Yulun crept to the bed where Benton lay, breathing evenly in deepest sleep.
With the sheer sleeve of her tunic she wiped the blood from his face. And, at her touch, the wound in the temple closed and the short, bright hair dried and curled over a forehead as clean and fresh as a boy’s.
Then Yulun laid her lips against his, rested so a moment.
“Seek me, dear lord,” she whispered. “Or send me a sign and I shall come.”
And, after a pause, she said, her lips scarcely stirring: “Love me. My heart is a flaming pearl burning between your hands.”
Then she lifted her head.
But Tressa had rejoined her body, where it lay asleep beside her deeply sleeping husband.
So Yulun stood a moment, her eyes remote. Then, after a while, the little rococo bedroom in the Ritz-Carlton was empty save for a young man asleep on the bed, holding in his clenched hand a white hibiscus blossom.