Outside the cavern, the sky thundered. I take no notice of what is happening, right now.

“Winter,” he caresses my hair, pulling strands of my dark hair out of their braids. My eyes sting from how I had been crying. I know what he wants to say, yet I can’t manage to say a word. My heart hurts. I push him away from me and take a few strides forward.

His name is Lu Han, the orphan that my parents took in when I was no more than a child of six. Apart from the fact that he is the lost child of my mother’s senior, I do not know much about his past, because he rarely speaks. Over the years, I followed him wherever he went, not letting him out of my sight. I discovered that when Han is lonely, he likes to hide in a cavern in the woods away from Tuyi, the village we live in or on the soft grasslands of the neighbouring meadow.

Eventually, one day, he began opening up to me. When I was fifteen, we shared a kiss, We began meeting alone in the cavern, starting a forbidden relationship. Though we kept to our boundaries, I knew one day, it would all change. I planned. When I reached eighteen, we would reveal the truth to my parents. That we were in love and wanted to get married.  

But it all changed when I was a few days short of my eighteenth birthday. My mother revealed the engagement between Han and my older sister, Autumn. To my shock, Han remained silent. My mother stepped forward and connected Han and Autumn’s hands.

Why didn’t he say anything?

Autumn’s eyes brightened with joy, smiling bashfully at Han. An auspicious date was set in a month to come. That, mother said, was because my older sister would be turning twenty-two, and due to superstition, she had to marry before her birthday.

What hurt me the most was that my mother had never considered my feelings. 

My mother was a dimension-traveller. To begin with, she is a demon-slayer, endowed with innate powers since she was born. She had come to the world for a purpose. But when she was seventeen, during a brawl with a demon, she accidentally went to the future and met my father. For a while, she was stuck in the future, learning to adapt to the ways of life and what she called technology. My father chose to put everything down when he met my mother. 

I longed for a love like that, but Han was nothing like that. He had chosen to follow his adoptive parents’ plan for him instead of our almost three years relationship. But there was no way I could endure having to put down my feelings. Since young, I had always been an outcast. My mother had always seen me in a different light, for being the odd one out among her three children. I was the youngest among them, and also the only one among them to have no powers manifest. Yet, instead of revealing her hatred towards me, she treated me coldly.

I was also the rebel of the family. I would wear very revealing outfits and modify my school uniforms when my elder siblings and I went to school. That, in no way, meant I was a flirt. I kept myself intact, all for Han.

But in the end, it was him who had forsaken me.

“Winter,” he beckons to me again as I watch our surroundings with a blank expression in my eyes. My robe is dripping with water from the rain earlier, but I make no move to warm myself under the small fire he has set in the corner. I just want to know, how long he will take to come to me, seeing me in this state. 

Tonight is my eighteenth birthday and the same night that I found my strength to provoke Han. As expected, none of my family remembered, but Han had left me a gift. I left him a note to meet me at the usual place, but we ended up drenched by the sudden downpour.

“Winter, I’m sorry,” he just says apologetically, without changing his tone. I don’t want to look at him and continue staring into the void. “Please say something to me.”

How can he expect me to be happy after all this had happened? My heart tears with pain every time I see him hold my sister’s hand. I wished dearly that the person whose hand he was holding is me, not my sister. 

He walks closer towards me finally, and out of the blue, he kneels just before me. Before I can stop him, he hugs my leg and begs.

“Winter, please. Your sister has a weak heart, and I can’t bear to hurt her feelings or Godmother. I know you can get through all this, without me. I’m not worth your love, Winter.”

I shove him angrily, my eyes blazing with rage. My fingers tingle with heat as I zap him with all my strength, but the magic in me just sizzles away. I know it is because I can barely control my powers, making me seem a letdown in my mother’s eyes.

“I hate you, Lu Han.” I punch him again and again, but he rises and grabs me, holding me so tightly to his chest that I can barely breathe.

“Tell me what I can do to make you feel better, Winter. I can’t bear seeing you like this. Forgive me, Winter.”

