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“So you remember me,” Jiang Chong purred, appearing all too pleased at the horror written on each face of his fledglings.
Xiang shook his head wildly. “You’re dead. You’re supposed to be dead.” Every instinct was screaming for him to run from the palace, to put as much distance between himself and this vampire, but he couldn’t move, wouldn’t dare to leave his brothers alone. Or his mate.
Kai didn’t know what kind of evil consumed this man, but he needed to get his dragon as far from Jiang Chong as he could.
“You’re right. This was a fun reunion.” Trin cackled. “Jiang Chong has presented me with an interesting offer. He promises to take his missing clan back across the ocean, where they can’t meddle in my affairs. I will limit myself to the western hemisphere of the earth and he will take the eastern hemisphere.” Trin narrowed his eyes and pointed the sword at Rei. “And while he’s taking away his wayward children, he promised to kill you for me, too.”
“Who is this man?” Kai growled, his chest bumping into Xiang’s shoulder as if the dragon were preparing to launch his body at the dais.
“The man who turned me into a vampire. Stay away from him. Don’t let him touch you,” Xiang ordered as a fresh fear entered his brain. Would Kai be able to defend himself from Jiang Chong if the bastard pulled him into the dead world?
“Rei?” Yichen prodded, sounding as if he were speaking through clenched teeth.
“Kill him,” the elf commanded without a single waver in his voice.
“And reclaim my sword!” Kai bellowed.
That was all it took for chaos to break out in the throne room. More than thirty guards jumped from the sidelines, converging on the knot of vampires, elf, and dragon in a flurry of arrows and blades. Xiang dodged what he could and blocked the rest with his sword as he hacked through three guards in short order.
Unfortunately, that meant he took his eyes off the dais and Jiang Chong. When he looked toward the throne, his maker was sneaking through a slit in the world, disappearing from sight.
“Shixiong! He’s gone!” Xiang yelled.
“I’ve got it!” Xiao Dan shouted.
In the blink of an eye, the fae throne room of white marble and elegant columns was gone. Xiao Dan’s gift of glamour painted an ancient world of bamboo forests, glittering sunlight, and dancing blue butterflies. It was a world that existed only in Shixiong’s memory of their last years as humans. If Xiang could spare a glance at his clan mates, he would have seen them garbed in dark robes with wide, voluminous sleeves while long hair flowed down their backs.
The elf guards were so startled they retreated a few steps from the fight to gaze about, giving them enough of a break to explain this new wrinkle.
“Look for a ripple in the illusion,” Mei Lian ordered. “It’s the only way to spot Jiang Chong’s magic just before he opens a door to this world.”
“Don’t let him grab you,” Chen added as he blasted a pair of elves with his magic, encasing them in life-sized cubes of ice. “He can leave you to die in the dead realm.”
Kai huffed as the guards came to their senses and jumped into the fray. “Rei has gone after his brother and my sword. I guess that leaves this evil man to me. May I use magic now?”
“No!” Xiang cried out as he slipped under a blade swinging for his neck. Twisting, he jabbed his attacker in the stomach and whirled again to beat the next foe. “Stay away from him!”
“I’ve got him,” Xiao Dan cut in. From the corner of his eye, he caught a blur of Shixiong streaking across the battlefield, chasing an odd waver in the illusion.
After decades of trial and error, this was the one way they’d found in which they could track Jiang Chong’s movements. His ability to almost appear and disappear in the blink of an eye made him an extremely lethal enemy. He was as fast with a blade as any of the Zhang clan members, but he took a twisted glee in pulling people into the realm walked by the spirits of the dead and leaving them there with no way to escape.
Xiang wanted to support Xiao Dan as he went after the clan’s old nightmare, but it wasn’t necessary. Huli was at his side, sharp teeth bared and nine tails whipping wilding in the air, ready to tear Jiang Chong apart if he dared to show his face.
With new determination, Xiang returned his full attention to the remaining guards, who continued to hound them. Chen covered the doors throughout the throne room in a thick sheet of ice to stop reinforcements from arriving, while Xiang, Kai, and Mei Lian cut through the soldiers. It was no quick fight. These elves were blindingly fast and light on their feet, forcing Xiang to waste precious seconds while Kai killed one after another with little more than a wave of his hand.
“How?” Xiang panted when he found himself without an opponent.
Kai shrugged one shoulder. “I make their hearts explode in their chests.”
“You can do that?” Meimei half shrieked and half panted.
Kai at least had the grace to wince. “It’s not a magic I use often because it’s quite abominable. I feel the person has to truly earn such a death, and these wicked elves were trying to hurt my vampire.”
“I—” Xiang started, but Xiao Dan’s scream stopped him cold.
“Xiang!”
There was a faint ripple in the air between him and Kai. Without thought, Xiang shoved the dragon back while raising his own sword. The blade slammed into Jiang Chong’s, barely knocking it away from Xiang’s neck in time.
