Xie Lian whimpers. He doesn’t even take off his pants, just pulls them halfway down and lowers himself on top of Hua Cheng. Savagely, desperately, his mate kisses him while tugging Hua Cheng’s hand away from himself, replacing it with his own.
“Ah!” Hua Cheng gasps when two fingers plunge into his body. “Gege.” Those digits thrust in and out, a mind of their own. He’s already so loose. He could take Xie Lian’s cock. He wants it. Against Xie Lian’s mouth, he begs, “Give it to me. Please. Please, gege. Fuck me. Oh. Please fuck me.” Those fingers slip free, and the blunt head of Xie Lian’s cock, so hot, presses to his hole. “Please. Please.” It sinks inside him—Xie Lian’s whole length—almost too quickly, all of him seated in just a few seconds. If it’s painful, Hua Cheng can’t feel it, drowning in a sea of pleasure.
“Oh,” Xie Lian says. He whimpers, squirms, and Hua Cheng purrs. Purrs and moans and wriggles his hips. Xie Lian looks down at him with tears at the corners of his eyes, with a blush painted across his cheekbones and sweat on his forehead. “I didn’t know… I didn’t know you’d feel so good.”
“Move, gege,” he begs, and squeezes his mate’s hips. His head tilts back, eye closing. Xie Lian slides out an inch, slides back firmly. “Again. Please. More.” Another thrust. Another. Another—oh shit. Xie Lian draws back until just the head of his cock is inside Hua Cheng, then snaps his hips forward, hard. “Gege!”
“San Lang,” he answers.
It’s a blur after that, Xie Lian wrapping him in a tight embrace, Hua Cheng holding on just as tightly. A steady pace. Heavy panting. Hua Cheng’s fitful purring. Then Xie Lian’s frantic moans—“Oh, oh, oh, San Lang, San Lang!” He buries himself deep and keens in Hua Cheng’s ear. Hua Cheng’s cock throbs in full knowledge his mate is coming inside him, but he wants more, so much more—
“Knot me, gege. Please.”
“I can’t. I can’t,” Xie Lian weeps, hips stuttering with aftershocks.
“Knot me. Please. Please. Please.” He pats around in a frenzy until his fingers find that jade cock, warm from being trapped underneath the waterskin. He taps it against the back of Xie Lian’s hand. “Gege,” he whines, tears building in his eye.
Xie Lian pulls free of his body, grabs that jade cock, and without any delay, he shoves it through a mess of slick and come. The flare of it stretches Hua Cheng the deeper it goes—stretches him—stretches him— The knot pops inside. As soon as it’s seated, pressing right up against the bundle of nerves inside Hua Cheng, he comes up his stomach with a sob. He clenches down on the cock, body convulsing as he orgasms. The back of his head digs into their nest as he spreads his legs so far his hips hurt and writhes.
He’s never felt so good in his life. He’s never come so hard. It feels like his soul is floating outside his body—his heart hammering—breath stalled in his lungs. He’s going to die again. He cries—digs his heels into their nest—openly sobs.
“That’s it,” he hears Xie Lian says. How long has he been saying it? He pets Hua Cheng’s thigh. Long, smooth strokes. “That’s it. You’re okay. I’m right here.”
That’s right. Xie Lian is here. After so many years of searching, he’s here. He’s here. He’s here. I found him. He’s here. My mate. His heart slows. My mate.
The urgency eases, little by little, then fades entirely, and Hua Cheng melts into their nest, all his muscles loose and his body clamped down on the knot inside him. He opens his arms, and Xie Lian falls down inside them, hugging him tight. At first, Hua Cheng thinks it’s him purring in contentment—and he is—but there’s an answering purr, soft and faint. It burrs through his chest from Xie Lian’s.
“Gege,” he says wondrously. “You’re purring.”
“I am?” Xie Lian lifts his head to look at Hua Cheng. Then his eyes widen. His purr fades, then returns a little stronger, then with intensity, like a river bursting through a dam. A bright, excited smile overtakes his mate’s face, and he nuzzles Hua Cheng’s cheek. His jaw. His neck. His scent gland. Licks it. Nibbles happily. “I’m purring.”
“I knew gege could do it.” A smile curls his lips when Xie Lian laughs against the crook of his neck. “My mate. My god. My husband.”
“Yours, San Lang. How could I ever belong to anyone else?”
For half an incense time, they stay plastered together, vibrating softly with purrs. Hua Cheng feels like a beam of late afternoon sunlight. Warm. Golden. Soft. Something that drifts through the fingers. Eventually, though, the knot inside him turns uncomfortable. When it does, Xie Lian sits back, pulling up his pants, and removes the jade cock, far more gently than he inserted it. It pops free, and with it, a trickle of come and slick slides out of Hua Cheng and pools underneath him. Xie Lian kisses his bare knee, then turns them onto their sides and tangles all their limbs together. He’s still purring.
Between them, their hands meet. Red strings. The only outward proof they have of their bond. The rest of the proof is in their hearts, their souls. It ties them together more deeply than a bite ever could.
“San Lang is okay?” Xie Lian asks, interlacing their fingers.
“I’m perfect, gege.”
Xie Lian kisses him. Smiles. His eyes are tender with affection. “I’m so lucky to have you.”
“You’ll always have me.”
And he means it. A year from now, a hundred, eight hundred, a thousand—Xie Lian will have him. They can’t be separated. They live inside each other now. Even apart, they thrum under each other’s skin. They’re one. And if they’re broken? Well, all their remaining pieces fit together seamlessly.