My heart numbs hearing his soft voice. I know that he is weak and immature, unable to go against the will of my mother or to hurt my sister. Yet, in this way, he has chosen to hurt me. On the other hand, I couldn’t let him go.

So I decided, that I would have him just for one more night.

“Kiss me,” I order him. He does as he is told, without daring to say no. His lips touch mine nervously, taking his time to make contact. Unlike the previous kisses we have shared, he seems afraid. I take his hands and firmly place them on the ribbon of my robe.  

I bite hard on his lips, meaning for him to remember me forever. Then I guide his hands to undo my robe, allowing it to fall to the ground of the cave noiselessly. I pull on the strings of my undergarments, undoing them quickly and revealing my nakedness to him for the first time.

“Make me yours, Lu Han. Just for one night,” I whisper, with my eyes still filled with tears. He seems puzzled by my words as if he doesn’t know what to do. I pull off his robe, making an advance to him in the way he should have done with me. 

“Are you sure, Winter?” he asks me, slipping out of his pants. “Won’t you regret it?”

I gaze at him intensely, showing him through my eyes how strong I can be in my decisions.

“I want you to take me now. Spend the night with me. Tomorrow, you can go back to my sister and prepare for your wedding,” I stated bitterly.

He takes my lips into his again, this time kissing me so ferociously as if there was no tomorrow. All of a sudden, he is behaving so haphazardly, like he doesn’t care anymore. He holds me down on the icy floor of the cave and takes me right there. His force tears me apart as I let out scream after scream.

Eventually, everything that remains of our relationship is just a hazy blur.

After that night with Lu Han when I lost my virginity, I locked myself in my bedroom for no less than three days and three nights.

The next morning that night, my mother and I had an abrupt quarrel.

“I told you that I loved Han, mother!” I almost raised my voice at her. “Why did you arrange for him and Sister to be married?”

My mother remained indifferent. I felt that she had always treated me as the black sheep of the family, because of my inability to use powers. As my father is a Guardian and a demon-slayer, according to her, I should have both her demon-slaying abilities and some of his powers. When a Guardian and a demon-slayer marry, their powers merge. Yet, I have none. While my brother has slain uncountable demons and gained a name of his own, and my sister, despite her ailment, is able to use shielding powers to protect the village.

After a few moments, she finally answers.

“Because she is the eldest daughter. It is a tradition that the eldest son of a Demonslayer should marry the eldest daughter of a Demonslayer.”

I couldn’t believe her words. She had to be lying because she never followed any of these traditions when she married my father, who was no Demonslayer. Although, their love story was a different story that happened due to some foul magic involved. 

She doesn’t say anything more when I shout. I accuse her of playing favouritism when my eldest sister is her favourite. She just walked away, despite the fact that I thought I saw a glint of tears in her eyes.

The family is busy with the wedding preparations. As Lu Han’s parents are dead, they are conducting the marriage before the altar. In our tradition, we perform what is known as the tea ceremony. The bride and groom will offer tea before parents and elders during the ceremony. The first to receive the tea will be our parents, then my married brother and his wife. Lu Han has no relatives, so the tea will be offered before the altar instead.

There are two weeks more before Lu Han and my sister goes through the ceremony. Watching her, I can’t say a word about how I am deeply in love with Han. She seems to be over the moon with her impending marriage to Han. Every gift from Han, she wraps them up in silk and places them carefully in an ornament box on her dressing table. It makes me jealous of how sweet he is with my sister. Why not me?

After all, I was the one who was with him first. I resent my mother for playing favourites and her unfair treatment to me and my sister for using her weakness to appear vulnerable before Lu Han. And the worst is how Lu Han does not appear to have a backbone! In my anger, I smash every piece of porcelain I can find in my room.

Thinking of every sweet moment between me and Lu Han, I am driven to tears, and within minutes, my fatigued body drives me to enter deep sleep.

Three nights had passed in that way when it rained heavily again. Being a light sleeper, I am suddenly awakened by a loud tapping sound on my window, and pull on it to open it.

“Winter,” that most hated voice I do not wish to hear, calls out to me.

A myriad of emotions rushed through me. My first thought is to deny him entry, but if I do, he will just wake up the servants. So grudgingly I allow him into the space of my tiny bedroom.

