A Tempest of Tea (Blood and Tea, #1)

by Hafsah Faizal

Arthie Casimir couldn’t be bothered. By the cold, by the dark, by the vampires. Business never stopped.

After all, fear became hate when it festered long enough.

“Adventure?” she asked. His brow furrowed. “What?” “For our tombstones.” “As if you’ll stay in your grave like a proper dead girl.” He knew her so well. “Ambition keeps the heart pumping,” she said.

“Ascertain?” Matteo repeated. “Where did you say he’s from again, the dictionary?”

“They’re following us.” A sound rang out, like rapid rain pinging a metal roof, and Jin swerved. Flick ducked. Goodness, gunshots. She knew guns were meant to be triggered, but she’d never heard one, much less been the target of one. “Now they’re firing at us!” She could die here, and then her mother would finally know Flick wasn’t in a cell. “Really, love. You ought to be a fortune teller,” Jin said, hurtling over another wall and into someone else’s garden.

Moonlight pooled in Flick’s hair, tracing each ringlet like the hand of an earnest lover, gradually drifting to outline her profile in dusky silver. She looked at the stars as if they were home, and he wished, impossibly, that he could take her to them.

“Who are you? Do you know whom you’re speaking to?” the other vampire hissed at Matteo. Jin was only half listening. He was watching Laith. They had seconds before the guard woke. Seconds before he sounded the alarm. “I do indeed,” Matteo intoned solemnly, leaning toward the other vampire. “Someone who left his fashion sense in the grave.”

“Time for plan C,” Jin said. He didn’t understand. The man was stepping away from the podium, moving toward them. What had Matteo told him? “What’s plan C?” Flick asked nervously. Jin looked down at the vampire beside him. “Have you ever been hit with an auction paddle?” “I beg your pardon?” the vampire sounded flabbergasted. “No?” Jin asked, and slammed his paddle across the vampire’s face. “You’re welcome.” The vampire shot to his feet, swinging his paddle with such force, Jin barely had time to duck before it slammed into the head of the vampire beside him. The woman leaped up. Chaos erupted.