Page 15 of Two Thousand Shadows

She straightened and shifted her stance, one hip pushed out as she tapped her lips with one long finger. She was the smallest of all of them. Her clothes wouldn’t fit the child, but they would also swallow him up the least.

“Yeah, I think I got a couple of things that would work.”

“Just until we can order some clothes for him,” Junjie reassured her. “Also…” He paused, wincing, but Ming Yu stepped up before he continued.

The older woman gently placed her hand on Mei Lian’s arm, causing Mei Lian’s head to snap up. A pretty flush dusted her cheeks, and Ming Yu quickly removed her hand and bit her lip for a second. “Do you think that you might have a plush toy he could borrow? He has nothing at the moment.”

Mei Lian was extremely protective of her collection, and Junjie was skeptical she’d be willing to part with?—

“The poor baby!” she cried. “I know I’ve got something. I’ll go pull things together right now!”

Before Junjie could argue that he needed only one plushie to get the child through the day, Mei Lian was racing out of the kitchen and through the halls while Ming Yu returned to the stove. A bark of outrage jumped from Chen as Mei Lian passed him.

“What the hell is going on? Why is everyone awake at this hour and messing about in the kitchen?” Chen demanded. His eyes fell on the child and widened while his mouth dropped open. Moon poked his head past his mate and rubbed his sleepy eyes.

“Oh.” The blood witch-turned-vampire extended a finger, pressed it to the bottom of Chen’s jaw, and pushed upward, closing his mate’s mouth. “It’s a baby, darling. Nothing to lose your shit over.”

“Language,” Junjie automatically replied.

“Whoops! Sorry. Out of practice.” Moon grinned at the little boy and waggled his fingers at him. “It’s been a while since I was around a kid.”

“Is it talking already?”

“He, not it,” Junjie growled at his clan mate. “And yes, he talks. He called me gege.”

“He’s Chinese?” Chen gasped.

Yichen shuffled into the room with his elf half draped across his back. He took one look at the situation and groaned. “He’s obviously not Chinese. They taught him that word. Wow, you are slow when you’ve not had enough sleep.”

Ming Yu swung around and shook a wooden spoon at the gathering of vampires and mates. “Why is my kitchen so crowded? The sun is up. You should be in bed.”

“They were noisy,” Rei cried out.

“And we heard cooking,” Moon chimed in.

“And there’s a strange baby,” Chen stated, pointing at the child.

Xiang snorted from where he was leaning on Kai, his arms folded on his chest. “You’re a strange baby.”

This was getting out of hand. Xiao Dan stepped into the center of the room and lifted his arms above his head. “It is late, and everyone needs rest after the fight with the fae. All you need to know right now is that we have a guest staying with us. This evening, we will have a meeting to discuss what will be done and how Xiao Ping Guo?3 came to be here.”

There was some grumbling, but the rest of the clan filed out of the room. Xiao Dan lingered, but Ming Yu poked him with her spoon and pointed at the door. Junjie swallowed a giggle, but she had a point. The only ones who needed to be up were the two of them. Meimei popped in to say that she’d left some T-shirts and a couple of toys on his bed before exiting on a yawn.

Ming Yu leaned down to the child’s eye level and beamed. “Now, that’s much better, isn’t it?”

The boy giggled, clapped, and reached for her wooden spoon.

“I bet you’re hungry. Gods only know what they were feeding you.” Ming Yu put her spoon aside and picked up a plate of peeled apple slices.

“I don’t know. The cat shifters found him and took care of him until they could find him a more permanent arrangement. Oh, that’s right. The stray cat I’ve been feeding is a cat shifter named Leo. The child is also a cat shifter.”

“Leo didn’t tell you his name?”

Junjie shook his head as he handed the child an apple, which he stuffed greedily into his mouth. “I don’t think he knows. The cat shifters are solitary creatures. They aren’t close and don’t have packs like the wolves. It was luck that they stumbled across him.”

“Poor baobei,”?4 Ming Yu crooned. “We’ll get you all fixed up and comfortable. Nothing for you to worry about.” She cocked her head and lifted her eyes to Junjie. “Though I think we need to decide on a name for him. I keep thinking of him as the little boy or child. A good American name. I think I saw Liam is popular now. Or Noah. Maybe Elijah or Asher.”

Junjie chuckled and rested his cheek against the top of the boy’s head as he handed him another apple slice. Ming Yu was having too much fun with this. “We should discuss that with the rest of the clan. Also, I should try to talk to Leo about the boy’s name.”

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