Blood Huntress (Ruled by Blood Book 1)

by Izzy Shows

  I pulled myself up until I was facing the window, my muscles flexed to hold me upright.

  When I shifted my weight so that it was all on one arm, I felt myself begin to shake—but it held.

  With my free arm, I opened the window and then rolled inside, where I landed silently on the thick rug that ran down the middle of the floor.

  Victory.

  I waited a moment, then two, to make sure that no one had heard me and was going to sound the alarm.

  When I heard no movement coming from any of the rooms, I crept down the hallway, searching for the room that contained the vampire I was hunting.

  I’d gotten a sense of him from the thrall he’d hurt, and now I let my magic creep out of me and spread through the rooms, hunting for the man who would dare hurt a woman.

  I found him at last and stole inside his room.

  He was sleeping soundly on the bed.

  The temptation to hurt him, to make his death a painful one, was great, but I couldn’t risk the sounds he might make. I couldn’t let him alert anyone else to my presence here—it was too crowded a hall. Just one vampire hearing him and running in would awake the entire hall, and then I’d have to fight my way out of the castle.

  Quick as could be, I pressed a finger to his throat, disabled his vocal cords, and began the chant to boil his blood and destroy the heart that kept him alive.

  His eyes snapped open and focused on me, though he didn’t open his mouth to scream.

  Hatred lay inside those orbs. I wanted to flinch, but I kept control of myself. This vampire wouldn’t intimidate me. I had full control of his body. There was nothing to worry about here.

  It was a simple kill, and it took very little time to complete.

  Once he was dead, I turned back to the door—and found Gray leaning against the frame.

  My heart sped up as horror descended into my mind.

  He’d found me. Caught me red-handed.

  Quite literally.

  Oh, God, what was he going to do with me?

  I don’t want to fight him.

  That desperate thought filled my mind, but I knew I would fight him. I couldn’t let him take me.

  He’d cage me again, for good this time, and I wouldn’t survive that. I would rather die.

  I crouched, locking eyes with him, searching for his biorhythm.

  I wouldn’t go down without a fight. He would learn what it meant to fight a blood mage—I’d make sure of that.

  His eyes darted down to my wrist and back up to meet my gaze.

  “Hello again, little hunter.”

  26

  Grayson

  It was her.

  The realization had hit me like a freight train, and I still couldn’t wrap my mind around it.

  It was her.

  Four years I’d spent searching for her, trying to find the hunter who had awakened the hunger inside me, and now she was here.

  In my castle.

  Standing right in front of me.

  Something had woken me from my slumber, and then I’d found that hauntingly familiar scent through the castle. Dim and faint, but it was there.

  It was her.

  The open window in the hallway was easy enough to skirt around, to avoid the lethal daylight it let stream in, and it was worth the danger of coming close to the light.

  Because she was here.

  Vaguely, I was aware that we were standing beside the body of one of her kills, and that she was the hunter who had been tormenting my people. Every muscle in my body screamed at me to grab her.

  And not to kill her.

  To crush her against me and teach her whom she belonged to.

  I shook my head, frowning, forcing myself to focus on what was actually going on.

  I had to let go of the side that wanted her and shift into the mindset of the King who needed to protect his people. I should be enraged, not attracted.

  She lifted her hand from the dead vampire and turned to leave, freezing when her eyes locked on me.

  I heard her heartbeat speed up, and I smiled.

  She was afraid of me.

  That was good, because I was going to kill her.

  Wasn’t I?

  The idea of that...somehow felt unnatural. Like I’d be killing a part of myself if I did it.

  She’s been killing your people. You have to do this.

  She sank into a crouch, her eyes narrowing with the promise of death in them.

  I glanced again at the fabric on her wrist, confirming once again that it was her, though I had no need to.

  I knew her scent.

  “Hello again, little hunter,” I said, my voice a husky murmur.

  Damn her for bringing out that side of me.

  Her eyes widened—she hadn’t realized I’d recognized her?

  No matter.

  I launched myself through the air without another moment of hesitation, grabbed her about the waist and fisted a hand in her hair, then dragged her back against me.

  “How did you do it?” I whispered, keeping my voice low so as not to attract the attention of the others.

  I didn’t want anyone else involved in this. Not yet.

  She was mine.

  That had never been more evident than in this moment, when she twisted in my grasp and her ass brushed against the full erection in my pants.

  She gasped, yanking her head around to force me to let go of her hair so she could glare at me.

  I averted my eyes for a moment, temporarily ashamed of the reaction.

  It wasn’t right that she could distract me like this when I should only care about killing her.

  Then I forced myself to move on, get over it, and brought my eyes back to her brown ones.

  “How have you been getting in and out of this castle?”

  She didn’t respond, choosing instead to hammer her elbow into my gut, driving the air from my lungs, and slammed her heel onto my instep.

