Blood Huntress (Ruled by Blood Book 1) Page 7

  My stomach turned over at the thought of facing a dual-species war again. Many lives would be lost if that were the case.

  I pushed on, determined to find at least one of them, but as the night continued and each alley and street turned up empty, I was becoming more and more aggravated.

  As if Alex could sense that, he moved in closer to me.

  “It’s going to be OK,” he said.

  “We’re not any closer to finding Graves’ killer, and now this...this ridiculous failure of a hunt,” I said, gnashing my teeth together though I was keeping my voice low. “I hate it.”

  He was the only one I could trust with these thoughts. Yes, the other five were my most loyal men, but they weren’t close to me. They didn’t know my fears. They hadn’t known me well before the crown came to me.

  Alex had always been, and would always be, there for me.

  There were things that I couldn’t share with him, just as I was sure there were things he was reluctant to share with me, but that was the nature of our lives. The truth of our kind was, there was only one person in our world that we could share our whole selves with, and that was our mate.

  I didn’t have one. Thus, Alex was the closest I could get to a person to share my thoughts with. The trust I put in him to not share these things with others was monumental.

  Another alley held nothing for us, and my temper flared.

  “Scatter,” Alex commanded the other five.

  Without hesitation, they did as he said.

  As soon as they were gone, I yanked a trash can from the ground and threw it across the alley, letting out a violent roar.

  “This is bullshit, Alex!”

  I threw another can, then another, and another, until they were all crumpled up at the other end of the alley. Still, I felt the rage inside me, the fury that there was nothing I could do about this situation.

  How could the hunters evade us so well?

  “Gray...” Alex laid a hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently.

  I shrugged him off. “No, Alex. Don’t tell me that it’s all going to be OK, and that we’re going to find them. We have no leads. We can’t find a single hunter to get answers from.”

  “But we will. We’ll keep coming out until we find one. We have everyone on high alert now. No one goes anywhere without at least two companions. There won’t be any more deaths, and we’ll find whoever was responsible for this one.”

  Just as quickly as it had come on, my rage evaporated, and I was left with an aching emptiness inside me.

  I shook my head. “I don’t see a solution here,” I said.

  “We’ll find one.”

  13

  Nina

  Dawn crept up against my window, and my heart leapt in my chest.

  Yes. Now’s the time.

  Silently, I got out of bed, crept to my door, and pressed an ear against it. I listed for any sounds in the outer chamber, but there were none.

  Quaking with nervousness, I dared to reach inside myself and find my magic, spread it out into the room and pushed it into Gray’s. I had to find his rhythm. I had to know whether he was asleep or not.

  It was such a risk. What if he was awake? What if he felt my magic?

  I could give myself away.

  And yet the thrill of the hunt was everywhere inside me, and I couldn’t possibly have it any other way. It had been too long since I’d gone on a hunt, since I’d felt my heart in my throat and known that it was a life or death situation.

  Way too long. I needed this.

  At last I found his biorhythm and was reassured by the sense of deep sleep inside him. I retracted my magic and stepped away from the door, a grin stretching across my lips.

  Yes.

  Quickly, I donned my hunting gear. I hesitated for a second before I wrapped the red silk scarf around my wrist. It made me recognizable, but I’d never been caught before.

  No one who had ever seen me had lived to tell the tale.

  Well, there was one person.

  Gray.

  The memory of that night threatened to come back and claim me, but I shoved it deep down inside myself. I’d wasted too many nights allowing myself to simmer in that torturous memory. I wasn’t going to waste another one.

  What if you’d let him kiss you?

  Nope, nope, nopety nope. We are so not going there.

  With a firm shake of my head, I shoved the feelings down again.

  I opened my bedroom door and slunk out as quietly as possible, moving across the plush carpet without making a single sound. When I reached the outer door that led out of the suite, I paused for a moment to make sure that Grayson hadn’t woken up.

  But no, there were no sounds coming from his room. Nothing to indicate that he was aware of me.

  Satisfied that all was well, I eased out of the suite into the hallway.

  There wasn’t a soul to be seen. All the vampires would be safe in their windowless rooms right now, waiting out the day until they were free to move at night, and their thralls were accustomed to sleeping during the day by now.

  No one had felt the rays of dawn on their skin for a long time. I missed it more than words could describe—sixteen years of living in a dungeon would do that to a person. I’d never be able to get enough sunlight as long as I lived.

  Part of me hated Conall for forcing me back into this world of darkness, but there was nothing to be done about it. I didn’t get to pick and choose my assignments, and there was no way in hell I’d turn down a high-profile assignment like this one.

  I might even get some time off once this was over, as a reward.

  What would I do with myself?

  With a roll of my eyes at my own foolishness, I slipped through the castle. The potion I’d taken kept my scent hidden, and I’d learned the layout of this place very well.

  It hadn’t been difficult to get that thrall to tell me which vampire she belonged to, which one had wronged her. It had been slightly more difficult to figure out which suite belonged to him, but I’d managed it while Grayson was gone doing God only knew what.

