The tent was silent except for the crackling of the brazier, casting flickering shadows against the silk-draped walls.
Mulan stood in the center, wrists bound behind her, chin lifted in defiance. She refused to kneel, refused to show weakness—even as the man before her stalked forward, his dark eyes gleaming like firelight against steel.
General Renji.
Feared warlord. Conqueror. Her captor.
His gaze raked over her like a brand, slow and deliberate. “You fight like a man,” he murmured, stopping just a breath away. “Yet you tremble like a woman.”
Mulan stiffened as his fingers ghosted over her jaw, his touch far too gentle for a monster.
“I do not tremble.”
His smirk deepened. “No?” His hand trailed lower, brushing the column of her throat, the pounding of her pulse betraying her. “Then why do I feel your heart racing?”
She sucked in a breath, hating the way her body reacted to him—to his warmth, to the roughness of his battle-worn hands against her skin.
He was the enemy.
So why did she feel like prey caught in the jaws of a predator who had no intention of letting go?
Renji leaned in, his lips barely brushing her ear. “You came into battle dressed as a man, fought like a warrior.” His fingers traced her collarbone, slow, teasing. “But now, in my tent, you are only a woman.”
A thrill of something dark and forbidden coiled low in her stomach.
His touch was dangerous, but what was more dangerous was the truth burning behind his words—because here, in this moment, she wasn’t just a soldier. She was something else entirely.
Something his.
And when his hand finally gripped her waist, pulling her flush against his hard, unyielding form, Mulan knew—she wouldn’t fight this. Not tonight.
