Page 98 of A Steeping of Blood
“Yes.” Then she heard Shaw’s voice turn aghast. “What are you doing?”
“Giving her a transfusion,” came Matteo’s curt response. “As vampires do when we turn you humans. We don’t need equipment or a fancy education for it.”
“If you ingest—”
“I won’t. Go take care of the others,” Matteo said, and Arthie tried to protest. Her head might have been stuffy, her brain functioning at a percent of what it should have been, but she didn’t like the warning in Shaw’s voice that Matteo was ignoring so hastily.
Matteo lifted her by her shoulders, again with a gentle touch. She tried to pull away, to refuse whatever he was about to do.
She was powerless against him.
“Arthie, look at me,” he said, his lips brushing against the shell of her ear. She thought she shivered. “No? Then tilt your head, darling.”
She tilted her head. Why was she obeying him?
“There we go.”
He moved closer. She could smell him, even if her eyes were refusing to let her see the smooth skin of his face, the emerald of his eyes that reminded her of the lush Ceylani trees beneath a bright sun.
He kissed her throat, so softly she thought she imagined it. That wasn’t part of what a vampire did to turn another. That had nothing to do with transfusion of blood. This was his fear of losing her. Before she could ponder any further, he drew her shirt away from her shoulder and smoothed his tongue over her skin. She heard the stutter of his exhale, and it sent heat rushing through her limbs, straight to her core.
And then his fangs punctured her shoulder, right where the dart had deposited its green venom. Pain ruptured through her, building, rising, cresting like a wave until it drowned her, and the world went dark once again.
When Arthie woke, she was in a cot. She didn’t feel so terrible anymore. Still a little stuffy, but the fire that was clawing its way out of her had been snuffed to cinders, leaving her empty.
The ground beneath her rocked, and she started reaching for her pistol before she remembered she was back at sea, the crashing waves returning them to Ettenia.
A terrible loneliness ached in her chest.Loneliness?Arthie wasnever good with her emotions. Perhaps it wasn’t loneliness, but it felt that way, in a sense. She would have liked to see the island one last time as they sailed away. To stare at the fire she’d cast inside the walls of the fort, to see Ceylan’s sandy shores and know that, this time, she wasn’t a child anymore; she wasn’t bereft and alone. She wasn’t leaving her people to a horrible fate again.
This time, they would rebuild, restart, and replenish their losses. They could drive out the Ettenians now that they had the upper hand.
A sound scraped beside her where someone was fiddling ever so quietly.
“Matteo?” she asked.
“It’s me,” Jin said, and she sat up, scrunching her brow when her head spun.
“Is Matteo—?”
He nodded. “Just fine.”
Arthie breathed a sigh of relief. He might have assured Shaw that he was capable of the transfusion, but it was Shaw’s tone that had unsettled her.
Her eyes were working now, and she was equally relieved to see that Jin had escaped unscathed except for the bandage around one ear and the bruise swelling the right side of his lower lip.
“You’re all right. I was worried.”
He laughed softly “I am. I—I thought we were going to lose you.”
“And that’s funny, is it?” she asked, swinging her legs over.
“What’s funny is that you nearly died, but you were worried about me.”
Arthie shrugged. “That’s what big sisters do.”
He lifted an eyebrow at her. “I’m the older one, in case the Ceylani sun made you think otherwise.” Then his features turned serious, his brow pinching with apology. “You nearly died for my parents.”
It would have been worth it, she realized. She had always wanted to make him happy. “In case the Ceylani sun madeyouthink otherwise, I don’t die.”
