Page 6 of A Blade of Blood and Shadow (The Ravaged Kingdom #1)

Chapter

Four

T he voice echoed off the buildings around me, strumming every nerve in my body. Instantly, those claws retracted from my mind. The torrent of whispers faded to nothing, and I slumped forward in relief.

The little bits of me came crawling back to the forefront of my mind, which was blissfully quiet in the wake of the demon’s retreat.

I squinted at the winged figure standing at the entrance to the alley. With the glow of the streetlights beaming behind him, it was impossible to make out his face. I could only see those enormous wings — spanning nearly the width of the alley — and the figure’s considerable height.

Instantly, the demon copies vanished — the illusions shooting back into the original demon’s form like a rubber band snapping into place.

The demon’s black eyes narrowed in what might have been anger, but I also sensed a tremor of fear.

It strummed through its body like a ripple passing over a still lake.

Then it, too, sprouted wings — spiny black ones tipped with razor-sharp talons — and flapped off into the night.

The strange male took a step forward, and I saw that his wings were an iridescent black — almost insectlike in their appearance. As if he sensed me watching him, he folded them behind him, and then they vanished into thin air.

Slowly, I rose into a crouch — preparing to run or fight if this male turned out to be another adversary rather than my savior.

He cocked his head to one side, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking past me to something I could not see — the demon that had possessed Julian and clawed its way into my mind.

A volley of whispers floated down the alley with a sound like skittering leaves, and goosebumps sprang up all over my arms.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s not nice to play mind games?” came the male’s deep, silky voice. His tone was light, almost playful, but there was a menacing undercurrent there that made my insides clench.

He took another step, and an unnaturally icy wind billowed down the alley — so strong it stole the air from my lungs and sent dirt and debris whipping across the pavement. I threw up a hand to shield my eyes from the flying grit, and those eerie whispers faded into the dying breeze.

The demon was gone.

“Good riddance,” said the male, and every nerve in my body seemed to stretch to the breaking point as the scrape of his footsteps drew nearer.

My instincts roared that I should run, but I couldn’t seem to move my feet. Fighting against the demon’s mind invasion had taken all my energy, and now that the adrenaline was fading, I was aware of every place the hellfire had burned through my leathers, blistering my bare flesh.

Clenching my teeth, I tried to stand, but I didn’t quite manage it before the male closed the distance between us and dropped into a crouch.

I didn’t dare move. I knew I wouldn’t be able to outrun him in my current state, and I needed to know what I was dealing with before I attempted to fight my way out of the alley.

Heart pounding, I let my eyes drift up his leather-clad shins. He’d propped a forearm on his knee, his long, slender hand dangling carelessly. My gaze traveled up to the strange male’s face, which was peering down at me with a mixture of interest and concern.

I was relieved not to see the gleaming pupil-less eyes of a demon staring back at me. His were a steely silver-gray that reminded me of the ocean before a storm. And that face . There was nothing demonic about his face.

High cheekbones met a strong, sharp jawline, which seemed at odds with the sensuous curve of his lips. His mouth was unreasonably decadent for the harsh planes of his face, and yet he was undeniably the most beautiful male I’d ever seen.

Raven-black hair set off deep golden skin, and the tight cut of his clothing revealed a broad muscular chest and equally muscular arms. He smelled like leather and crisp mountain nights with the barest hint of charred cedar.

The more I studied him, the more I realized that every inch of this male seemed designed to draw me in, which triggered all my internal alarm bells. He was definitely not mortal .

My hunter senses surged out, tasting the magic that seemed to ooze from his pores. It danced over my lips, all darkness and shadows, and made my skin prickle uncomfortably.

There was so much of it, and yet I got the feeling he kept the better part of it tethered — contained to conceal just how powerful he was.

“Where is the other one?” he asked.

I was so wrapped up in trying to place the male’s unique magical signature that I didn’t immediately realize what he was asking. When I didn’t answer, he said, “I sensed three of them in the area, so the third must be around here somewhere.”

The other demon.

“I killed him,” I said in a hollow voice.

