18. Huli
Chapter 18
Huli
C onsciousness crept into Huli’s brain.
But the moment the world shifted into focus, he could feel it. The hole. The new emptiness inside of him. His magic had diminished. He was less now because he had lost one of his tails.
Not lost.
Stolen . One of his tails had been stolen from him.
Min had stolen his tail, and he had no doubt that she planned to take more from him. All of his tails before killing him.
How was he supposed to keep his Xiao Dan safe? He was weaker now. He couldn’t beat her at his peak. What was he supposed to do?
Huli squeezed his eyes shut and attempted to curl his body up into a tighter ball, pulling his remaining tails up over his face, except something was wrapped around his middle. He blinked his bleary eyes open and stared at the white bandages covering his stomach. There was another on his front left leg.
Ming Yu. He could smell her on the bandages and a whiff of her soft scent on his fur. He could remember Kai taking him away from the woods, back to the manor. Ming Yu must have cleaned him up and wrapped him in bandages while his body healed.
His sharp nose could also pick up lots of Xiao Dan. He was in the vampire’s comfy bed. His beautiful scent was on his fur. Vague memories of Xiao Dan whispering to him danced through his head. He didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious in this room, but the impression of Xiao Dan being at his side was very strong. His lover had stayed with him while he recovered.
But where was he now?
He needed to find Xiao Dan, apologize for his failure.
If he was going to do that, he needed to do it properly with human eyes and a human mouth.
Gritting his teeth, he gathered up the broken strands of magic throughout his body, weaving them together in a rough tapestry to cover up the new hole within him. In time, the magic would meld and flow together so that it would be like the hole created by the missing tail never happened. At least, that was what he hoped. He still had more than enough magic to shift.
With a soft grunt as the magic surged through his battered frame, he changed from fox to human. At the same time, the bandages disappeared, replaced with the soft pajamas that belonged to Xiao Dan. Despite his long rest, his body ached down to the bones.
Carefully, he swung his feet over the edge of the bed and sat up. He couldn’t help looking at where his tails would have been. Even though they weren’t there, he swore he could feel the hole where one was missing.
She’d stolen his tail. He wasn’t a jiuweihu any longer. Just a silly huli jing with eight tails instead of nine. He was less. Smaller. Weaker.
Most importantly, he wasn’t worthy of Xiao Dan. The leader of the Zhang clan deserved to have someone who was powerful and achieved great things. He needed someone who could protect him against any foe and threat.
Huli dropped his head into his hands and squeezed his eyes shut. He’d brought this threat into the Zhang clan. She’d come after Xiao Dan and even sweet little Erik. It was his responsibility to get rid of her, but he couldn’t.
He was more than willing to die to get rid of Min, but what good was that? He’d die fighting Min, and she’d become more powerful.
Huli’s throat grew tight, threatening to choke him. It was time to face Xiao Dan. To tell him the truth. Huli opened his eyes and held out one hand. With a burst of magic, the jade yupei Xiao Dan had given him more than seven centuries ago rested heavily in his palm. His one treasure. More precious to him than all of his tails combined. It shone as brightly today as it did the night Xiao Dan had gifted it to him. Only the pale-green ribbon had grown worn and faded with time.
When they were apart and Huli was alone, he would pull out the jade and nuzzle it, searching for Xiao Dan’s scent to keep him company. In those early days of learning to shift, he would summon up a human hand so he could trace each of the intricate lines and feel the silky softness of the ribbon.
Xiao Dan had given him this pendant in the name of friendship, in the belief that Huli would one day become something great. He would gain all nine tails and become a powerful creature worthy of Xiao Dan.
But now he was not. He’d lost one of his tails, brought danger into his life, and he might never regain that lost tail.
Huli pushed to his feet and shuffled out of the bedroom. He glanced out a window to find that night had fallen, but was it the same night? It couldn’t be. Had he been asleep for an entire night and day?
Where was everyone? At night, the manor was usually buzzing with activity. There were thirteen people living here, counting himself. While there was ample room for all of them, a person still couldn’t go far without tripping over someone, or at least hearing the echo of laughter down the halls.
Had they all gone out to fight Min?
No, that couldn’t be. There had to be at least a few people there to protect Erik.
“I want her dead!”
Huli froze. That was Xiao Dan. But he’d never heard his sweet and tender vampire speak in such a hard, bitter voice. He wasn’t simply angry. He was enraged. Fury shook in his voice.
He bit the inside of his cheek and forced himself forward through the house toward the main meeting room, where the clan always made their big plans, especially for dealing with the fae. This time, it sounded like Xiao Dan had called them together to deal with Min.
“She hurt Huli. She stole his tail and nearly killed him. I will not rest until she is dead. No! That’s not enough. I want all of her tails. I want her pelt and her head.”
“Xiao Dan, stop and take a breath,” Chen coaxed.
