Page 82

“Yay! Kitty mao wake up!”

“What the fuck? Did you change him?” someone demanded. Possibly Xiang. Junjie wasn’t sure. He couldn’t think. He gawked at Leo as the supposed dead man rolled onto his side, roughly dragging air into his lungs.

Leo had been dead. Junjie was sure of it. He’d felt that last breath leave his body. His heart stopped beating. He was dead.

Leo groaned and rolled onto his back. “Shit, that hurts.”

He was alive.

Leo was alive.

He didn’t know how it was possible, but he didn’t care. His Leo was alive.

The cat winced and stared up at him. “Hey. Sorry. Don’t be mad.”

“Mad?” Junjie repeated. “Why would I be mad? You’re alive. You were dead, but now you’re alive. I-I-” he stammered, his voice breaking as his mind called up the look and feel of Leo’s lifeless body in his arms minutes ago.

Leo grunted as he pushed up into a sitting position. Rough hands cupped Junjie’s face, brushing away cold tears on his cheeks, followed by soft kisses. Erik laughed between them and Leo smirked as he pressed two kisses to the top of the boy’s head. He turned his attention to Junjie and his smile softened. “I’m sorry I scared you. I’m okay, I swear. Just sore.”

“I’m so fucking confused,” Yichen groused, interrupting their reunion.

“Language,” Leo and Junjie admonished in unison.

Junjie glanced up at Yichen to see the vampire roll his eyes. “Whatever. Am I the only one freaked out that Erik has the power to wake the dead?”

“What?” Leo released his hold on Junjie so he could look at the grinning two-year-old between them.

“And you said you weren’t a bakeneko!” Kai accused.

“Yeah, that was a total bakeneko thing to do,” Xiang agreed.

Leo stared at Junjie, his expression flat and unamused, as if he were silently telling Junjie that this washisfamily andtheirinsanity. But Junjie was struggling to argue with them. Bakeneko were known for their ability to raise the newly dead. He just never heard of one raising themselves from the dead, which left them with Erik…

Junjie reached out trembling fingers and pressed them to Leo’s neck, right over his pounding pulse. “You really are alive.”

“Yes,” he hissed as he grabbed Junjie’s fingers and pressed kisses to them. “I’m really alive. Not some zombie or a vampire or anything else. Erik and I arenotbakeneko.” His smirk became a touch crooked, and he shrugged one shoulder. “I’m acatshifter. We have nine lives.”

The pieces fell into place.

Junjie had been wrong earlier. He was mad, and he was thinking about taking a few more of Leo’s lives.

“You knew?” Junjie demanded. “You knew when I told you that Jiang Chong was going to kill you that you wouldn’t stay dead. You knew and didn’t tell me!”

Leo threw up his hands and winced at the sudden movement. “What? No! It doesn’t work like that. I can die and stay dead.”

“Inside!” Xiao Dan shouted above their heads. “This needs to be discussed inside. Ming Yu, could you—” He hadn’t even finished speaking, and Shijie swooped in and scooped up Erik from Junjie’s arms. “Chen, could you stop the snow? While it’s an appreciated break from the summer, I’d rather we not get buried.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure,” Chen stammered. The sparse flakes drifting from the dark sky stopped and what was on the grass was melting.

With help from the rest of the clan, Leo and Junjie got to their feet. A hundred questions filled Junjie’s brain, but he bit his tongue as Xiao Dan led them into the house and the main meeting room. Many of them were covered in dirt, sweat, and blood from their fight with Jiang Chong, but no one was willing to put this meeting on hold to clean up. Leo had just announced that he had nine lives.What the fuck!

“Yeah…um…sorry,” Leo started. He scrubbed a hand through his messy auburn hair. His green eyes skimmed the room, but Junjie didn’t miss how the cat appeared reluctant to look at him.

“Leo, you’re entitled to your secrets,” Xiao Dan said patiently. “However, sharing this one with Junjie might have mitigated some complications that arose.”

“Yeah.” He sighed, his shoulders slumping. After another deep breath, he turned to Junjie and picked up Junjie’s ice-cold hands. He squeezed, infusing some of his own warmth into the vampire. “I’m sorry. I should have told you, but this nine-lives thing is one of my kind’s biggest secrets. We don’t tell anyone about this. As you can guess, it would cause something of a riotamong the other races. Worse if the humans were to ever get wind of it. We’re lucky they think it’s a silly superstition with cats.”

“But I thought you were going todie. If you had said something…”