“I—” She paused, and Jin thought her lips were closing around the letterm, closing around the wordmiss, but she stopped herself. Her eyelids fluttered. “Good. I was worried.”
“It’ll take a lot to keep me down,” he replied, but with only half of his usual charm because he had missed her too. Terribly.
“And Arthie—” She stopped, unsure how to phrase her next sentiment.
“She’s not dead. She’s a vampire,” Jin said, and paused. “Too.”
Something flickered in her dusky eyes at the addition oftoo. He didn’t know what he’d meant by it. Was he asking her if she accepted him? Was he trying to remind her of what he was now, in case she’d forgotten? In case she didn’t recall watching him die by her mother’s hand?
In the week they’d spent apart, the threads between them had frayed. As if their burgeoning bond was a house that they’d been polishing and furnishing before they’d disappeared, leaving dust to settle and cobwebs to collect in the corners.
She licked her lips and he wondered if she remembered their kiss.
His last kiss, drowning him in that meadow of wildflowers and sunlight, before he’d died. Reni returned with a tin case and bent beside her to inspect her wound. It wasn’t deep, Jin surmised with relief.
“Wasn’t she one before?” Flick asked, nose scrunching with confusion. “She’s the one who…”
Who turned you, she wanted to say.
“She was half a vampire,” Jin said. “Not that she told me so herself. It’s what I’ve gathered.”
Flick nodded carefully. “My mother—I don’t know what to call her anymore.”
Jin looked away. There he’d been, concerned about how she felt about him when her entire life had been upended.
“Whatever you like,” Chester piped up. Jin had told him, Felix, and Reni everything. “You can call her a bad egg or a hornswoggler, maybe. I called my mum a ratbag for abandoning me by a fishmonger. Your mum is a lot worse, and the possibilities really are endless.”
Flick laughed, the end of it teetering to half a sob. “Her men have been after me ever since that night,” she said finally, and Jin didn’t know if she spoke the words with blame or if he was simply feeling the guilt of it. She sucked in a breath as Reni swiped a cloth down her arm. “They won’t stop. And when I can get away from them in the shadows, I have to worry about the Horned Guard in broad daylight.”
Jin nodded. “You’ll be safe with us.”
“With you?” Flick asked plainly, looking about the room. Jin saw her point. “White Roaring is in shambles.”
Her throat bobbed with a swallow, as if she was trying hard to keep it together, and Jin realized she’d never seen the chaos that he and Arthie did on a regular basis. To go from none to this level of unrest could not be easy—it was tumultuous enough for him. But he would keep her safe. So long as she was by his side, he would make sure of it.
She closed her eyes for a moment and opened them again. “What have you four been up to?”
“We just found ’im,” Chester proclaimed. “We’ve been looking for the three of you for days now. I know we lost a lot, but we can’t give up.”
“No one’s given up, Chester boy,” Jin said, and then answered Flick’s question. “I’ve been dodging that mess out there and following leads on my parents. It didn’t cross my mind that there might be clues in the ledger.”
Understanding flickered across her face, followed by hurt. “And that’s why you came looking for me.”
Jin clenched his jaw. He’d considered looking for her, hadn’t he? But he’d been so lost in his thoughts, in his anger, in his pain, in trying to understand this new craving for blood that he simply hadn’t gotten to that point yet.
He’d been so concerned that she might hate him now that he was a vampire that he hadn’t even thought to give her a chance to prove that herself.
And if he’d dallied any longer, the Ram might have kidnapped her. Killed her.
“Jin knows you’re not a damsel in need of saving,” Chester said matter-of-factly. “And besides, he needed us to find you.”
Jin could have kissed Chester just then. He didn’t feel any less guilty, but the words drew a small smile out of Flick.
“Whatever would I do without you?” she said to Chester.
“I missed you, Flick,” Chester said. His white-blond head bounced from her to Jin as Reni tied off a bandage around Flick’s arm. “Well? Shall we get moving, then?”
“Oh? And where to?” Jin asked, suddenly wishing he was alone with her.