  I lurched backwards, instinct repelling me from the attacking force, then yanked her against me again.

  I wrapped one thick arm around her neck, then grabbed a wrist, quickly followed by the other one, and pinned them behind her.

  Between our bodies.

  “I’m not done questioning you. You’re going to answer me, and then I’m going to kill you. It’s just a matter of how you’re going to die.”

  Her breath came quickly, and her heart beat fast in her chest, but she didn’t respond.

  Her silence only served to infuriate me.

  “How have you been killing them?”

  Her only response was to chuckle, a low, throaty sound that went straight to my dick.

  I fought back a groan, restraining myself from the temptation to pull her closer and bring those soft curves against me.

  She belongs to you.

  The knowledge hammered against my mind, an incessant battering that I couldn’t ignore.

  She was a ruthless, cold-blooded killer, and yet I found that I didn’t particularly care about that, as insane as that was.

  “Answer me!”

  Instead, she rolled her hips back, bringing her ass fully against my hips, and drove the air out of me for an entirely different reason this time. She shifted again, brushing her hips back and forth, teasing me.

  “You’re playing with fire, little hunter,” I murmured, leaning my forehead against the back of her head.

  Still, she moved against me, and damn if it didn’t do exactly as she intended.

  My breath came in ragged gasps as I fought to control myself—and my hold on her weakened.

  She spun out of my arms and faced me again in a crouch, a mischievous light twinkling in her eyes.

  She was enjoying this, the little devil.

  Under any other circumstances—if we had found each other out in the city again, where the onus wouldn’t be on me to bring her to justice—I would have enjoyed it too.

  I wanted to toy with her as she was with me, to remind her that her body was mine to bend t
o my will. To remind her that I’d stolen her control from her just as she was doing to me now. To remind her that she wasn’t the only one who could rain down hell.

  But I couldn’t do any of that. I couldn’t engage in this game and then let her slip away into the night.

  She would die for her crimes, as much as that would pain me.

  I’d have to let go of the hunter who had haunted my dreams for so long.

  I lunged for her again, driving my fist into her gut and carrying my weight into her, slamming her against the wall. My thighs caged hers, and my body pressed tight against her.

  My fangs descended, an immediate reaction to the thrill of the fight and the presence of this damned woman.

  I have to do this. I have to rip her throat out. I have to kill her.

  Although I told myself that, something stayed my hand.

  She glared at me, silently daring me to get on with it.

  To end this battle, to claim my victory.

  How did she not understand?

  I knew she felt the connection between us. That much had been evident that night on the rooftop, though it did wound my pride that she’d run from me at the end of it.

  She had to know how horrid it was that it had come to this.

  But it was always going to come to this. I saw that now.

  She was a hunter, and I was a vampire.

  We came from two entirely different worlds, and there was no reconciling that.

  “Why did you do this?” I asked, the pain I felt now evident in my voice. “Why did you have to be this?”

  She still didn’t answer me.

  Why? Why wouldn’t she speak?

  I closed my eyes, shook my head, then looked back at her.

  So, this was how it was going to end.

  I bent my head so that my mouth was mere inches from her throat and scraped my teeth against the skin there.

  A shiver went through her, and a moan escaped her lips.

  My body reacted as any male’s would. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but my body hardened even more.

  Gods, did I want her. I craved her.

  I will never enjoy her.

  The pain that lanced through me at that thought was too great.

  Just one taste.

  I forced my fangs to retract, and instead pressed a soft kiss to her throat.

  No one would know that I’d hesitated.

  She whimpered, and I brushed her skin with my teeth, then captured her flesh and sucked on it.

  Her breasts pressed against my chest with every breath she took, and a tortured sound came from her.

  “Please...”

  The first word she’d spoken.

  I eased my hold on her, wrapped an arm around her waist and palmed her sex with the other.

  If I had just one moment with her, I was damned well going to enjoy it.

  She writhed against my hand, her breath coming in small pants, and mewled.

  I chuckled against her neck, then went on brushing light kisses against her skin.

  “You belong to me,” I said. “You’ll always belong to me.”

  “Yes.” The word came out on a soft breath.

  I growled, capturing her skin with my teeth again. The urge to mark her, claim her, was too great. I worried at her skin, sucking and biting, and continued to torment her with my hand.

  The sounds that escaped her were ones I would treasure forever—sounds that I had forced her to make.

  I abandoned her sex for a moment, slipping my hand up and under the shirt that dared to keep her skin from me.

  She reacted by wrapping a leg around my waist, shifting her hips, and bringing her sex to bear with my cock.

  My breath left me in one great whoosh, and I froze.

  She ground herself against me, and I lost all rational thought.

  Claim her.

  The blood beating in my ears deafened me to everything other than that intrinsic need to take what was mine.

  I gathered my control back, inch by inch, until I was myself again.

  She stilled, as if she sensed the change in me.

