Page 75 of Lord of Ruin (The Age of Blood #2)

Chapter Forty-One

Isaac

T he cold nip of winter air felt blissfully cool on Isaac’s bare skin as he cut through the sky, soaring up to twirl through the clouds.

He was so light, having left half of himself behind, his strong wings pulling him higher with each flap, his heart full to burst with the pressure of pure, unfiltered joy.

The city faded fast below him, wisps of clouds wrapping around him like a shroud, leaving drops of condensation on his skin that immediately chilled to ice.

But he didn’t mind the cold, not with the city spread out before him like a painting, the entire breadth of it visible without needing to so much as turn his head.

It looked so small, this capital that he could crush with his bare hands, plucking out buildings from where they were rooted in the streets, the people reduced to little more than ants scurrying around cobblestones.

Dameral was the only home he had ever known, a bitter, cruel world that had no place for a man like him.

That made ruinous monsters of them all, even before he had transformed himself into a beast designed to strike fear in the heart of even the bravest Blood Worker, a creature out of myths that they did not even bother to learn.

A myth his father had never even told him, too cognizant of the fact that Isaac was already too different, too other.

An entire cultural heritage reduced to scraps that Isaac clung to, irreplaceable heirlooms that existed only in his memory.

But he hoped that his father would be proud of what he had become, would understand why Isaac had made these choices.

That the life he and Nanay sacrificed so much for, the future they hoped their son would have, was nothing but a different kind of prison.

That despite the horrors that he had committed and the blood on his hands, he had never felt more himself than in this moment. A manananggal, ready to strike back, returning each cruelty many times over. Not merely justice, but retribution.

He banked, letting the wind pull him towards his destination, gliding towards the Treasury as he left the safe house behind.

On foot, this journey would have taken a half-hour, longer by carriage, but on wing it was mere moments till he was circling around the Treasury, casting his senses wide.

His nostrils flared as he dipped lower, the faint scent of human musk over the siren call of blood.

He could follow the threads of it back to every soul that waited, track the movements of his quarry, each step they took telegraphed by the beat of the hearts in their chests.

The tellers and workers, though, wouldn’t be his focus.

Despite the way his throat ached for the blood of every living being in that building, his hunger endless and all-consuming, he knew that he wouldn’t have the time to slay everyone.

But that didn’t matter, what mattered were the Guard and the vaults filled with carefully preserved blood.

What mattered was cutting the King’s supplies out from under him, stopping his plans before they could even get started.

Not giving into a hunger that would never, ever, be sated.

He had dallied long enough—surely everyone else was already in place. Taking to the sky again, he flew up in a grand loop, gaining momentum before he crashed through a high window in the front, glass shattering around him, shards raining onto the marble below.

The glass cut his skin, ribbons of blood dark and thick as sludge burbling to the surface, only for the skin to knit itself shut.

It required no effort on Isaac’s part, no thought or expenditure of magic, his body brushing off the injuries like they had never even been there, flecks of glass plinking to the floor below.

Screams filled the air as he curved through the great atrium, his innards fluttering behind him.

He could hear the way their pulses spiked, the blood pumping through their veins as they saw the monster circle.

Unable to control the sudden glee that flew through him, Isaac threw his head back, an ear-piercing screech echoing through the atrium.

The people scattered, tellers ducking under their desks, clients running in all directions as panic erupted.

Isaac ignored them, homing in on the first of the Guards, a young white man standing sentry against the ward that led deeper into the Treasury.

The man backed up against the wall, all the years of training fading away to terror as Isaac snatched him up, holding him aloft as he tore into the soft skin of the Guard’s exposed throat.

Power flooded Isaac as blood filled his mouth, spilled down his gullet as his tongue carved its way into the Guard’s neck, curving down into the cavity of his chest as Isaac scraped it clean, muscle and gore sucked up with a sickening slurp.

The limp body fell from his fingers, hitting the floor like a brick.

His partner—a young woman whose face was contorted in rage, strands of red hair streaming around her face—closed the distance with the preternatural speed and strength of a Blood Worker, driving a dagger into the space between his shoulders.

It barely even tickled.

The woman let go as she realized how unaffected he was, the anger morphing into pure horror as she staggered back.

Isaac grunted, his body forcing the dagger out, much like the glass, the wound sealing from the inside out as it pushed the metal centimeter by centimeter until it fell, clattering to the marble floor.

He pulled back, entrails fluttering, as he waited for her to move, almost daring her to try again. He was curious to see if her Blood Working would affect him at all, if any of this would even approximate a challenge, or if he would just sweep through, breaking any who dared to stand in his way.

The woman snatched the dagger before darting back, circling around him like she was afraid he would strike. And oh, how he wanted to, but first—

She raised the dagger, a sliver of pink darting out past pale lips, as she lapped the viscous liquid from the edge of the dagger.

Her face twisted into a grimace as she spat onto the ground, the taste of his blood transmuted into something else entirely.

He could feel her Blood Working reaching out to him, pressing at the edges of his awareness as it tried, so desperately, to latch onto him.

The bridge between them was a tenuous thing, little more than mist, and it took absolutely nothing to smash it to smithereens, the magic fizzling out into nothingness.

Isaac couldn’t help the smirk that crossed his face, teeth jagged and sharp in his maw, as the Guard stumbled backwards, tripping over the body of her compatriot and sprawling back on the floor. Hands scrambling as she slid backward, unable to catch any purchase on the pristine marble.

