22. Leo St. George

Chapter 22

Leo St. George

B y the time Junjie had returned to let him out of the armory, Leo had yet to calm down. His phone had three bars while he was in his prison. He was sorely tempted to call the cops on Junjie and his stubborn dragon guard, but he wasn’t that big of a dick. There was no reason to fuck over the entire clan and put Erik in harm’s way.

So he sat there, stewing.

Trapped by the man whose dick he’d sucked.

Oh, my fuck! He’d slept with him! Not in the traditional sex meaning, but he’d fallen asleep, curled up in his human form, in the bed together.

He never did that. He was always right out the door with his sexual partners. No emotional ties.

And this was what it got him. Locked up in an armory filled with ancient weapons and guarded by a dragon. This was why he didn’t date!

Thankfully, less than two hours passed before he heard the lock being worked and he jumped to his feet, ready to hit Junjie with both barrels as he walked out the front door and never returned. This cat didn’t do cages.

Except Leo lost some of his rage the second his gaze fell on Junjie. The vampire looked like shit. Far worse than earlier when he’d been scared out of his mind.

No! Leo was still pissed. Junjie had locked him up. People didn’t do that to people they were dating. Okay, maybe kinky people did that, but they weren’t those kinds of people.

“Leo…” Junjie started, but Leo marched right past him.

“Don’t! I don’t want to hear it.”

“Please, I’m sorry. I was afraid of you walking straight into Jiang Chong and getting killed. I had to find a way to save you. This was the only option I could think of to keep you safe while I went to see Bel Varik.”

That stopped Leo dead in his tracks. His knowledge of the Variks was light, but he knew Bel was a scientist who ran all these insane experiments. He turned to Junjie, his eyes narrowed. “Why would you go see the Variks?”

“Bel’s mates are shifters. I wanted to know if you could change a shifter into a vampire. I thought if I couldn’t stop Jiang Chong from killing you, maybe I could at least make sure your death wasn’t permanent. But…a shifter can’t be changed.”

Leo barely heard Junjie’s trembling words. Heat filled his face, and his heartbeat thundered in his ears. “Who the fuck asked you to?” Leo shouted. He stomped toward Junjie, getting in his face. The vampire stumbled back a half step as if he expected Leo to attack him. “Whoever said that I wanted to be a vampire? I never want to be a vampire. I’m a cat shifter and proud of it. I’d rather die than let someone make me into something else.”

“But Jiang Chong?—”

“Fuck Jiang Chong! This is my life, my decision. You’re not taking that from me.” He spun on the balls of his feet and marched to the front door, not caring that his shouting had drawn the attention of the entire house. He tossed over his shoulder as he ripped the doors open. “Your enemy isn’t my problem anymore. I’m never returning here.”

Leo stomped across the driveway, cursing every vampire he’d ever met. Yet, before he could reach the doors at the end of the drive, Xiao Dan appeared from out of nowhere. Sneaky fucking vampire. Couldn’t trust any of them.

Xiao Dan wasn’t exactly blocking his path. Leo could easily shift and dart around him to slip out of the property, but he found his steps slowing to a stop.

“Don’t think you can make excuses for him. He held me prisoner,” Leo snapped.

“I don’t intend to,” Xiao Dan replied, his voice low and solemn. “What Junjie did was wrong.”

Well, shit. That stole some of the wind from his sails.

“I just want you to better understand his reasoning. To better understand him.”

Leo gave a noncommittal grunt and shifted away from the vampire as he tried to decide whether to run off or stay and listen to Xiao Dan. Listening to the Zhang clan leader was dangerous. The man was too calm, too sensible, and well spoken. He was skilled at sneaking past a person’s defenses. Leo had witnessed it firsthand too many times.

“I don’t owe you or him anything,” Leo grumbled.

“Not even after months of tricking him? After all the time, care, and compassion he showed you without knowing who you truly were? After Erik?”

Leo closed his eyes and inwardly sighed. He should have kept walking.

A long silence stretched between them. When Xiao Dan spoke, it wasn’t what Leo expected.

“Thirty-seven.”

The cat shifter waited for Xiao Dan to continue, but he said nothing else.

With a growl, Leo pivoted toward him and folded his arms across his chest. “Thirty-seven what?”

“That’s how many members of the Zhang clan Jun-Jun saw die in his visions. Most of them were directly at the hands of Jiang Chong. Clan mates who didn’t develop vampiric gifts he deemed useful enough. Clan mates who weren’t as fast or strong or stealthy as he demanded them to be. Some who were killed to keep the rest of us in line.”

Leo swallowed hard and his arms loosened.

“There were others who committed suicide,” Xiao Dan continued. “People we saw as family. Jiang Chong broke their spirits or they could not forgive themselves for the acts we were forced to commit.”

Oh, shit…

“Jun-Jun witnessed each and every one of these deaths well before they happened. Sometimes days in advance; other times, it was weeks. He did everything he could to stop them. Risked his life, breaking his own body to stop it, but in the end, they all happened exactly as he saw it.”

“Fuck. Xiao Dan…”

“Of all the clan, he has the gift with the heaviest burden. It takes a great deal of courage and desperation for Jun-Jun to use his gift. I know that this time, he was doing it for his clan, for Erik, and for you. His reward was to see your death.”

Leo clenched his teeth against the rising pain squeezing his heart and lungs. It was almost impossible to draw a breath. “He shouldn’t have locked me up,” he stated stubbornly, but the heat had evaporated from his words.

“No, he shouldn’t have. He should have talked to you. Made you understand why he was so desperate to keep you safe. He’s lost so much, and you are so very important to him already.”

His fingers curled into claws in front of his chest and Leo growled in frustration, but he wasn’t sure what he was frustrated with. Junjie holding him prisoner? Xiao Dan’s meddling? Or himself for not trying harder to understand Junjie’s fears?

Why the hell did this dating thing have to be so hard?

“Look,” Leo snapped. “I-I need to get out of here for a little while. To think. But I’ll be back.” Yeah, there was no point in denying that any longer. Even when he told Junjie he wasn’t returning, the voice in his head had snickered. “Can you…” He paused and sighed. “Can you keep an eye on him for me? Don’t let him do anything else crazy or dangerous. Don’t let him hurt himself.”

“I will.”

Leo shifted into his cat form and ran to the wall surrounding the grounds. With ease, he scaled the barrier, finding purchase in the tiny divots and imperfections in the rocks. As he was about to jump from the top, Xiao Dan’s soft words reached his ears.

“Be careful.”