Page 95 of Two Thousand Shadows

Yichen’s panicked scream rang out across the silent field, but Leo’s eyes remained locked on Rei as he flashed his half brother a wicked grin. Rei brought up his left hand to reveal a small knife clutched in his fist. Trin had no time to react as Rei slammed it into Trin’s neck up to the hilt.

Blood sprayed out across both of them. Trin released his hold on his sword, allowing it to fall to the earth with a heavy thud. He staggered back three steps, a horrible wet gurgling and choking sound rising from him. He collapsed to the ground, and a heavy silence crashed over the field. The fae king was dead.

Yichen ran to Rei and caught him as he fell. One arm cradling him from behind, Yichen eased him to the ground while checking his wounds. Leo ran with the rest of the vampires and shifted as he reached Rei and Yichen. Philippe muscled his way to Rei’s other side and began pulling gauze and bandages from a black bag.

“Shhh, Yiyi…I’m okay,” Rei crooned, though his voice sounded breathless with fatigue.

“You’re covered in blood,” Yichen growled.

“Come on. You know it’s not all my blood. They’re just little wounds, and they’re already healing. Look at how Philippe is bandaging me up nicely. The bleeding will stop in a minute. Besides, who here hasn’t been stabbed?”

“Um…not me,” Rafe interjected.

“Me neither,” Aiden chimed in.

“Shut. Up.” Rei ground out those two words between his teeth. He turned his attention to Yichen, who was still too paleand seeming as if he wanted to kill a few more fae as payback. “My Yiyi, I will heal and we are going to spend eternity together. Possibly annoying your family the entire time. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?”

“You’re evil, and I love you.” Yichen silenced Rei’s nonsense with a slow, sweet kiss.

Leo turned his attention to Junjie, ready to point out that the Zhang clan was free, but his gaze caught on the many hundreds of elves still circling them.

This was not over.

Chapter 29

Zhang Junjie

Just as the fear that had gripped Junjie’s throat loosened its hold, Leo wordlessly shifted into a lion. He stepped away from Junjie and moved to stand several meters in front of where Rei was sitting on the ground. Junjie gazed past his mate to see a blood-soaked Ellora crossing the field toward them, a bow in one hand and a sword hanging from her hip. Behind her lay Aire Bira’s lifeless body. Was she now coming to finish off Rei?

Leo opened his mouth, and an earth-shattering roar swept across the field and hammered against the surrounding tree line. He almost pitied the humans who invariably heard a lion’s roar in the middle of Connecticut. Huli strutted to Leo’s side and let out his own warning bark, which wasn’t nearly as impressive. Junjie had to bite the inside of his cheek. Leo’s roar was enough to make Ellora pause in her approach. Huli’s bark was simply adorable.

Either way, it didn’t detract from the fact that both Leo and Huli were stepping forward to protect Rei and the clan. As Kai and Moon moved to Leo’s other side, Rei spoke up from his healing cuddle with Yichen.

“Okay, okay. I’m touched. The lion and the huli jing with all the tails are impressive, but when you throw in a dragon and horde of zombie soldiers, it gets over the top. I’m pretty sure Ellora is coming to talk.” Yichen and Philippe helped Rei climb to his feet.

The elf’s color was improving, and it looked as if Yichen had taken a moment to wipe some of the blood from his lover’s face. His movements remained slow and ginger as he shuffled around Leo with Yichen at his side. He patted the large cat on the top of the head, his eyes wide like he couldn’t quite believe he was touching a lion.

“Moon, I think you can call off the dead army now,” Rei said in a low voice.

“Call them off?” Moon repeated. His words jumped a full octave higher than he normally spoke. “Um…okay. I can do that. I think…”

“Moon? You know how to end the spell, right?” Chen demanded. Junjie dropped his face into his hand and closed his eyes. They were both trying to be quiet, but their voices carried across the empty field on the wind.

“You see, Sky was a lot less clear about how to call off the dead when I was done with them. The big focus was on raising them.”

“Moon!” Chen hissed.

“What? It’s not like I could practice something like this. I intended to use it if things went bad.And things went really fucking bad!”

The conversation grew more muffled as Chen hurried to his mate’s side, wrapping him up and whispering what were likely reassurances in his ear. Moon had a point. Chen had been severely injured and hadn’t been looking all that great less than an hour ago.

Thankfully, the zombie elves started collapsing to the ground, first one by one and then in great groups, until they were all lifeless heaps once again.

“It’s always something,” Yichen mumbled under his breath.

Rei leaned over and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “That’s what keeps it interesting.” He gave a final pat to the top of Leo’s mane and took a step forward, meeting Ellora away from the rest of the Zhang and Varik clans.

“What now?” Ellora demanded when Rei was standing in front of her.

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