Page 15 of Two Thousand Shadows (Kings of Chaos #4)

Chapter 14

Leo St. George

“ P sst…Leo.”

Leo’s ears perked up, and he looked around for the person who’d whispered his name.

It was that golden time about an hour or two before the sun rose above the horizon. All the little vampires and one tiny kitten were snuggled in their beds, snoring. The only exception was usually Xiang, who was waking up and grumbling about the earliness of the day.

It was also the time when the Zhang household lowered its guard against Jiang Chong. If the wily asshole had been plotting something, it was too late. He needed to scurry off to his hidey hole if he didn’t want to burn up in the sun.

The one fear that remained was a fae attack, but there was enough magic tingling in the air that there was no way the fae were getting inside without setting off a hell of a lot of alarms.

Leo had been padding across the wooden floors on silent cat paws. He’d just slipped out of Erik’s bed and poked his head into Junjie’s room to make sure the vampire was also sleeping. Normally, he would make a few patrols through the house and grounds, staying until the sun rose. Afterward, he would leave for a bit. Maybe pop by his studio apartment and wonder why he even kept the damn thing. Within an hour, he was wishing he was with Junjie and headed back to the Zhang compound.

But this morning, Rei was standing at the end of the hallway for Erik’s and Junjie’s rooms. He cocked his head at the elf, who waved for him to follow. The elf darted away without making a sound, and Leo scampered after him. Rei continued to the foyer, a playful grin spread across his lips.

Leo shifted into his human form. “What’s up?”

“We’re making a breakfast run. You wanna join us?”

Leo blinked at the elf, stunned silent by the invitation. “Uh…seriously?”

Rei jerked his head toward the front door and led the way out. “Sure,” he said as they crossed the front porch. “You’ve been pulling some long hours, keeping the little family safe. You deserve a break. Kai is making sure Xiang is up and mobile.”

The cat shifter was still trying to digest the “little family” comment as Rei let out a short, sharp whistle. A couple of seconds later, a larger-than-normal orange fox with a flurry of fluffy tails behind him came bounding out of the miniature forest behind the house. On his last spring before slamming into one of the SUVs, he shifted into Huli the human.

“Is it happening? Are we really going to do it?” Huli asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet. The fox spirit looked as though he were going to vibrate right out of his skin.

“At this point, I think only the gods can stop us.” The elf leaned on the SUV tailgate and rested his foot on the bumper. “All I’ve heard out of Kai’s mouth for the past forty-eight hours are his raptures about the fried potato planks.”

Fried potato planks?

He was trying to figure out which of them had it confused when it dawned on him. Someone had introduced Kai to hash browns.

The dragon showed up a minute later, appearing his usual dapper self in slacks and a light V-neck sweater. “Xiang is awake and checking all the locks and windows in the house. The clan will be safe while we are away.”

“What about Moon? He’s coming, right?” Huli turned to the manor and lifted on his toes as if the fox couldn’t stand still.

“I think he’s still in negotiations with Chen,” Kai murmured.

Rei huffed. “That doesn’t sound good. Grumpy puss keeps tightening the leash on Moon. That vampire is going to bite soon.”

Huli snickered. “From what I’ve heard, Chen likes it when Moon bites.”

Leo cleared his throat to stop his bark of laughter from escaping. Rei didn’t bother to hold his in.

Kai rolled his eyes. “Chen is terrified of Jiang Chong killing Moon. Xiang said that Moon wouldn’t be a vampire now if he hadn’t almost died because of the fae king.”

Huli broke the heavy silence that settled over them. “If Moon can’t go, is there anyone else who can drive?”

Rei shook his head. “I’m still getting lessons.”

“Definitely not,” Kai snapped.

All eyes fell on Leo, who shrugged. “I don’t drive often, but I can handle the SUV.”

The words were barely out of his mouth when the front door burst open. Moon jogged out, jangling a ring of keys and a car fob above his head. “I’m free! I’m free, but only for an hour. We gotta be back well before the sun is up or Chen is gonna have kittens.” Moon almost stumbled the moment his eyes locked with Leo. “No offense.”

The cat shifter chortled and held up his hands. “None taken. Congratulations on your freedom.”

Moon giggled. “Thanks. Now let’s load up and get us some breakfast!”

Their group piled into the SUV and Moon peeled out of the driveway, handling the vehicle as though he meant to jump the gate. Thankfully, he allowed the double doors to swing open so he could safely drive through.

They rushed along the road, the windows down and the wind flowing through to pull at his hair and caress his face. From the front passenger seat, Kai complained about Moon’s excessive speed and how the rolling death box was going to kill them all.

Rei cackled from his spot in the middle. “You need to relax, Kai, and enjoy it. You’re a dragon. What do you have to worry about?”

“It’s not so much myself that I worry about, but the other occupants of the car. Vampires are not invincible.”

The elf sighed. “You remind me of Yiyi. He’s constantly saying that I can’t stand on the roof while he’s driving.”