“Take a breath? Were you calm when the fae king nearly killed Moon?”
Huli flinched at the answering silence. There was no need to comment. He’d seen the way Chen had struggled even after Moon had become a vampire, narrowly escaping a permanent death. The memory of the fae king’s attack on Moon had haunted him for weeks following that horrible night.
He stepped into the open doorway to see Xiao Dan pacing at the head of the room. His pale skin appeared almost gray in the light, and dark shadows stretched from under his eyes. Even his normally soft and perfectly styled hair looked messy and greasy. His vampire had not been taking care of himself. He was making himself sick with worry. All the clan watched him with expressions of fear and sadness, as if they didn’t know what to do for him. Huli could not allow this to continue for another second.
“Zhang-ge?”
Xiao Dan whipped around, his wide eyes jumping to Huli’s face. “Huli.”
His name became a prayer exhaled in relief. Xiao Dan started to approach him, but Huli took a step back and bowed low.
With the jade clutched in both hands, he thrust it forward, holding it out to the man who would be his mate. “Forgive me, Zhang-ge. I have failed you. I’m not worthy of this precious gift any longer and must return it to you.”
As he forced the words out, the jade trembled in his shaking hands. He squeezed his eyes shut so he couldn’t see the dangling ribbon swinging in the air. “I brought Min into your life. Put all of your clan in danger. I thought I could defeat her, protect you, but she beat me and even stole one of my tails. Your Huli is a weak nothing.”
Large, powerful hands covered his and lifted them up, forcing Huli to straighten. Huli’s gaze followed those hands as they rose to Xiao Dan’s smiling lips. With tears shining in his eyes, Xiao Dan pressed kisses to Huli’s fingers while careful to keep them curled around the jade pendant.
“I gave you this because I love you, Huli. It’s a symbol of my love for you. Are you saying that you don’t want my love any longer?” Xiao Dan whispered between kisses.
“No,” Huli choked out. “But I’m not worthy of your love. I’m just a stupid huli jing with eight tails. I might never regain my ninth tail. I might never be as strong as I used to be.”
“You are my huli jing.” Xiao Dan squeezed his hands a little more, his smile growing stronger as he spoke. “I fell in love with you when you were a tiny ball of orange fur that liked to jump at my feet. I grew to love you more and more over the years, not because of your tails, but from your determination, bravery, and sense of adventure. You make me laugh, and you love me even though I’m boring.”
Huli’s pain and disappointment was forgotten for a second at Xiao Dan’s words. “You are not boring! You sit under the stars in the plum orchard and tell me stories. Those have always been my favorite memories.”
“Then I think you need to keep that.” Xiao Dan pressed Huli’s hands toward him so that the jade rested on Huli’s breastbone.
“But…I lost a tail.”
“You didn’t lose a tail. It was stolen from you,” Mei Lian argued, reminding him that they weren’t exactly alone in this fragile moment.
“Huli, the only mistake you made in all this was to go off after Min by yourself,” Xiang interjected. “You’re part of a clan now, and that means relying on your clan to help you.”
“I am?” Huli’s voice wavered as his gaze skimmed the face of each person watching him from the other side of the room. No one was looking at him with distrust or hate. There was just acceptance and joy.
“Of course.” Xiao Dan released Huli’s hands and cupped one of his cheeks. “You’re my mate, aren’t you? That means you’re a member of the Zhang clan now. We’re all your family.”
“You make Shixiong happy. Nothing else matters to us,” Chen stated. Moon grabbed his lover’s face and planted a loud kiss on his cheek.
“Okay.” Huli nodded. He grinned at the yupei he was still clutching, his eyes stinging for a new, happy reason. “Family.”
That was not something he’d ever had. It wasn’t even something he’d let himself dream about. His focus had been on winning Xiao Dan’s heart and being worthy of him. He’d never expected to win an entire crazy family as part of the deal.
“Good! Now come help us plan to kill that witch,” Mei Lian ordered, pounding her left fist on the table in front of her. “No more leaving us out of the fun. It’s like Xiao Dan said. We’re taking all her tails as payback for touching one of yours.”
“Meimei!” Ming Yu gasped from where she sat at Mei Lian’s right, their fingers entwined.
Mei Lian blinked wide eyes at her. “What? It’s true.”
“Oh, I agree with you. I was thinking that Huli might still hurt and want to return to bed for now.”
Xiao Dan wrapped an arm around his shoulders, drawing him in closer. “How are you feeling? Would you like to go lie down again? We can continue this meeting later.”
Huli shook his head before leaning it on Xiao Dan’s chest. “No. Nearly all the pain is gone. I can stay up for a while longer.”
With his mate’s arm wrapped across his shoulders, Huli shuffled over to the bench seat Xiao Dan occupied during meetings. They sat together, Xiao Dan keeping one arm on him the entire time. Huli continued to lean on the vampire, the coziness doing more for his healing than any amount of sleeping alone in bed could. He already felt stronger just being in Xiao Dan’s presence.