  His suite wasn’t far from Gray’s, and it didn’t take me long to reach it.

  Trying to remain calm, I deftly picked the lock and entered the suite.

  Of course, there was no one in the outer chamber. Both the vampire and his thrall would be sound asleep in their respective rooms right now, without a single inkling of what was coming.

  I spread my magic into both rooms, picking up the biorhythms of each occupant. Telling a vampire from a human was an easy enough task. I let go of the magic and crept up to the door that led to the vampire.

  Adrenaline pulsed through me, and I couldn’t stop myself from grinning like a fool.

  God, it had been so long since my last hunt. I’d have to make this a good one.

  I turned the doorknob and slipped inside, shutting the door quietly behind me.

  The vampire didn’t wake.

  I edged close to the bed and gently—so gently—placed a single finger on his throat. A murmur of words had the blood clotting around his vocal cords, swelling around them so they were immovable.

  His eyes snapped open immediately and locked on to me. He opened his mouth as if to scream, and my lips twisted into a smirk when no sound came out.

  “Nuh-uh, sweetie. No one’s coming to help you. It’s just you and me tonight,” I said with a wink.

  He lurched from the bed, grabbing at me, but I dodged him with ease.

  I’d trained five-on-one with the werewolves in Conall’s compound. A single vampire wasn’t a huge challenge, especially one who was thrown by his lacking the ability to speak.

  I slammed a fist into his nose and brought my knee up to his groin, sending him floundering back onto the bed. Then I leapt on top of him and straddled his hips as I landed another punch to his face.

  It didn’t take long for him to come back to his senses.

  We grappled on the bed. He flipped me onto my back and landed a punch, but I got
the better of him again.

  Why didn’t I just kill him?

  I wanted the satisfaction of the kill. I wanted him to be well and truly beaten, and I wanted him to feel as much pain as possible. If that meant I got a split lip or a bruised cheek, that was fine by me.

  I knew how to heal myself. I’d make it all disappear before Gray saw me come nightfall. There’d be no reminders of this fight to tip anyone off about what I’d done.

  But I wanted this man—this vampire—to hurt before he died.

  I was straddling him again, and I landed another pair of hits, one to his cheek and another hammering into his nose. Then it was time to crank up the pain.

  I grabbed his temples and began to chant.

  I watched with a certain amount of satisfaction as his eyes grew wide with terror. He knew what I was, now.

  A blood mage. The destroyer of vampires.

  He stretched his mouth wide open, howling silently, maybe begging for help.

  Mercy? I doubted it.

  He knew he was going to die now. It was just a matter of time. A vampire couldn’t tackle a blood mage on his own, not when that blood mage was as well-trained as I was.

  I loved that he knew he was going to die. Loved that he knew this fight was futile. Loved that there was nothing he could do to stop me.

  Loved that he was at my mercy.

  He’d know the pain and terror that woman had felt when he invaded her. I’d make sure of it.

  I knew the moment the spell activated: the blood vessels in his brain fried and healed, fried and healed, over and over. A supernatural migraine, I liked to call it. I couldn’t kill him with it, but it sure as hell would incapacitate him and give him enough pain that he’d wish he was dead already.

  I kept it up for what felt like ages, letting him stew in the pain until he couldn’t do anything other than lie on the bed twitching, his lips twisted in that desperate cry for help.

  “You’re going to die. You touched the wrong woman,” I said.

  Then I changed the spell, switching to the words that would bring his blood to a boil. The coup de grâce.

  He died slowly, in agony, and I continued the spell long after he was dead just to be safe.

  I let it drop at last, expecting to feel exhausted, but I was still full of raging energy.

  It demanded that I do something. Fight something. Kill something.

  It had been too long since I’d fed the beast, and now it was hungering for more blood.

  I tipped my head back, closed my eyes, and let the euphoria rush through me.

  This was what being alive was like. This was the true meaning of life.

  A fight to the end.

  I crawled off the vampire, walked to the door, and looked back at him over my shoulder. His veins were bulged as he lay there desiccated, and if it hadn’t been for that and the twisted lips, he’d almost look as if he’d dozed off after a night of heavy drinking.

  But there was no mistaking the death that clung to him. His thrall would find him come the morning, and I hoped she’d feel the relief I wanted for her. I hoped she’d be free.

  I left his chamber, then the suite. I hesitated, looking in the direction of Grayson’s suite.

  I should go back now. This was what I’d set out to do, and yet...

  And yet the thrill of the hunt was still with me, and I didn’t want to go back to that loose thrall dress and the simpering smiles and the pretty little looks. I didn’t want that life just now.

  I wanted to feel alive.

  There was one more vampire I could hunt...

  James.

  With a grin, I took off down the hallway, down a set of stairs, and through yet another hallway until I came to his door. He didn’t have a suite of his own or a thrall; he wasn’t important enough for that. He was serviced by the herd thralls, and maybe that was why he’d chosen me to bully. The thrall highest up the food chain, something he’d never be able to have, and that had to bother him.

  Well, it wouldn’t bother him anymore.

