by Izzy Shows
Never.
It certainly didn’t haunt my dreams.
A sudden roar jolted me back to reality, and the sounds above suddenly stopped, replaced by heavy panting. I assumed that was the end of that.
I waited until I heard the sound of the door shutting, then I grabbed the window ledge and yanked myself up and into the room in one fluid move.
I landed in a crouch, one hand on the floor to stabilize myself.
The general spun, still naked, to regard me with wide eyes.
“Hunter,” he hissed, baring his fangs.
I didn’t waste a single second, lifting one hand and chanting as quickly as I could. He fell to the floor, a groan of despair leaving his lips as he clutched at his head.
Every single one of the blood vessels in his head was exploding, dying and being reborn thanks to his supernatural healing speed. A migraine, in truth, but it never failed to disable a vampire.
Or a werewolf.
I crossed the distance between us and laid a hand on his bare chest.
It wasn’t really necessary to be in close contact with a victim, but it made things so much easier. Tapping into his biorhythm with a direct touch helped speed the process up, and I wanted this over and done with as quickly as possible.
My chanting changed to a more aggressive tone, and his body slowly turned pale. His veins bulged against his skin, turning to a grayish-black as the blood in his veins turned to sludge.
He collapsed to the floor a moment later.
Quick, deadly, efficient.
My mission was complete.
I slipped out of the room as quickly as I’d entered.
Not a soul heard me.
2
Nina
It took me maybe half an hour to navigate through the city and return to the mansion. By the time I reached it, the first rays of dawn were cresting overhead. I longed to remain outside long enough to see the sunrise, but I knew better.
Conall would want a report as quickly as possible about this particular kill. No time to waste on pleasantries.
Four years out of the cell, and my body still longed for the touch of the sun every single day. I’d never get enough of it.
I entered the mansion, allowing my body to slow down, my footsteps not as careful as they’d been before.
There was no need to sneak inside the mansion—this was where I lived now. It wasn’t quite home—no place would ever be home, I suspected—but it was good enough.
I was well-fed and provided with a nice room so long as I kept the kills coming in and didn’t disrupt things too much.
That last bit was a tall order, though, as the wolves didn’t particularly like me.
Even now, as I walked through the front hall, the wolves gave me the cold shoulder.
Some of them glared at me, barely restrained hatred in their eyes.
That was OK with me. I didn’t need their friendship, not anymore. When I’d first come here, I had thought to find a family to replace the one that had been stolen from me, but I’d learned that that wasn’t going to happen.
Not in this lifetime.
My heart had hardened toward them, just as theirs had toward me. They would never accept me; they’d always revile me as a dangerous creature who could kill them at any second.
To be fair to them, that had happened once. I’d made a mistake on my first job and had killed the only wolf who had ever been kind to me, who had extended an olive branch and thought to make a friend of me.
I still had nightmares about that night. The look on her face, twisted in pain, her mouth open in a soundless scream. I’d never forget that look, not so long as I lived.
There was nothing to be done about it, though. That was in the past, and if I wanted to survive in this world, I had to live in the moment. There was no room for anything other than the job.
The hunt. The kill.
It was what was necessary to survive. I didn’t know how to live without it, not anymore. My life had been one prison after another—first, caged by the vampires, then brought into a world of hunting that I hadn’t gotten a say in as to whether or not I joined.
But it certainly beat cowering in a dungeon, waiting for the next beating and not knowing when I was going to be fed.
Yeah, I’d take this life over the other, any day of the week.
I made my way through the mansion and up the stairs to Conall’s office.
I knocked on the door, then took a few steps back to wait patiently.
Or as patiently as I could. I’d learned a lot about myself now that I had freedom, and apparently, I wasn’t a very patient person. I liked to get things done as quickly as possible and move on to the next task. Maybe that was because in this world, there was always one more thing to be done.
There was no down time, no spare minutes to enjoy anything you’d done, no leisure time. Every moment of every day and night was spent bettering yourself or doing your job.
The door opened, and Conall was standing on the other side. He was a tall man with cropped black hair and steely gray eyes. He wasn’t old, but his eyes held the weight of his having seen the deaths of far too many people.
His wolves? Maybe. I didn’t know; he wasn’t the type of person to divulge information.
“Hey,” I said, forcing a smile to my lips.
I craved Conall’s approval. He was the one who’d saved me from a life in the dungeons, and it was my dream to make him proud of me one day. I wanted him to think I was worthwhile, that he need never regret his decision to take me out of there.
He’d never told me why he’d done it, not beyond saying I was here to be a hunter, but I’d long since decided that it didn’t matter. I’d take what I was given and not ask for more.
That was the way of life here.
“Hello.” He was curt, giving me a brief jerk of his head that passed as a nod, then returned to his seat behind his desk.
