Xie Wangchen blurred across the distance.
Before Ji'an could even take three steps, Wangchen's hand shot out, his long, pale fingers closing around her bare, slender ankle with the unyielding, iron grip of a vice.
Ji'an shrieked, a breathless sound of sheer panic as her forward momentum was violently arrested.
She crashed flat onto her stomach on the plush silk, her fingers desperately clawing at the fabric, trying to drag herself forward.
"No! Let me go! Wangchen, please!"
Her pleas were agonisingly beautiful. They fueled the dark, twisted fire in his chest until it was a roaring inferno.
Wangchen didn't let go.
He slowly, deliberately dropped to his knees behind her, his grip on her ankle remaining absolute.
The Ice Demon, the proud, arrogant genius of the Eternal Cloud Peak, bowed his head.
He brought her captured foot to his face.
Then, his lips brushed against the soft, sensitive skin of her instep.