“Huli, is there anything you can tell us about Min that might help us in a fight?” Yichen inquired.
A frown tugged at the corners of Huli’s lips. He waved his hand, returning his jade pendant to its normal hiding spot. It was better if it was away. When he was thinking, he liked to nibble on things, and he didn’t want to nibble on his precious treasure.
“It’s hard to say. I thought I was at least as powerful as her, but I was wrong. She’s faster. I struggled to keep up with her.”
Xiao Dan grunted. “While her sword skills are not equal to ours, her speed enables her to make up for what she lacks in finesse.”
“So, if we outnumber her, we can easily kill her,” Rei said with a shrug.
“That’s only if we can keep her from escaping,” Yichen countered.
“Then it’s a matter of magic. That’s where I have her beat, I believe,” Kai proclaimed with a happy purr in his voice.
Xiang leaned in and smirked at his mate. “Could you be any more smug?”
“Oh, yes. I definitely could. Would you like to see?” Xiang answered that question with a groan, leaving Kai to turn his attention to Huli. “As we arrived at your battle with Min, I noticed a powerful charge, almost like lightning. That was her magic?”
“It was. Huli jing magic is…not interesting.” If he’d been in his fox form, his ears would have been drooping. At best, he could jut out his bottom lip.
“How can you say that? You can change from a fox to a human. You can even change what you look like as a human in the blink of an eye. That’s incredible!” Moon argued, making Huli’s bottom lip retract into a smile.
“We also have some subtle magic that affects the mind and helps us to seduce humans, but it doesn’t work on vampires,” Huli admitted.
“And you know that because…” Xiao Dan inquired.
“What? I didn’t try it on you!”
No, he’d tried it on another much younger vampire out of curiosity, and it still hadn’t worked. That at least had saved him the embarrassment of trying it and failing with Xiao Dan.
His mate narrowed his eyes on him as if he could read Huli’s naughty thoughts, but he said nothing.
Huli cleared his throat and gazed at the rest of the clan. “The only other thing is what Kai mentioned. We can condense our magical powers into a single blast, flung from our tails. However, that uses up a lot of energy. At my peak, I could do it once or maybe twice. After that, I was tapped out—I doubt I could have even shifted into a human for at least two or three hours. With Min, I am guessing she can do it four or maybe five times before she is out of magic. It would even impact her speed.”
“Understood.” Xiao Dan’s hand tightened on Huli’s waist while he frowned at the table in front of him. No one moved or made a sound for nearly a minute, giving their shixiong time to think. “We need to scout out a location. Somewhere we can lead Min that would allow us to trap her in a single spot. We control the entrance and exit. From there, it’s a matter of wearing down her magic.”
“You know, I am a dragon,” Kai reminded them. “I could just…chomp?”
Xiao Dan was shaking his head as he was still speaking. “She hurt Huli, and she threatened me. There’s no satisfaction to be found in letting you eat her.”
“Plus, I’m sure she’d taste terrible,” Xiang added in a loud whisper.
Huli wanted to laugh, but he could only shake his head. “I was wrong. She lied to me. Tricked me.”
Xiao Dan placed his fingers lightly under Huli’s chin and gently tipped his head up so their eyes could meet. “What do you mean?”
“I thought I was being so tricky, planning to use her for her knowledge and then betray her in the end so I could keep you. But I was the fool. She admitted that she only helped me cultivate to become a full jiuweihu so she could later steal my powers.”
“Just another reason for me to destroy her so she can never get near you again.”
He couldn’t help but smile at such a bloodthirsty comment. His vampire wanted to destroy his enemy and keep him safe. How could he not feel so utterly and completely loved?
“We’ll get to work on finding a suitable location,” Chen murmured.
“And I’ll call the Variks,” Junjie added.
Xiao Dan dragged his gaze from Huli to Junjie. “I don’t think we need to involve the Variks in this. We’ve troubled them enough. We can handle this.”
“Exactly, but we’re going to need a babysitter for Erik. Leo and I don’t want to be left out. Ming Yu has said that she wants to take her meat hammer to Min.” Junjie’s fierce look shifted into a softer smirk. “Besides, King Aiden did offer to babysit at any time. This could help him and Ronan decide if they want to adopt a little one of their own.”
Xiao Dan’s lips twitched as if he were holding back a smile. Huli didn’t bother. He grinned at the idea of Erik turning the Varik house upside-down with his cuteness. He was also a fan of Ming Yu chasing Min around with that metal mallet she kept in the kitchen.
“Very well. Reach out to the Variks to see if they can lend us a hand with Erik. Let’s finalize our plans in the next few nights. It will give Huli the time he needs to heal under my supervision.”
Yes, healing under Xiao Dan’s close and very hands-on supervision. That sounded like an excellent idea to him.