She flew over, still wary. “That sounds annoying.”
“The gardeners weren’t happy.”
“About the horse cart?”
“About the lacquer. It’s not good for the soil.”
“No, it wouldn’t be.”
She hovered across from him, still trying to gauge his mood.
“What is with you?” His mood was annoyed now.
The question made no sense. “What do you think is with me?”
“I don’t know, but you and Zhang were doing the whole ‘let’s have secrets we don’t tell Ben’ thing earlier tonight, and now you’re floating over there like you’re trying to read me and I hate that.”
“I know you hate that.”
“So why do you do it?” Now his mood was exasperated.
“Because I’m still learning how to read you, and since we have this… blood bond, it’s hard for me to tell what are my own feelings and what are yours. And Zhang and I were not keeping secrets.”
“Yeah, you definitely were.” His eyes had relaxed, and he didn’t appear as annoyed as he had been. “I have trouble with that too, you know.”
“Keeping secrets with Zhang?”
“No. Sorting my feelings out from yours.”
“Oh.” She let her feet touch the ground. “I don’t like it.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. What were you and Zhang hiding earlier?”
She sighed. “We weren’t hiding anything. I had a thought, and I think he had a similar thought, but it was more of a question than a thought, and now I have discovered some answers but I have even more questions.”
Ben blinked and appeared confused. “Give me a second… You had a thought that was a question?”
“Yes.”
He frowned. “So you answered that question, but now you have more questions?”
“There’s more than enough wheat on the islands. We were told there was a shortage, which is why they had to order wheat, remember? But I flew over the islands tonight, and the harvest should be very good unless there are storms that are unseasonably cold, which there shouldn’t be because my father redirects any severe storms when it’s necessary.”
Ben blinked. “Zhang can…? Never mind. So I was right? There isn’t a food shortage.”
“Unless there was a poor harvest last year, there shouldn’t be, which is why I have more questions,” Tenzin said. “Why is Myung ordering grain from the mainland? Are the farmers telling him their crops are bad? Why would they do that? Is Myung trying to cheat the elders? That would be extremely stupid and dangerous; I hardly think he’d endanger his position for the cost of some wheat.”
“Right.” Ben nodded. “So the thought you had with Zhang was the question about the wheat, which you answered, but now you have more questions.”
“Exactly. You mentioned that the wheat looked good to you when we met with Zhang earlier. You’re not a farmer, but I think Zhang and I had the same thought—was there really a shortage?—which is why we had the look that you thought was hiding something, but we weren’t hiding anything. We just didn’t share the thought aloud.”
“Why not?”
Tenzin opened her mouth to respond but found that she didn’t have an answer. “I don’t know.”
Ben pulled Tenzin to sit on his lap. “I do.”
“Then why did you ask me if I knew?”
“Because I wanted to know if you were aware of it or if it’s just something that you do out of habit.”
She nodded. “That is a good reason.”
“You and Zhang are both secretive by nature.” Ben started running a hand up and down her back. It felt delightful, and she didn’t want to listen to what he was saying. She wanted to focus on his hand.
But she knew he wanted her to focus on what he was saying, so she tried to ignore the hand.
“It’s been just the two of you here for thousands of years.” His hand slowed around the small of her back and started rubbing small circles at the base of her spine.
Tenzin felt her eyes crossing, and she had the urge to bite his arm to keep him from distracting her. “Yes?”
“When it’s just the two of you, you have a way of communicating that leaves everyone else out. It’s not conscious, but it’s habit for you both.” His fingers splayed and pressed in, his amnis dancing along the skin bared by the edge of her shirt. “You don’t mean to do it, but you often leave me out of your reasoning or thinking on something because I can’t read all those minute facial cues the two of you have.”
“Hmmm.” She breathed out. “You’re right. We need to work on communicating more effectively with you. It’s not intentional.”
“I realized that about halfway through tonight, but I still wanted to torment you a little bit for pissing me off.”
She let her head fall forward. “So this extensive lecture while you’re rubbing my back—”
“Is completely designed to drive you crazy.” His hand slid inside the back of her leggings and cupped her bottom. “I know you have trouble thinking when you’re physically aroused.”
She swung her leg over and straddled his legs. “I’m both irritated and impressed.”
“And it turns you on.”
“So much.” She bent down and captured his lips with her mouth, cutting his lip with her fang and sucking the rounded curve of his lower lip into her mouth. “Enough talking for tonight.”
He stood and held her up with his arms and his element. “I can agree to that.”
Chapter Twelve
For their next meeting with Jae, Ben requested that they meet in Elder Han’s offices near the great hall instead of at the tavern in Penglai town.
“If Myung is involved” —he and Tenzin were walking across the grounds of the palace— “it’s very likely he has spies in the village.”
“We need to know how the business of the island is run,” Tenzin said. “How is the grain counted? Who keeps track?”
“It seems to me that Myung has a lot of power, maybe more than we even know. He’s the harbormaster to the islands, which means he controls who comes and goes. For isolated humans like the ones here on the islands, he’s maybe even more powerful than the elders.”
Tenzin frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that before, but you’re right.”
They arrived at Elder Han’s administrative offices, where half a dozen clerks were busy in the business of the day-to-day administration of vast territories.
Ben suspected it was much like what Zhang’s clerks did. Lots of letter writing, answering messengers who arrived in person, tabulating tribute from various vampire leaders on the mainland, and more.
The Eight Immortals ruled the mainland of Eastern Asia from the southern tip that dipped into the South China Sea to the peak of Kongur Tagh in the west and the curving depths of Lake Baikal in the north. Within those stretches, four of the Eight administered the northern territories and the other four, the southern lands.
Within each territory were hundreds of local vampires, heads of clans, and other chiefs whose bands of immortals looked to them for authority, but each of those minor heads—unless they wanted to defy empire and tradition—owed tribute and authority to one of the Eight Immortals.