2. Huli
Chapter 2
Huli
N o.
No. No. No. No.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. How could she travel all the way to the other side of the globe just for this stupid agreement?
How could she still be alive?
He’d not seen a single sign of her in more than three hundred years. He’d been sure she was dead already and that his stupid promise was now null and void.
Huli stopped running from the Zhang manor when he’d traveled for well over a kilometer, but he didn’t stop moving. He paced the forest, bare branches scratching along his side and dead leaves crunching under his paws as panic poured through him in hot, ugly waves.
Xiao Dan must hate him.
All his clan mates had to be telling Xiao Dan to kill Huli and be free of him once and for all.
And they would be right.
He was a worthless huli jing. No good to his kind—not that he cared about other huli jing—and no good to Xiao Dan.
He shifted into the human form that Xiao Dan was most fond of and magically summoned his most precious treasure in all the world.
Huli cupped his hands together, and a soft glow rose for a moment, engulfing his hands. As it faded, a brilliant green jade pendant with a worn green ribbon dangling from the top rested in his palms.
He squatted, all of his attention on the fine details of the piece of jade that had been so expertly carved. But it wasn’t the incredible workmanship or the fact that the jade piece was several hundred years old that made it so valuable.
No, it was that Xiao Dan had given it to him.
His amazing gege? 1 had walked into a shop and spent his money to purchase this yupei? 2 for him and him alone.
Huli had treasured it long before he’d understood the meaning of the gift. It had been a shiny thing his human had given to him.
But now he knew it was a promise.
This pendant meant Huli belonged to Xiao Dan and no one else.
He hoped to one day give Xiao Dan a gift like this jade that would mean Xiao Dan belonged to him forever, but he was waiting for when he knew he was worthy of the vampire.
Huli squeezed his eyes shut against the sudden burn of tears and bent his head, pressing the edge of the pendant into his forehead. Now he would never be worthy of Xiao Dan.
Huli’s head jerked up, and he strained all of his senses. Someone was close. As he was still locating the intruder, Huli magically tucked the jade away to its secure hiding spot and shifted into his fox form.
He slunk around a large oak, sniffing the air. There was nothing but a sharp tingle of magic. Yet, not huli jing magic.
“Xiao Dan is worried about you.”
Huli swallowed a groan. It was dragon magic.
Ever since the dragon had latched on to the Zhang clan, it had become impossible to sneak onto the grounds and spy on the clan. The dragon always knew where he was, but at least he was more tolerable than Chen or Xiang.
“You’re confused, dragon. Gege is angry with me,” Huli mumbled as he stepped out from behind a tree to find Kai as a human. He sat on an elegantly carved wood bench that had not been there a second ago.
For a creature that was content to sleep at the bottom of rivers and lakes, his human form seemed very fussy about dirt. He was always smartly dressed and surrounded by expensive things. How could two such different personalities exist in one creature? And if Kai was this fussy, how could he love such a meatheaded brute like Xiang?
“I’m not confused. Xiao Dan told me specifically that he was not angry. He is worried about you. Are you injured?”
“No,” he whined.
Why couldn’t he have been hurt, at least? If he was wounded, Xiao Dan would have felt bad for him and maybe be more willing to forgive him.
No. That was stupid. No amount of bleeding or broken limbs would convince Xiao Dan to forgive him. Even if he died, Xiao Dan still wouldn’t forgive him.
“Will you return to the manor with me so we can discuss what happened?”
“No. I can’t face him yet.”
Kai sighed and nodded. “Very well.” With a wave of his hand, a table appeared in front of him with a clay teapot and a pair of cups. A thin curl of steam trickled out of the pot. Kai picked up the teapot and poured some tea into both cups. “Shift into your human form. Have some tea with me and tell me about this other huli jing.”
“No.” Huli frowned and belatedly tacked on, “Thank you.” Kai was a dragon and nearly a god. Huli was all too aware that Kai could transport them to the Zhang manor with nothing more than a snap of his fingers.
“You need to talk to someone. Who will it be?”
Irritated, Huli opened his mouth, but the name lodged in his throat. He had been about to blurt out Xiao Dan. He talked to Xiao Dan about everything. Except for this.
“Moon! I’ll talk to Moon. He likes me.”
Maybe not after he learns the whole truth, though.
Kai blinked, and his lips twisted into something a little more mocking. “Moon?”
“What’s wrong with Moon? He’s great!” Huli’s fur bristled, and a faint crackle of magic entered the air.
“Moon is great. I like the young man a lot.” Kai paused and took a sip of his tea. “But please consider that Moon is only twenty-four in human years. Plus, he’s an American. He knows nothing of our heritage, our history. He doesn’t understand the long, complicated past of huli jing.”
Huli snorted. In truth, he didn’t exactly know and understand the long, complicated past of the huli jing himself. But he got the point Kai was trying to make. The dragon was his best option.
