Page 22 of Two Thousand Blades

His body half collided with Xiang’s, and he ended up nestled in the cushions. He froze, trying to ignore the alluring scent of jasmine coming up from the pillows to mix with Xiang’s own personal musk to create something more valuable than all the perfumes of the world. He wanted to turn his head into Xiang’s neck and breathe him in. Instead, he kept his eyes trained on the vampire’s smiling face as it appeared above him.

Xiang was lying on his side but holding himself up with one hand while clutching the box in the other. “Don’t be grumpy. I love it.”

“You laughed.”

“Because it’s a great gift. It’s thoughtful.”

Kai narrowed his eyes at Xiang. He wasn’t buying it.

“Okay, well. Also, it’s kind of funny because the one you destroyed in the park wasn’t mine. It belonged to the guy I fed from.”

Kai’s frown deepened. He hadn’t thought of that, and he had no interest in replacing the phone of the man who’d gotten to feel Xiang’s bite. The one who had supplied him with sustenance when Kai could not. “Well, you had one of these devices during your kidnapping, correct? Wasn’t it harmed by the water?”

“Oh, yeah. Totally useless now.”

“There,” Kai declared with a single nod. “The phone replaces the one the dragon destroyed.”

“Well, there’s also the issue of being what I’m guessing is several hundred meters underground. There’s no way that it’s going to get anything resembling a cell signal. Plus, I doubt you’ve even got it hooked up to a carrier.”

Xiang was saying words, and not one of them made any sense to him, but he understood the tone. “What you’re saying is that it is a useless chunk of plastic and glass because you are stuck in a cave.”

The cheerful man turned very serious as he pointed the box at Kai. “I did not say that.”

Kai let out a sigh. “I thought you might be able to use it to talk to your family. Reassure them. Since you don’t know where you are, you wouldn’t be able to risk their lives by leading them to the hoard. But it would make you and your family…happy.”

“Would the dragon kill them if they tried to take me from the hoard?” Xiang inquired, his voice low and soft.

“Possibly. Dragons don’t react well to anyone getting near their hoard, and to take something, no matter how small, is a death sentence. The only reason you’re here is because the elf queen ordered the dragon to ‘take.’ Where else was the dragon to take you but here? It’s the safest place.”

Even if Kai didn’t want to hurt Xiang’s clan, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself. His collection was his everything. His reason for being. It was the sum of all of his worth in the world. If someone stole from it, they were stealing a bit of him. The hoard needed to be protected at all costs. Even if he knew Xiang had to return to his clan, it didn’t mean that his instincts wouldn’t fight him on letting his family take him away.

“Is that why you’re here, too? Because someone ordered the dragon to take you and you’re stuck here?”

He was not even trying to wade through that question. Kai directed his gaze to the box in Xiang’s hand. “Why isn’t it useless?”

A slow, knowing smile spread across Xiang’s lips, but he didn’t say a word. Instead, the vampire flipped over onto the cushions, so that he was half lying on the pillows while his head was resting on Kai’s chest. Kai had no choice but to toss his left arm above his head. Otherwise, he would be forced to lay it across Xiang’s chest, and he was not cuddling the man even closer.

Xiang’s fingers cut through the plastic film on the box and deftly pulled off the lid. He threw aside other useless bits and pieces as he powered up the phone and flipped through its various screens.

“Technically, I don’t need a cell signal to contact my family. If there was Internet in the cave, I could use that to call them, but there’s no way in hell I’m trying to explain the Internet to you so you can then explain it to a freaking dragon,” Xiang chattered away as he worked.

Kai bit his tongue. He knew what the Internet was. It was technological magic humans created to send paperless messages and pornographic images. He just had no idea how to make that magic work in his cave. Of course, until Xiang had entered his life, he’d had no interest in letting human magic into his hoard.

“Ah! There!”

Xiang’s excitement drew Kai’s gaze to the screen he was holding up. That was better than trying to convince both his mind and body to ignore the feel of Xiang against him, and how difficult it was becoming to keep his arm from wrapping around the man.

“You see? They’ve been preloading a handful of games on cell phones for years. They’re basic games, like Solitaire, Minesweeper, and mah-jongg, but they don’t require an Internet connection to play.?1 It’s just a little something for entertainment. You know, other than books.”

Kai thumped the top of Xiang’s head with his knuckle but smoothed the spot with his fingers almost immediately. “There’s nothing wrong with books.”

“No, but I read books for two thousand years. I like TV and video games now.”

Closing his eyes, Kai smiled to himself, enjoying the weight of Xiang and the steady sound of his voice as he played with his new toy. “It’s been so long since I last played mah-jongg.”

Xiang huffed a laugh. “Jiejie?2 used to drag Meimei, Jun-Jun, and me into games of mah-jongg, but they always devolved into a fight. Jiejie is fierce when it comes to mah-jongg. Shixiong took the tiles away and hid them when we broke a window the last time we played.”

“How did a window get broken?”

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