Page 16

Samuel walked the streets for hours, the anger festering inside him. Panic thrummed a heavy beat in his chest, his breath coming hard and fast. He knew that he needed to make a plan, that he should be at home, calculating what little money he had left and putting it into an even harsher budget, rationing out what food he had. He should be looking at other jobs, other opportunities, he should take anything he could find. But it was pointless—no sensible Unblooded would employ him with Alessi sniffing around, and he shouldn’t turn to any Blood Worker that would hire chaff like him.

Not with the secrets he carried in his veins.

No, he was well and truly fucked. It was still a shock to him—his entire life, everything he had worked so hard for, gone in a moment. He had been born in the gutter, his unwed, single mother scraping to provide for them. In Aeravin, it was difficult enough to provide for yourself, but add in a bastard son? With no family?

Sometimes Samuel thought it was a miracle he had survived to adulthood at all. But he had, thanks to his mother’s hard work. She had made sure he was fed and clothed and educated—taught him reading and writing and arithmetic in the dim candlelight in the dark hours after work. She had kept him off the streets, kept him safe. And when he came into his terrible, terrible gifts, she had not shunned him. Just accepted him and helped him tame it. All she had asked was that he would take care of himself and avoid Blood Workers.

Now he had failed her twice over.

By the time his feet finally carried him home, night had already fallen. Tired and hungry, he fumbled for his keys—once, twice, three times before realizing he didn’t need them.

The door was unlocked.

He had definitely locked it that morning. He might not have much, but that didn’t mean he could afford to replace anything lost. Especially now. Carefully, he placed his hand on the doorknob, easing it open.

“Well, what have we here?” A woman asked, her voice cutting through the silence.

Samuel stood in the open doorway, his heart pounding in his ears as he looked at the stranger perched on his bed. The woman—young, she couldn’t have been older than him—rose gracefully, pocketing the lock-picks she had been fiddling with. She made no move towards him, folding her hands demurely in front of her as she waited.

Samuel released the air from his lungs, taking that burst of fear and shoving it aside. If she was a thief, she would have already taken what she wanted and been gone. If she was here to hurt him, she would have done it while he was cowering in the doorway like a fool.

No, she wanted something, but Samuel hadn’t the faintest idea what.

Closing the door, he stepped forward, searching her face in the moonlight. She wasn’t wearing a mask, like some common criminal, and that intrigued him.

Praying that it wouldn’t be the last thing he did, Samuel turned away from her, reaching for the candle and matches with surprisingly steady hands. A quick flick of his wrist and the light bloomed, caught and held on the wick, and he took the candle and lit the stubs he left around the small flat. It wasn’t as bright or clean as witch light, but it was what he could afford. If it offended the stranger’s sensibilities, at least she didn’t show it.

“Well,” Samuel said, turning to look her in the eyes. “Who are you?”

“A friend,” she replied.

Samuel had to laugh. To her credit, she didn’t flinch or frown. She kept her expression composed, and Samuel admired it. He studied her face, from her golden skin to the shape of her features, noting the Tagalan ancestry in her. She was exceedingly pretty, and her skin was clear and flawless. She wore her hair long—longer than most girls in the slums did, given the price that hair like that would fetch—and even in the faint candlelight Samuel could see its healthy shine.

Her clothes were fine as well, though he had never seen anything like them. She wore dark leathers, not quite black, but the same shade of nothingness as the shingles that lined the roofs of Dameral. Her cloak was the same color, that empty shade that would make the eye glaze right over it.

So strange, this girl in fine clothes, breaking into a home that she could afford to buy with the price of her hair alone.

“I’ve got nothing of value,” he said.

Her nose wrinkled in the first sign of emotion he had gotten from her. Distaste. “It is rather quaint,” she said, and though the words and tone were polite enough, Samuel still heard the veiled insult behind it.

“So, you’re clearly not here to rob me,” Samuel continued, his curiosity burning. He could force her to tell him why she had broken into his room, who she was and what someone of her means could want from him.

He could make her do it, and he could make her do it on her knees.

Samuel clenched his fists, disgusted with the way his mind had turned naturally to that. It was the lingering echoes of his power flowing through his veins, tempting him to darkness. Or, at least, that’s what he told himself, what he had been telling himself for years. He wasn’t his power. That ugliness that was in his blood was a curse, but it wasn’t him.

He still didn’t know if he was lying or not.

But knowing that he could throw it at this stranger was a comfort, a layer of protection he couldn’t ignore, though it was one he didn’t want to look at too closely.

And still, she just watched him.

“I have nothing to offer you,” he said, inclining his head slightly. With no other recourse open to him, and not wanting to fall into the darkness, he turned to the only other option—manners. “No tea, no coffee. No snacks or cakes. I know that makes me a poor host, but I’m afraid that I was not expecting company.”

The woman smiled, and in one swift movement there was a blade in her hand, glinting. “Those aren’t what I came to taste.”

Samuel swallowed hard, suddenly reconsidering his reluctance to use his power on her. “Blood Worker,” he whispered, and she nodded.