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Junjie retreated to his room and softly closed the door. With a long, heavy sigh, he lowered his head to rest on the cool wood and shut his eyes.

Jiang Chong was back.

The freedom they had enjoyed for two millennia was crumbling before their eyes.

The fae had been problematic since arriving in America, but they’d always felt safe in their own home. They had ample defenses to warn them against an intrusion.

But none of those defenses worked with Jiang Chong. The vampire was their maker. He’d lived with them for decades. Trained them. He knew them better than anyone else, which meant he could sneak past their defenses with little effort. Even with a huli jing and a dragon guarding them.

Jiang Chong alone wasn’t the problem.

Just the mention of his name conjured up blood-splashed memories of pain and death. His stomach churned and twisted, while icy cold bit into his flesh.

Yes, he’d been the one to almost carve Jiang Chong’s heart from his chest, and he’d do it again without a single thought. The bastard had thrown Yichen through a wall, almost snapping his spine. Each member of the clan had been battered and bruised. Barely able to move. The monster had then turned to stalk Jiejie. She’d had no formal training, no hope of defending herself from him.

Soft scratching followed by a demanding meow jerked Junjie from his bleak memories. He stepped from the door and opened it a crack. An enormous white and orange cat shoved his way inside like he had every right to stroll into Junjie’s room.

“Yiguo?1,” Junjie murmured with a fond shake of his head. “I still can’t figure out how you’re getting into the house. I know you didn’t slip in when we all arrived.”

The cat gave a purring meow as he bumped his head into Junjie’s shin and made a point of rubbing the entire length of his body along Junjie’s leg as he entered the room. A loud purr rattled up from the cat like a broken jet engine. There was no mistaking that he was happy Junjie had made it home in one piece. Of course, that happiness most likely came from the fact that he’d continue to be fed choice bits of tuna and receive ample chin scratches in the future.

Junjie closed his bedroom door, resolving to place the cat outside before he lay down for the day. The distraction was a welcome break from his current thoughts.

Cats and other small animals had always been drawn to him. Since his first days with the Zhang clan, he’d been the disciple to help feed the chickens and other animals kept on the property. He’d spread seeds for the birds and even pocketed carrots and greens from dinner to give to the rabbits on the hill.

When he became a vampire, he’d hoped that his vampiric gift would be the ability to speak to animals and understand their thoughts. Unfortunately, his gift turned out to be the ability to glimpse into the future. A useless gift, for the most part. His vision was always too full of death. And often, the future was too fluid, shifting this way and that. He could rarely see anything useful that could help his clan or save a life.

He hadn’t expected to find a cat so quickly in America. The stray had creeped through their garden a couple of days after they’d moved into the house. It had been spending far too much time batting at their koi fish, so Junjie had started feeding him, hoping to turn the cat away from the captive prey. Thankfully, Yiguo was more interested in a regular, easy meal. After less than a week, Yiguo lost all interest in the koi and became a regular feature at the back door, where he waited for Junjie to appear with tuna.

Even with the regular meals, the cat still found ways into the house despite Junjie’s efforts to keep him outside. No matter how he attempted to follow the cat, he still couldn’t figure out how he was getting inside. He’d given up on kicking Yiguo out. As long as the cat stayed out of Ming Yu’s way in the kitchen and didn’t make a mess, Junjie was content to allow him to roam about. Mostly, Yiguo stuck close to Junjie and lounged in Junjie’s private quarters.

Today, Yiguo rubbed against his leg and then jumped up onto the bed where he stretched out in the center, as if it were his.

Junjie walked over to a chest-high bureau and slid out the top drawer. He frowned at the folded length of woven fabric sitting in the very center. When his visions had kicked in for the first time, they’d been extremely chaotic. Little more than fragmented flashes of events. Some were filled with people he knew, while others were of total strangers. They’d been debilitating at first, which had only angered Jiang Chong. Xiao Dan had stepped in repeatedly to defend and protect him from Jiang Chong’s anger.

The moment they’d learned he was seeing visions of the future, Jiang Chong had retreated, hoping to make use of Junjie’s visions. But he had no control over what he saw or when he would receive new visions. The door to the future opened when it wanted to. It was not something Junjie could access on his own.

At least, not at first. It had taken him centuries to hone his gift enough to make it into something that was even a tiny bit useful.

It had been Chen’s suggestion that he merge his gift with something tactile he could focus his energy on. Weaving a cloth with different colored threads allowed him to assign each person in his clan a specific color. Only then could he follow that person’s future. In the early years, he’d witnessed countless deaths, but that had been largely thanks to Jiang Chong and the emperors they served.

Later, the visions became more commonplace and less grisly. He’d almost completely stopped using it when Yichen had suddenly disappeared. While he’d not been able to clearly see where Yichen had gone, he had confirmed that their missing brother was at least alive.

With a trembling hand, Junjie lifted the cloth from the drawer. “Yiguo, I don’t know if I’m brave enough to look into the future when I know that I’m going to see Jiang Chong there. How can I possibly see anything besides death and destruction? It’s all that man knows. Do I want to risk seeing the death of my clan? But if I don’t look, won’t I be guaranteeing that it happens? Shouldn’t I at least try to give them some warning?”

“Have faith in your clan. I think they can beat this bastard.”