  I slipped into his room as soundlessly as I had the first suite, and he was just as fast asleep as the first vampire had been.

  There was no need to bother with a long, drawn-out fight. I swiftly disabled his vocal cords and brought his blood to a boil, waking him immediately to the sensation of death.

  “You shouldn’t have touched me, James,” I whispered. “You shouldn’t have pissed me off.”

  He died quickly.

  And I wanted more. This still wasn’t enough. It was as if I needed to fill the void of all the nights I’d missed out on.

  There was no shortage of vampires in this castle. I could kill as many of them as I wanted.

  A knock came at the door. “Sir?”

  No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening.

  I darted a look around the room, trying to find an alternate escape route, but there wasn’t one. The vampires didn’t have windows in their rooms, so the sun couldn’t get to them while they slept. There was a wardrobe I could hide in, but as soon as someone entered the room, they’d see that James was dead and raise the alarm.

  The suite would be flooded with people as an investigation was mounted, and they’d surely hunt through the entire place before they gave up.

  “Sir? Are you in there?”

  Panic filled me. I had to get out of there before someone found me. There was no way in hell I’d be able to fight my way out of the castle, and Conall wasn’t going to be able to send anyone in to help me.

  Not that he would. I’d been given very specific instructions not to do this. If I died disobeying orders, I doubted he’d consider it much of a loss.

  Fuck him for not valuing me more.

  But that was a rant for a different day.

  One when, perhaps, I wouldn’t have to deal with getting caught having murdered someone.

  I took a deep breath in through my nose to calm myself down. I could do this. I could get out of this.

  I stretched my magic out past the door to find the biorhythm of whoever was on the other side.

  A thrall. Good. No one I needed to kill.

  I closed my eyes as I navigated her body, found her mind, and bent her to my will.

  Go away.

  Sweat broke out on my forehead. I’d already used a lot of magic, and this wasn’t an easy spell. This was the kind of thing that was make-or-break for a blood mage. If you couldn’t pull this off, you couldn’t run in the big leagues.

  I knew the spell, but I’d never used it before. I’d never needed to.

  I felt her confusion, her instincts warring against the foreign presence in her mind. I doubled my efforts, pushing her with my mind.

  Go away.

  She started to shuffle away, then paused, as if she was fighting me. I kept pushing, and at last felt her presence less and less as she moved farther away from the room.

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  Safe, for now.

  I pulled my magic back from her and spread it around the hallway near James’ door, looking for anyone else who’d find me when I left the room.

  I detected no other presence but the vampires who were sleeping soundly in their rooms.

  Good. I didn’t know what that thrall had been doing up and about, but it seemed that everyone else was doing what they were supposed to be doing: sleeping.

  Which was what I should be doing, too.

  I finally felt the wave of exhaustion that should have come for me after the first fight. The need to fall down where I was and fall asleep tried to overcome me, but I forced it aside. Conall had taught me to ignore my physical needs, and I was grateful for that now.

  I had to get back to Grayson’s suite, back to safety, get out of these clothes and go to bed.

  I slipped out of James’ room and flew through the hallways back to the suite I now called home, thankful that I didn’t run into anyone else on the way.

  It was with careful steps that I made my way inside, anxious that maybe Grayson
had woken up while I was gone. But there was no movement anywhere nearby, and no sounds came from his chamber.

  I closed my eyes and sent up a silent prayer thanking whomever was looking out for me.

  I was safe.

  When I got back in my room, I shed my clothes and mask quickly, hid them under my bed, then slipped on my nightgown. I crawled into my bed, let out a slow, satisfied sigh, and closed my eyes.

  Victory.

  14

  Nina

  Soft whispers drifted into my room, rousing me from sleep.

  I’d always been a light sleeper—you have to be, in a world where everyone is your enemy. There was no such thing as a quiet moment at Conall’s compound, especially not for a blood mage. Anyone could be out to get me at any moment. And don’t even get me started on what it was like to live in the cages; no one could get a good night’s sleep there.

  With my eyes still closed, I cocked my head towards the door and focused on listening.

  I couldn’t make out the words, hushed as they were, but that told me that no one was in my room. The voices were coming from the outer chamber.

  I peeked one eye open, then the other, to confirm that that was the case. As I’d expected, the room was empty.

  Slowly, careful not to make a sound, I shifted to a sitting position on the bed. Then I rotated just as slowly until my bare feet touched down to the plush rug beside my bed. It silenced any sound I might have made.

  I cursed the flowing nightgown I’d been given—tight clothing was so much better for moving freely and quietly.

  With careful steps, I made my way to the door, and stopped just before it. I turned my head and placed my ear as close to the door as I dared without touching it—I didn’t want the creaking of the door to give away my position.

  “Two dead, Gray. This is bad, really bad. Fuck...”

  “Alex.” Grayson’s voice was as sharp as a well-honed blade, reprimanding this Alex person.

  I shook my head a little. The vampires were all so caught up in decorum and politics that they never gave in to moments of pure emotion. I was surprised that Alex had allowed himself to slip like that.