Page 3 of A Blade of Blood and Shadow (The Ravaged Kingdom #1)
When I finally stopped messing with my broken nose, I caught Alessio watching me in the rear-view mirror. While Vince might have been a bully who frequently flew off the handle, Alessio actually scared me more. He was quiet, calculating, and intelligent — a proverbial snake in the grass.
He wasn’t checking out my injuries, I realized. He was staring brazenly at the two half-moon scars along my neck — the physical evidence of my weakness. I resisted the urge to cover up the marks, and Alessio looked away.
We’d pulled up behind a dingy red-brick building, and the men hopped out to retrieve their bounties.
Silas’s back entrance was lit by a single buzzing fluorescent light, which threw long shadows across the yard.
The crumbling foundation was choked with weeds, and the chain-link fence that hemmed in the back parking area was half falling down in places.
More light spilled into the yard as the back door opened, and Kyle appeared to help Vince drag his vampire up the short flight of stairs into the house.
The one benefit of being sent out to hunt was that I didn’t have to do the actual siphoning or dispose of the desiccated bodies.
Draining the other hunters’ bounties of their blood had been my job the first two years I’d been here.
Maybe that would be my punishment for returning from the Quarter empty-handed.
My body ached in odd places as I shuffled up the steps, smearing tarry black blood underfoot as I went. The sound of deep male laughter drifted from the kitchen, but the other hunters fell silent the moment I walked in.
A bunch of them were seated in folding chairs around the table, playing cards. Cartons of Chinese takeout, empty beer cans, and bottles of whiskey lay scattered among them. Bruno took one look at my busted nose and smirked. “She wasn’t much to look at before, but now —”
A rumble of laughter broke out among the hunters, though none of them dared look up from their cards. I ignored the slight from Bruno and reached for a bottle of whiskey. I took a quick sip and set it back down, savoring the sting along the back of my throat.
But then I felt a hand brush the swell of my ass, and Bruno’s smirk grew. “Don’t worry, baby. My offer still stands. Just as long as you face the wall while we do it.”
I wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe it was the adrenaline still coursing through my veins after the tussle in the alley with that vampire. Maybe it was because I’d failed to hit my quota that night or my pent-up aggression toward Vince .
Whatever it was, something inside me snapped at the feeling of Bruno’s hand on my ass.
Before any of the hunters had registered my movement, I’d palmed one of the daggers sheathed at my thigh. I drew it as fast as any full-blooded hunter and slammed the blade down over Bruno’s other hand.
The tip sank through flesh and cartilage before lodging in the battered table. A howl of shock and pain ripped from Bruno’s throat as he slammed his other fist down on the table. He banged it once, twice, three times, and the rest of the hunters fell silent.
“Ahhhrrgga! What the fuck , Lyra?”
Kyle, who’d just cleared the steps with Alessio’s vamp, roared with laughter at the sight.
Ignoring Bruno’s stream of curses, I took another pull from the bottle of whiskey and retrieved my dagger in one quick motion. Bruno’s whole body curled over his bloody hand, and I took my time cleaning the blade on the sweatshirt slung over his seat.
“You’ll pay for this,” he ground out, glaring up at me with eyes that promised pain and retribution.
“Watch yourself, little bitch. One day, Silas will be sick of you, and he won’t care when I sneak into your room at night and slit your fucking throat.
” His eye twitched as he sneered up at me.
“But not before I have a little fun first.”
I blinked back at him, careful to keep my expression blank and my breathing steady so he wouldn’t see how much his words rattled me.
Bruno could be so dramatic. With his quick healing, the wound would be completely scarred over by morning, though it would take longer for his pride to mend.
The other hunters watched me with a mixture of wariness and loathing as I stalked through the house, headed for the front porch. The door opened before I could reach it, and Vince appeared on a cloud of cigarette smoke.
One look told me he’d already filled Silas in on what had happened in the Quarter. Bastard. I shot him a glare as he shoved past me, the dented screen door slamming behind him.
Sucking in a breath, I pushed it back open and walked out to the porch. Silas was seated against the house in a rusted metal chair, and I was grateful for the whiskey still warming my belly.
“Heard you wasted your mark tonight,” came a low, croaking voice.
Inwardly, I cringed. I was going to throttle Vince.
“According to Vince, you took your sweet time findin’ him.”
I froze. Silas had always spoken with the lazy drawl of someone raised in the Quarter, but the twang became more pronounced whenever he was angry.
“You must have selected your vamp mighty carefully.”