“You stood on the roof?” Leo gasped.

“Elves surrounded Yiyi the first time. It was the easiest way to shoot the enemy with my bow and arrow and then launch myself into the fight. The second time was when we were being chased by Black Dogs from the Wild Hunt. Nasty stuff.”

“Insane,” Leo exhaled.

“I’m jealous!” Huli shouted and turned toward the driver. “Moon, can I?—”

“No! Absolutely not!” Moon cut the fox spirit off as he tried to make his plea. “There will be no standing on the roof while I’m driving. Everyone is staying inside the car. I am not explaining to Chen how we ended up on the morning news.”

“Maybe Kai would be less afraid of cars if he stood on the roof,” Rei suggested.

Leo lurched upright from where he’d been lounging against the door. “Oh! Oh! Could you imagine if Kai was standing on the roof in his human form but with wings?”

Kai half turned to them. “ Hmmm …that does sound interesting.”

“Can you do that?” Huli chimed in.

“I can, but I’ve never tried to be a human with wings. Are you thinking bird wings, or leathery wings like a bat?”

“Oh my fuck, no! No standing on the roof!” Moon repeated. “If anyone tries it, I’m turning this car around and no one gets breakfast.”

The silence was instantaneous.

Leo scratched his jaw and spoke only when he was sure he wasn’t going to bust out in cackles. “So…um…have you been doing this breakfast run a lot?”

“Nope,” Rei said. “Kai wanted to provide Xiang with a meal one morning, and Moon suggested a breakfast run. It was the first time Kai and I had ever done drive-through.” He paused and cocked his head. “Or fast food, for that matter.”

Kai turned in his seat so that he was facing the occupants in the back, his face alight with joy. “Have you ever done fast-food breakfast? They have so many options for potatoes. They have these planks of fried potatoes and these little tots. I love all the potatoes. Plus, every place we visited had these adorable tiny sandwiches.”

Rei leaned his head toward Leo. “In case you missed it, Kai is a huge breakfast fan.”

“It’s a shame there isn’t a Waffle House this far north. We could get some hash browns scattered, smothered, and covered.” Leo sighed.

“I don’t know what that means, but it sounds amazing. Moon! We must find the house made of waffles!” Kai declared.

“No!”

Leo dissolved into another round of giggles. He’d known this would happen, and he couldn’t help stirring the pot. “Waffle House is a normal building. I discovered it on a summer road trip to Florida with friends. They have lots of ways of making hash browns, like smothered in onions and covered in cheese.”

“So we can’t drive there now?” Huli inquired.

Leo shot a sympathetic look at the fox spirit. “No, too far. But I think I can try to recreate it if Ming Yu doesn’t mind me borrowing her kitchen.”

“That would be the better option,” Moon added. “Just clean up your mess and don’t ruin any of her pans.”

“Anyway, Kai has been wanting to do another breakfast run, and Huli has never done drive-through before,” Rei continued. The elf’s expression turned sly as he peeked at Leo. “Now that we have you trapped in the car, we can get all the dirt.”

Leo swallowed hard and glanced out his window, trying to measure whether it was moving too fast for him to jump out. “Dirt? What dirt?”

“Don’t be like that,” Moon teased from the driver’s seat. “We’re the mates. Not the Zhangs. You can talk to us.”

Huli leaned around Rei and smirked. “I’m still a mate-in-training, but I will get Xiao Dan eventually.”

“Yes, you will!” Moon cheered.

“But you and Junjie, you’re mates, right?” Kai asked. “You’ll be coming with us all back to China after the fae are defeated.”

“What?” Leo gasped, but no one seemed to notice because Rei interjected.

“Of course he’s coming with us. He’s totally lost over Junjie, and then he’s got that adorable munchkin to help raise. How could anyone walk away from those chubby cheeks?”

“I don’t think Junjie’s cheeks are particularly chubby,” Huli murmured.

“He was talking about Erik,” Moon corrected him.

The conversation swirled around him for a moment about the perfect roundness of Erik’s cheeks as Leo succumbed to panic.

Leaving Erik and Junjie behind was always the plan.

He couldn’t stay. He was a cat. There was no pinning his people down. They went where the wind blew them, reveling in their freedom. They didn’t do the mate thing.

Except he’d heard of a few special cases that many other cats had sneered at. Cat shifters who’d found mates and settled into nice, long comfortable lives with their one person, raising a litter of kittens.

Waking every day with his arms wrapped up in Junjie. Seeing the vampire’s smile as soon as he opened his eyes. A lifetime of Erik’s giggles. Being there to see him shift for the first time. Teaching him to sneak and hunt. Watching Junjie teach him all his amazing martial arts skills.

Not to mention the rising feelings of jealousy and possessiveness that were leaking into his brain ever since he’d sucked Junjie’s cock. That really didn’t make sense. Junjie did not have a magical dick. But now, he didn’t want to leave the vampire’s side. Looked forward to spending all his time with him.