“You did.” It wasn’t exactly a question. He sounded . . . satisfied.

When I looked up, I found him staring at my witchwood dagger, which was still lying on the ground where I’d dropped it.

Before I could move, he let out a low whistle and reached down to grab it. I tensed as his fingers closed around the flat of the blade, cursing myself for being stupid enough to drop it in the first place.

He flipped the dagger in his palm, catching it smoothly by the handle. “A witchwood blade,” he mused, lifting one dark eyebrow as he examined the runes engraved along the hilt. “I haven’t seen one of these in centuries.”

He said it casually, but my insides clanged at the admission that he was hundreds of years old.

I tensed, waiting for him to pocket the dagger — or plunge it into my chest — but he just gave a soft “hmm” and slid it smoothly into the sheath at my thigh.

I felt the light touch through my leathers, and my skin tingled where his fingers made contact.

My gaze flicked to his leather-clad thighs and moved up to his broad chest. I couldn’t see a single weapon on him, which unnerved me even more. Judging by the kiss of his power and the way those demons had fled, he didn’t need them. He was enough of a weapon himself.

“What are you?” I blurted, too unsettled by his strange power to care how the question came out.

“Now that’s not very polite.” The corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk, but there was something about his tone that set me on edge. He brushed back a swath of choppy black hair, revealing the pointed tips of his ears.

My blood went cold.

Fae — and not just any fae, judging by the scent of night that wrapped around him. Dark fae.

“How about we start with introductions?” he continued in that velvety smooth voice of his. “I’m Kaden. And you are . . .”

My chest tightened, and my breathing became more shallow as I tried to remember everything I’d ever learned about the fae. There was power in a name, I knew. There was no way I was giving him mine.

He waited patiently for my answer. When I didn’t give one, those silvery-gray eyes twinkled with mirth. “Shy?”

“No,” I choked. “Just not stupid.”

“Clearly, if you managed to dispatch a higher demon.” His eyes roved over my face before drifting down to take in the rest of me. “Clever little huntress.” Then he caught sight of my blistered hands, and a crease appeared between his brows. “You’re hurt. ”

My entire being shuddered at the prospect of showing weakness to an enemy, and I opened my mouth to deny it. But before I could, Kaden reached out one long tanned hand.

“Get away from me,” I growled, ignoring the throbbing pain in my hands as I tried to skitter away.

Those eyes surged with a tumultuous darkness, but then his expression softened. He reached for me again. I tried to move back, but that strange magic wrapped around me. I threw all my strength into my legs, willing myself to stand, but my body didn’t respond.

Panic thrummed in my chest as he held me immobile. I couldn’t move an inch. I was magically frozen in place. And when Kaden’s long fingers closed around my wrist, my nerves seemed to jolt with the impulse to escape my useless body.

Kaden’s touch was surprisedly gentle as he took my burned hand in his own. I felt the light scrape of callouses against my skin, and the pain in my hand ebbed away, leaving only a pleasant warmth.

He turned my hand over to examine it, and I blinked in amazement at the healthy, unmarred skin. The burned flesh and weeping blisters were gone, along with my pain.

I was so mesmerized that I didn’t fight him when he reached for my other hand. That one wasn’t as badly burned, but relief still trickled through me as he healed it.

I reminded myself that my body was still frozen — still held in the thrall of his magic. Kaden could do anything he wanted to me, and I’d be powerless to stop it. The thought sobered me at once. But he merely placed those incredible hands over the burns along my arms, healing those, too.

I felt it the instant his magic released me. As soon as that invisible force disappeared, I lurched toward the ground. I threw a hand out to stop myself from face-planting and reached for my dagger as I surged to my feet.

“Glad to see you’re feeling better,” said Kaden, still in that amused tone. “Where were we?”

He straightened to his full height, and I took another half step back.

The scent of ash filled my airways, and I glanced behind me.

The hellfire had burned out when the demons vanished, but thick black smoke still billowed from the open door.

Julian’s body lay where it had fallen, facedown on the pavement.

“He’s dead,” said Kaden. “The demon broke his mind before he vacated.”

