The Blood-Stained Tug-of-War

Kieran's cold whisper still lingered in mid-air, weighing down on the girl's chest, which was heaving and breathing heavily from exhaustion. His coarse hand still squeezed her chin tightly, forcing her emaciated, blood-bleeding face to be raised up, directly facing his ash-gray eyes devoid of a single trace of warmth. The vast, gold-plated bedroom fell into a suffocating silence. The sweet, heavy scent of incense tightly intertwined with the bone-chilling dark magic-pressure, swirling on the granite floor base broken into pieces of porcelain shards.

"Let... go..." The girl ground out each word through her blood-drenched teeth gap.

The fever of magic-poison from the pair of Dark Gold shackles flared up brutally, stabbing through each blood vessel, causing her whole body to tremble violently. Every time the fragile Dragon magic inside her body attempted to rise to resist, the black iron shackle band erupted dark purple sparks of electricity again, draining and burning away her strength to her very marrow-marrow.

Even though her physical body was exhausted after the violent resistance screen with the team of female attendants, the dark purple fire beneath the bottom of her eyes still burned with ultimate contempt. She tried to gather her remaining residual strength to swat his hand away, but Kieran's hand was like a pair of pliers made of cold steel, not budging even one fraction of an inch.

"You want me to let go, Wench?" Kieran curled his lips, a sinister smile brimming with brutal possessiveness.

He did not burst out with murderous aura pressure at all, but precisely his unhurried, arrogant composure was the most ruthless suppression. He bent his body even lower, the distance between their two faces narrowing to a dangerous degree. His cold breath bringing the flavor of his dark magic fanned straight onto the red, burning skin of her neck torn by the silver chain.

"A filthy creature picked up from a border ash pile," Kieran lowered his voice, the deep, hollow sound echoing between the Ancient stone arches.

"You do not even know who you yourself are, where you came from, yet you have the guts to show your claws and fangs to threaten me?"

"Who I am... has nothing to do with you!" The girl breathed heavily, her voice raspy due to exhaustion, but each word thrown out was razor-sharp like a knife.

"But I know... a person who must resort to iron chains, shackles-bands, and this dirty magic to lock up a bare-handed person... is also merely a cowardly monster!"

Kieran's thin lips hardened. His ash-gray eyes swirled with a stream of dark, murky magic-aura, deep and dangerous like a bottomless grave. The suppressing silence enveloped the space, making the terrifying, creepy whisper sound of dark magic beneath the stone floor even more clear and distinct.

"Cowardly?" He tilted his head, his sharp eyes sweeping across her torn, blistered neck-skin strip and the fresh blood trail running long from her two shackled wrists. "You are the first person on this continent who dares to use that word to call the Emperor of the Ice Kingdom."

"Then listen clearly here, monster!" The girl did not step back one bit before his destructive gaze. The panic due to the memory blank-space was crushed by her unyielding, immortal pride-instinct. She tried her best to hold her head high, even though the neck-skin strip cut open by the silver chain was aching to the bone-marrow.

"I do not know what corner the Ice Kingdom is, nor do I care whose Emperor you are! Want me to kneel in submission to you? Unless you step over my corpse!"

Kieran quietly looked at her. The wild, crazy stubbornness of the little beast in his hand made him instinctively rise with brutal excitement. He did not extend his hand to beat her, nor did he get angry without reason. He unhurriedly let go of her chin, but immediately reached his hand out grabbing the short silver chain connecting between the two Dark Gold shackle rings on her wrists, putting force into yanking her up close.

Clack!

The dry, harsh sound of metal collision sounded in the silent space. The girl's thin, emaciated body was pulled with a jerk forward, glued tight to his firm chest wrapped in black silk. The sudden collision made her suffocate, her heaving chest pressed close to his leather armor. The sweet scent of incense mixed with the bone-chilling flavor of magic-aura rushed straight into her nostrils, suppressing her mind to a foggy degree.

"Die?" Kieran lowered his head, pressing his lips close to her ear-rim which was burning hot due to fever. His voice whispered, cold like the whisper of a devil from the underworld:

"Do you think dying means you can escape my hands, Wench? In this Ice Kingdom, even your soul belongs to me. Even if you turn into ash-dust, I will lock that ash-dust inside this gilded cage."

"You... morbid, sick madman!" The girl gritted her teeth tightly, her deep purple eyes flashing with an unyielding light.

"I will not let you die so easily." Kieran slightly tightened the silver chain, feeling the stream of Dragon magic struggling and thrashing beneath her delicate skin.

