Page 22 of A Steeping of Blood (Blood and Tea #2)

If they still were. Arthie wasn’t so certain, but their resources were dwindling, and if it was a possibility, she would take it.

She opened her sack and pulled out a small box she had brought with her. Inside were two revolvers and bullet belts. “I know neither of you are particular about guns, but this trip isn’t about what we like or don’t.”

Matteo made a face as he took it gingerly, but she saw the way he released the cylinder to see if it was loaded. He caught her looking. “My father was a marksman. He insisted I learn, unfortunately.”

“My father hates guns,” Jin countered, securing his belt and holstering the revolver.

Arthie snapped the case closed and tucked it away. She didn’t think her parents had ever seen guns before the Ettenians came to Ceylan.

“The Siwangs are our priority,” she said, moving on, “but once we find them, we’ll find the vampires too. Shall we scope out the ship? Judging from the size alone, I’m sure a good number of them will fit, should they decide to join us.”

“They might be dangerous,” Jin reminded.

“We’re aware,” Matteo said. “We don’t know the state of anything on the island. They might not even be conscious.”

Arthie had known Ceylan like the back of her hand, once.

The Ceylani treated their land differently than Ettenians did their own.

From the sea to every part of the coconut, from the gems buried deep in the earth to the wildlife that called the tropical paradise home, the Ceylani were one with their surroundings.

Jin gave him a look.

Matteo sighed. “I don’t mean to be curt. I don’t think many fully understand that we’re not talking of stolen cargo or resources, but living people.”

“Living?” Jin asked, and Arthie snapped her gaze to his, but it wasn’t a retort. He was genuinely curious. For his own sake, it seemed.

“Of a sort, if I’m being honest. I do believe that when one takes away the promise of death and the prospect of aging, people can change. The longer one lives, the less we pay heed to consequence and the more morals fade away,” Matteo mused.

“Then there are vampires like Penn,” Arthie added.

“Nuanced as those who are alive, I suppose,” Jin said, and it sounded as though he had thought long and hard about this. Was he questioning his own morals? Was he afraid of what he might become?

“But the fact still stands that they’re being seen as inanimate objects, that they’re being treated as though they deserve no say in their lives.”

“We’ll give that to them,” Arthie promised. “Whether that means returning to Ettenia with us or remaining on Ceylan is up to them.”

Matteo nodded, pleased.

“But as Jin said, we still need to be open to the possibility that we’ll have to point Calibore at them.”

Arthie was surprised to find herself more concerned with whether they were to be trusted than she was about locating them.

She might know where they were, but she hadn’t seen the place herself, and that didn’t make this voyage any less mired with unknowns.

Still, Arthie was beginning to realize she didn’t need to scope out a place to scheme.

She felt as if she’d done this before, as if every job she’d pulled since arriving in Ettenia as a little girl had prepared her for this moment.

“I almost forgot,” Arthie said, picking up the case Flick had given them. She glanced at Jin before they could leave the cabin. “A parting gift from your beloved.”

Jin’s brows flattened. “She’s not—Flick?”

“I didn’t realize there were other possibilities,” Matteo said with a sideways look.

Jin scowled.

Arthie unlatched it and found a note. “ Sidharth promised they were freshly bottled. Drink up!” A sinking feeling settled into her gut. She peered inside to find three slender glass bottles. “Blood.”

“Oh, good,” Matteo said, taking one. “I was famished.” He looked between Arthie and Jin and gestured to their gift. “Well? Don’t defy the lady’s orders, now.”

Jin moved first, picking up his bottle, touching the note with a dark gleam in his eyes that made Arthie wonder if he would have preferred to drink straight from Flick.

He unscrewed the cap without a sliver of the hesitation Arthie had exhibited for the past decade of her life.

No, to him this was another form of sustenance.

He’d always been partial to food; why was blood any different?

He caught her looking and her shoulders seized, waiting for his glare.

Instead, she was surprised to see a flash of trepidation.

She was wrong. He wasn’t without hesitation.

He wasn’t disgusted either. No—he hadn’t fed since the night she’d turned him.

He was afraid, nervous of taking that first sip and tumbling over the edge.

Arthie felt that in her soul, but she felt more than that too: He was her brother. She’d spent the past decade avoiding the consumption of blood as much as watching over him at every turn, keeping him alive and ensuring he was safe.

That was what made her pick up her bottle.

That was what made her unscrew the lid.

In an instant, the smell of blood assaulted her—sharp and metallic. Heady and honeyed in a sickly sort of way. It reminded her of what she’d done, and the swaying of the ship beneath her didn’t help.

Jin was watching. Matteo was too, but this wasn’t a moment between him and her. This was Jin’s.

“It’s nowhere close to coconut, is it?” he asked softly.

