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“Dragon? That looked a hell of a lot like one of the dragon kings! How are we supposed to take on a god?” Yichen argued.
“What?” Rei gasped.
“Calm down. We know nothing about this dragon,” Xiao Dan interjected. “The fact that the dragon didn’t instantly kill Xiang or take him to the fae realm is a good sign. It could mean that it wants something. That will give us time.”
“But a god?” Meimei squeaked.
Rei grasped the front of Yichen’s shirt and twisted the fabric in his fists. “What are you talking about? How is my mother controlling a dragon king? Or a god? Or-or-or whatever?”
“Breathe. It’s okay. That dragon…matches our mythology with its long body, horns, and curling whiskers. And our culture’s mythology has a lot of old stories about dragon…gods,” Yichen explained a bit haltingly as he tried not to freak out the elf even more.
“Like Zhulong,”1 Chen offered.
“And Yinglong,”2 Junjie added.
“And Shenlong,”3 Meimei stated.
“Not to mention the four dragon kings of the seas, as well as the nine sons of the dragon king, such as Baxia—”4
“Not helping!” Yichen snarled at the group, cutting off Ming Yu before her list could make Rei any paler. “The point is that we don’t know anything about this dragon or what it wants. We have zero proof that it’s a god. Dragons are auspicious and helpful…as long as you don’t piss them off.”
“But this dragon is obeying my mother. That’s not a good thing, even if it isn’t a king or a god,” Rei countered.
“True, but we’ll figure this out.” Xiao Dan rose and moved to stand in front of Rei and Yichen. “We will uncover the truth behind this dragon, and we will find its lair. We’ll find our clan mate.” One corner of Xiao Dan’s mouth quirked up. “We stole our didi after the fae held him for an entire century.”
Moon snorted. “Oh yeah, how hard could it be to take on one little dragon?”
Yichen cupped Rei’s cheeks in both of his hands. “We’ll rescue Xiang, and then we will defeat your mother, pushing the fae back into their territory.”
“But first, there’s another matter that needs to be taken care of,” Xiao Dan declared. He narrowed his eyes on Yichen, leaving the vampire swallowing hard. Was there something he forgot to do? “The bloodstone,” his shixiong prodded.
Oh, fuck! The bloodstone!
He was supposed to use it to end the blood tie between him and Rei. Not that he wanted to at all. But with all the fighting and running for their lives they were doing, it wasn’t smart for him to depend on a single blood source. If he was hurt, he could die before he could reach Rei.
“Shit! Right! That’s my fault. Totally forgot. It was the whole dragon thing. Threw me off.” Rei pushed out of Yichen’s arms and patted himself down, searching for which pocket he’d shoved the bloodstone.
After a few more curses, Rei fished a cut and smoothed green stone with flecks of red from a velvet bag. The ominous-looking thing covered his palm, and Yichen hesitated to touch it. Zelda couldn’t be wrong about this, right? It wasn’t possible for the fae to put a curse on it…right?
“There’s no magic on it, I swear,” Rei grumbled, because the elf could read his mind after spending so much time with him. Or maybe he could read the hesitation on his face. “The witch said that you need to put it against your bare skin on your chest.” As he continued, Rei grabbed the hem of his filthy and somewhat torn T-shirt and hiked it up.
Yichen yelped and crossed his arms over his chest, attempting to hold his shirt in place as Rei continued to fight him. “What are you doing? Not in front of everyone!”
“Are you kidding me? They’ve known you for two thousand years. I refuse to believe they haven’t seen your chest by now. Don’t be weird.”
It was the low giggles and snickers that convinced him that maybe he was being a little weird about this. With a huff, he dropped his hands to his sides, allowing Rei to press the stone to his skin.
The pain was immediate. With teeth clenched, he hissed and flinched, trying to pull away from the stone. It was as if something had dug hundreds of tiny hooks inside of his body and was trying to draw out bits of his organs through the point where the bloodstone touched his chest.
“No!” Rei shouted. He lifted the stone to remove it from Yichen’s body, but Yichen caught his hand, holding the heliotrope in place.
“Don’t move it. Working,” he gritted out.
“But you’re in pain,” Rei argued, still trying to pull his hand and the stone free of Yichen’s grasp.
“Zelda warned it might be painful,” Chen murmured. “Not surprising, really. Yichen has fed exclusively from you for several years now. It has given your blood ample time to soak deep into his body.”
Rei glared at Chen over his shoulder, flashing his clenched teeth in a silent growl. That did not help.
