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“Briefly. He bade me to bring a message back for each of us. He wished you to know that he thinks you did the right thing. You must trust your instincts. You are wise in experience, and he thinks you have guided our sect well.” Chen’s voice grew more choked as he spoke, watching the tears shimmer in his shixiong’s dark eyes.

Xiao Dan swallowed hard and nodded several times as if he couldn’t get any words out. After a second, he grabbed Chen and pulled him into a tight hug. “Thank you, Shidi,” Xiao Dan whispered. “I hope Shifu is at peace and happy.”

“I think he is.”

When they separated, they sheepishly turned away from each other and wiped away tears as they drew ragged, almost laughing breaths.

“Was he able to tell you anything else?”

“He gave me messages for Xiang, Jun-Jun, and myself. He also said that when we see Yichen again, we must listen to him and trust him. That was particularly important. Listen to Yichen. Our brother has a hard road ahead of him, but he must follow this path.”

“What does that mean?”

Chen shook his head. “I don’t know. He told me nothing else.”

Xiao Dan’s shoulders jumped in a near-silent chuckle. “This is not a good time for riddles, Master.” He turned his gaze to Chen and smiled. “I hope Shifu gave you good advice. Could you please take the tea into the meeting room? Share your news with Xiang and Jun-Jun. I’ll be along shortly.”

He quickly grabbed the tray and left the room, giving Xiao Dan a private moment. He understood. Of all of them, Xiao Dan had been the closest to Zhang Shi Lei. Xiao Dan was an orphan barely surviving on the streets when he’d attempted to pickpocket Zhang Shi Lei. Their master had selected him personally to be brought home to the sect. Shifu chose him to be trained, and ultimately brought into the Zhang clan, allowed to carry the Zhang family name. He had been raised the same as a first-born son. When Zhang Shi Lei was killed, Xiao Dan lost more than a shifu; he lost a father.

But his shixiong was right. This was not a good time for riddles. They needed to save their didi. How were they supposed to do that? Listening couldn’t possibly be enough, right?

Chapter 26

Moon Mullins

Moon paused and gazed down the length of the stone wall, once again questioning his sanity. There was no way he was going to get the entire perimeter of the Zhang compound warded in a single night. If he was lucky, he might get it done in three. Well, if he was lucky and had enough blood.

Which meant that he couldn’t enjoy any of Chen’s sexy nibbles for a while as his body tried to restock his supply.

He sighed. That was probably a good thing. Sexy time with his vampire was amazing, but sexy time that included biting was killing brain cells. Not so much due to blood loss. His mate was very careful about that. Chen took only a tiny sip.

No, it was the scorching pleasure that was shorting out his brain. Orgasms weren’t meant to feel that good.

It was best if they stuck to regular sexy time and just did the vampy, mind-melting sexy time once a month. Every other week at the absolute max. Once a week, only on special occasions. Like Taco Tuesday.

Moon snorted at his own line of thought. “You’re going to die in bed with a huge, fucking grin on your face,” he muttered to himself as he turned his attention to the section of wall in front of him. The hardest part of setting the ward was carving the symbols into the stone with his little knife. The lines had to be precise for it to work properly, and he should have been doing this with a chisel and mallet. Not to mention, he was going to have problems when he moved away from the lights at the front of the house.

But time was ticking down, and he doubted the vampires had a cache of tools for him to use. There was no fucking way he was leaving here, even for a minute, to raid his house for what he needed. No, he just had to suck it up and make do with what he had. Maybe he could get a friend to bring some tools from his place tomorrow.

There was no way in hell he was letting a single fucking fae catch his new family off guard. Especially not during the day when they were at their most vulnerable.

He’d inscribed a new line and a thought stopped him cold.

New family.

Would they regard him as family? That was how they viewed Chen. His vampire was the grumpy, moody older brother who also happened to be the stickler for all the rules. Which made it even more amusing that Chen got stuck with Moon since he was pretty sure there wasn’t a rule he hadn’t tried to break yet.