“What are you doing here, Lu Han?” I place my hands on my chest annoyedly, keeping my voice down to prevent anyone from hearing me. Part of me feels excited to see him, but the other part of me is angry with Han. Very angry. He knows that whenever I call him with his full name, that means I am not pleased.

Without answering, he just swoops down on me and caresses me with his lips. I don’t know what got over me, because in no time, I am returning his kisses fervently. His hands sneak down my undergarments and stroke me from the outside, making me gasp with desire. My body craves for his entry, wanting to experience what I had already savoured that night in the cavern. Despite how it hurt that night, I knew I was ready for him to take me again.

I allow him to strip me of my clothes, which he does rather roughly. He scoops me into his arms and carries me to my bed, resuming his kisses at full force. I can’t think of anything else other than how I want him inside me once again. Without asking, he lifts my legs and thrusts inside me. He cups my mouth with his hand to muffle my moans.

My body is burning for more from him. He smiles devilishly as he ravages me over and over again. I could have sworn he is looking wickedly at me, seeing me in my lustful state.

Even after he has finished inside me, I find everything hard to believe. We do it a few more times that night, which he doesn’t hesitate from taking me in several different positions and pushing his liquid deep inside me.

It is just dawn when I open my eyes to find him still under the covers with me. Due to my tiredness, I hadn’t opened my mouth to ask him why he had come. He looks at me rather coldly, then gets up to put on his robe.

“Han, why… last night?” I asked him, never feeling more confused than ever.

“I want to have a secret relationship with you,” his icy answer came. 

Did it mean, he wants to have a tryst with me? I felt that I was going against my principles. As selfish as I was, it never occurred to me that I should hurt my sister. 

“But my sister,” I muttered, numbed by the aching feeling between my legs. In addition, my back also hurts from doing it for hours.

“She does not know and will never ever know,” Han said, pulling up his pants without showing the least concern for what he had just said. “By now, you should have known who is in my heart.”

But if he loved me, why did he not say it out all these years? When he kissed me for the first time, he had never said those words. 

I embrace him from behind just before he reaches my window to make his exit. 

“Will you still marry my sister?” I question him doubtfully. 

“Yes. But I do not love her,” he said coldly, pulling the window open. “I’ll be back, my lover.”

I walk back to my bed and sink back under the sheets, looking down at my ***** body, as I contemplate the truth behind his words. Then, I bawl as hard as I can. 

Why me? Why can’t I have a love story like my parents?

But all that answers me is just the silence of my bedroom.

I was lying there in a daze for goodness knows how long when I looked up and saw Autumn in the room. I don’t have a good relationship with either of my siblings, but Autumn is more of a neutral type and for some reason, I want to sympathize with her. However, a pang of guilt engulfs my heart instead, and I refuse to face her, instead of turning towards the wall.

Autumn lays down beside me on the bed, coaxing me and attempting to speak to me. As she comes closer, I realise I am still ***** under the sheets and pull the blanket around me more tightly. She stares at me with a strange look in her eyes.

“Winter, how did you ever become so provocative? As far as I recall, you never slept in the nude.”

“You don’t understand me,” I utter painfully. I feel bitter about how she had robbed my prince from me, resenting my family in my heart. Yet, she has always acted as an angel and expected Han and everyone else to pity her for her weak heart. This weakness of hers, made me hate her even more.

“Yes, I don’t,” Autumn states, “but it doesn’t mean I can’t care about you. No matter what, I am your elder sister. You are my responsibility.”

It is the first-ever time she has ever said that to me, and it makes me wonder why she is suddenly saying all these things. I know my hatred for her stems from my jealousy for her being our mother’s favourite and her taking Han from me, even though it is Han himself who was weak enough to agree. But if not for her acting pitiful, would Han have agreed?

“Why are you here?” I question, glaring at her with a spiteful look. “Are you here to boast that you’re the eldest, so you’re Mother’s favourite, and now you have stolen Lu Han away?”

Immediately, Autumn looks as if I had just stabbed an ice spear through her. She turns pale and appears to be in shock.