"I will lock you inside this gold-plated room. I will use each day, each hour to break each proud thorn on your person... Each one, until you no longer have strength to show your claws and fangs anymore."

"In your dreams!" The girl roared a sound that tore her throat.

In the moment when the distance between the two of them was closest, her wild survival instinct surpassed her physical body's exhaustion. Unable to use her two hands pinned tight by the silver chain, nor able to use the magic sealed by the Dark Gold shackles, she put all her remaining residual strength into pouncing up, opening her mouth to bite hard into Kieran's leather-armor-wrapped shoulder!

Pfft!

Her sharp teeth drove deep through the thin leather armor layer, plunging straight into his shoulder flesh.

Kieran froze completely. His shoulder froze stiff in mid-air. The bone-deep pain spread, but he did not roar out at all, nor did he put force into shoving her away. He stood still there, indifferently feeling the girl's teeth tightening around his flesh, piercing through his firm, dark-skinned muscle fibers.

A stream of dark magic's thick, jet-black blood began to gush out from the bite wound.

Sizzle, sizzle...

The black blood touched her oral cavity and chapped lips, emanating a bitter, astringent flavor alongside a icy, bone-chilling magic-heat like thousand-year ice-snow. The magic-poison in his blood swirled, acting directly on her oral cavity, making her tongue completely numb. The girl was counter-struck by that stream of murky dark magic-aura, having no choice but to release her teeth. She coughed violently, completely exhausted, and collapsed down onto the pile of velvet carpet beneath his feet. On her lips, chin, and neck-skin strip were smeared full of his steaming black blood trails.

Kieran slowly lowered his head looking at the wound oozing black blood on his shoulder, then moved his eyes down to the emaciated silhouette curling up and breathing heavily under the floor. His face did not carry even a streak of anger or injury. On the contrary, the Emperor's ash-gray eyes flared up with a light of crazy, morbid obsession and excitement. He reached his finger out smearing a drop of black blood on his shoulder, bringing it up to his mouth to lick it clean indifferently.

"A wonderful retaliation..." Kieran curled his thin lips, his voice deep and raspy, full of ultimate satisfaction.

He stepped one step closer, resting one knee down on the floor, looking down at the wild beast exhausted beneath his feet. He reached his coarse finger out, smearing the black blood trail on her cheek, then lightly rubbed it across her lips that were trembling due to magic-poison: "My blood... smeared on your lips looks very beautiful, Wench."

"You... monster..." The girl glared at him. Her vision had begun to blur due to the magic-poison fever tearing her mind apart, the image of the Emperor in front of her flickering into overlapping black shadows, but the hatred beneath the bottom of her purple eyes did not decrease even a little bit.

"Just keep holding onto that hatred." Kieran reached out his hand, gently gliding his finger across the red, burning wound on her neck, where the silver chain had just cut open earlier. "Because from today, this hatred will be the only thing keeping you alive inside this gilded cage."

He slowly stood up, unhurriedly adjusting the folds of his torn black silk shirt embroidered with silver thread, then turned around walking toward the door. The black blood trail on his shoulder was still oozing drop by drop, dripping onto the gold-thread-embroidered carpet floor, forming a long, ruthless blood-spotted trail.

"Try your best to survive..." Kieran did not turn his head back, indifferently pushing the gold-inlaid cedar wood door open. "...Until the day you crawl on your own to kneel beneath my feet."

Click.

The heavy wooden door closed, the lock-latch sound echoing, tearing apart the last hope. The room fell into lonely silence, leaving only the girl's rapid, heavy breathing amidst the ruins. Kieran's black blood smeared on her lips began to seep into her flesh, bringing a stream of bone-chilling magic-heat running straight into her heart.

The girl tightened her two fists wearing Dark Gold iron shackles, her deep purple eyes slowly closing in absolute exhaustion.

"I will never... kneel..." She whispered one last sentence into the dark void, before her consciousness completely sank into the endless night.

Outside the Ice Kingdom palace corridor, Kieran stood leaning against the cold stone wall. The black blood stream on his shoulder had stopped flowing, dark magic automatically healing the wound.

The Chief Guard hurriedly rushed close, his face turning pale with horror: "Your Majesty! You are injured! That Wench..."

"Get out." Kieran indifferently waved his hand, his voice containing indisputable authority-pressure.

He looked at the black blood trail smeared on his fingertip, the bottom of his ash-gray eyes flashing a brutal desire for possession: "No one is allowed to touch it. Her soul... will be the thing I break with my own hands."