“It’s done.” I walked to just a few paces away from the desk, keeping a respectful distance. “No complications. No one saw me.”
He grunted—the only commendation I’d ever receive from him.
How hard would it be to say ‘good job’? Apparently, way too hard for him.
Once, just once, he’d congratulated me on a kill. That had been my first assignment, the awful one when I’d killed the wolf, and in the same breath he’d told me that I needed to get over my guilt and embrace the life I was living.
He was the one who’d taught me that survival was all that mattered. That there was no room for anything else.
It hadn’t taken me long to see that he was right. Without the hunt, there was nothing for me to do, nothing for me to be. The hunt had given me purpose in a world I didn’t belong in anymore.
There wasn’t exactly a group of blood mages I could run off and join. They were all still inside the dungeons, a fact that had made me bitter to this day.
Once, I’d been foolish enough to ask Conall if we could free the other mages.
The look he’d given me had been enough to shut me up for good.
No rescue missions, then. I was the only one who’d been given their freedom.
“Next mission?” I asked, taking a risk. Normally, I’d wait for Conall to speak first, but my impatience got the better of me.
He lifted an eyebrow, looking up at me from beneath dark lashes.
I flushed, waiting for the reprimand that was certain to come. He didn’t like it when anyone spoke out of turn. He ruled with an iron fist. It was necessary, of course, because if he was weak, then one of the other wolves might challenge him for his position.
Not that they could hope to win.
Conall was an Alpha—genetically designed to rule. It was in his blood. He was larger, faster, and stronger than any other wolf I’d ever seen or was likely to see. I’d never met another Alpha, although I figured that was by design.
They probably didn’t like to be in the same room. All that testosterone and all.
I resist
ed the urge to fidget as I waited for him to make a decision. Would I be dressed down, or would I be given my next mission? It was entirely up to him.
Everything would be so much better if I could skip the reprimand.
“Yes, your next assignment.” He looked down at the papers and flipped through some of them before he pushed them aside. He leaned to one side, opened a drawer, and pulled out a thick envelope. “I believe you’ve proven yourself capable of this.”
I was practically drooling over it already, and I didn’t even know what it was. Another high-level kill? Hell, yeah, I could do it. I’d gotten the general, no problem. I could do anything Conall set in front of me, I just knew it.
There was nothing I wouldn’t do for the high that came with a dangerous kill.
I was an adrenaline junkie. I couldn’t get enough now that I’d been introduced to the life.
“You will infiltrate the vampires’ court.”
My eyes widened, and my mouth went dry. I sat down in the chair behind me with a soft thud, unable to hold myself up. It was poor form for me to allow my emotions to get the better of me like this, but I couldn’t help it.
This was unheard of.
We didn’t do things like this. We killed. There were people we used, humans who got us information. No hunter had ever been given an assignment.
How the hell did my kills prove me capable of sneaking into the court?
He held out the folder, one eyebrow raised, and I forced myself to swallow down the apprehension filling my gut.
Conall thought I could do this, and I wasn’t about to disagree with him. The money from this kind of assignment would get me exactly what I wanted: my independence.
Besides, it wasn’t like we could turn down assignments. That was never done. It was either do as Conall said or be turned out onto the street, and I wouldn’t survive for a second on the street.
Even if I got the independence I wanted, I’d still have to work for Conall.
I forced myself to stand and took the folder from him, then flipped it open to peruse its contents.
There were pages and pages of information on the court, on the vampire nobles who served in it, on the King himself. God, what had Conall done to get all of this information? He had to have thralls working on the inside, which was completely unheard of.
Thralls were tied to the vampire who owned them. Every feeling they had could be detected by the vampire. The anxiety that would come with passing along information? That would be a dead giveaway.
Literally. The thrall would be dead within hours.
Which brought me back to my original question: How the hell did he get this information?
But I knew better than to question him directly. He wouldn’t tell me anything anyway, even though it would benefit me to know the people on the inside if I was going to do this.
“What am I supposed to do?” I looked up from the folder to meet his eyes. Sneak in, get information? Kill someone? There had to be a kill going on here, otherwise what was the point?
“You’re going to pass as a thrall to get inside the court. No one else can do this.”
Of course not. Only a blood mage could suppress the thrall spell.
Being enthralled was a form of blood magic. It created something similar to the sire bond between vampires, and it required the exchange of blood.
Only I could resist? Conall admitting that I alone could do something—that was crazy.
“Am I killing someone?” I was walking a dangerous line. Trying to get information from him was always difficult, but I needed more than what he was giving me.
“Under no circumstances,” he said abruptly. “Infiltrate only. Wait for orders.”
I raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.
Yeah, all right, I could do that.
