Page 31 of A Steeping of Blood
“We met Sidharth on the way. He’s taking them.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you following me?”
“Can we have this conversation without a pistol in my face?”
She didn’t move. “You brought it upon yourself.”
Matteo sighed. “I save her life once, and this is what I’m rewarded with.”
“Poor vampire. Were you expecting a kiss?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” he said, and he swept closer, straight into the barrel of her gun. Goodness, he was tall. The evening air slipped between them, and she smelled that alluring blend of chocolate and nuttiness, that warmth that reminded her of Spindrift. Of her parents.
This wasn’t the first time his lips had parted so closely to hers. This wasn’t the first time she’d wanted him to close that distance between them, with a growing impatience thrumming through her veins.
“Well?” she asked. She could manage nothing more than a tight whisper. “Have it, then.”
“Arthie Casimir, giving something freely?” he replied, and he leaned in until his lips were a hairsbreadth from hers.
And stopped.
“I think not,” he whispered.
She smelled blood on his breath, heady and intoxicating. He had just fed. She wanted to lick it off his lips, devour every last drop along with his kiss. It took all of her power to peel her gaze from his mouth.
“Does this bother you, Arthie?” he asked in a voice of deep, dark indulgence. Amusement sparked in his eyes. “I am a vampire, if you recall. I have an eternity, and I do like a good tease.”
Before she could piece together a reply, he tilted his head and pressed a kiss to the side of her neck, teeth grazing her skin, making the entirety of her body go weak.
He pulled back, tossing hair from his brow, and Arthie wished it was her fingers that had mussed the dark strands. She swayed, oddly bereft.You have a job to do, she reprimanded herself. Normally, that wasenough to keep her focused, her attention razor-sharp. Now she could think of nothing but grabbing a fistful of his shirt and kissing him.
Something was truly wrong with her.
Perhaps it was her death and the reminder of how fragile life was. Knowing she was an immortal vampire did little to change the fact that she remembered, vividly, the scrape of each breath as she desperately held on to life. Her skin burned now, where he had kissed her. Her lips hummed with the promise he’d snatched away.
“I’m leaving,” she snapped.
His grin widened. “May I join you? I can help.”
“You’ll do no such thing.”
“You wound me, darling.”
She whirled away with one last glare in his direction.
Ceylan. Jin’s parents. The Ram. With each one, Arthie sobered a little more. She had a job. She couldn’t keep thinking of Matteo’s mouth and his long fingers and the way his lips crooked.
She needed a ship. Yes. And for that, she needed the cargo inspector. She wasn’t fond of how she felt Matteo’s absence, but she needed to step out of the shadows and couldn’t dwell on her feelings just now. They could wait. Houses spread out down the street. They were empty of crowds, shooed away by the Horned Guard patrolling the tree-lined walkways.
She squinted at the nearest house across the street, trying to read the number.519. She pressed her lips thin. The house she needed was farther down at529.
Arthie knew she could have waited until the cargo inspector was back at his office before making her demands, but people were different in the comfort of their own homes. More malleable. Arthie popped her collar and lowered her chin, waiting until the guards marching in her direction turned before she crossed the street to the cover of a lone carriage.
She counted an entire minute before the trio of patrolling guardswould make their rounds and see her. One minute before they’d see her standing at the door to the inspector’s house. With her back to them, would they recognize her? She didn’t want to find out. The moment they turned, she hurried past the houses to 529, rushed up the stairs, and knocked on the inspector’s door. Down on the sidewalk, one of the guards burst out laughing at something another said. Arthie looked at the door, willing it to open. If Jin were here, he would have already deciphered the maker of the lock and asked if he should pick it, if only to irk her.
But Arthie wasn’t here to meddle, only dangle what she needed to get her own work done, and her task for Willard Otis was quite simple: Present the dockworkers with an impending inspection. They’d argue otherwise, but his document would be freshly signed and dated by the crown—which was, of course, Flick. Once he moved the ship to an inspection berth, Arthie and the others would be free to sail away.
That was the downside to having an operation as large as the EJC: The bigger the distance between the lowly workers and their couldn’t-be-bothered superiors, the more they relied on documents and letters.
