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“Don’t think you can make excuses for him. He held me prisoner,” Leo snapped.

“I don’t intend to,” Xiao Dan replied, his voice low and solemn. “What Junjie did was wrong.”

Well, shit.That stole some of the wind from his sails.

“I just want you to better understand his reasoning. To better understand him.”

Leo gave a noncommittal grunt and shifted away from the vampire as he tried to decide whether to run off or stay and listen to Xiao Dan. Listening to the Zhang clan leader was dangerous. The man was too calm, too sensible, and well spoken. He was skilled at sneaking past a person’s defenses. Leo had witnessed it firsthand too many times.

“I don’t owe you or him anything,” Leo grumbled.

“Not even after months of tricking him? After all the time, care, and compassion he showed you without knowing who you truly were? After Erik?”

Leo closed his eyes and inwardly sighed. He should have kept walking.

A long silence stretched between them. When Xiao Dan spoke, it wasn’t what Leo expected.

“Thirty-seven.”

The cat shifter waited for Xiao Dan to continue, but he said nothing else.

With a growl, Leo pivoted toward him and folded his arms across his chest. “Thirty-seven what?”

“That’s how many members of the Zhang clan Jun-Jun saw die in his visions. Most of them were directly at the hands of Jiang Chong. Clan mates who didn’t develop vampiric gifts he deemed useful enough. Clan mates who weren’t as fast or strong or stealthy as he demanded them to be. Some who were killed to keep the rest of us in line.”

Leo swallowed hard and his arms loosened.

“There were others who committed suicide,” Xiao Dan continued. “People we saw as family. Jiang Chong broke their spirits or they could not forgive themselves for the acts we were forced to commit.”

Oh, shit…

“Jun-Jun witnessed each and every one of these deaths well before they happened. Sometimes days in advance; other times, it was weeks. He did everything he could to stop them. Risked his life, breaking his own body to stop it, but in the end, they all happened exactly as he saw it.”

“Fuck. Xiao Dan…”

“Of all the clan, he has the gift with the heaviest burden. It takes a great deal of courage and desperation for Jun-Jun to use his gift. I know that this time, he was doing it for his clan, for Erik, and for you. His reward was to see your death.”

Leo clenched his teeth against the rising pain squeezing his heart and lungs. It was almost impossible to draw a breath. “He shouldn’t have locked me up,” he stated stubbornly, but the heat had evaporated from his words.

“No, he shouldn’t have. He should have talked to you. Made you understand why he was so desperate to keep you safe. He’s lost so much, and you are so very important to him already.”

His fingers curled into claws in front of his chest and Leo growled in frustration, but he wasn’t sure what he was frustratedwith. Junjie holding him prisoner? Xiao Dan’s meddling? Or himself for not trying harder to understand Junjie’s fears?

Why the hell did this dating thing have to be so hard?

“Look,” Leo snapped. “I-I need to get out of here for a little while. To think. But I’ll be back.” Yeah, there was no point in denying that any longer. Even when he told Junjie he wasn’t returning, the voice in his head had snickered. “Can you…” He paused and sighed. “Can you keep an eye on him for me? Don’t let him do anything else crazy or dangerous. Don’t let him hurt himself.”

“I will.”

Leo shifted into his cat form and ran to the wall surrounding the grounds. With ease, he scaled the barrier, finding purchase in the tiny divots and imperfections in the rocks. As he was about to jump from the top, Xiao Dan’s soft words reached his ears.

“Be careful.”

Chapter 23

Leo St. George

Leo scampered away from the Zhang manor, darting into the nearby woods that surrounded three of the property’s walls. He didn’t get far before he shifted into his human form. It was hard to throw a proper tantrum when he was stuck as a house cat, and he was still pissed.