Page 99 of A Steeping of Blood
“I used to believe that,” Jin said with another snorted laugh. “You came between me and death so many times I’ve lost count, but ever since I learned you were a vampire, you’ve never been more fragile.”
“That’s not insulting.”
But he was right. She’d nearly died twice since she’d turned him and revealed, at the same time, that she was a vampire. She’d never been more in danger of dying before then.
“Are we on track to return in time for the tribute?” Arthie asked.
Jin glanced at her.Back to business, the look said. “We were, until we hit stormy waters. I think Vane said we’ll be arriving a day later.”
That wasn’t ideal. Not at all.
Jin leaned back with a sigh. “I could use a streusel right about now.”
“I’m sorry,” Arthie said.
“That I died? I can’t blame you for that particular bit.” His words were light, but the bitterness was there. He was here, alive in every way, but at the same time, he wasn’t. He would never age, he would never savor. He would never be human again, after knowing nothing else for years.
“I deserved your anger,” Arthie said finally, for she didn’t know how to speak of his new fate just yet, not when she had lived as a vampire for a decade and still hadn’t come to terms with it herself. “I was too much of a coward to trust you with the truth because I was too much of a coward to acknowledge it myself.”
He nodded, looking to the lantern flickering on the chest against the cabin wall. “I can understand that. I haven’t… had a proper conversation with my parents yet.”
“They love you, Jin. I see it in their eyes. You can hear it in the way they speak your name. You’re still you. Vampire or human, that doesn’t change that.”
That, at least, she knew for certain.
“You ought to listen to that yourself.”
Perhaps she did. Shouts from above deck echoed inside. “How many made it?” she asked.
Jin shook his head. “Only eighty or so. Vane helped get everyone on board. The guards were relentless. The vampires were weak to begin with, but there were others too angry to even stop fighting and escape with us.”
Too angry.Their vengeance had claimed them. Arthie didn’t know how she felt about that.
“What about the ones who did make it? Are they angry too?” Arthie asked, reaching into her pocket where the silver dose sat small and innocent, as though it hadn’t set a worldwide operation into motion.
“Ready to tear the Ram apart, for certain,” Jin said, sitting back down in the chair. “They were happy to see the fire, but they’re certainly not pleased to be back on an EJC ship, and they’re calling for blood.”
Arthie no longer sought vengeance for herself alone anymore. This was bigger than her now. Bigger than her dead mother and father and her humanity. This was for Penn and the vampires stolen away and weaponized. This was for Jin and his parents, for Flick. For Matteo and the life he could have lived if the Ram hadn’t made him into a pawn for her own affairs.
No, vengeance had steeped in her blood long enough. It had changed, grown, morphed. It was retribution now, and it would find its end with the Ram.
32JIN
Jin wanted to sit with Arthie a little longer, but she wasn’t having it. She shooed him out of the cabin to find his parents, from whom he was deliberately staying away. Jin closed the door behind him, gripping the wall as waves crashed against the ship. Using his umbrella as a walking stick, he made his way to his parents’ cabin.
He knocked once. His hand was still midair when the door opened to his mother’s face.
“Jin,” she said, and if he closed his eyes, he could picture their house on Admiral Grove, the crackle of the fire in the hearth, the smell of chestnuts from the polish she insisted they use on every wood surface, his schoolbag full of books sitting primly on his desk.
“Ma,” he said before he remembered she never liked when he did.Mother, she said to call her, because he wasn’t a child anymore.
He had never been as old as he was today, but he didn’t care. He stepped inside. His father was standing by the tiny round window. He looked as uncertain as Jin felt.
“We were waiting for you,” his mother said.
“I know.”
Did the years that had passed without them matter now that they were here, in front of him? He didn’t know how to respond. He could flirt with a tree if it came to it, but now it felt as though his mouth were stuffed full of pastries, his tongue tied up in knots.
