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“Listen to me, there are things going on, terrible things and we’re going to have only one chance to stop them. You have to let me go. Just for a little while,” Yichen pleaded.
“No!” Chen’s voice cracked and his fingers dug into his arms. “No, I can’t. We worked so hard to find you. To save you. I’m not leaving you. It’s time to come home. We want you home.”
His brother reached up and placed trembling hands on his cheeks. He tilted Chen’s head down so that he could press their foreheads together. “I know. I want to come home too. There’s nothing in this world I want more than to see you and all our brothers and sisters. I miss our gardens in Luoyang and the plum orchard. I want to listen to you bickering with Xiang-ge and hear Shijie humming as she does her embroidery. But…but I can’t. Not yet.”
“Didi,” Chen started to beg him but stopped when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He lifted his head and glared at the elf standing several feet away. “Is he the reason you can’t return home? I’ll free you of him now,” Chen finished in a snarl. He pulled away from Yichen and reached for his sword, already striding toward the elf, who watched him unmoving.
“No!” Yichen jumped in front of Chen, blocking his path. “You can’t. This isn’t his fault. Don’t hurt him.”
“Yichen, move out of the way!”
“Ah-Cheng?” Moon’s firm, gentle voice floated through the forest to wrap him up in a warm, comforting embrace. It drew him back far more easily than Yichen’s pleading. “What did your shifu tell you?”
Chen shifted to look at Moon with tear-filled eyes. He opened his mouth to argue, but not a single sound came out. While in the underworld, Shifu had admonished him more than once to listen to Yichen. To trust in his decision. This was his road to walk, and he had the strength to do it.
But this…
He’d never expected it to hurt so much.
Moon closed the distance between them and wrapped an arm around his waist, squeezing him in a comforting embrace. “I know it hurts, Ah-Cheng, but you need to trust him. Help him when he is ready for your help.”
Turning his head toward Moon, he squeezed his eyes shut and brushed a kiss to his sweaty temple. “Thank you, baobei,” he whispered.
When he regarded his brother again, it was to find his wide eyes full of unspoken questions. That would have to be for later. They were running out of time and needed to move.
“What can I do to help you?”
“I…I…need you to tell Da-ge and everyone you can that King Ash doesn’t plan to return to the fae realm. He’s keeping the door open between the realms. He’s planning to take over this world,” Yichen said.
“What?” Moon gasped. His fingers twisted in Chen’s sweater, and Chen instinctively cuddled him closer.
“By keeping the door open, he’s siphoning the magic from the fae realm and moving it here so that all the fae are stronger. When they get all the power from their world, they’ll be able to remain here indefinitely. He needs to be stopped.”
“I agree, but you can’t stop him alone. If you come back…” His words faded into nothing as Yichen shook his head.
“I’m not trying to do this alone, but there is something I need to take care of first. Once that is done, I swear I’ll come find you and the rest of our clan. There’s someone I need to save.”
At his brother’s words, Chen’s eyes strayed to the elf lingering a few meters away, his eyes watching Yichen as if he were the only thing that mattered.
“He saved me, Er-ge,” Yichen murmured, his voice trembling. “At the risk of his own life, he saved me countless times and protected me for a century. I can’t leave him now.”
Swearing under his breath, Chen released Moon and pulled his smartphone out of his pocket. “We are not leaving the United States without you,” Chen grumbled. “I am giving you my phone. This will be the fastest way to reach Shixiong. We will come get you immediately.”
Yichen’s eyes widened on that sleek black box in Chen’s hands. “How…how is that a phone?”
A crack of laughter escaped Moon, and Chen could only sigh. A hundred years. Yichen was gone when technology made the biggest advancements.
With nimble fingers, Chen turned off the security feature so his brother wouldn’t need to log in and showed him how to call someone from his address book. Thankfully, the only people listed were those members of his clan and Moon.
“Keep this turned off to conserve the battery until you need it,” Chen explained as he pressed the phone into Yichen’s palm. “If you can’t find us or can’t use this to reach us, you can also seek out a local vampire clan called the Variks. They are friends and they will help you return to us.”
