24. Zhang Junjie

Chapter 24

Zhang Junjie

“ L eo!”

Junjie fell to his knees with Leo in his arms. Blood poured out of his chest, soaking his clothes. Around him, he could hear the rush of feet and the metallic clang of swords, but he couldn’t lift his tear-streaked face from Leo as life drained out of him.

The cat shifter slowly blinked green eyes at him and a crooked smile tried to form on his pale lips, but it fell away. “Don’t worry about me. Gonna…be…fine.”

“I can’t save you,” Junjie sobbed. He didn’t think his heart could break again, but for Leo, it had shattered. There was nothing left now but a giant hole in his chest that would never be filled.

Leo’s lips moved, forming the words “It’s okay” but no sound came out. His eyelashes fluttered and shut as a last breath slipped from his body. And then nothing. He was gone.

“Leo!” Junjie screamed before burying his face in Leo’s neck and giving in to wretched howls of pain. How could he lose him so quickly? They’d known each other for such a short amount of time.

How was he supposed to go on without Leo’s devilish smile? His laughter? Even just having that orange tabby cat greet him each sunset, searching for some fish and belly scratches.

He didn’t know how long he sat there crying over Leo, holding his corpse so tightly in his arms, but a hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed. With a shuddering gasp, Junjie loosened his hold and looked up to find his entire clan surrounding him and Leo, tears lining several faces. Blasts of ice and snow coated some of the grounds from where Chen had used his gift to stop Jiang Chong. Even now, tiny snowflakes drifted down to land on their heads.

“Jiang Chong?” Junjie choked out.

Xiao Dan squeezed his eyes shut, and he swallowed hard. “He suffered a few slashes, but he escaped over the wall. We didn’t want to leave you.”

“Mao Gege! Mao Gege, wake up!”

Erik’s angry voice snapped Junjie’s head around to see the boy held tightly in Ming Yu’s arms. However, he was struggling against her, attempting to break free while shouting at Leo to wake up. Junjie almost crumbled a second time, but he held it together enough to rise up on his knees and stretch out his arms toward the child.

“Give him to me,” Junjie directed in a rough voice.

Her eyes filled with worry. “Are you sure?”

He could only nod. There was no sneaking more words past the lump in his throat.

She handed Erik to him and the child immediately repositioned himself so that he was facing Leo. Junjie gathered him close and resumed his seat on the ground beside Leo’s body.

“I’m so sorry, Xiao Ping Guo, but Leo is gone,” Junjie whispered as he pressed his cheek to the back of Erik’s head. “But we will always love him and remember him.”

“No! Wake up! Mao Gege, wake up!” Erik shouted. His sweet voice trembled with anger.

Junjie was at a loss. He didn’t know how to explain to Erik that Leo was dead and gone forever, just like his parents. It seemed too cruel. Maybe it was best to take him inside and try to put him to bed. He was too young to understand death.

He squeezed Erik tight in his arms, trying to soak in some of his warmth before handing him to Ming Yu. But he never got the chance.

Leo shot upright, sucking in a huge gasp of air, only to choke on it as he fell to the ground in a fit of coughing.

Everyone standing near Leo jumped several steps away. Mei Lian screamed. Junjie sat frozen, not believing his eyes, while the two-year-old threw his chubby hands up in the air.

“Yay! Kitty mao wake up!”

“What the fuck? Did you change him?” someone demanded. Possibly Xiang. Junjie wasn’t sure. He couldn’t think. He gawked at Leo as the supposed dead man rolled onto his side, roughly dragging air into his lungs.

Leo had been dead. Junjie was sure of it. He’d felt that last breath leave his body. His heart stopped beating. He was dead.

Leo groaned and rolled onto his back. “Shit, that hurts.”

He was alive.

Leo was alive.

He didn’t know how it was possible, but he didn’t care. His Leo was alive.

The cat winced and stared up at him. “Hey. Sorry. Don’t be mad.”

“Mad?” Junjie repeated. “Why would I be mad? You’re alive. You were dead, but now you’re alive. I-I-” he stammered, his voice breaking as his mind called up the look and feel of Leo’s lifeless body in his arms minutes ago.

Leo grunted as he pushed up into a sitting position. Rough hands cupped Junjie’s face, brushing away cold tears on his cheeks, followed by soft kisses. Erik laughed between them and Leo smirked as he pressed two kisses to the top of the boy’s head. He turned his attention to Junjie and his smile softened. “I’m sorry I scared you. I’m okay, I swear. Just sore.”

