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Yichen took a sip of his tea, and the warmth seeped all the way to his soul. How long had it been since he’d tasted something so wonderful and familiar? The floral hints mixed with the strawberry and basil. Chen didn’t just paint and design gardens. He also made tea. And this one had always been one of his favorites. It made him want to weep.
Er-ge had the soul of an artist, like Junjie, but the key difference was that Chen Bo Cheng had grown up with a father who’d had expectations of him becoming a general in the emperor’s army. To meet his father’s expectations, he’d twisted himself into a lethal warrior. It was only Shifu who’d pointed out that he could never be whole, never achieve his full potential, by burying the very core of who he was.
When Yichen first arrived at the Zhang clan, it was in Chen he’d found that first spark of kinship. They both knew what it was to struggle under a father’s expectations. Chen had been meant for the army, while Yichen’s father had wanted him to grow to be worthy of the throne of the Wu Kingdom.
“Moon is…not what I would have expected in finding the other half of my soul,” Chen admitted, his words tinged with laughter. “After two thousand years, I thought nothing could surprise me. But Moon…every time he opens his mouth, I’m stunned speechless. Every day, he shocks and surprises me. And that doesn’t even cover the depths of his love for me.”
“It’s lucky that you found each other.”
Chen picked up his cup and smiled at Yichen. “I still don’t understand why fate twisted in such a way to make you suffer as you did. It will never cease to confound me. However, I know now, I needed to be here at this moment, so I could find him. We were always meant to be together.”
A choked laugh escaped Yichen. He closed his eyes. He got it. In Chen’s sneaky, roundabout way, he’d proved there was no reason for Yichen to apologize for the past hundred years, because the result was Chen getting his soul mate.
“Do you and Shixiong sit around plotting these sneaky conversations, or do they come naturally?” Yichen teased.
“If I had said yet again that you have nothing to apologize for, the words would have gone in one ear and out the other. This time, I think you might have finally heard me.”
“Is this why you invited me to tea? To remind me to let go of this guilt?”
“Shifu would say that guilt does not fall off one’s shoulders like a robe slipping to the floor.” Chen picked up the teapot and replenished Yichen’s nearly empty cup. “We must chip away at it with the help of our family and friends by learning to forgive ourselves and continue forward along our path.”
“Then why…”
“Rei.”
The elf’s name hung in the too quiet room like a specter. Yichen wanted to hide his reaction, but there was no point. Chen was a vampire and a highly skilled martial artist. He would have instantly noticed the way Yichen stiffened, his breath caught, and his heartbeat sped up.
“If you think it’s a problem that he’s staying here—” He tried to brazen it out, but of course Chen nipped that immediately.
“You kissed him.”
Yichen lasted all of two seconds before cracking.
“Er-ge!” he whined. His elbows thumped on the table and he buried his face in his hands. “With everything going on, nearly crashing off a bridge, and you had to see that!”
“I didn’t actually see it. Moon did, and he was kind enough to describe it to me in lurid detail.”
“I take it all back,” Yichen said, his voice muffled behind his hands. “Moon is a horrible mate. You should get rid of him.”
Chen laughed. His grumpy er-ge laughed. It was an obvious sign that Moon was a wonderful mate for him if Chen was so very happy.
“Will you talk to me? You seemed upset in the car, and not just about Rei’s unconscious state. Was that the first time you’d kissed?”
A sigh slipped between his parted lips, and he lowered his hands. There was no point in hiding from this. If there was anyone within the clan he felt comfortable talking to about this, it was Chen. Not only because they had centuries of brotherly closeness, but Chen had also found the impossible—a mate.
Not that he thought Rei was his mate!
Absolutely not!
Just that Chen knew what a mate looked like and maybe he could talk some sense into him. That was all.
“Yes. It’s…it’s all a fucking mess. We’re friends. That’s it. We started out as allies simply because we had a common enemy—the king and queen. It’s simply that over the years, our friendship grew because there was no one else we could trust. No one else to depend on.”
Chen raised one of his thick, dark eyebrows while his fingertips deftly turned the cup on the table without making a sound. “Is that all there is between you? You trust him not to kill you?”
“No. That was only at first. The first decade or so of living in the fae realm. But…” His words drifted off, and he licked his lips while trying to put into words a bond that was forged out of necessity, trust, respect, and pain. “Being with Rei is similar to what I see with you and Moon. He’s my opposite in so many ways. His sense of humor is twisted, and he makes me laugh at the worst times. It’s like he knows what I’m thinking without needing to say the words. He can talk me out of my bad moods.”
“He sounds like a good friend, but that doesn’t explain the kiss. Xiao Dan and I have been close friends for longer than I’ve known you, yet I’ve never felt compelled to kiss him.”