Swooping forward, he let his long tongue drag around her throat, licking the sweat from it, tasting the fear pouring off her.

It added an unexpected thrill to the hunt, her sudden realization that there was nothing she could do to stop him.

That he was far more powerful than what a single Blood Worker could handle.

He dug his claw into the soft hollow at the base of her throat and then dragged it downward, making a smooth cut like a hot knife through butter, the skin separating as he peeled her open.

The sounds of her sobs were harsh in his ears, but he simply burrowed his tongue into the crevice, twisting sideways to wrap around the harsh beating of her heart.

A gasp caught in her throat as he yanked it out, blood spraying in a beautiful arc as he crushed the organ into a formless pulp.

It fell from his grasp back into the raw cavity of her body, the shock and pain hit as she shook through her death throes. Isaac only took a moment to feast, drawing that macerated organ up through his tongue as he rooted around for all the other soft and tender bits.

Flesh and blood and gore finally sating that bottomless pit of hunger within.

Lifting his head from the ruined remains of the woman in front of him, Isaac eyed the next obstacle. The tellers and patrons of the Treasury had already vanished, either out into the streets of Dameral or deeper into the building, hiding away as if mere walls and wards could stop him.

But he cared not about those fools. Eventually, they would be taken to task for their many crimes and cruelties. His goal was straightforward—he needed to make his way into the vaults below.

He crept forward, his entrails trailing a stream of blood on the floor, eyeing the first in the series of wards that locked away the depths of the Treasury from the main floor, open to the public and the many Blood Workers of Aeravin.

He remembered the way from countless trips during his time as Royal Blood Worker, sickened by the truths underpinning the nation he served.

He wanted to destroy it all, collapse the walls to rubble, raze this building till it was nothing more than dust and ashes.

He wanted to shred each and every ward, ruin the magic that so many had worked hard to perfect.

He wanted to bleed and suffer, earn his success through pain as penance for all the harm he had caused.

Isaac had the power for it, thrumming in his veins, waiting to be unleashed. But he knew there would be more Guards beyond, and it wouldn’t take long for the King to muster a response. If he was unlucky, he might even face the King’s pet vampire, test his strength against one like him.

He snatched the dead woman’s hand, ripping the bracelet from her wrist and winding it through his fingers. Armed with the drops of blood that the ward would recognize, he slipped through the first ward, the magic sizzling across his skin as it split around him.

It was so easy that he almost regretted it.

But he could sense the heartbeats beyond, the bodies moving as Guard gathered.

The advantage of surprise would only last so long, so Isaac sped through the halls, gathering momentum as he soared through the narrow corridors, ward after ward peeling away until he emerged in a great open room, the last before the grand entrance to the vaults, where Guards worked the drudgery of a common laborer, hauling carts of blood between the vaults below and to the docking zones, where reinforced carriages would make the deliveries across the city and even to the nation beyond.

It wasn’t a glorious position for a Guard of Aeravin, but it was still highly sought after for its relative ease and safety, attracting the least talented and least ambitious members.

Fools who wanted to puff out their chests, proud of the station they had earned, heralding themselves as the ones who kept the country safe, but without having to risk even so much as breaking a claw.

And as Isaac took in the weak and frightened fools standing in his way, he realized that it was still true. The best of them had been stationed at the front, where any fools who would have dared to try anything would be stopped.

These buffoons were the cast-offs, children and old men who were far beyond their prime, hopeless against a creature such as him. Even a squadron of them, a full half-dozen, armed with daggers and claws, wouldn’t stand a chance.

They stood around the edges of the room, forming a circle around him that would have had him worried, if he didn’t smell the piss running down the leg of the young man across from him, the whole room rank with the unpleasant tang of fear.

“Blood and steel,” one of them breathed, an older woman with a silver pin in the shape of a rose over her breast, marking her as the senior officer.

Her lower lip was bitten raw, the only clear sign of anxiety that leaked through her composure as she flexed her hands at her side, the claws sharp and deadly. “What is that?”

“Fuck this,” the Guard reeking of urine said, his dagger clattering to the floor as he turned away. “This isn’t what I signed up for!”

“Jameson, don’t you dare!” the woman snapped, reaching out to grab him around the arm.

But he ducked past, more agile than either Isaac or the woman expected, making a mad rush towards the door, ready to abandon his duty and his comrades if he thought it would buy him even the smallest chance of survival.

He could not let that slide.

Isaac’s mouth pulled back into a ferocious grin as he dove towards Jameson, driving his fist into and through his chest, the claws punching straight through his sternum and out through the other side with a sickening squelch.

The split second between Jameson realizing what had happened and the agony hitting him was a delicious bite of tension between Isaac’s fangs, watching the dread cross his expression, his eyes bugging out of his head as he gurgled, the words lost in the spurt of blood that gushed past his lips.

Flying up into the air, Isaac lowered his arm, letting gravity do the work as it pulled Jameson down, slipping past his wrist and the curl of his fist before falling.

The man was dead before he even hit the ground.

“Guards,” the woman screamed, a primal roar of rage with just the faintest undercurrent of fear, “kill that monster!”

Twisting in the air, the movement as natural and instinctive as a bird in flight, Isaac plunged back into the thick of it, claws ready to tear and rend.