“I’m so fucking confused,” Yichen groused, interrupting their reunion.

“Language,” Leo and Junjie admonished in unison.

Junjie glanced up at Yichen to see the vampire roll his eyes. “Whatever. Am I the only one freaked out that Erik has the power to wake the dead?”

“What?” Leo released his hold on Junjie so he could look at the grinning two-year-old between them.

“And you said you weren’t a bakeneko!” Kai accused.

“Yeah, that was a total bakeneko thing to do,” Xiang agreed.

Leo stared at Junjie, his expression flat and unamused, as if he were silently telling Junjie that this was his family and their insanity. But Junjie was struggling to argue with them. Bakeneko were known for their ability to raise the newly dead. He just never heard of one raising themselves from the dead, which left them with Erik…

Junjie reached out trembling fingers and pressed them to Leo’s neck, right over his pounding pulse. “You really are alive.”

“Yes,” he hissed as he grabbed Junjie’s fingers and pressed kisses to them. “I’m really alive. Not some zombie or a vampire or anything else. Erik and I are not bakeneko.” His smirk became a touch crooked, and he shrugged one shoulder. “I’m a cat shifter. We have nine lives.”

The pieces fell into place.

Junjie had been wrong earlier. He was mad, and he was thinking about taking a few more of Leo’s lives.

“You knew?” Junjie demanded. “You knew when I told you that Jiang Chong was going to kill you that you wouldn’t stay dead. You knew and didn’t tell me!”

Leo threw up his hands and winced at the sudden movement. “What? No! It doesn’t work like that. I can die and stay dead.”

“Inside!” Xiao Dan shouted above their heads. “This needs to be discussed inside. Ming Yu, could you—” He hadn’t even finished speaking, and Shijie swooped in and scooped up Erik from Junjie’s arms. “Chen, could you stop the snow? While it’s an appreciated break from the summer, I’d rather we not get buried.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure,” Chen stammered. The sparse flakes drifting from the dark sky stopped and what was on the grass was melting.

With help from the rest of the clan, Leo and Junjie got to their feet. A hundred questions filled Junjie’s brain, but he bit his tongue as Xiao Dan led them into the house and the main meeting room. Many of them were covered in dirt, sweat, and blood from their fight with Jiang Chong, but no one was willing to put this meeting on hold to clean up. Leo had just announced that he had nine lives. What the fuck!

“Yeah…um…sorry,” Leo started. He scrubbed a hand through his messy auburn hair. His green eyes skimmed the room, but Junjie didn’t miss how the cat appeared reluctant to look at him.

“Leo, you’re entitled to your secrets,” Xiao Dan said patiently. “However, sharing this one with Junjie might have mitigated some complications that arose.”

“Yeah.” He sighed, his shoulders slumping. After another deep breath, he turned to Junjie and picked up Junjie’s ice-cold hands. He squeezed, infusing some of his own warmth into the vampire. “I’m sorry. I should have told you, but this nine-lives thing is one of my kind’s biggest secrets. We don’t tell anyone about this. As you can guess, it would cause something of a riot among the other races. Worse if the humans were to ever get wind of it. We’re lucky they think it’s a silly superstition with cats.”

“But I thought you were going to die . If you had said something…”

“I know, and I can die. Even before all my lives are up. If Jiang Chong had beheaded me, I wouldn’t have returned. My body has to be largely intact when I die. My body can heal from a lot of wounds, but I can’t regrow body parts. I’m a cat, not a lizard.”

“So, stabbing you can return from,” Chen observed.

“And drowning,” Xiang added.

“Strangulation,” Mei Lian chimed in from where she sat next to Ming Yu and Erik.

“Can we not list all the ways Leo can die?” Junjie snapped. He was still trying to recover from Leo’s last death.

“Pretty much, yeah. Assuming I have lives left,” Leo agreed with a nod.

“Erik’s parents…” Ming Yu’s voice drifted off without her finishing the thought.

Leo hung his head, his fingers tightening on Junjie’s. “I don’t know how they died, but the fae burned their bodies to ash. There’s no coming back from that. Doubt anyone would even want to try.”

“Is there any way to know if something might have happened to Erik…before the cats found him?”

Junjie’s stomach twisted. He knew what Xiao Dan was really asking. Was it possible that the fae had killed Erik when they killed his parents, but he’d been lucky enough not to have his remains destroyed?

Leo’s head snapped up. “Erik has never died. As far as I know, that gift doesn’t kick in prior to a cat’s first shift. Right now, Erik is nearly human. His eyesight is like a cat’s, and he probably has sharper hearing. But until he’s a teenager and shifts, that’s all he’ll have.”

