Two Thousand Promises (Kings of Chaos #5)

6. Huli

Chapter 6

Huli

D on’t screw this up!

Huli repeated the phrase in his mind over and over again as he and Xiao Dan cleaned up. He wanted to continue exploring Xiao Dan’s body, kissing all his lovely parts and coaxing out sexy noises, but they were overdue to deal with the larger problem at hand. It was just that he didn’t want to let this moment go.

For reasons he still couldn’t understand, Xiao Dan had overlooked the fact that Huli had promised his soul to another huli jing and had embraced him. He’d even said I love you!

Not that it was the first time Xiao Dan had whispered those words to him, but this felt different. He could feel it in his soul that Xiao Dan meant it in a forever kind of way, and he wasn’t ready to let this go. He’d waited more than a thousand years for this moment. Why did he have to be the one who messed this up?

These worries flew out of his mind as Xiao Dan handed him a set of his own pajamas to wear. They were dark navy blue with orange foxes bounding across the shirt. He lifted the soft cotton to his nose and breathed it in. Even though the clothes had been freshly laundered, they still possessed Xiao Dan’s unique scent of winter plums and snow. And now Huli was going to be wrapped up in it. It didn’t matter that the pants were way too long and that he was drowning in the top. They belonged to Xiao Dan, and the vampire had given them to him to wear.

“When did you first meet Min?” Xiao Dan inquired as he finished getting dressed. He turned off the light in the adjoining bathroom and returned to the bedroom, where Huli was sitting on the end of the bed. The sleeves swallowed up his hands, and part of him wished he could hide his entire body within the pajamas.

“A very long time ago.” He pushed the words out in a mumble that had to be barely audible to even the vampire’s superior hearing.

Xiao Dan sat next to him and gently took one of his arms. His nimble fingers neatly folded back the cloth of the sleeve twice to rest right where it was supposed to on Huli’s wrist. “I don’t want you to be afraid to tell me the truth about Min. I won’t be upset.”

“But I promised your soul to her!” Huli cried out and then bit his tongue hard enough to taste blood. He shouldn’t have reminded Xiao Dan of that, even though it was something he wasn’t likely to forget.

“Forgive me, Huli, but my soul is not something you can promise away. You don’t own it. My soul belongs to me alone, and she can’t have it.” He paused and tilted his head so that he could meet Huli’s downcast gaze. “Unless that is something you want. Do you want me to give my soul to her?”

“No!” Huli threw himself at Xiao Dan, wrapping his arms around his neck. “No! Never! I never intended for her to get her claws into your soul. She can’t have you. You’re mine! You belong to Huli and no one else.”

Xiao Dan’s powerful arms closed about Huli, holding him so tightly that the panic threatening to choke him ebbed. “You’re right. I belong only to you. Min can’t have me. No one else is ever going to have me.”

A gentle kiss was pressed to the top of Huli’s head and another at his temple. “If we’re to protect ourselves from Min, I need to know everything about her. Can you help me?”

Reluctantly, Huli released Xiao Dan and sat up. He placed his hands in his lap, but Xiao Dan picked up his wrist and folded the sleeve back so that it matched the other one. Just watching Xiao Dan’s slow, attentive manner cleared away the last of the fear.

“I was young. It was before I learned to speak. Before I gained my second tail. She found me in the woods. She was the first huli jing I’d ever met. At three hundred, she had five tails and could shift into a human.”

“You became enamored of her,” Xiao Dan said.

“No!” Huli snapped. “I hated her. She’d already noticed you. Seen you in the market.” Xiao Dan’s fingers froze on Huli’s sleeve. Huli threaded their fingers together, trying to infuse some of his natural warmth into Xiao Dan’s chilled skin. He tipped his head up and stared into Xiao Dan’s wide eyes. “From our first meeting, I wanted to kill her. Yet, she had power that I didn’t have. How could I tell you all the things I saw and did if I never learned to speak? How could I make you love me if I couldn’t turn into a human?”

The vampire’s expression softened. “You can’t make someone love you.”

“I made you. I did. You said it earlier that you love me.”

Xiao Dan’s worried gaze filled with warm laughter. “Did you make me love you with huli jing magic?”

“No. I…I…”

How the hell had he made Xiao Dan love him? Was it the shiny baubles he’d brought the vampire over the years? Maybe it was how he’d protected him when they went for their long walks through the woods?

Xiao Dan’s chuckle tore him from his wandering thoughts. A kind hand cupped his cheek and pulled him in for a slow kiss that scattered fragmented ideas like leaves in the wind.

“I love you because of who you are. Huli is my sweet, playful, mischievous fox spirit. You are so very good at finding trouble, but you have the softest, biggest heart that you let only me see.”

“Because my heart belongs to Gege. Only Gege can see it.”

“Yes, that is mine.”

“But I needed to be able to speak to you. I needed you to see me as a human to win you. That is the reason I agreed to leave Luoyang with Min.” Huli leaned his head against Xiao Dan’s shoulder and sighed. “She was older, knew other huli jing, knew how to become stronger. I needed this information, and she was my one source. Yet, she was unwilling to give me this information for free.”

“And this was why you struck a bargain with her. To become a more powerful huli jing, you bartered my soul for that knowledge,” Xiao Dan finished for him.

His head popped up. “Yes, but I never intended for her to get your soul. I planned to kill her as soon as I was strong enough. That way, she could never touch my gege!”

Xiao Dan threw his head back, laughter bursting out of him. Huli stared at him, his mouth hanging open. This was not a laughing matter. This was all very serious. Even after all these years, there were times he still could not understand humans.