  I pulled back from her, locking eyes with her again.

  Her expression shifted. The dulled look of pleasure drained away, replaced by fierce determination.

  She shook her head. “I won’t let you do this.”

  Now that I could think, it occurred to me that her voice was...familiar.

  And not just because I’d met her once before.

  What…

  Pain lanced through my head. I opened my mouth to let out a tortured scream, but no sound came out. I stumbled away from her, dropped to my knees on the floor and clutched at my head.

  The pain was impossible, all-consuming. I couldn’t get a thought to form in my head. Couldn’t think through the haze of pain.

  What was this?

  No, no...

  I looked up at her and saw the conflicted look on her face.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and the sound of her voice temporarily cut through the pain. “But it has to be this way.”

  She lifted her hand and formed it into a fist, and the pain heightened.

  Just before I lost consciousness, I realized what was happening.

  She was a blood mage.

  27

  Grayson

  I’m hung over.

  That was the first thought that came to me when I regained my senses.

  I had to be hung over; that was the only rational explanation for the sluggishness in my head. I could barely manage to form a coherent thought, let alone remember what had happened.

  One breath, then another. I forced the air in and out of my lungs.

  It was all I could do to focus on the act of breathing, but I knew if I got that down, then I’d be able to regain control of my faculties.

  Memories came back to me, one at a time, and not in order.

  I remembered the hunter—the blood mage. She’d been pressed against me, and I’d tasted her skin again.

  The memory of her writhing in my arms was delicious, but I pushed it aside for the moment.

  There was more, and I had to get the rest of the puzzle put together.

  She’d killed a vampire. I was in the room of the vampire she’d murdered.

  Fuck. Had I rutted against her like a youngling with no control of myself, in the room of her latest kill?

  Disgust swept through me.

  Just as I’d been about to kill her, she’d taken me down with some spell, forcing a pain through me like nothing I’d ever felt before.

  What sort of magic had that been?

  I’d never read anything about it, not in the records we kept of the blood mages.

  We had extensive libraries on the subject. To know your enemy was to survive your enemy, but there was no mention of a spell that could incapacitate a vampire like that.

  Not without killing them.

  Come to think of it, why hadn’t she killed me? She’d driven me to unconsciousness with the pain, but she hadn’t delivered the killing blow.

  The link. The connection.

  No. I couldn’t think about that right now.

  I forced my eyes to open and found an angel kneeling beside me, her face twisted with concern.

  I blinked, and she came into focus.

  Nina.

  I relaxed as soon as I realized it was her leaning over me. She had such an effect on me, calming me when otherwise I might have given in to the panic that was threatening to consume me with all the questions that kept running through my mind.

  And then more questions cropped up.

  The blood mage had pushed all thoughts of Nina from my mind.

  This thrall had captivated me in a way no other ever had—except the hunter.

  How was it possible that two women could distract me in such a way?

  I’d been in so much control before that night on the rooftop, and then I’d reclaimed it until Nina had shown up for the Choosing.

  I didn’t w
ant to think about that right now. There was too much else that needed attention.

  Like finding that hunter and finishing the job.

  I might want to spare her, but I knew it was my duty to ensure the safety of my people. Now that I knew who the killer was, I couldn’t allow her to remain at large.

  She would kill again, and it would be my fault when it happened.

  These murders – I’d refused to acknowledge that they were my fault before, but now that I knew who she was, I had to admit that any further killings would be on my head.

  I couldn’t allow this to continue.

  “Nina,” I gasped, my throat raw.

  “Shhh,” she said, brushing a hand along my forehead. “You’ve been unconscious for at least ten minutes. What happened here?”

  I turned my head to look over at the vampire on the bed—the dead vampire.

  “There was another murder,” I said.

  I sat up, forcing myself to block out the pain that came with that action. Apparently, I still wasn’t over whatever that mage had done to me, but there was no time to be worrying about that now.

  I stood up, then grasped Nina’s hand and pulled her to her feet. “You must never tell anyone how you found me here. Never.”

  She looked up at me with wide, innocent eyes and nodded. “Of course. I won’t tell a soul. I swear.”

  I nodded, satisfied that she would keep this a secret. “Wait a few minutes, then call for help.”

  “Where are you going?” She frowned.

  “To find the bastard who did this.”

  Without a backward glance, I stormed out of the room and headed for Alex’s.

  By the time I reached his room, Nina still hadn’t sounded the alarm, and I was grateful for that. I wanted to get out of the castle before anyone knew what had happened—before the Council could call me back and make me listen to their whining.

  I didn’t have time to deal with them at the moment. The mage had left just a little earlier…

  Just a little earlier.

  There was daylight outside.

  Fuck me.

  She was going to have the whole day to get away from me. The trail would be cold by the time I could get out and try to catch up to her.

  I balled my hands into fists and snarled.