Page 39 of A Blade of Blood and Shadow (The Ravaged Kingdom #1)

Alessio’s gaze was unfocused as I stalked toward him. As if he somehow sensed me coming for him, he staggered back, but there was nowhere for him to run as I plunged my dagger through his heart.

I’d had enough practice staking vampires that my aim was true. One sharp thrust to break through the breastbone, then my blade sank in easily.

A startled expression broke across his face, followed quickly by horror.

He knew he was going to die.

I didn’t stop to watch the life drain out of him. I turned to dispatch Kyle, savoring the look of terror in his eyes as he watched his comrades bleed out on the floor.

I slit his throat before he could run — quick, efficient, but bloody.

When I finally turned to face Silas, his expression was one I’d never seen him wear: pure, mortal terror.

But I wasn’t going to take his life hiding behind the shield I’d built. No. I wanted to look him in the eye as I killed him.

I told myself I wanted to be the last thing he saw before he departed this world — that I wanted him to go to his grave with the image of me burned into his consciousness. But there was another reason.

I wanted him to see what I’d become — that I wasn’t the scared, broken girl he’d found in that alley five years before.

I was no longer weak.

No longer powerless.

No longer his to control.

His eyes widened as I dropped the wards, a dagger clasped in each hand. I lunged for him, but Silas was faster, and he blocked my first strike.

It didn’t matter. I’d anticipated as much. I brought my other blade around in a sweep of steel and fury, but he blocked that one, too.

On my next strike, he lunged with his own knife, and I narrowly avoided taking a blade to the kidney.

Still, I felt the long tip slice through leather and flesh. A searing heat curled out from the wound, but I was used to fighting through pain.

I lost myself to the clash of steel. I blocked. Parried. Attacked. Blocked.

Silas was stronger, but he’d been tucked away in his safe house for far too long. He hadn’t been staking vampires every night as I had, yet I took more cuts than I would have liked.

A few of Silas’s strikes slashed through my clothes, opening gashes on my arms and sides. The wounds throbbed as blood pooled beneath my leathers, but I didn’t stop moving — not until he twisted to the side, sinking his blade into my gut.

Time seemed to slow as Imogen screamed. All of my attention went to the length of cold steel in my stomach as pain cut through every other sensation.

I regained my focus a second too late, shoving Silas off before his blade could do any more damage. The knife had gone straight in and out, but a familiar terror sank into my bones.

Blood was seeping from the wound, soaking my leathers at an alarming rate.

I was afraid to move — afraid to draw breath, worried what vital organ he might have punctured. Silas was nothing if not precise.

My next strike was a millisecond too slow. Silas moved out of the way, and I stumbled. He struck the back of my neck — hard — and I careened into the filthy brick wall.

Fresh pain flared through me as the movement tore at the wound in my belly. I squeezed my eyes shut as I pushed off from the wall, opening them just long enough to fling a dagger at his throat.

Silas deflected it easily, and my weapon skittered across the floor, landing in a pool of blood.

“Didn’t I tell you that your emotions would one day get you killed?” he crooned.

I didn’t answer him — not that I could have. I could scarcely breathe.

I pressed a hand to the wound in my stomach, but I was losing too much blood.

Fury pounded through my body, but I wasn’t angry at Silas anymore. I was furious with myself because he was right: I’d let my emotions get the best of me.

The others had been easy to kill because I wasn’t invested. Vince and the others might have made my life miserable, but they weren’t Silas.

They hadn’t found me at my most vulnerable and twisted my self-doubt into some fucked-up flavor of loyalty — hadn’t used it against me.

In that moment, I realized I hadn’t stayed with Silas because I was afraid. I’d stayed because I’d thought I was worthless — thought I was nothing without Silas.

Now I was letting all my pent-up resentment get in the way of this fight, and I was losing — badly.

The realization was enough to cut through my haze of pain. I allowed that clarity to fill me up, sharpening my anger into focus.

My hands were shaking too badly to risk throwing another dagger, so I retreated into my mind. I threw all my energy into building a wall around my pain — blocking it out so that I could think.