“It’s… it’s Lu Han who wants me to care about you,” she admits. The shocked expression never leaves her face. “He said, as an elder brother, he has failed his duty and led to you cooping up yourself in your room and keeping yourself from us for years.”

I am speechless. All these years, Han was the one who had accompanied me and appeared to fathom me because he used to be that way when he was young. If anything, we were birds of a feather. But he seemed to change suddenly. He became so unpredictable. 

First, he is asking me to forget him and the next moment, he wants to have sex with me. I no longer know what’s on his mind. The seventeen-year-old shy boy who gave his first kiss to me and lay with me on the grass to watch the stars is no longer present. Right now, the man who appeared suddenly in my bedroom asking for a secret relationship is deeply confusing to me right now.

I muster all my strength and face Autumn. To everyone, my sister is like a dying patient where everyone treats her as she is a porcelain doll. To me, she has stolen everything from me. She has destroyed my future with Han, leaving me with nothing.

I am furious. My fingertips ignite with a red flame almost suddenly. It’s the biggest flame I have ever seen. While my family members believe I don’t have powers, I know my magic manifests when I am very, very agitated. 

The good girl in me is gone. I shout barbarically, “You could have all the men you wanted in Tuyi, but why? Why Han? I loved Han since I was young, but now, you...You robbed him from me! I hate you! I hate you forever!”

Autumn looks aghast as the sleeves of her dress kindle with the small fire I have just created. She blows on them frantically to put them out while trying to defend herself.

“Little sister, I swear… I didn’t know! But please, little sister, please, please, please let me have Han. Just consider it as my plea to you.”

She falls to her knees, imploring me with her sad pathetic voice. 

I ignore her. By now, at her twenty-two years of life, she must be quite the expert already. I continue to point at her with my fingers.

“No, anything else I can give up to you, but not Han! I’ve loved him for longer than you could have ever liked him! If you insist on having him, I will enter into fair competition with you to claim him as my husband!”

At that juncture, I was flaring up so savagely that I was forgetting about her condition. She fell to the floor limply, clutching her heart.

“I need to marry Han… if I don’t before I reach twenty-two…. I will die…. young,” she gasps, struggling for oxygen. I focus my mind amply to deplete the flame on my fingertips, then wrap my blanket hurriedly around my nakedness before pulling my sister up with all my strength. 

“Sister, don’t die! I’m sorry I said those things to you,” I pat her back in a panic. “Wake up!”

Fortunately, she is still breathing. I loosen her clothes so she can take a few deep breaths, holding her hand attentively. I forget that she is my love rival and my mother’s favourite. Because I wouldn’t ever forgive myself if her weak heart acted up or if she died on the spot, I had to cast aside my selfish thoughts of owning Lu Han for now. It was a matter of life and death. 

I pull on my robe quickly and returned with some water, which I fed to her instantly. Elder Brother did not live with us, and none of our parents was at home. The servants had all gone out with our parents, leaving an empty house.

After a few minutes, the redness returned to her cheeks. She thanked me profusely, although I could say, I am not happy to give her what she wants. I leave the room without a word, not sure what to think.

………………………………………………………………

The lake deep in the woods is my typical hangout. I sit by myself, tossing stones into the lake one by one and watching the water ripple. One by one, the memories of Lu Han and I playing kite and throwing stones by the lake resurface in my mind. I clench my fists, holding back the tears from falling from my eyes.

After some hours, Lu Han appears. I had least expected his presence, ignoring him as I toss stone after stone into the water endlessly.

“How long are you going to ignore me like this?” he faces me, staring into my eyes intensely. Without asking, he lifts up the bottom of my dress and fondles my thigh.

 “I heard you were the cause of your sister almost collapsing today,” he suddenly declares, touching me even more intimately. “I told you, we are supposed to have a secret relationship. I won’t allow you to continue this stupidity, Winter Yang.”

His eyes spark devilishly as turns towards me, making my heart race with his aggression. I throw my arms around him, sobbing uncontrollably.

“You manned up,” I mumble amidst my tears. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for such a long time.”

As if responding to what I just said, he launches his lips upon mine and kisses me predatorily.