I bit my lip. Apparently, the others had noticed that I’d slipped away to visit Julian. Did Silas suspect something was amiss?
“So what the hell happened?”
I swallowed thickly, focusing on the truth in my story so Silas wouldn’t smell a lie. “He turned as I was getting ready to stake him,” I murmured. “He took me to the ground and I had to —”
“I trained you better than that,” Silas snapped, disgust dripping from every syllable.
“I know. ”
“And now, because of your carelessness, we have one less vampire to drain.”
“I know .”
“I should take you down to the basement for this — cut you up until you’ve learned your lesson.”
I shuddered, and the scars between my shoulder blades prickled at the threat.
“Clearly, half hunters only have half a brain. Or maybe you’re just losing your edge.”
“No,” I said, trying and failing to hide the tremor in my voice.
“How are the boys gonna eat if you don’t do your part? We rely on that money, Lyra.”
Irritation flared in my gut, overriding my mounting panic. Silas spoke as if he were some great benefactor who took in wayward hunters, when in reality he used all of us to fund his drinking and whoring so he didn’t have to lift a finger himself.
The others might be too stupid or too loyal to question how much each vampire’s blood brought in — and how much Silas kept for himself — but I wasn’t. I knew what a quart of blood on the black market was worth. I knew how much I’d made him over the years, though I never saw any of it.
As Silas put it, every bit of what I brought in went toward “clearing my debt” — whatever arbitrary amount of money he decided he’d spent feeding and housing me over the years.
He’d never told me how much that was exactly, and I knew better than to ask.
I’d been backhanded enough times to remain silent as he said, “You were nothing when I pulled you out of that godsforsaken alley — just a pathetic human waif with some hunter blood in you. ”
I could feel my rage bubbling just beneath the surface, but I focused on tamping down my emotions so Silas wouldn’t scent the bitter tang of my fury.
“I know,” I choked. It didn’t bother me to agree with him anymore. Self-preservation was worth more than my pride.
“It’s that human heart of yours that makes you weak ,” he murmured. “You are not and will never be one of us.”
My cheeks heated with shame and fury, and I was glad for the cover of darkness.
“I took you in when no one else would have,” Silas continued. “Trained you, fed you, clothed you. And this is how you repay me?”
I didn’t trust myself to respond. Furious tears burned the back of my throat, but I would not lose control in front of Silas.
The day I’d turned eighteen, I’d left the group home I’d been living in and found work as a waitress in the Quarter. I’d barely lasted a year on my own before I’d wound up pinned beneath that vampire, thinking I was going to die the same way my mother had.
I wasn’t that girl anymore, but Silas could still make me feel the way I’d felt back then. Weak. Alone. Insignificant.
I waited, but he didn’t say anything else, so I turned to go. I’d only taken a single step toward the door before Silas was in front of me.
I hadn’t heard him move — hadn’t seen him shoot out of his chair. I’d always known Silas was faster than the others, but it was still unsettling.
He stood less than a foot in front of me, and everything in me recoiled at his sudden proximity. My heart thudded as he loomed over me in the dark, his breath a cloud of smoke and ash. It wafted over my face as he leaned in, and I fought the shudder that rolled through me.
He let out a low chuckle of disgust, and I could practically taste the smoke on his breath.
“And you still have no control over your emotions after all these years.” He clicked his tongue in disapproval.
“Mark my words, Lyra. That pitiful mortal heart of yours is gonna get you killed.” One cold, rough finger reached out and stroked my cheek. “You’re too soft.”
Bile burned the back of my throat, but I swallowed it down.
“How will you earn your keep if I can’t count on you to meet your quotas?”
There was something softly sinister in his voice, and I jerked away from his touch. I suddenly felt as though I needed to take a very hot shower, and my cheeks burned with something like shame.
It didn’t make any sense. I’d done a lot of things I wasn’t proud of since Silas had pulled me out of that alley all those years ago.
I’d drained hundreds of vampires of their blood and staked hundreds more.
I’d lied. I’d cheated. I’d turned my back on my only friend.
I’d done everything Silas asked of me — let him use me in every way possible.
Every way except for one, and it was that one small dignity I held on to.
Maybe it didn’t make any difference at this point. I’d done all manner of despicable things to survive the Quarter, but I couldn’t — wouldn’t — cross that line.
“Still so ungrateful ,” Silas snarled, letting out a bitter huff of laughter that sent a chill down my spine. “Watch yourself, Lyra,” he said, and he might as well have reached out and slapped me for the tremor that quaked through my body. “I am quickly growing tired of you.”