I’d get one chance, if I was lucky. One chance if Silas thought I was hurt badly enough that he could finish me easily.

I was too weak from blood loss to use brute force and too shaky for precision. Instead, I’d have to let Silas think I was as weak as he’d tried to make me — let him underestimate me one last time.

It happened much more quickly than I could have hoped. Silas lunged, intending to finish me off, but I anticipated his movement.

I drew my dagger as he slammed me against the wall and thrust it upward as hard as I could.

I felt the crunch of bone reverberate through my blade just as my head slammed into the wall. Blackness flickered along the edges of my vision, but I kept my eyes focused on Silas’s face — watched his eyes widen in panic as he realized his mistake.

Blood gushed from the wound, coating my hand in hot, sticky warmth as his breaths moved the dagger between us. The scent of stale cigarette smoke filled my nostrils, but for once, I didn’t flinch from his closeness.

Silas didn’t scare me anymore.

I could feel everything he was spilling out of him. He had minutes at most, and I couldn’t afford to waste a single one.

“Tell me how to save her,” I snarled, my mind going to Imogen and that horrible blood oath. “Tell me how to save her, and I might just let you live. ”

Imogen hadn’t been the one to strike that bargain, so surely there was a loophole.

But Silas’s mouth just stretched in a shaky, demented grin. His eyes were unfocused, but he was still taunting me.

He knew I wouldn’t save him — couldn’t even if I wanted to.

I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw popped, and I twisted the dagger lodged between us until I dragged a moan from his throat.

“Tell me!” I demanded, not caring that I sounded desperate.

Blood dripped down my arm, pooling in the sleeve of my jacket. Silas didn’t speak. His eyes just took on a glassy stillness as his weight sank into me, and I knew in that moment that he’d never give me the answers I needed.

A long moment passed before I realized he was dead — that the gradually weakening heartbeat I heard belonged to Imogen, not Silas. A furious sob wrenched out of me as I released my dagger and shoved him to the ground.

Lying there on the basement floor, he could have been any other corpse. There was no solace in revenge — no redemption in killing. That festering thing in my chest hadn’t died with him either. I just felt a little more empty.

My bloody handprints coated the floor as I crawled to Imogen’s side. Every tiny movement hurt, and my head swam from blood loss.

Her eyes were hooded as she watched me approach, and her breathing was even more labored. The blood oath that had bound her to the wards was working quickly now.

“Stay with me,” I rumbled, taking her hands in my bloody ones and squeezing them tight.

Imogen didn’t answer me, and her gaze was unfocused .

“I’m going to take you to Adelaide,” I gurgled. “She’ll know how to stop this.”

Never mind that I didn’t think I could stand without passing out.

Besides that, I knew there was likely nothing the old witch would be able to do — not without knowing the exact wording of the blood oath or what Silas had done to transfer the binding effect of the spell.

Even if Adelaide could work out some way to save her, Imogen didn’t have that kind of time.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice cracking. Hot tears tracked down my cheeks, and I began to shake uncontrollably.

Imogen shook her head slightly, then winced as though the movement pained her.

This was all my fault.

For years I’d kept Imogen at a distance to protect her from Silas and the hunters. All it had taken was one moment of need — one selfish impulse — and I’d doomed her to this fate.

“I knew you’d come,” Imogen whispered, a faint smile twisting those bloodless lips.

The weakness of her voice cut deeper even than Silas’s blade, but I made myself smile back and gripped her hands tighter.

“Of course I came,” I whispered, my voice muddled by tears.

In that moment, it hit me. What Imogen had been for me all those years, I’d been for her. The one person she felt she could trust. The one person who would be there no matter what.

Except that I hadn’t been there when it counted, and now she was dying.

“Hold on,” I rasped, mentally groping for something I could do — anything that might stop this. If I rewove the wards, if I opened the cipher . . .

But Imogen’s eyelids had fluttered closed. Her grip on my hands slackened.

“No,” I growled, squeezing her tighter — shaking her to make her open her eyes.

But Imogen didn’t answer. Her head just flopped from side to side, and I knew that she was gone.