Page 37 of The Serpent’s Bride (Bloodlines #1)

NINETEEN

Nadi couldn’t help but swear as she was shoved into a room by two men, the door clicking behind her. The walls were cedar, and the tables that lined the walls were covered in…wow. Luciento had done well for himself while she’d been away.

The room was filled with gold and silver—jewelry and gemstones and all sorts of precious goods mixed in with high-end weaponry and stacks of cash piled on top of boxes that contained who-knew-what. The light overhead glittered off the facets of gems and shining metals.

There was a hatch in the floor that must lead deeper into the underground. That was likely her only chance of escape. She hoped it opened.

Turning, she ran a hand over her face and sighed. This wasn’t going to go well at all.

John was standing some ten feet away, a gun pointed at her, a mix of expressions on his face. “Why’d you spare me that night?”

“Because you were decent.” She sighed, throwing up her hands in frustration. This is what happened when she did good things. They bit her in the ass. She should have just killed him and been done with it. “And because I didn’t think I needed to. You lot are my people.”

“Then why’re you working with that bloodsucking bastard ?

” the other man, Ezra, bit out. He also had a gun trained on her.

That was going to make it a lot harder to kill them.

A lot harder. Probably impossible. Even as a shapeshifter, she was only deadly when she had the jump on someone.

Two men with guns who had her at a disadvantage? She was as good as dead.

She walked over to a bench by one of the tables covered in jewelry and gold coins and sat down. “Because I’m trying to kill him. Because I’m wearing this fake body to sneak into his family so that I can murder every last one of them. Until you lot keep getting involved and fucking it up!”

That made them waver, glancing at each other. “So you are her…Luciento told us what happened to your father…your whole family.”

“I’ve been out to get revenge on them ever since.

I saw the chance to switch places with his arranged wife, and here I am.

” Gesturing down at herself, she changed her shape to that of her almost true self.

Her humanoid self, at any rate. Her own face, her own hair, her own humanoid body.

Not her tail, for obvious reasons. But still clearly a fae.

She let out a sigh, feeling like she had finally been able to put down a jug of water she’d been carrying for weeks.

She was good at holding up glamors—it was her whole life, after all—but that didn’t mean it wasn’t exhausting.

She wondered how much energy she’d have in a day if she didn’t spend half of it holding up literal appearances.

Whatever.

The two humans stared at her, dumbfounded.

“Sorry.” She shook her head. “I’m a little sick of being Monica right now.” She cracked her back. Monica was chestier than she was—a little fuller in the hips and the backside. It was nice to be curvy now and then, but it meant that she didn’t really know how to carry all that extra front weight.

John lowered his gun. “You want him dead.”

“Very badly. I’m just biding my time. I’m trying to take the whole family out.

But I’ve lost time due to all this nonsense.

” She gestured at them and the warehouse.

She took Monica’s shape again, and let out a heavy sigh.

It felt like putting on wet clothes. “Now…please. I don’t want to hurt either of you. But if I have to, I w?—”

She didn’t get the rest of her words out.

That’s when the screams began.

Nadi had heard plenty of screams in her life. Screams of pain. Screams of agony. Screams of rage. Even screams of fear.

But…there was something different about what she heard in the sound of Luciento Iltani’s men. She knew they were dying. And she knew they were afraid.

It was the sheer helpless terror in them that twisted something in her and cut her nerves raw. It was like biting down on steel, jarring and horrible.

John and the other man looked just as affected.

She went to the door, pulling out her own gun. “Go. Both of you. Run. You can’t fight him—you can’t save the others. Get out of here! ”

They stared at her, wild-eyed and unsure.

She grabbed John by the arm. “I can’t do anything to help you this time. Take Ezra here and run. Please .”

John nodded weakly. “Hey. She’s right. Let’s go.” He threw the door open. Stepping out into the hallway, he immediately took a left turn and ran in the opposite direction from the screaming.

Ezra, however, wasn’t so smart. “I’m no fucking coward .” He ran to the right.

And Nadi knew he wouldn’t come back. Fine. One less person who knew her secret. That was, if Luciento hadn’t already spilled the beans to Raziel. The vampire might already know the truth—might already know what she was. Her secret might already be out, and she might already be dead if she stayed.

