Crimson Fetters

A Young Mistress

Qingli's Bedchamber, Yang Estate | 09:57 AM

Knock… Knock… Knock…

Qingli startled awake on the narrow chaise longue, blinking the fog of sleep from her eyes as she shifted a ribbon of pain cracking up her spine until she winced. She hauled herself upright and went to the door in a state of mild disorder, hair loose and tangled, the satin slip she'd fallen asleep in sliding off one shoulder to reveal the pale line of her neck and the smooth skin beneath unintentionally, undeniably arresting.

She eased the door open a fraction and peered out. "Sorry I was exhausted last night. I slept in."

Her voice came out low and slightly rough, the kind of voice that did things to people who heard it without warning.

"My lady," the housekeeper said, eyes trained carefully at the floor, "the master says to dress up quickly. We're expected at the main Yang estate immediately."

"A moment" Qingli held up a hand. "Just call me Qingli. None of those formal titles."

She exhaled slowly and pressed her fingers to her temple, trying to rub away the vestiges of a dark and exhausting dream.

"But the master said" The housekeeper looked genuinely pained. Yang Bei's instructions were not the sort one quietly revised.

"Never mind what he said. Tell him I'll be down shortly." Qingli cut her off, then cast a glance around the pink room she had already decided she disliked. "And is there another room available? This one isn't me."

"I'll... I'll ask the master for you," the housekeeper said, then retreated at something close to a trot.

Qingli turned back into the room and began going through her travel bag, still half-unpacked. She wanted the most modest thing she owned something that would give the Yang household no cause to look down at her. What she found, going through layer after layer, was fitted dresses, short cuts, nothing that could be called conservative by any reasonable measure.

"I wasn't exactly thinking I'd need to meet elders the next morning," she muttered, massaging her temples, then pulled out a nude-toned bodycon dress and held it against herself. "This'll have to do. It's the most covered I've got."

What she did not know could not have known was that on her body, that understated beige would do considerably more damage than red ever had. Every line of her pressed through the fabric until it clung like a second skin, and any man with eyes would find his gaze pulled and held against his better judgement. Dangerous enough, perhaps, to make a vicious tiger want to lock her away rather than let anyone else look.

*** ***

Grand Hall, Yang Estate | 11:20 AM.

Yang Bei was seated on the leather sofa with a cup of tea, and his hand very nearly wasn't steady when he saw her.

She came down the marble staircase at an unhurried, entirely natural pace and the beige dress that she imagined was restrained was doing nothing of the sort. The fabric conformed to every curve of her without apology the fullness of her chest pressing against it with unnerving precision, the narrow dip of her waist, the clean line of her thighs where the hem ended above the knee. She carried her heels in one hand, as though she hadn't yet decided whether the morning required them.

The vicious tiger felt heat climb his throat before he could stop it. "Are you going to meet my father,"

He asked, his voice carrying an irritation he couldn't entirely account for, "or are you going there to solicit every man in the building?"

"I always dress like this. This is what I packed." She crossed to him without rushing and sat down to buckle her heels with unhurried grace, the motion carrying an inherent provocation that only made things worse. "You know that perfectly well."

"As for the room if you don't like yours, you're welcome to the servants' quarters out back." His smile was all cold edges, his gaze raking over her with deliberate coarseness, covering what it was actually doing. "Dressed like that, you'd fit right in with the women on the street."

Qingli paused barely a breath then looked up and met his gaze with those empty grey eyes. As though his words were weather. As though they had passed through her and left nothing behind.

"Then I suppose you have a wife who belongs on the street. That's fine."

The composure of it snapped something in him.

He crossed the distance in a single motion, seized her arm, and pulled and the momentum brought her crashing against his chest with no space between them at all.

"You!" The housekeeper nearby flinched visibly at the sound of him. His grey eyes burned down into her face with pure, focussed fury. "Carve this into your head. In front of others you will call me by name and you will not embarrass me. No one is to know you came here as a replacement not for your sister, not for anyone. And you will not shame me. Not once. Not even slightly."

He dropped her arm and stepped back as though releasing something repellent. "Because if you cost me so much as a shred of face, I will make you understand that dying in this house is the most enviable fate available to you."

He turned and walked out to the car.

Qingli stood where she'd been left, one hand going to the arm already reddening beneath her fingers. She pressed her lips together, swallowed the pain that travelled from her arm inward to somewhere deeper, then drew a long breath and followed him in silence.

*** ***

En Route to the Yang Family Main Estate | 11:30 AM.

The interior of the luxury European saloon was ice-cold and suffocating in equal measure. Qingli sat against the leather seat and watched the city slide past the window, her grey eyes reflected faintly in the glass the eyes of someone who had stopped expecting anything from the world outside.

Yang Bei watched her profile from the corner of his eye, tapping a slow, rhythmic pattern against his thigh the outward sign of a mind doing quiet calculations. What was she concealing beneath that stillness? Did she want something from a cold-blooded father who had never given her anything? Or was there a plan running beneath that unreadable surface?

"How much longer?" Qingli asked, without turning.

"Thirty minutes." Short. Flat.

"Is there anything your father particularly likes or dislikes? Subjects I should avoid?" She asked again.

"No. The Yang family says what they think. No one performs for anyone unlike the counterfeit household you come from." He answered with the cold voice.

She was quiet for a moment. Then she turned and looked at him. "In that case, telling the truth about us shouldn't cause any harm."

The words detonated.

He reached across and seized her arm and dragged her forward until she collided with his chest.

"Are you testing me, brazen w***e?" The fury in his eyes was absolute. "If your mouth destroys my plans if a single word from you brings any of this down I will give you to every man I employ and let them form a queue."

"That hurts." She said it quietly. Calmly. The red marks rising on her pale skin were the only evidence of what his grip was doing. "All right. I'll do as you say. But let go. I'm in pain."

The word pain fell from her lips without drama, without appeal. Those grey eyes didn't waver. No fear. Not even a tremor of it as though the sensation in her body had been disconnected, long ago, from whatever was left inside.

Yang Bei released her with a sharp motion that sent her back against the far door. He clenched his jaw until the line of it stood out hard against his face. The fury in him spiked and had nowhere to go, because she would not give him the satisfaction of being shaken. The calmer she was, the more it drove him to want to break her completely.