He said it as casually as someone talking about the weather, but there was an underlying bitterness that brought reality crashing back.

The fire. The stone. Silas’s bag of blood.

Fresh panic welled in my chest, mixed with fury and devastation. Julian had tricked me — or those demons had. There was no apokropos stone. It had all been a ruse, which meant —

“What is your name?” Kaden asked, snapping me out of my disastrous train of thought.

“I’m not telling you .”

Those strange silvery-gray eyes flashed, and his sensuous lips stretched in an almost feline smile. “Why not?” he asked. “Don’t you trust me?”

It was clear from the mocking lilt to his voice that he knew I didn’t.

“I just saved you from those two demon bastards.”

I bristled. The petty, prideful part of me wanted to argue that he hadn’t saved me from anything — that I’d had everything under control.

But we both knew the demon that had possessed Julian had been inside my head when he’d arrived.

If Kaden hadn’t shown up when he did, the demon probably would have broken me, too.

“It’s nothing personal,” I said truthfully. “I don’t trust anyone.”

Kaden snorted. “So you’re an equal-opportunity flavor of paranoid?”

I shrugged. “You’re fae. I’m a hunter. You have every reason to want me dead.”

Kaden’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t look offended — not exactly — but there was a predatory edge to his expression as he took a step toward me. “Do you think I’d expend the energy to save you from those demons if I wanted you dead?”

I bit down on the inside of my cheek. It was hard to argue with that logic, but I knew better than to assume he was being honest. Faeries couldn’t lie, but they were masters of trickery and half truths.

Before the Euroshean crusades and the unification of Anvalyn, there had been thousands of fae races, but I knew dark fae descended from the Drathen line.

The Drathen fae were one of the few races that remained, and there were countless stories of them luring mortals to the Otherworld and tricking them into an eternity of servitude.

One of my foster fathers had warned me never to bargain with a faerie. And although Kaden and I hadn’t made any kind of agreement, I was indebted to him for saving my life.

The stormy sea in Kaden’s eyes seemed to churn as he watched me squirm. “If you won’t tell me your name, at least answer me this: Where did you get that blade? ”

I licked my lips. Surely there was no harm in telling him that much. After all, my mother was dead, and I knew nothing of my father’s whereabouts — if he even lived. “It . . . belonged to my father.”

Kaden frowned. “Your father was a witch?”

“No. He was a hunter.”

“And where did he get it?”

“I don’t know,” I said, a bit defensively. “I never met my father.”

“And your mother?”

“She died when I was young.” I didn’t tell him that she’d been killed — murdered by a blood-drunk vampire.

“So she was the witch.”

I shook my head. “She was mortal.”

Kaden’s eyes narrowed, and he cocked his head to the side as if he were intrigued by me.

“Why do you want to know?” I demanded.

“I was just curious how you came to have such an item in your possession,” he said, still scrutinizing me with a mixture of curiosity and .

. . something else. “Daggers like that are exceedingly rare. Many believe that the line of witches with the knowledge of how to forge those blades and scribe those runes died out long ago.”

I swallowed, uncomfortable with the idea that this strange fae male seemed to know more about my blade than I did.

“I don’t know where my father would have gotten it,” I said finally. “My mother never spoke about him, and she died when I was eight.”

“And yet you carry it with you — this blade you know nothing about.”

I opened my mouth to say something nasty, but Kaden cut me off. “Fortunate you happened to have it — especially when there hasn’t been a demon sighting in the Quarter in more than fifty years.”

There was something off about his tone, though I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Strange, don’t you think?” he murmured. “That those three showed up here , of all places, with an apparent interest in you.”

My shoulders stiffened. I’d been thinking the exact same thing, but I hadn’t wanted to voice it out loud.

“Good evening, little huntress,” said Kaden, inclining his dark head. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again very soon.”

I was just about to tell him that I had no intention of crossing paths with him ever again, but then he vanished in a wisp of night that smelled faintly of scorched cedar. A disembodied masculine chuckle rumbled through my chest before it, too, faded into the dark.