Heaving a loud, annoyed groan, Huli turned into a human and shuffled over to Kai’s bench, where he sat in the empty space. He picked up the cup and sniffed it. Pu-erh tea with…
“I added dried lychee fruit to this batch,” Kai supplied.
Oh, that sounded nice. Well, at least the dragon had better taste in tea than he did in mates.
“We’ll start simple. Is this creature an actual huli jing?”
Huli drank his entire cup of tea and placed it on the table close to Kai. “Yes, she’s a huli jing who goes by the name of Min. She was old when I was still little more than a pup. Had at least five tails already. I think.”
“And can she truly take Shixiong’s soul?”
Huli whimpered as he nodded. “It’s what she does. What all huli jing do.” His voice came out as a mumble, “What I’m supposed to do.”
“Why?”
One shoulder lifted in a halfhearted way. “It’s supposed to help grow our powers. Like cultivation. But there are other, far more effective ways to grow our powers. Plus, humans spent centuries hunting huli jing for their magic and tails. So what if we steal their souls?”
Kai directed a dark look at Huli as he poured more tea in his cup, and Huli shrank back on the bench. The dragon was not a fan of hunting humans.
“How many souls have you stolen?”
Huli threw his arms out, nearly hitting Kai in the face. “Tons! Hundreds!”
“Huli,” Kai growled, pushing his hand away from his face.
“Okay. Dozens.”
“Dozens? Really?”
Huli huffed and slumped in his seat. The dragon was so annoying. “Fine. Like…six.”
“Just six?”
“Yes. And I had a good reason, too. They were all women who kept flirting with Gege after he clearly told them he wasn’t interested.”
“ Mn . I have a feeling Xiao Dan would say something about that being wrong, but I can’t say that. I understand your frustration. The other day, a woman was following Xiang through the grocery and trying to flirt with him. I wanted to squash her in her tiny red car.”
Huli’s butt wiggled to the edge of the bench. “Did you? Did you squish her flat?”
“No. Xiang said it would be wrong.”
Huli flopped against the bench and noisily blew out his breath. “That sucks.”
Kai turned his head toward Huli enough so Huli could see his smirk. “When Xiang’s back was turned, I made the bottoms rip in all of her grocery bags. And she had a lot of bags. Food went everywhere in the parking lot.”
A loud snort jumped from Huli, and he sat up, feeling better. At least, if anyone understood him, it might be Kai.
“The difference is that you are a good huli jing because of your devotion to Xiao Dan. Min is an evil huli jing, and we will squash her like a disgusting bug.”
Huli picked up the cup Kai refilled for him and stared at the brownish liquid. “I don’t feel like a good huli jing. I think I’m evil. At a young age, I made a selfish bargain with her. Now Gege has to pay for my stupidity.”
“What bargain did you make?”
He shook his head violently and drained his tea a second time so he couldn’t speak.
“Very well, but you need to tell Xiao Dan, so he can deal with this Min.”
“I can’t. He’ll hate me. I’m evil.” His fingers tightened on the cup almost to the point of shattering it.
“Shixiong cares very much for you. I don’t think he would give his heart to someone who was evil.”
“Maybe I tricked him.”
The dragon huffed out a dry laugh as he stood. With a wave of his hand, the table and the tea set vanished. The only things that remained were the bench and the cup in Huli’s hand.
“Do you really think you could have tricked him for all these years?”
Huli’s ego thrust up its meaty fist and shouted, “Yes!” But the most realistic part of his brain sighed. No one could trick his beautiful, perfect gege.
Kai didn’t need an answer to that silly question. He’d already moved on.
“Will you return with me? Xiao Dan is anxious about you. I don’t like for him to worry.”
“No,” he mumbled. “Not yet. I need to think some more.”
“Shall I stay with you?”
“No, thank you.” That time, he meant it. “I don’t believe Min will hurt me. Go back and tell Gege that I’ll return to the manor soon.”
The dragon didn’t linger another second. He disappeared, leaving Huli with the bench and the cup.
Why hadn’t he returned with Kai?
Xiao Dan needed to know what he’d done and why. Not that the why seemed to matter now after all these years.
Why was he hesitating?
Was he afraid Xiao Dan would get so mad that he’d cast Huli aside? No, not really. Xiao Dan was a patient and forgiving human. He always believed in the best for Huli, even if he didn’t deserve it.
No, he was afraid Xiao Dan’s clan mates would finally convince him that Huli was a worthless soul and didn’t deserve one more gram of Xiao Dan’s patience and understanding.
Deep down, he was afraid they were all right.
1 ? Gege – older brother, denotes familiarity and not necessarily a family relation. Can sometimes be added to a name such as Zhang-ge
2 ? Yupei – jade pendant (Narrator note: 玉佩, Yùpèi)