Letting out a ragged breath, she pressed a shaking hand over her mouth and held her gun down at her side, thinking as fast as she could.

If she ran, she’d lose her only chance at revenge. This was likely her one and only shot at Raziel and the Nostroms.

But Luciento could have told Raziel everything—betrayed her to the vampire to spare himself? That’s what she would have done in his place. His men were dying in the worst possible ways, of course he’d offer anything in exchange for mercy.

And even if he hadn’t? Her odds of survival tonight were slim.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Tears streaked down her cheeks.

But she had to roll the dice.

She had to.

Her whole life had been about this.

Stepping out into the hallway, she faced right, in the direction of the screams.

Just in time to see Raziel step from a room to confront John’s friend who was running toward the chaos.

Raziel looked like something from a nightmare.

He had taken off the coat and vest, leaving him in only the black pants and white linen shirt.

His long hair flowed like black silk down around his face.

He almost always had it tied back. But tendrils of it hung down along his sharp features in contrast against his pale skin.

The man lifted the gun.

The smile that Raziel paid him in response had Nadi’s blood running cold.

And all he had to do was merely speak. One word, and the man’s life was over. “Kneel.”

The man dropped to his knees like he was made of lead, heedless of the pain it would cause him.

Raziel’s expression turned gentle. Almost kind. There was no malice in his expression. No cruelty. He walked up to the man and, crouching, whispered something in the man’s ear.

Like a sleepwalker, he stood and headed into the room that Raziel had just exited.

Someone grabbed her by the arm, yanking her around roughly. Her gun fell from her hand, clattering to the ground, as the stranger dragged her back into the cedar room, slamming the door behind her. She heard the door bolt shut. “ Saeiga— you fool!”

It was Luciento. She hadn’t seen where he’d come from. He was already pulling her toward the hatch in the floor. “Don’t—don’t call me that.”

“I don’t know how you got mixed up in this nonsense or what you think your game is, Nadi, but we need to get out of here now .” Luciento grabbed the ring of the hatch and gave it a yank. It was stuck. He snarled, gave it another pull, and it creaked open.

“Does he know?” She was shaking.

“What?” He looked up at her, those iridescent eyes so much like her own real eyes. He shook his head, only sorrow on his features. “We don’t have time for this.”

“Does he know?” she repeated, harder. She pulled the knife from her belt and shoved him up against the wall, pressing the blade to his throat. “Did you tell him who—what—I am?”

“What is wrong with you?” Those eyes searched hers.

“You know what he did. You know what he’s cost me. I—I have given up my whole life to see him and his family dead in exchange—” She kept her words low, hissed through her teeth. “I’m not about to give up here.”

Something slammed into the door from the other side. Raziel, she assumed. He was a vampire—he would find his way in soon.

“I have kept your secret, my saeiga .” Luciento held his hands up in surrender. “I haven’t told him what you are, or that you are my niece. We do not betray our kin to those things .”

Her hand was trembling. Her uncle’s message was clear. He wouldn’t hurt her. Would she hurt him? Could she kill her own kind?

Killing him would earn Raziel’s trust. And his respect. It would get me closer to him. It might get Volencia to change her mind about the sacrifice. It might even get Raziel to spare my life tonight…This could solve all those problems.

“I have dedicated my entire life to this.” She gripped the knife tight in her hand, forcing it to stop shaking. “I vowed I would see him and his entire family rot for what they did to mine.”

Luciento’s shoulders lowered. She had seen that expression a thousand times. The face of a man who knew he was about to die.

May the void take her.

“Forgive me, saestren .”

Suddenly, Raziel wished that he had his cousin Oliren’s gift of turning into mist. It would have made slipping beneath the locked wooden and metal door a breeze.

But, then, it would have made the slaughter of all the Iltani soldiers far more difficult.

He slammed his shoulder into the door again, snarling, his fangs extended.

The smell of human blood flooded his nostrils.

The work in the other room was some of his best and most creative, he had to say.

Whoever took the place of the Iltanis would be hard-pressed to forget what happened to those who crossed the Nostroms.

The scent of the blood was driving him mad. But it also obscured the scent of any other fresh sources of blood. He could not smell anything over the scent of the dead and dying around him. If his little killer was hurt, he had no way of knowing.