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Dear God, Chen was going to kill him if they ever had sex. And it would be the best way to go ever.
When they reached the large room, Chen placed one tray on the table in front of him and instructed Moon to place the other in front of Junjie. The other vampire silently lifted an eyebrow at him, but he said nothing otherwise. And considering there were questioning looks, it seemed Junjie hadn’t told the others what he’d seen.
That was fine. Moon was still attempting to wrap his brain around what happened.
The tray safely out of his hands, Moon straightened and looked about to find a seat. Daniel was at the head of the table, the same as last night. Junjie, Ming Yu, and Winter were on the sofa to Daniel’s right while his friends were on the left. Sean and Mei Lian were missing, but Moon suspected they’d been tasked with patrolling the grounds to make sure they weren’t surprised by anyone else. Chen had taken a cushioned bench at the far end of the table.
Moon hesitated, then figured he could squeeze in with his coven mates.
He got no farther than a single step.
“Moon,” Chen called out sharply.
His head snapped to the vampire to find that he hadn’t even looked up from where he was carefully pouring water into the cups. He scooted over a couple of inches and tilted his head to the new opening. It had been a snug fit during dinner. He’d been tempted to sit there when he’d first spotted Chen, but he figured he needed to be on his best behavior with the presence of Winter. Apparently, he was wrong.
Moon didn’t argue. He smiled as he walked over to the bench and sat down, his thigh and hip pressed firmly against Chen’s as the vampire poured and served tea to their guests. He glanced at Chen’s face, but his expression was blank.
Daniel softly cleared his throat, the sound dragging Moon’s eyes up to find everyone else in the room staring with varying expressions of shock and confusion.
“I’ll admit that I’m curious as to how you knew I was there,” Winter started, breaking the increasingly tense atmosphere. “Other than Sky over there, no one has ever sensed or picked up my presence.” Winter nodded to the necromancer as he spoke, and Sky flashed him a cheeky grin.
“Your gift is to slip into the realm of the dead, correct?” Daniel replied. “You’re not the first vampire we’ve encountered with that ability.”
“Really?” Winter perked up.
But it was Sean’s growled, “Jiang Chong” that captured Moon’s attention.
Even Chen’s hand clenched around the fragile cup and trembled until Moon brushed his fingers over his knuckles.
“Our maker, Jiang Chong, possessed the same ability. It was in our best interest to learn to spot him when he was nearby and yet invisible to the eye.” Daniel’s tone was smooth as glass, but there was a tightness to the corners of his eyes and his jaw.
Moon ached to ask more about this maker and why his name put Chen on edge. But asking now felt dangerous. Like pin-pulled-from-a-grenade dangerous.
“And your maker didn’t accompany you to Connecticut?” Winter asked.
“No. We parted ways many centuries ago.”
As soon as he said the words, Chen’s shoulders relaxed and his fingers lost their faint tremble. He lifted his cup to his lips and took a small sip. With a cock of his head, he stared at Moon, his eyebrows knitting slightly. “Do you not like your tea?”
Shit. He’d forgotten about the cup Chen had placed in front of him. He grabbed it, careful not to slosh a drop, and took a sip. It was warm and soft. Everything that Chen normally wasn’t. But would Chen more closely resemble the tea when they cuddled in bed together?
“Delicious. A perfect choice,” Moon whispered, trying to ignore the feeling of his friends’ eyes boring into him. Maybe he was acting strange, but he didn’t care. They’d seen him wild, outrageous, and flirty. But that wasn’t what Chen needed right now. The only thing that mattered was smoothing out that tiny wrinkle between Chen’s brows.
“The entirety of our clan is who you saw in the driveway, with one exception. He’s the reason we’ve come to the US,” Daniel continued.
“And this has to do with the fae?” Red inquired.
“The fae kidnapped our clan brother, Wu Yichen, a hundred years ago,” Junjie answered. “During the last period, when the door was open to the human realm, a cluster was living in the woods not too far from our home in Luoyang. They stole Yichen.”
“We’re rescuing him,” Chen snarled.
Moon looked over at his friends to find them frowning at the cups of tea and otherwise refusing to meet the gaze of the vampires.
“Hey, they get it,” Moon said sharply. “The chance that Yichen is still alive is small, but that doesn’t matter. They’re going after him until they either have him back or they have proof that the fae killed him. You gonna sit there and tell me you wouldn’t do the same damn thing if they kidnapped me? If Sky got grabbed, you think we’d throw up our hands and say, ‘Welp, he’s probably dead now.’ Fuck, no!”
