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“That’s fair,” Moon agreed as he tapped the message, shooting it off to Red.

He stared at his phone, waiting to see the read receipt to show that his friend saw it. As soon as it appeared followed by a thumbs-up emoji, Moon’s stomach tightened.

Why?

That made little sense.

He should be happy that two of his friends were coming to help Chen and his clan. He should be ecstatic to share this new experience and new people with the friends who were family to him.

Except he wasn’t.

He didn’t want to share Chen and the clan with them.

No, he didn’t want to share Chen with Red and Sky. It didn’t matter that Sky was in love with his grumpy human. It didn’t matter that Red was so paranoid about the fae that he wouldn’t even notice Chen.

He wanted Chen to himself.

The vampire had already said it. They weren’t staying long. Every second was precious. And when Chen smiled, it was going to belong to him alone.

Chapter 8

Chen Bo Cheng

After Moon’s call, the witch refused to lift his eyes to meet Chen’s. He shuffled around the room, the phone clenched between both hands. He mumbled to himself while shaking his head. Had his friend’s harsh words embarrassed him? Moon wasn’t to blame for that or his friend’s distress over his disappearance. Chen had kidnapped Moon!

Nonsense. It was all nonsense.

Chen fired off a text to the other members of his clan to expect guests in an hour and closed the door to the inner courtyard.

“Come with me,” Chen ordered.

“Huh?” Moon jumped and shoved his phone into his pocket. He trailed after Chen like a little duckling as Chen wove his way through the house to a rear door. It opened into a larger garden, though less manicured than the courtyard gardens. It wasn’t as pretty, but it gave them more room to walk.

“Wow,” Moon breathed as they stepped into the garden. “Does your clan just have an endless supply of gardens?”

“Pleasant, quiet scenery offers a place for one to center the mind and clear away the clutter of thoughts.”

Moon hummed in agreement but said nothing more, which already felt odd for him.

“You seem preoccupied,” Chen stated as they stepped onto the small paving stones that created a path along another koi pond. A frown tugged at the corner of his lips to see that the fish didn’t swim out as he moved past. Instead, they remained hidden under the shadows cast by the leaves of the plants growing along the water. Something had been trying to get at the fish. If it was Jun-Jun’s stray cat, he was going to skin the creature.

“Sean said you guys haven’t been here long. Did you have an enormous team of gardeners working here for months to get it all looking like this?” The man was evading his question, and not smoothly, but Chen let it go.

“We spent two years having the house built to our design specifications so that we would have a safe space within the United States. Landscapers worked most of that time to prepare the grounds.” Chen paused under a tree and carefully broke off a leafless branch. Now it was their job to keep up with the grounds, and they were falling behind. Not surprising, considering all their focus was on locating and saving Yichen. “These gardens are nice, but they are nothing compared to the gardens at our home in Luoyang.”

Moon skipped a couple of steps so that he was walking beside Chen. He cocked his head, his broad smile returning. “Sounds amazing. I’d love to see it.”

Chen lifted an eyebrow at him. “Few outside the clan have visited inside the walls of our sect home in the past millennia.” Part of him still shuddered when they had people inside to make modern upgrades to their home. He appreciated all those conveniences, but he didn’t like strangers walking about their domain. All the more since six of them were highly vulnerable during the daylight hours.

Yet now that Moon mentioned it, Chen’s brain glommed on to the idea of the witch walking through their private courtyards, moonlight caressing his pale hair. The witch’s laughter bounding down the corridors to seek out Chen’s ears.

“But why go to such extravagance when you’re not planning to stay? You could have just bought a small, simple place.”

Moon’s question jerked Chen from his wandering thoughts. He turned to look at the witch, who had squatted to inspect some white lilies. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be here. The fae door is open for ten years. It’s possible that it could take us all of that time to regain Yichen. We also don’t know what the state of Yichen’s mind will be when we retrieve him. If we can’t immediately return him to Luoyang, we wanted a home that would feel familiar until we could get him to the clan grounds.”