While having a mate meant sacrificing all his rambling freedom and shouldering heavy words like responsibilities didn’t seem so bad, it would also mean leaving the United States behind and traveling to the Zhang home on the other side of the globe. Could he actually leave behind everything he knew for such a foreign place?

“Leo? Leo, you still in there?” Rei snapped his fingers at the tip of Leo’s nose.

Kai made a tsking sound. “See what you’ve done. You’ve broken him. Junjie won’t appreciate us returning him broken.”

“I’m sure he’s not broken,” Moon said in an exasperated tone.

“Nope. Not broken,” Leo replied suddenly. “Brain just locked up. Mates, huh? Cat shifters aren’t much into mates.” He rubbed his chin as his mind scrambled to come up with something to placate his companions.

Huli snorted and turned in his seat so that his shoulders were resting against the back of Kai’s seat while his legs were folded in front of him. One benefit of being short was that the fox spirit could squeeze himself into strange positions. “I’ve read the legends about fox spirits. We don’t do mates. We’re supposed to seduce and kill people. Steal their souls. And while that might sound like a lot of fun, nothing could ever make me ruin my shot at having Xiao Dan. He’s the most amazing human ever. I’ve lived a thousand years, and I’ve met a lot of humans. Wanted to kill most of them. But not Xiao Dan.”

And that was a horrifying speech.

By the lack of reaction from the rest of the car, they must have heard similar things from the fox spirit’s mouth.

“I believe what he’s trying to say is that if you’re lucky enough to find the person whose heart matches your own, don’t walk away from him. Treasure them always, because it is unlikely you will find another like him,” Kai stated.

“Isn’t that what I said?” Huli demanded.

“Not even close,” Rei muttered.

“Hey, if you’re not Junjie’s mate, that’s fine with us,” Moon cut in before Huli could continue along his bloody path. “I think at one time or another, we’ve all had those loose, no-strings relationships.”

Kai’s harsh whisper suddenly cut through the SUV. “You tie up your mates?”

“No!” Moon snapped.

“Sometimes,” Rei purred.

And that was more than Leo needed to know about Rei and Yichen’s sex life.

“The point I’m trying to make,” Moon pressed on, talking through clenched teeth, “is don’t lead Junjie on. We love him. He’s a sweet and caring guy, and we don’t want to see him hurt.”

Wow! He was actually getting the shovel talk. No one had ever threatened him like this over someone. Of course, he’d never stuck around long enough to receive the shovel talk, so there was that.

Both Rei and Huli shifted in their seats to pin him with very frightening “we can make it so no one finds the body” looks.

“We love Jun-Jun,” Rei said, enunciating each syllable.

“Whoa! Hey!” Leo put up his hands in front of him while pressing into his seat. “Jun-Jun is important to me, but neither of us is using the ‘M’ word. I think we’re focused on dealing with Jiang Chong and the fae right now while keeping Erik safe. I don’t want him hurt, either. Our expectations are pretty low right now.”

At least, he hoped they were. Junjie hadn’t hinted anything about Leo being his mate, and he was still making plans to return to China without Leo. However, the thought of watching Junjie and Erik board a plane and put an entire world between them was enough to make him queasy and his fingers cold.

“Fucking fae,” Kai grumbled as he sank lower in his seat. “Fucking Jiang Chong. Why can’t I just get rid of one of them? I’m a powerful dragon, feared by even some of the gods, but I can’t wipe out the fae.”

Moon reached across and patted the dragon’s slumped shoulder. “That’s because you’re a good dragon, and you don’t want to hurt innocent people.”

“Jiang Chong’s slippery too. I bet the gods would have trouble catching him,” Leo added.

“Besides, look where we are!” Moon hit the turn signal and slowed the SUV as they reached the brightly lit parking lot of the fast-food joint. Thankfully, there wasn’t a long line for the drive-through at five in the morning. “Potatoes make everything better.”

Moon attempted to park so they could go inside to order, but Huli and Kai wouldn’t have it. Huli needed to see the talking box and witness how food was passed through a window. Poor Moon had to wrangle all their chaotic orders. Leo tried not to laugh too hard as Kai, Rei, and Huli attempted to order everything off the menu.

In the end, they had to wait for someone to bring out their many bags. Four bags were put aside while one was passed around during the drive home. The smell of grease, fried foods, and coffee permeated the vehicle even with the windows down. Conversation had ground to a halt. There were happy noises and the occasional urging to try something.

Leo sipped his coffee and met Moon’s smiling eyes in the rearview mirror. Of all the people in the car, only the two of them knew what it was like to be human, or at least pass for it. The elf, fox spirit, and dragon had largely been on the outside, but it was the Zhang clan that had brought them into something bigger.

But Moon surprised him with another thought. “I know cats are typically loners, but this is what it means to be in a clan. Enjoy.”

As Rei laughed at Huli’s expression as he bit into a breakfast sandwich and Kai offered Rei some creamer for his coffee, Leo had to admit he liked this a lot. More than he ever would have expected.