Page 5

H er face flushed delicately when she looked at me.

Her hair, long and inky black, shone under the sun and she dipped her eyes, but darted another look after a few seconds.

I smiled while the man next to me chuckled.

“If my Kei sees her beloved cousin looking at you like that, she may well come after both of us,” Chang said.

I glanced at the man who was like a father to me. My birth father had been dead since I was a boy, my memories of him so faded, I felt no connection. Chang was my family—his wife, Kei, the closest thing I had to a mother.

Nene had come to live with us at the small farm just a year earlier. I hadn’t been there when she arrived. I’d returned to the mountainous forest where I had been born, a trip I’d made with Chang every few years. It was the first time I’d gone on my own.

I’d stayed gone almost three months and something that might have been resentment chased me as I returned.

I’d avoided the family for weeks afterward, built my own small place on the outskirts of Chang’s property, prepared my own meals and spent many nights roaming the nearby forests in one of my cat’s two forms, disturbed by that endless restlessness.

But then I met Nene.

“It would be worth it,” I told him quietly.

Nene’s lips curved in a smile. She ducked her head shyly and went back to her task of collecting eggs.

“Is Kei feeling any better?” I asked him.

“Some,” he responded. “I might well tell her that you are out here making moon eyes at her cousin. See if that spurs her to recovering quicker.”

Flashing him a grin, I clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m willing to make the sacrifice. Just don’t expect her to chase me away.”

“You’re too young and arrogant to be scared away so easily, .” Chang laughed and shook his head.

The sound of his laugh had Nene looking at us and when she did, our gazes locked again.

My heart tightened. I understood why Chang hadn’t been able to deny Kei. She was human…or mostly. One day, she’d be gone and he would still be here.

It was the same way with Nene.

But I couldn’t walk away.