Page 19 of Two Thousand Promises

Gege was magic.

There was no other way to explain it. All his words and wonderful hugs had a way of making it all feel better. He was no longer scared of Xiao Dan casting him aside forever. He always seemed to know the right thing to say to fix things.

But words would not fix this problem with Min.

No. To stop Min, he had to kill her. She would give them no other choice.

“Shortly after meeting Min, I left Luoyang and traveled with her. Stealing souls is one way for a huli jing to gain power, but it’s a slow and tedious process. Humans have so little magic in them. I wanted to become powerful quickly. The faster I gained my tails, the faster I could talk and shift for my gege.”

“If it’s a slow way of gaining power, why are huli jing known for stealing the souls of humans?”

Huli snorted and sat up so he could look Xiao Dan in the eye. “Because it’s fun.”

Xiao Dan rolled his eyes. “Of course. Silly me.”

“Yes, that was silly of you, Gege.”

“So, all those times you were gone for years at a time, you were traveling with Min?”

He reached across Xiao Dan’s lap, picked up the vampire’s hand, and pulled it over to his own lap. He traced the lines of his palm and down his fingers, loving that he had the freedom to touch him. It had been a long time since they’d last had an escape like this. Not since before Yichen was kidnapped. Everything had changed when the fae stole Yichen…

“No, I stayed with Min for a few centuries. Once I learned all the tricks she had for teaching me to cultivate and how she found the best magic-infused places in the world, I parted ways with her. I still wasn’t strong enough to defeat her, and I thought that if I went off on my own, I could gain power faster. She guided me through gaining my first two tails. The rest I did on my own.”

Xiao Dan closed his hand, capturing Huli’s fingers. “And they are magnificent tails.”

He couldn’t stop preening. They were fantastic tails, and only Xiao Dan appreciated them properly.

“But…” the vampire prodded.

“But many years passed until I saw Min again. When I did, she had nine tails, and I was still stuck at seven. There was no way I could kill her. I had to get my ninth tail first.” He huffed and pulled his fingers free of Xiao Dan’s grasp. “After I got my final tail and became a true jiuweihu, it was like she disappeared. I never saw her. The few huli jing I encountered also said they hadn’t seen her in years. I thought someone else had killed her. And then…” His words drifted off, and he swallowed hard.

“What?”

It took Huli a couple of seconds to spit the words out. “The fae kidnapped Yichen.”

That was the one period since he’d first met Xiao Dan that had been the absolute darkest. He’d never seen Xiao Dan so broken and distraught. It had been the brutal wake-up call he’dbeen needing to put his petty desires behind him and focus on what the man who owned his heart needed.

“After his disappearance, we spent all our time digging for information about the fae and how to get to Yichen. I forgot Min ever existed. It wasn’t until I saw her in the garden, heard her voice, that I recalled that I’d been searching for her.”

Huli jumped to his feet and paced across the room. Except he didn’t get far. The bottoms of his pants slipped over his feet so that he was stepping on the hem, pulling them lower while tripping on them. Xiao Dan leaped up and grabbed him by the waist as Huli tipped forward while fighting to pull the pants up.

“Grrr…stupid pants! Stupid Huli! I should have killed her years ago. Then you would never have to know how stupid I am.”

“Huli isn’t stupid,” Xiao Dan whispered into his hair. He wrapped his arms around his waist, holding him close when Huli would have darted away. “My fox spirit saw something he wanted, and he put in so much hard work to get it. I’ve always been proud of you for working so hard to get your tails. I admire your dedication.”

“Please, stop,” he begged. “Huli is bad. Evil. I planned to kill another huli jing to keep her away from you. I wanted to be powerful so I could make you all mine. It was about what I wanted. I didn’t care about what you wanted.”

Xiao Dan’s arms tightened despite Huli’s words. “Do you care about what I want now?”

Something inside of Huli shattered. He turned in Xiao Dan’s arms and hugged him while pressing his face into the vampire’s chest. “Yes. It’s the only thing that matters. If you don’t love me anymore, that’s okay. I will take care of Min and go away forever if it makes Gege happy.”

“See? You’ve grown up. You’ve learned to care about the wishes and feelings of others. You’re not the same young, impulsive huli jing you were the morning I first found you.” XiaoDan put two fingers under Huli’s chin and forced his head up to meet his gaze. “And the one thing I want is for Huli to stay by my side forever. No matter what.”

“You’re sure?”

“Very sure.” Xiao Dan leaned in close and kissed away the tears that slipped down Huli’s cheeks before taking his mouth in a slow, deep kiss. The saltiness of his own tears was lost to Xiao Dan’s sweetness.

After a thousand years, he had the man who’d claimed his heart that very first morning in the woods. And he was going to risk everything to keep him until Huli drew his last breath.

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