She made a sound. “Not one bit.”

Heart in her throat, Arthie stared at the bottle, at the liquid inside that sloshed with a consistency thicker than water, in a color that was rich and jeweled, no different than Spindrift after-hours. In the hushed silence of the crashing waves, Jin’s stomach growled.

He was starving.

With a stuttering inhale, Arthie lifted her bottle to him. “ Dulce periculum?”

He lifted his eyes to hers, held them. For longer than a second, for the first time in what felt like a breathless forever. Are you sure? his gaze asked.

She dipped her chin in answer. She had never felt more sure, because the emotions coursing through her veins just then were elation, excitement, hope—because of him .

He didn’t ask again. He clinked his bottle against hers and lifted it to his lips, taking a swig just as she did, nostrils flaring as he swallowed.

Feeding when one was turned was one thing, but choosing to drink when a vampire had their wits about them was different. It was a deliberate act. A choice. Jin had just made his.

And Arthie—well, Arthie had done the same.

When the first syrupy drop fell upon her tongue, it was as though a switch had flipped within her.

She was hungry, starved. It was nectar on her tongue, sweet and wretched, and she downed the bottle within moments, each sip coating her tongue, her throat, searing a line through her insides until the bottle was empty.

Arthie pressed her eyes closed and opened them again and it was as if she could see once more. As if a vibrancy had returned to the world around her, a clarity that had been muffled by her hunger for far too long.

She had fed from Laith in a moment of weakness and passion. She had fed off of Matteo, too, when he turned her.

Despite both of those moments, Arthie counted this as her first since she’d sworn off blood as a young girl. When she’d sworn to preserve the remnants of her humanity.

Jin could barely tamp down his smile as he tucked his now-empty bottle away. “I must admit that was good.”

It was good. It was especially good to have shared that moment with him .

“Well, well, darling,” Matteo said, grinning from ear to ear. “Now that you understand what Spindrift was about, shall we return to avenging it?”

“Spindrift after-hours,” she corrected.

“You served blood after-hours, but you served that”—Matteo stopped and gestured to her—“at all hours. Those emotions, that contentment. Tea, blood, human, vampire, regardless of whether one walked in the shadows or the light, you gave them the sustenance they craved.” His eyes were bright with intent because he understood her hesitance.

“Is that not a fundamental part of being human?”

She’d never considered that. She looked away. How had he known her humanity was the reason she’d refused to drink blood?

“Both of you did,” Matteo added, opening the cabin door. “Together. And that’s how we’ll waltz in, grab our people, and waltz out. It’ll be a breeze.”

“That easy, eh?” Jin snarked as they closed the door behind them, sidestepping the narrow passageway lined with cabins. “Like any other job, certainly.”

Yes, Ceylan was another job, nothing more, she reminded herself. But is it? Ceylan was also home. But is it?

She didn’t believe in talking to the dead, in saying farewell to her parents who were now long gone.

She didn’t want to scout out her old home and walk through its tiny rooms. Some other family likely lived in it now.

Life carried on, even if it came to a halt for some.

And even if she wanted to do both of those things, there wasn’t time. They had a job and a time limit.

Nor did Arthie have anyone left. Her deepest connection to the island was the tea the Ettenians had planted in scores.

She had spent the last ten years in White Roaring ever aware of how she stood out and couldn’t fit in, but not once had she considered that every day she spent assimilating into Ettenia was a day she spent whittling away at the ties that tethered her to Ceylan.

She belonged nowhere, and it was a very lonely place to be.

They fell quiet when the narrow passageway opened to a larger hall-like space. It was dimly lit, the central portion wide and empty. She was surprised by how clear her vision was, how much more she could comprehend. The space smelled sterile, metallic.

Like blood.

Arthie stopped.

“I was expecting cells,” Matteo whispered.

“Me too,” Jin murmured. “Chains. Imprisonment.”

Instead, there were shelves upon shelves, empty, rising to the ship’s ceiling, each wide and tall enough to fit one particular style of cargo: coffins.

To prove her assumption, there was a single, empty coffin at the end. When she’d described the ship as a beautiful grave, she didn’t expect to find a literal tomb in its depths.

“I—” Matteo stopped and cleared his throat. “This is worse than throwing a vampire in a cell. Imagine traveling across the ocean in a box .”

It was true the kidnapped vampires had little control over themselves, but Matteo was right—this was worse.

“It’s an entirely more efficient method of transport,” Arthie said, feeling sick. Jin looked equally ready to hurl the contents of his stomach.

Matteo’s mouth tightened. “I’d wager the coffins are lined with spikes too. As an extra level of precaution.”

For a moment, none of them said a word.

“Well,” Jin said finally. “It’s a good thing we were already angry, eh?”