Page 67 of A Steeping of Blood
“Oh, does it bother you?” he whispered back, one corner of his lips ticked up, and he peeled his body away from hers just enough to create a gap between them.
Arthie felt like a magnet that had been forced to flip around, hovering close but not close enough. She shoved herself to him, grinning at the spark that shone in his green, green eyes.
“Do I appear bothered?” she asked, breathless. The guards had disappeared. “Let’s go.”
It took far more effort than she would have liked to pull away and step back into the hall, their footsteps light, their senses vigilant. She kept her distance, clenching her jaw when she heard the scuff of Jin’s shoes while he was dragged yet again, and the snicker of the guard who did it. He was still covered by a wretched, scratchy sack, and for what? To scare him? To irritate him?
The short entrance corridor led to another, this one suspended above the underground levels. Farther ahead, a large, ornate chandelier hung from the ceiling off a thick chain, crystal shards swaying just barely, lending to the eeriness of the place. Arthie glanced at Jin’s umbrella in her hand. He had snatched it from the jaws of the fire as it greedily swallowed up his past. He had carried it with him since that fateful day, for years upon years, hoping he could be half the man his father was.
Only to learn his father might have become half the manhewas.
“Where do you think the guards are taking him?” Matteo whispered.
“They said they have use for him,” she replied. “I took that to mean they’ll toss him with the other vampires.”
“What kind of twisted place is this?” he murmured, looking around, and then answered his own question. “A place secure enough for the EJC to do what they want, while retaining their pristine Ettenian image.”
It was a concept Arthie hadn’t considered: To her, the EJC was entirely evil, from its meddling in the affairs of vampires to its theft of resources across the colonies. To others, the EJC wasn’t so bad. It was workingforEttenian society, bringing them the wonders of the world beyond its shores.
“I don’t see a single exit point other than that door,” Arthie noted.
The guards kept walking until the walls on either side of them gave way to cells, one beside the next. They were narrow, as far as Arthie could tell, but long, so the single light suspended from the center of the ceiling made it impossible to see all the way inside. That didn’t stop her from feeling eyes on her more than once.
They turned down another corridor, their footsteps loud. Every sound was hushed. It gave her the strangest sense, as if the entire sanatorium was waiting with bated breath for a blow.
A sound stopped them in their tracks. Ahead, the guards keptmoving, unfazed, snapping at Jin to continue when he too skidded to a halt. It was a keening, almost unending, utterly haunting.
Matteo’s face turned grim. “Vampires. The sound of a starved man.”
And Jin was about to join them.
Arthie nudged Matteo as the guards turned down the hall. They seemed to be slowing, as if they’d reached their destination. She tightened her hold around Jin’s umbrella, feeling the weight of Calibore in her hair, and peered around the corner.
Only to find every single guard waiting for them, guns raised.
The captain’s shrewd eyes were bright with satisfaction. “I told them this would be the best way to lure you two in when you’d disappeared.”
Every inch of her itched to draw Calibore, but she knew when the odds weren’t stacked in her favor. Matteo reached for her arm as if he’d had the same thought.
“Nothing to say this time?” the captain goaded. “Lock the pair up.”
The cell was stifling, and Arthie was certain it was designed to be. The halls fell silent once the guards left, and Arthie had the feeling she wouldn’t be seeing much of them anymore. It was clear the corridors were rarely frequented, for isolation was as much a prison as a cell.
Matteo immediately began to pace the narrow space, still dressed in the Horned Guard uniform. As was she, the smell of the guard’s sweat stinging her nostrils.
The silence was deafening. She pulled the hat from her head and tugged Calibore from her hair, waiting for it to transform into her pistol, but it didn’t budge. She was too worried about Jin, too worried about the island, too worried about too much. She couldn’t focus on her connection to Calibore. She couldn’t think straight. She wantedto press it against the Ram’s temple and demand answers from her. Dangle her secrets in front of her face and watch her squirm.
“Come on, you wretched thing,” she snapped, shaking the hairpin in her hands, looking away and then looking back at it again as if that would make a difference.
She stifled her scream, before pressing her back against the wall at the end of the cell, sliding down until she sat on the cold, relentless floor.
“Arthie,” Matteo said with a sigh when he saw her curled into herself. He settled beside her, knees up like hers, arms crossed. He brushed his fingers along the side of her arm.
There was a time when she would have moved away and thrown him something snide.All this room, and you decide to sithere?
Now she leaned into his touch. She never imagined the threads that would connect them: They had suffered at the hands of the Ram, the EJC, and Lady Linden. They had ravaged their surroundings as newly turned half vampires.
And then he had turned her, kneeling over her in his canopied bed, pressing his lips to her skin, his tongue, and then his fangs.
