Page 4 of A Blade of Blood and Shadow (The Ravaged Kingdom #1)

Chapter

Three

I hardly slept at all the day I was scheduled to meet Julian. When darkness settled and it came time for the drop, I slipped out of bed and donned my leathers as though it were any other night.

The last few weeks, I’d been demoted to the basement where Silas kept his vampire prisoners and tasked with siphoning their blood. I hadn’t been sent out on a single hunt since my disastrous staking, and tonight was the first night I was to be allowed out of the house.

Pulling up the ragged comforter, I laid all my weapons out on the bed — carved wooden stakes, silver-tipped daggers, a pair of short swords, and the witchwood blade.

The latter had been in the box of possessions salvaged from my home after my mother was killed.

My first foster family had told me it had likely belonged to my father — the hunter I’d never met.

With its rowan-wood core, the dagger should have been heavier than a regular blade, but it wasn’t. Perfectly balanced and finely hewn, the knife fit in my hand as though it had been made for me.

The handle and pommel were engraved with runes I didn’t know the meaning of — an intricate pattern of interlocking circles and swirling lines that gave the weapon its legendary power.

The blade was sharp, as all my blades were, but the magic it was imbued with when it was forged meant that it never dulled.

When I closed my fingers around the hilt, the dagger hummed against my skin, and I no longer felt afraid. At least, I didn’t fear the creatures that lurked in the shadows of the Quarter. Double-crossing Silas was another story.

Sheathing my weapons, I shoved my extra leathers, the short swords, and a few clothes into a bag, which I sneaked into the SUV when no one was paying attention.

I took one last look around my room — the grimy window overlooking the weed-choked lawn, the lumpy double bed, the beat-up dresser.

Nothing about this place had ever felt like home, and if tonight went according to plan, I’d never have to set foot in here again.

By the time I’d choked down a bowl of dry cereal, Vince had a duffel loaded with blood bags. The blood had come from the vampires I’d methodically drained, and I was meant to deliver the drop.

“This one goes to Gorm,” said Vince. “His place is on Dumont. Red brick building on the corner. You can’t miss it.” He tossed the bag at my feet with a look that said, don’t screw this up .

“I-I thought I was delivering to Julian,” I stammered, panic thrashing in my chest.

“Gorm was willing to pay more,” Vince grunted with a shrug. “This drop goes to him. ”

I swallowed. I’d never met Gorm before, and hopefully, I wouldn’t have to.

My hands shook slightly as I climbed into the SUV and started the engine.

I backed away from Silas’s and tried not to think about how many vampires I’d had to drain for this duffel bag full of blood — or what would happen if Julian hadn’t come through.

After being holed up in that filthy house with Silas’s hunters for a month, I didn’t think I had it in me to return.

My anxiety ratcheted up a notch as I drove through the Quarter.

While the human districts were shabby and run-down, there was an overdone opulence to the jewel-toned buildings that loomed on either side of the street in the vampire district.

Balconies with intricate wrought-iron railings sagged under the weight of flowering vines, and neon-lit signs beckoned tourists into the various bars and clubs that lined Crimson Row.

With the cloying scent of wisteria perfuming the air and the promise of the pleasures that awaited mortals inside the clubs, it was a hedonist’s paradise.

Pulling into the alleyway next to Julian’s shop, I threw the vehicle into park and drew a stake from one of the inner loops of my jacket. Desperation might have made me reckless, but it hadn’t made me dumb.

Delivering a drop this size was dangerous, even for a hunter. Vampire clans didn’t take kindly to poachers, and even mortals knew the street value of vampire blood. Even if they didn’t have the means to harvest it themselves, they weren’t above killing for it.

Which was perhaps exactly why Silas had sent me alone. I was expendable.

I paused just outside the SUV to check my surroundings, then walked around to the front of the building and rang the buzzer. Julian came to the door almost immediately, and I felt the tension in my shoulders ease as he let me into the shop.

“Did you find it?” I asked without preamble.

Julian turned to shut the door and rattle the security gate back into place. “I think you’ll be very pleased.”

My heart skipped a beat at his words, and I followed him through the jumble of mismatched furniture and bric-à-brac to the back of the shop.

The familiar shadows pressed in around me, and the witchwood blade hummed against my leather-clad thigh. My stomach turned sour at the thought of parting with it, but I ignored the feeling.