“Speaking of shifting…” Junjie narrowed his eyes on the cat shifter next to him.

His lover’s smile became wide and tense. “Yeah…um…I should have been clearer that when I said cat shifter, I kind of meant all cats.”

“Kind of?” Junjie repeated. He was still feeling grateful and relieved that Leo was alive, but there was a rising frustration that left him wanting to strangle him as well.

“Yeah, I mean, I haven’t tried to shift into all the different species of cats, but it’s my understanding from other cat shifters that we can change into any cat species.” Leo lifted his hands in front of him. “As you might guess, it’s not very practical to walk about as a tiger or cheetah. Most of us stick with house cats. We can go anywhere. Most people pay little attention to us, and there are even a lot of people who are happy to take us in and feed us.”

“No kidding,” Junjie muttered.

“Sneaky bastard,” Rei said with a chortle. “How many of you spies are wandering around out there?”

Leo made a face at the elf. “Not that many at all, and there are plenty of us who won’t go near humans in our cat forms out of fear of being discovered.”

“This is astounding,” Xiao Dan whispered. “I would never have guessed that cat shifters were so complicated.”

“I understand your reticence in sharing this information. If humans or even other shifters found out about this, your kind would be hunted and imprisoned.” Junjie paused and his gaze drifted across the table to where Erik was sitting in Ming Yu’s lap playing with one of his plastic trucks. “But this is critical information that we would need for Erik when he gets older. If you don’t accompany us to China…” He couldn’t finish the sentence, and Leo didn’t seem willing to say anything either. His thumbs moved across Junjie’s fingers in a gentle caress.

“I’m sorry. This thing with Jiang Chong happened faster than I expected. It spiraled out of control,” Leo mumbled.

“Not helped by Junjie panicking and locking you in the armory,” Chen added.

Junjie wanted to throw an evil look at his er-ge, but there was no point. He was right. If he hadn’t panicked, if he had sat down with Leo and talked to him about what he saw, maybe Leo would have trusted him with this valuable information.

“So, Leo, if that is your real name,” Mei Lian taunted. “Do you have any more great secrets that we should know about?”

Leo released Junjie and shoved his hands through his hair, moving it from his face. He took a deep breath, but there was no wincing. Was the wound in his chest fully healed now? He exhaled loudly. “I don’t think so.” He thrust his hands out in front of him and waved them. “No, seriously. Honestly, I don’t think so. Shifting, nine lives, cat vision, seeing the dead. That’s the big stuff. If there’s something else, I’m not trying to hide it from you. It’s just that I take it for granted and don’t realize you don’t know.”

“Thank you, Leo,” Ming Yu said. “We appreciate the gravity of the trust that you’ve placed in us to keep your secrets.” She stood with Erik in her arms. “I’m going to change this stinky boy and get him something to eat. If you need somewhere to sleep or a change of clothes, Leo, I am sure Junjie can give you a hand.”

Shijie swept out of the room, her head held high after making that declaration, Mei Lian following close on her heels. It was clear that no matter what Leo said now, she had decided that he was one of them and belonged under their roof, despite the secrets he’d kept.

Xiao Dan coughed softly, lifting his hand to his mouth to hide his smile and doing a poor job of it. “Yes. Well. Jiang Chong is gone for now. I’m relieved to find that Moon’s and Kai’s warning spells are still working, even if we can’t see him right away.”

“He doesn’t plan to kill you all,” Leo blurted out. He stared at Junjie, his expression growing pained. “Only Jun-Jun. He…I ran into him after I stormed away. He said that he wants to reclaim the clan and take you back to China, where you’ll become the ruling power there. I’m assuming he means that he’ll become the ruling power. But he plans to kill Jun-Jun because he’s the one he blames for nearly dying all those years ago.”

“Fuck him. Not gonna happen,” Moon grumbled.

Kai shoved to his feet, towering over all of them. “No one is going to harm Junjie.”

Warmth spread from the tips of Junjie’s ears, down across his face, and to his chest. His clan— his family —loved and protected him. There was no greater feeling in the world.

His gaze shifted to Leo, who was watching him with worried eyes. Having a clan was something Leo knew nothing about, but Junjie wanted to change that. He wanted Leo to be with him always so that he could enjoy that same love and safety.

“It doesn’t matter what Jiang Chong’s intention is. He will have to kill all of us to get to Junjie. We will not bow to him ever again,” Xiao Dan said.