A Hero of Realms(24)

“Those men,” she said. “They meant to kidnap me tonight.”

“Why? Who were they?”

She drew in a deep breath. “They are allies of my father.”

That was the last answer on earth I’d expected to hear.

“Why would your father want to kidnap you?”

She smiled bitterly. “Fair question… One that wouldn’t surprise you if you knew anything about the Taihang coven.”

I raised a brow.

She let out a sigh.

“It’s a coven that used to inhabit the Taihang Mountains. In China.”

So the Elders had infiltrated China too. I doubted my parents knew about that—at least they’d never mentioned it to me. India, China, where else?

“My father was—and still is—its leader,” she continued. “After the demise of the Elders, he led us into this supernatural world where we all became full-time wanderers. Or perhaps pirates would be a better term. We—or I should say they—have a big ship that they live on—mostly at sea, though sometimes they stop at a port if the atmosphere isn’t too hostile. I… I escaped.”

“Why did you escape?”

She turned her gaze away from me and set it straight ahead on the ocean.

“Because my father is a tyrant.” She bit down hard on her lower lip. “My mother died a year ago, and something snapped in him. He was always an authoritarian, but now he rules our coven with an iron fist. And me…” She paused. “He was forcing me into a marriage I was desperately unhappy with.”

Great. So I’ve got some kind of runaway princess on my hands.

“So you’re Chinese?” I said.

“My mother is… was… Japanese. But my father’s birthplace is China.”

I hadn’t been too far off in guessing her roots.

“And you came to The Tavern because you thought you would be safe there, I assume,” I said.

“Yes,” she replied. “I hoped I could keep my head down and live there inconspicuously. But I was stupid to think that my father wouldn’t find me. Those guys who broke in, I’m sure that they were my father’s two right-hand men… Ling and Zhao.” She seemed to sense my tension. “Look, as I said, I really don’t want to be a burden. You can drop me off wherever you’re planning to go.” She looked around the boat. “Where did you get a boat like this?” she wondered. “I noticed you weren’t exactly proficient in leading your sharks…”

That’s one way to put it.

I didn’t see much of a reason to lie. This girl seemed harmless enough and clearly had more than enough of her own problems.

“I stole it,” I said bluntly.

She frowned. “Oh. So you don’t actually own a boat?”

“No.”

“You told me that you travel alone, so then how did you get to The Tavern? And what is your name, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“My name is Benjamin. I got to The Tavern with… someone else’s help.”

“And where do you plan to go now?”

“Just far away enough from The Tavern to be safe. And then I plan to float on the water until my companion returns for me.”

“Oh. So your companion has a boat?”

“Not exactly… My companion is a jinni.”

“A jinni?” Her eyes bulged. “Oh, my goodness. I never even knew there was such a thing.”

“Well… there is. She’ll appear on this deck. I expect her to find me within a few hours. And when she does come for me, you can have this boat and go wherever you want.”

Julie paused. “Where do you come from, Benjamin?”

From the depths of hell, I thought grimly to myself, but replied, “Egypt.”

“You’re not Egyptian though.”

“No.” I heaved a sigh. “Originally, I’m from an island in the Pacific Ocean.”

I would have been stupid to not expect her to instantly respond with: “You mean The Shade?”

The Shade was a legend to almost all vampires. That much my parents had told me.

“Yes,” I said heavily. “The Shade is my home.”

“Then why on earth did you come here? Who in their right mind would leave that island?”

I wasn’t exactly in the mood to dig up my whole horror story. But seeing that there wasn’t much else to do while I waited for Aisha to return, I found myself giving Julie a brief history. I could see from the look on her face that much of my story was blowing her mind. She had apparently grown up in a coven of vampires, but I supposed that she had been fairly isolated from the rest of the world in those Chinese mountains. And then when she’d arrived in the supernatural world, she appeared to have been living in her parents’ shadow, or more specifically, her jerk of a father’s.