I’d been eight years old when my mother was killed, and she’d rarely spoken about my father. All she’d said was that he was a hunter like me and that he’d left before I was born. I shouldn’t have felt sentimental about the dagger, but it was all I had of him in this world.

Still, I wouldn’t last a day in the Quarter if I turned my back on Silas. My hunter magic, diluted as it was, made me too easy for another hunter to track. That was why I needed the apokropos stone.

The stone could conceal the owner’s unique magical signature — something not even a fae glamour could do.

With it, I’d be able to conceal my powers and disappear into one of the human districts.

If I could pass as a full-blooded mortal, I could get a job as a waitress or a clerk and sink into a blissful, boring existence without having to hunt and kill to stay alive.

Halfway to the back office, a car passed by the shop — its headlights beaming through the front window.

I froze as it rumbled away, waiting to hear it blaze through the intersection and disappear around the corner.

I didn’t think Vince had suspected anything when I’d left the house tonight, but I wouldn’t have put it past him to tail me through the Quarter to ensure I made the drop.

As the sound of the engine faded into the night, I loosed the breath I’d been holding. The old floorboards creaked and groaned as I followed Julian to his office. A lamp was on inside the room, and the chink of golden light spilling from the cracked door was the only light in the shop.

He pushed the door open and slid around his desk, squeezing past teetering piles of boxes. I stopped in the doorway and leaned against the jamb.

“You located the stone?” I asked, glancing around at all the boxes, wondering how a man this disorganized managed to locate something so rare and precious.

“Indeed.”

He bent to rummage in one of the open boxes, and the witchwood blade buzzed against my leg.

It was as if the dagger knew what I was contemplating and was cautioning me against it.

While part of me still hoped that Julian might trade the stone for vampire blood, the other part knew it was wishful thinking.

“Did your seller propose a price?” I asked.

“Er, yes. Yes, he did,” Julian tittered absently, pulling ceramic knickknacks out of the box one by one and examining them as if he’d forgotten what he was looking for.

Something in his voice made the hair along the back of my neck prickle. I drew in a shaky breath and touched the dagger at my side, jolting as my fingers brushed the hilt of the witchwood blade .

The pommel was hot to the touch — much warmer than it should have been from the heat of my body. Tightening my grip on the strap of the duffel, I let out an impatient huff. “ And ?”

“That dagger of yours will do quite nicely,” he said, withdrawing a small wooden box and placing it on top of a filing cabinet.

I narrowed my eyes as I studied his back. Why wouldn’t Julian look at me? And why was he being so . . . pleasant ? The human merchant had never tried to hide his contempt for me. To him, I was nothing but Silas’s lackey — a despicable half-hunter hardly worth his consideration.

My mind started to race as I replayed the words we’d just exchanged, and my blood went cold.

I think you’ll be very pleased.

You — not Silas.

Julian wasn’t stupid. He’d known Silas hadn’t asked him to track down the stone, and he’d been almost gleeful to have something to hold over my head before. For him to act so casual now didn’t make sense. Unless . . .

I didn’t have time to finish that thought before Julian turned to face me.

Except that it wasn’t Julian. He didn’t stand like the sour mortal dealer I knew, and when I looked into his eyes, I was met with two shimmering black pools with no discernible pupil or iris.

But then the man blinked, and Julian’s eyes were blue again, though they lacked their usual sharpness. There was something blank about his expression — something inhuman that made me recoil.

Backing out of the office, I stopped only when my hip nudged the edge of a rickety wooden table. A menacing chuckle rumbled from behind me, and my heart nearly punched out of my chest.

I whipped around.

A dark figure stood less than three feet away, dressed in a hooded black tunic. Beneath that hood, a pair of identical oily black eyes gleamed.

I shuffled away, edging toward the door that led to the street, but found my path blocked by another tall figure — also male, dressed in the same style of tunic with the same unfathomable black eyes.

Shit .

Shadows lapped at the hooded figures, keeping the light from Julian’s office at bay. The shadows swirled around their legs and caressed their sides, almost as if they were made of darkness.

The witchwood blade flared hot against my thigh, and my whole body gave a jolt. It had never done that in all the years I’d owned it. Rare magical objects didn’t come with owner’s manuals, but it could only mean one thing.

Demons .