Blood Huntress (Ruled by Blood Book 1)

by Izzy Shows

  I wanted those days back.

  I wanted everything to be the way it had been.

  But that wasn’t an option. Nothing could turn back the hands of time. That magic was beyond all of us.

  “Let her be a weapon,” I said, and my voice sounded empty even to my own ears.

  If we used her, at least she’d be alive. At least I’d have time to sort out these feelings that were driving me mad.

  The members of the Council nodded in agreement.

  It was done. Her fate was decided.

  I pushed back my chair, about to stand.

  “Wait.” It was Charles, the oldest man on the Council, who spoke, lifting a single finger. “There is one more order of business for us to address today.”

  I arched an eyebrow, looking around at the rest of the Council. No one would meet my eyes.

  What else could we need to address?

  He cleared his throat. “None of this would have happened if you had been mated. You wouldn’t have taken the thrall, and you wouldn’t have allowed yourself to be distracted by her. It’s more than evident now that you must take a mate, my King.”

  My eyes darted from one Council member to the next, and finally rested on my mother.

  She was the only one to meet my gaze, staring back at me with steely determination.

  Of course she’d agree with this. She’d been campaigning for me to take a mate longer than I could remember.

  “You can’t be serious. Now? You want to talk about this now?” I snarled, abandoning the small amount of decorum I’d been holding on to.

  “It’s never been more important than it is now,” Charles said. “You must do this.”

  “I have more important things to deal with.”

  “If you don’t do this,” Isaiah said, “you’ll leave us no choice.”

  It took me a minute before I absorbed the reality of what he’d just said. They would take the throne from me if I didn’t agree to take a mate.

  My nostrils flared, and I glared down at the floor, debating.

  The idea of mating with someone else... My stomach roiled, and I fought back the bile in my throat.

  How could I possibly touch another woman?

  That’s just the remnants of the magic she worked on you. Your mate is out there.

  They’d take my power from me if I didn’t submit; I knew that. But how could I do what they were asking of me?

  Everything inside me rebelled.

  “Fine,” I said, my voice little more than a growl. I stood, knocking over the chair I’d been sitting in. “Get out.”

  They fled the room, clearly happy to take their victory and not push it any further.

  The moment they were gone, I let out a roar of pain and anguish, seized the table and threw it against the wall.

  Damn you, Nina.

  31

  Grayson

  I stalked back to my suite, glaring at anyone foolish enough to get in my way.

  They all skittered away from me, no one wanting to get too close. Several people turned and walked the other way when they saw me approach.

  Good.

  At the moment, I only felt hatred for every single person I came across.

  Everyone was the enemy. My people, the Council, my mother, Nina.

  They were all against me. I had no one in my corner.

  Is it her fault she did what she was raised to do?

  Snarling, I shoved the thought aside as soon as it surfaced.

  It would do me no good to sympathize with her. She was a monster; whether of her own creation or someone else’s, it mattered not. She’d had a choice in her actions after she’d arrived at the castle, and she’d chosen to kill.

  She chose to kill rather than be with me.

  The pain was too much. It threatened to tear my chest in two, and all I wanted—all I could ever want now, it seemed—was to storm down to the pit and hold her tight in my arms.

  Somehow, I knew deep in my soul that if I could touch her, this pain would go away. Everything around me would calm, and I’d be able to think straight.

  But that couldn’t be true, because every time I thought of her, my anger increased tenfold.

  And if I was near her, she’d muddle my thoughts with her blood magic.

  She couldn’t be trusted.

  I stalked into my suite, slamming the door so hard, the wall shook.

  “Well, that was quite impressive,” Alex said.

  I snarled, baring my fangs at him. He was sitting on the chaise longue against the wall, looking quite comfortable.

  He had to have been waiting quite a while to get the jump on me.

  He’d be disappointed if he thought he was going to get anything out of me in my current state.

  “Get out,” I said, pointing at the door.

  “No.”

  “Get. Out.”

  He stood, crossing his arms over his chest. “No. I have something to say, and damn it, you’re going to stand there and listen to it.”

  I balked, staring at him as if he’d grown a second head.

  Then the rules of decorum closed in on me, the only thing I could turn to now.

  “You’ve broken decorum.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “We both know we let decorum slide when we’re alone—and maybe Nina’s rubbing off on me.”

  My lips twitched, almost a snarl. I didn’t know how I felt about that.

  Alex sighed, letting the easy-going expression fall from his face to reveal the more serious side of him that I rarely saw.

  “I’m disappointed in you, Gray,” he said.

  I tensed.

  “Everything that happened between the two of you—how could you do this to her? Really, I thought better of you.” He grimaced.

  “How dare you—”

  “Don’t you recall that, not long ago, you were telling me about your feelings for her? Feelings no vampire should ever feel for their thrall?” He stepped closer to me, his eyes burning with accusation.