He clearly wasn’t going to tell me what this was for, but asking had been worth the effort.
I had my orders. Now, for the follow-through.
3
Grayson
I walked the corridors of the castle, no real direction in mind. I needed to get out of my suite, but didn’t want to go so far that I’d attract the attention of the Council—or my mother.
They were always hounding me to take a mate, and I was in no mood for that conversation tonight. Something was itching at the back of my neck, a nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right.
I’d learned never to doubt my instincts, but I didn’t know what they were telling me right now.
Something had happened—or was going to happen. Something big. And I needed to be ready for it.
But I had to figure out what it was, damn it.
“My lord!”
A call from behind me had me slowing to a stop and turning to face whoever needed my attention.
I was King, and while many would think that meant I had all the freedom in the world, in reality I was a prisoner of the people. Whatever they needed, I had to secure for them.
“Yes?” I resisted the urge to let out a sigh.
Decorum, at all times. The world of the vampires was a political one, and every action had to be carefully thought through, weighed, considered. There was no room for a single misstep.
Certainly not for me.
The man ran toward me and stopped a few feet away to catch his breath.
“The Council...” He panted. “They need you.”
Of course they did. They never seemed to get anything done without me, though that was exactly what they were supposed to do: take care of the little things so I could focus on what was important.
But to them, everything was too big for them to handle on their own. Or at least, that was how it felt.
“Thank you. Dismissed,” I said, and the man fled.
No one wanted to be alone with the King if it could be helped. A lapse in decorum in front of me... Well, let’s just say it wouldn’t end well.
I made my way through the castle to the Council rooms.
Everyone I encountered made sure to clear the way for me, some of them bowing, some inclining their heads. It all depended on the status they held.
A moment later, I was in the Council room, taking my seat at the head of the table.
We waited for the rest of the Council to filter into the room.
What would it be this time? No doubt something perfectly simple that they should have been able to take care of on their own. I was bored already.
“My Lord.” Councilman Jameson spoke first, his head bowed in deference.
“You may speak.”
“General Graves is no longer with us,” he said.
What he meant was, the man had been murdered, but no one would ever be so blunt.
I was still for several moments, choosing my words carefully. My initial instinct was to demand how it had happened, but I couldn’t do that. Couldn’t allow myself to fall prey to my most basic reactions.
It wouldn’t look good.
Inside, I was seething. How had a general been killed? That should have been impossible. It was true that the hunters had become more aggressive of late, but none of them had dared to touch one of the inner circle before.
This had never been a problem when my father was sitting on the throne. The worst he had had to concern himself with was a minor vampire disappearing here and there, one of the many who were too weak to defend themselves against the hunters. One who was probably better off dead if he couldn’t keep himself alive.
At least, that’s how it had been until Raoul died. After that night, things had gotten so much worse.
“And his partner?” I asked at last, keeping my voice soft. No need to alarm them with my thoughts.
There was silence in the room. No one would meet my eyes.
The implication was clear. His partner hadn’t been with him when he was killed.
“Where was his partner?” I asked again.
“He was...indisposed,” Jameson said at last.
I fought the urge to lock my jaw, knowing it
would only serve to alert them to my frustrations. Indisposed?
That could mean any number of things, but knowing Graves’ background... He’d likely been indulging himself, and that was why he’d been alone.
Idiot. He should have known better than to allow himself to be alone in the under city. He should have known that with the increase in attacks, now wasn’t the time to indulge.
The man had always been sloppy, but he had a good head on his shoulders, and that was why I’d kept him around for so long.
And no one wanted to speak out against his indiscretions. It was unusual for a vampire to share the bed of anyone who wasn’t their mate, but Graves was newly widowed.
Everyone dealt with grief differently. At least there wouldn’t be a mate to bring this news to. The loss of a mate was a crushing thing. A mate was quite literally the other half of your soul, and to lose that part of yourself...
It was unbearable.
“If we had increased the hunts as I recommended, My Lord...” Carlsson had the nerve to say those words.
To suggest that this was my fault. That I hadn’t protected my people in the way I was supposed to.
Yes, it was entirely my fault that Graves had been fool enough to go into a brothel alone when he knew the attacks had increased. I should have…what? Had a blood mage from the dungeons control him?
Mentally, I rolled my eyes at the thought.
They knew as well as I did that there was no way I could have stopped this from happening.
But they were scared, like younglings. They didn’t like to think that death was lurking around the corner for any of them.
“We can’t increase the hunts at this time,” I said. “We’ve been over this.”
Small murmurs filled the chamber. I was near to losing my temper, but I held on to it, just barely.
Inwardly, I was fuming that they would dare to suggest I wasn’t doing my job properly.
“Enough. What of the hunter? I assume they have been taken care of,” I said.