The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis

The door the Mingyu's chambers closed behind us with a hush that felt like silk pulled through a ring.

The servants had been completely dismissed, Mingyu didn't even want them near the door in case they hear something that they shouldn't. He was showing his protectiveness, and I liked that.

The palace—its noise, its eyes, its endless appetite—stayed on the far side of lacquer and brass. In here: candlelight breathing against carved wood, the faint ribbon of sandalwood smoke, the whisper of my own pulse.

He didn't speak at first. Neither did I. We had said the words that mattered in front of a city; there was something holy about keeping the rest for ourselves.

We crossed to the folding screen together. Gold paint caught fire along the edges as we passed—dragons in mid-turn, clouds that looked like the ones I used to watch from the ridge when the wind was honest. The bed waited beyond, all red silk and patient shadow.

I stood at the edge of it and unhooked the phoenix crown. Beads clicked softly as I set it on the low table. The last tassel brushed my cheek, then fell quiet. I felt lighter without it, as if a voice I didn't believe in had stopped murmuring in my ear.

Mingyu's fingers found the ribbon at my nape. He didn't pull. He held, asking. I tipped my chin forward, and the knot surrendered. The first layer slid from my shoulders with the sound of a breath leaving a chest.

Cool air touched the line where silk had been. Warmth followed—his palms at my shoulders, his mouth at my temple, the hush of a man who has waited and is not afraid to go slowly.

"This is ours," he said, very low.

"It is," I breathed, and turned to face him.

He was still in ceremony black, belt loosened but not gone, the seal on his chest catching light. I put both hands on it, felt the heat underneath. The man and the crown were not the same thing.

And tonight, I wanted the man.

I undid the clasp. The robe fell open with a sigh, and he stepped closer, enough that the waist of my gown met the flat of his palm. There was no rush, just the steady patience of someone memorizing a map by touch. The cords at my sleeve, the hidden tie at my side, the single seam that let the bodice loosen like a secret.

He learned my body more and more with every piece of clothing that hit the floor.

When there was nothing between my skin and the air but the last soft layer, he paused.

Candlelight climbed the edges of his profile—the strong bridge of his nose, the mouth I'd seen be ruthless in court and gentle with a boy who had no words. His eyes were darker than the lacquer behind him.

"Look at me," I told him, and he did, as if I had ordered the world to stop moving.

I lifted my hands and stripped him down to truth: the last robe, the shirt beneath, the band at his wrist. The cloth caught on his shoulder and I had to rise onto my toes to free it. He laughed once, right against my mouth, a sound like a knot loosening. I swallowed it, then gave him mine.

The kiss was careful at first, like we were just seeing each other for the first time. And in a way, we were.

Then it deepened, and breath leaned into breath until I couldn't tell where my lungs ended. His hand slid to the small of my back and held me there like a vow. His other hand framed my jaw, thumb a warm stroke along the hinge, quieting thoughts that did not belong in this hour.

I let every guard I owned fall to the floor with the silk.

He eased me down to the bed as if it were a thing that could startle.

The mattress took my weight; the embroidered phoenixes cooled under my palms. He followed, bracing above me, not pinning but surrounding, placing this instant inside his body so it would be safe.

I curled my leg along his and felt the slow strength in him answer.

"Kiss me again," I murmured, and he did, mouth and then jaw and then the hollow below my ear where my pulse has lived through worse nights than this. Heat spread in me like dawn slipping over snow. I arched into it and felt him shiver.

His hands learned me the way hands learn a blade they intend to wield with reverence.

Shoulder to collarbone, collarbone to sternum, the delicate angle where breath lifts and falls. He learned how my ribs flare and narrow, how my waist gives to a palm, how my hip fits under the curve of his thumb.

Everywhere he mapped, something in me answered, metal attuning under a sure touch.

I didn't want to be worshiped. I wanted to be known. And he knew me.

When I unfastened his belt the last of the way, he stilled—one heartbeat, two—as if to be certain this was not generosity, not obligation, not the quiet violence of politeness. I lifted my head and kissed the place over his pulse, and the answer ran through both of us.

He gathered the sheet over us like weather, cocooning the two bodies the world thought it owned. The silk whispered against skin. He kissed my mouth again and then lower, a trail that made my bones forget to be iron. I threaded my fingers into his hair and the clean line of him felt inevitable, like the path down a mountain you've walked your whole life without knowing it had a name.

"Stay with me," he murmured when I trembled.

"I'm here," I said, and for once the words didn't have to be a promise against catastrophe. They were just true.

When we finally moved from patience to hunger, it wasn't a lunge; it was a tide. He pressed closer, the length and weight of him fitting into the shape of me as if we had been made as a matching set.