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Chen glared at the furry beast. “He probably has fleas.”
The cat turned his head toward the vampire and hissed as if he knew he was being wrongfully disparaged.
Yichen huffed a laugh while Junjie immediately jumped to his defense.
“Yiguo1 does not have fleas! I checked him carefully. He’s a very clean, considerate cat.”
“Yiguo? You named it?” Chen gasped.
“Of course. I didn’t want to keep calling him ‘Cat,’ and he’s so happy when he visits.”
Chen sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Keep him out of the kitchen, or Shijie will cook him in a pot.”
“Thank you, Jun-Jun,” Yichen interjected before Junjie could snap at their er-ge. “I think Rei will appreciate you playing for him. Just don’t expect him to wake up. It’s likely he’ll be unconscious until after the sun rises.”
“Did this happen while you were in the fae realm?” Chen asked, seeming to forget about the stray cat who was now following Junjie into the garden. It wandered close enough to Rei to sniff the side of his foot but darted to Junjie’s side, some of its hair standing up as if suddenly realizing it had gotten far too close to a powerful creature.
“No, but he told me about it. He needs several hours to replenish his strength. There’s nothing we can do for him other than to keep him safe.”
Chen grunted. “Come with me. Junjie will play to help his sleep and will protect him. Ming Yu and Meimei are cooking some food that will also help him regain his strength when he awakens.”
His gut demanded he remain at Rei’s side, but he tamped down that impulse and pushed to his feet. This didn’t feel like a casual request, but a formal one from his er-ge. That left little room for saying no.
Jun-Jun paused in his playing and smiled at Yichen as he walked past. “If he wakes up, I’ll text you.”
Yep, he was being obvious. Or at the very least, word of his kiss with Rei had blazed a path through the entire clan. Mentally groaning, Yichen followed a silent Chen through the house, winding through the various corridors. At last, Chen slid open a door to a room he hadn’t gone into yet.
He stopped on the threshold, a surprised grin spreading across his lips as he took in the jars of paintbrushes for painting, while another set of brushes solely for calligraphy hung from a black wooden stand. There were rolls of paper and jars of paints. Some of his earliest memories of Chen were of him in a room similar to this, as he’d dedicated himself to perfecting his brush strokes and learning to be a master artist.
At first, it hadn’t been so much that he was interested in art. However, Shifu had instructed that art was a way of clearing the mind and attaining a calm that was needed to reach the next level of his martial arts studies.
It was later in life that Yichen spent time in a room like this for pleasure, creating something beautiful with a few well-placed strokes of his brush.
Chen was also the one who’d urged him to study art and calligraphy diligently.
Tonight, the brushes, scrolls, and paints were all put aside. On the table in the center of the room was a teapot with steam still curling out of its opening. A pair of handleless cups sat opposite each other, waiting for their guests.
“When Shixiong had us pack up what we needed for our trip to the United States, he specifically requested that I bring the supplies for the art room. I thought he was crazy. In my mind, this was to be a brief trip. We were to find you the moment the door opened, steal you, and immediately return home.” Chen paused as he sat on one of the low cushions on the left side of the table. Yichen closed the door behind him and took the cushion on the opposite side of the table. “Shixiong was gifted with a long vision. Within two days of living here, I realized how correct he was. This would not be a simple task.”
“You’ve painted since coming to this country?”
“After we parted in the woods. Prior to that, I stared at the blank page, unable to pick up my brush. Once I saw you with my own eyes and knew you would return to us, my creative spark returned. The peace I needed in order to paint was restored.”
A fresh apology balanced on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it. He was tired of apologizing for being kidnapped, for worrying his clan, for disrupting their lives. He didn’t want to feel the weight of his guilt any longer. Wasn’t it enough that he’d suffered at the hands of the fae for a century?
Chen gracefully picked up the dark-green teapot with bamboo stalks painted on the side and poured tea into each of the cups. After setting it on the burner, he pushed one cup across the table to Yichen.
“When I heard we would travel to this land, my first thought was to make the trip as brief as possible. But now that I’m here and I have found my mate, I wish to linger longer. I want to create a series of paintings that capture the soul of this land. To understand the place Moon has called home. And maybe give him time to say good-bye to this country, considering it may be a long time before we travel from China again.”
Yichen froze with the cup halfway to his lips and gazed at Chen. “Moon is coming back to China with us?”
A smile spread across Chen’s lips. “Moon is my mate. He is part of this clan. Where I go, he goes.”
Those were all words he’d heard after returning to his clan, but they hadn’t sunk into his brain at all. Mostly because there had been no one new admitted to their sect or clan in over two thousand years. Not since that night when they’d been turned into vampires.
After taking a small sip of the tea, Chen lowered his clay cup to the table and ran his long, pale fingers across the smooth table surface, tracing the dark grains swirling in the wood. “Moon is quite excited about seeing Luoyang and our home, but he doesn’t understand time yet from a vampire’s perspective. He has friends here he sees as family. I want him to spend time with them while he can.”
“He seems like a good mate.”