“You planned to betray her from the very start!” The vampire chortled. He wiped a tear away from the corner of his eye. “How could I love such a wicked fox?”

Huli narrowed his eyes on Xiao Dan and pointed one finger at the tip of his nose. “You do love me! You said it! I heard it!”

Xiao Dan wrapped him up as he continued to chuckle. “Yes, I still love you. I’ve loved you for years, all while knowing how evil you can be.”

He gave a shrug as he laid his head on the vampire’s shoulder. “I don’t try to be wicked. I try to be a good Huli, but it is so hard. You don’t know how hard it is for Huli. Especially when Chen and Xiang are so very annoying.” That last bit he grumbled under this breath, but he knew Xiao Dan would hear him.

“They are annoying because they are protective of their clan. They want me to be safe because they also know Huli can be wicked. The one thing that they don’t understand, is how good Huli’s heart is. Only I know that.”

Gege was magic.

There was no other way to explain it. All his words and wonderful hugs had a way of making it all feel better. He was no longer scared of Xiao Dan casting him aside forever. He always seemed to know the right thing to say to fix things.

But words would not fix this problem with Min.

No. To stop Min, he had to kill her. She would give them no other choice.

“Shortly after meeting Min, I left Luoyang and traveled with her. Stealing souls is one way for a huli jing to gain power, but it’s a slow and tedious process. Humans have so little magic in them. I wanted to become powerful quickly. The faster I gained my tails, the faster I could talk and shift for my gege.”

“If it’s a slow way of gaining power, why are huli jing known for stealing the souls of humans?”

Huli snorted and sat up so he could look Xiao Dan in the eye. “Because it’s fun.”

Xiao Dan rolled his eyes. “Of course. Silly me.”

“Yes, that was silly of you, Gege.”

“So, all those times you were gone for years at a time, you were traveling with Min?”

He reached across Xiao Dan’s lap, picked up the vampire’s hand, and pulled it over to his own lap. He traced the lines of his palm and down his fingers, loving that he had the freedom to touch him. It had been a long time since they’d last had an escape like this. Not since before Yichen was kidnapped. Everything had changed when the fae stole Yichen…

“No, I stayed with Min for a few centuries. Once I learned all the tricks she had for teaching me to cultivate and how she found the best magic-infused places in the world, I parted ways with her. I still wasn’t strong enough to defeat her, and I thought that if I went off on my own, I could gain power faster. She guided me through gaining my first two tails. The rest I did on my own.”

Xiao Dan closed his hand, capturing Huli’s fingers. “And they are magnificent tails.”

He couldn’t stop preening. They were fantastic tails, and only Xiao Dan appreciated them properly.

“But…” the vampire prodded.

“But many years passed until I saw Min again. When I did, she had nine tails, and I was still stuck at seven. There was no way I could kill her. I had to get my ninth tail first.” He huffed and pulled his fingers free of Xiao Dan’s grasp. “After I got my final tail and became a true jiuweihu, it was like she disappeared. I never saw her. The few huli jing I encountered also said they hadn’t seen her in years. I thought someone else had killed her. And then…” His words drifted off, and he swallowed hard.

“What?”

It took Huli a couple of seconds to spit the words out. “The fae kidnapped Yichen.”

That was the one period since he’d first met Xiao Dan that had been the absolute darkest. He’d never seen Xiao Dan so broken and distraught. It had been the brutal wake-up call he’d been needing to put his petty desires behind him and focus on what the man who owned his heart needed.

“After his disappearance, we spent all our time digging for information about the fae and how to get to Yichen. I forgot Min ever existed. It wasn’t until I saw her in the garden, heard her voice, that I recalled that I’d been searching for her.”

Huli jumped to his feet and paced across the room. Except he didn’t get far. The bottoms of his pants slipped over his feet so that he was stepping on the hem, pulling them lower while tripping on them. Xiao Dan leaped up and grabbed him by the waist as Huli tipped forward while fighting to pull the pants up.

“ Grrr …stupid pants! Stupid Huli! I should have killed her years ago. Then you would never have to know how stupid I am.”

“Huli isn’t stupid,” Xiao Dan whispered into his hair. He wrapped his arms around his waist, holding him close when Huli would have darted away. “My fox spirit saw something he wanted, and he put in so much hard work to get it. I’ve always been proud of you for working so hard to get your tails. I admire your dedication.”

“Please, stop,” he begged. “Huli is bad. Evil. I planned to kill another huli jing to keep her away from you. I wanted to be powerful so I could make you all mine. It was about what I wanted. I didn’t care about what you wanted.”

Xiao Dan’s arms tightened despite Huli’s words. “Do you care about what I want now?”

Something inside of Huli shattered. He turned in Xiao Dan’s arms and hugged him while pressing his face into the vampire’s chest. “Yes. It’s the only thing that matters. If you don’t love me anymore, that’s okay. I will take care of Min and go away forever if it makes Gege happy.”

“See? You’ve grown up. You’ve learned to care about the wishes and feelings of others. You’re not the same young, impulsive huli jing you were the morning I first found you.” Xiao Dan put two fingers under Huli’s chin and forced his head up to meet his gaze. “And the one thing I want is for Huli to stay by my side forever. No matter what.”

“You’re sure?”

“Very sure.” Xiao Dan leaned in close and kissed away the tears that slipped down Huli’s cheeks before taking his mouth in a slow, deep kiss. The saltiness of his own tears was lost to Xiao Dan’s sweetness.

After a thousand years, he had the man who’d claimed his heart that very first morning in the woods. And he was going to risk everything to keep him until Huli drew his last breath.