Junjie’s heart smiled at the sentiment, which meant it took an extra second for his brain to catch up to the fact that the voice was unfamiliar and coming from his bed.

Junjie threw aside his divining cloth and spun to find a naked man stretched out on his bed like it was the most natural thing in the world. A startled scream tried to leave his throat, but he slapped his hand over his mouth as he jumped back to land half sitting on the low dresser.

Screaming would draw the entire clan to his room, and this did not seem like a good time to tackle questions about how he’d come to have a naked stranger on his bed.

A very handsome, muscular, sexy stranger.

With some effort, Junjie ripped his wandering eyes from their close inspection of some interesting bits to land on his face, where the stranger was smirking at him.

Work, brain! Words! Find words!

“You have no idea how happy I was when Moon showed up. You all switched to English. Prior to that, I didn’t understand what any of you were saying,” the stranger remarked, which worked to send Junjie’s thoughts swirling like artificial snowflakes in a snow globe.

Junjie ripped his hand away from his mouth and blurted out the first question he could slap together. “Who are you?”

The man’s smirk turned into the sexy grin that caused his blue eyes to sparkle and Junjie’s brain to melt. “I’m Yiguo.”

Junjie jumped from his perch and pointed a finger at the stranger. “No, you’re not. Yiguo is a?—”

Before he could say cat, the sexy man changed into a lazy, overfed orange and white tabby stretched out across his bed like he owned it.

Junjie yelped and hopped onto his dresser. While his poor, overworked brain was still dealing with that, the cat changed back into a naked man.

The cat he’d been feeding for months now.

The cat he’d cradled in his lap, scratched under his chin, and whispered all sorts of nonsense to.

The cat who’d watched him change clothes on more than one occasion.

Was. A. Man.

“You…you…” Junjie pointed a shaking finger at him while he tried to think of something to say.

“I’m surprised you’re struggling this much. You’ve got a fox shifter running about this place and now a dragon. Though I’ll admit I was expecting that elf to give me away within days of him showing up, but for some reason he kept his mouth shut,” Yiguo continued.

“What?” Junjie’s voice cracked. “Rei knows you’re not just a common house cat?”

“Sure. So do that fox you call Huli and the dragon.”

Junjie’s head whipped around to stare openmouthed at the door. His brothers’ mates knew Yiguo was a shifter, and they’d said nothing. What the fucking hell?

Part of him longed to march out of his bedroom and track the new clan members, give them a piece of his mind, but first he needed to deal with Yiguo. Or whatever his real name was. Hisfamily would get theirs later.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, Junjie closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath to steady his frazzled nerves. At the very least, Yiguo had done an amazing job of making him forget about Jiang Chong.

“Look, normally I don’t have trouble accepting the other races.” Junjie dropped his hand and opened his eyes, only for his gaze to fall right on Yiguo’s impressive genitals yet again. That was not helpful in having rational conversation. He jumped from his dresser, ripped open the drawer, and pulled out the first bit of fabric he saw. It was only when he’d flung it across the room that he noticed that he’d thrown a white underrobe across Yiguo’s lap. Whatever. It served the purpose for now. “However, usually when I meet a shifter for the first time, I know it’s a shifter. They don’t pretend to be an animal for several months and then end up naked on your bed!”

Still grinning, Yiguo rubbed one hand through his shaggy auburn-brown hair. “Yeah, sorry about that. Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“Well, you are a very attractive man, and I got to see you naked a couple of times. I thought it was only fair…”

Junjie held up one hand, stopping him before he could continue. He wasn’t ready to think about all of that. Learning that Yiguo was a cat shifter was about the limit of what his brain could handle.

“If it helps, you’re one of about five people I’ve told in my entire life about what I am.” Junjie lifted his eyes to find that the man’s smile had dimmed. “Not much of a social creature, and it’s damn hard to find the right people to trust with this kind of secret.”

“Not social? Could have fooled me,” Junjie muttered, and Yiguo brightened.

“Well, yeah. You always brought out the good stuff. Fresh fish. None of that canned or dry cat food. Seriously, that shit is disgusting. Plus, you give the best belly rubs.” As he spoke, one hand strayed down his chest to his stomach. Junjie’s eyes couldn’t help but follow that slow, enticing path.

At least until it dipped below the edge of his robe and Junjie ripped his eyes up. The tips of his ears were so hot they could have lit a candle.

“Yes, yes. Fine. Fine. I fed you,” Junjie snapped, desperate to crawl out of this endless hole of awkwardness. “But why did you decide to reveal yourself now? And to me? You’ve been carrying on this charade for months with no problems.”

For the first time since Yiguo had changed into a human, his grin and teasing fled his face, leaving him looking worried and maybe even a little scared.

“I have a problem, and you’re the one person I trust to help me with it. Please, Junjie. You’re the only one I can turn to.”

Don’t missJunjie’s adventure with his unexpected cat friend in Two Thousand Shadows, Book Four of the Kings of Chaos series. Preorder your copy now!

1 ?Yiguo – one pot

This is a nod on my part to author Priest, who used this name for a puppy in Tian Ya Ke (Faraway Wanderers) and a fat, sassy cat in Mo Du (The Light in the Night, a.k.a. Silent Reading)