Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 117167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Yichen grabbed Rei’s wrist and pulled the elf behind him as he took a couple of steps back so he could now see Xiang on his right and the rest of his clan on his left.
“This is Rei. He may be an elf and a member of the fae, but he is my friend first. He protected me while I was a prisoner. No one may harm him. If he is not welcome here, I’m not staying either.” As he spoke, he stared at each clan member, meeting their eyes, daring them to question his words. He’d never been one to rebel or speak out against his shixiong and shijie,4 but he was drawing the line with Rei. They’d gone through too much together.
“This isn’t necessary,” Rei whispered in his ear. “I can be close when I’m needed and away when I’m not. There’s no reason to make your clan uncomfortable with my presence.”
“He’s right, Yichen,” Xiao Dan added, and it was like a fist grasped his heart in an icy grip. But then his shixiong smiled, and the ice melted. “Chen told us about your meeting. Though we have a lot of questions, if he is your trusted friend, he is welcome here. Your caution is unnecessary.”
Releasing his hold on Rei’s wrist, Yichen cupped his left hand over his right and bowed to Xiao Dan. “Thank you, Shixiong.”
“Enough,” Xiao Dan grumbled, pulling Yichen into a hug that made his bones creak. And that was only the beginning. His clan mates hugged him so many times as they passed him around between them.
Both Ming Yu and Meimei had tears slip free before Shijie scurried into the house with the promise to make all of Yichen’s favorite foods. That idea alone made him choke up. Ming Yu’s cooking. How he’d missed that! Even though he’d largely given up eating after becoming a vampire, it didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy a taste here and there. But a hundred years had passed since a single bite of Ming Yu’s cooking had crossed his lips.
When the hugging was finished they stood in a loose circle, the silence broken by choked laughter and some awkward sniffles. A large orange tabby cat resting in Junjie’s arms suddenly sat up and hissed. Junjie tried to soothe it, but the creature darted off, disappearing into the shadows.
They turned in the direction the cat had hissed to see an orange-and-white fox with black feet playfully bounding across the lawn, all nine of its fluffy tails flowing behind it.
“The huli jing!”5 Yichen gasped.
“Jiuweihu,”6 Moon corrected in a loud whisper. “He’s been cultivating for a long time.”
Chen groaned and pulled Moon into his arms. “That’s enough helping from you.”
Yichen tore his eyes from the fox spirit—who was now trotting over to Xiao Dan as if it were the most natural thing in the world—to Chen’s smile. His er-ge was actually smiling! He never smiled.
The fox narrowed its gold eyes at Rei and released a low growl in the back of its throat. Xiao Dan reached down and gave the fox a little thump on the top of his head. The creature’s large black-tipped ears flattened, and he delivered the most pathetic look imaginable to Xiao Dan.
“Be polite, Huli. Rei is a friend of Yichen and a guest in our home,” Shixiong admonished.
Huli huffed in Rei’s direction. “Be grateful, elf. I wasn’t allowed inside until I was bleeding and near death.”
“Not close enough to death for my liking,” Xiang muttered under his breath.
The fox made an annoyed barking noise at Xiang and then bounded off to the dark shadows and the trees.
“Is…is that the same huli jing—I mean jiuweihu—that we glimpsed near our home in Luoyang?” Yichen inquired.
“It is,” Xiao Dan murmured.
“Gods, I pray it is. I cannot accept the idea of being cursed with more than one,” Chen added.
“Shhh…be nice,” Moon chastised Chen even as he wrapped his arms about his waist and snuggled close.
“Things have changed,” Yichen mumbled. He didn’t know which was more peculiar—that they were on good terms with the fox spirit or that Chen had found a mate.
“Yes, but most things have not,” Junjie reassured him.
“Let’s move inside. We can show you to your rooms and catch up on everything that’s happened.”
Xiang snorted behind him as they began the slow walk toward the house. “A century of catching up. I think we’re going to need more than Shijie’s soup and spareribs.”
“We don’t have to cover everything in one night,” Jun-Jun grumbled.
“There is one thing that we’re hoping to cover soon,” Rei spoke up for the first time.
A knot formed in Yichen’s stomach. Part of him didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to talk about any of what had happened to him in the past hundred years. He longed to slide back into his old life with his family and pretend the horrible things he’d experienced had never happened.