  “Exactly. That’s all the proof I need of her betrayal. She used blood magic on me to make me think—feel—things that are unnatural.”

  He snorted. “If you think that, you’re thicker than I thought.”

  A growl rumbled low in my throat. I dearly wanted to rip off my oldest friend’s head.

  “Why are you behaving this way?” I demanded. “You should hate blood mages as much as anyone. You should hate this one because of what she did to me.”

  “What exactly did she do? Because if you think she was in this alone...” He rolled his eyes. “No, Nina cared about you. It was obvious to see her struggle—and it only makes more sense now that she’d go hot and cold on you. She cared about you, but she didn’t want to let herself. And why do I care? You know as well as anyone what happened to my sister. Or do I need to remind you?”

  “No...”

  He stepped closer. “Murdered. By hunters. Just for existing, just for being a vampire.”

  “You do recognize that Nina is one of those hunters.”

  “You still don’t get it, do you?”

  Somehow, this turn in the conversation actually served to calm me somewhat. It was something else to focus on.

  “No, I suppose I don’t.”

  “Nina isn’t the hunter who killed Katerina, which means I have nothing to hold against her. But I can understand the position she’s in. She’s just existing, and you want to kill her for being what she is.”

  I turned away from him. I couldn’t do this.

  I couldn’t deal with this pain and confusion. All I wanted to do was be in the same room as Nina, damn it.

  But I couldn’t do that.

  She betrayed me. She cut out my heart.

  Alex sighed. He headed towards the door, then paused. “I want you to remember this moment. This will be what you’ll regret for the rest of your life.”

  And then he left me.

  The moment the door shut, I lost the control I’d barely been holding on to througho
ut that entire conversation.

  I overturned everything in the room. The chairs, the chaise, the table. I pulled the bookshelf from the wall.

  Smashed the mirrors and the paintings.

  When I was surrounded by destruction, I fell to my knees and let out the roar of pain I’d been holding inside.

  32

  Nina

  What was time?

  What was real and what was fantasy?

  It was impossible to know down here.

  It had to have been days since Gray had dragged me down to this pit of despair and abandoned me.

  No one had brought me food, and he hadn’t visited me even once, but I knew these cells.

  I’d lived in them for years.

  I knew how to count the days. The hours passed in breaths I took, in screams of rage I let out for no one to hear, in the soft sobbing that wracked my chest when I thought about the endless days ahead of me.

  I was going to die in this pit. There was no other option. It was just a matter of time.

  If only he’d killed me instead. That, I could understand. That, I could accept.

  But this?

  This was the worst thing he could ever have done to me.

  Did he know how it made my skin crawl, how it drove me mad?

  I’d tasted freedom, felt the warmth of the sun on my skin and run through the trees with careless abandon. I’d stalked the city streets, feeling the adrenaline pumping through my veins as I hunted my next victim.

  I’d been alive for the first time in my life, and he’d stolen all of that away from me.

  All because I had to be a damned idiot and save his life.

  It had been difficult enough before to pretend there was nothing between us, but in that moment, I’d known I couldn’t live in a world he wasn’t a part of. I couldn’t conceive of a reality without him, even if he wasn’t mine.

  Even now, with nothing but my madness to surround me, the knowledge that he was alive and well comforted me.

  Sometimes, I sent my magic snaking through the castle to find him, to touch him and reassure myself that nothing had happened to him.

  His heart beat irregularly at times, but still, it beat on.

  He was alive.

  Every time I pushed my magic to its limits like that, it left me weak and trembling. I wasn’t supposed to reach that far, but I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t go a day without knowing that he was well.

  I’d take the pain that came with it once I was done. I’d accept the fall into unconsciousness. I’d deal with the body-shaking dry heaves that accompanied the overexertion.

  All so I’d know he was all right.

  Damn him for making me feel this way.

  “I miss you,” I whispered.

  It was just me down here, so what did it hurt to admit that?

  I missed the light in his eyes when he smiled at me. Missed the clear signs of struggle on his face when he forced himself to keep his hands off me, letting me know that he desired me just as much as I did him.

  Why hadn’t I let him kiss me when the opportunity presented itself?

  So many times, I could have taken advantage, but I’d stuck to stupid morals.

  What good did they do me now?

  I was going to die down here.

  No.

  I blinked, stunned by the sudden rebellion in my mind.

  You’re going to get your ass up and get out of here.

  As if I were being compelled by some outside force, I stood and walked to the door that held me captive, then wrapped my fingers around the iron bars that formed the window in the wooden door.

  I wasn’t the same person I’d been when I’d lived in these cells before. I wasn’t weak.

  I was stronger now.

  A cage couldn’t hold me.

  I took two steps back on shaky legs—the starvation was starting to get to me—and assessed the door in front of me.

  To my great frustration, I still couldn’t see it. I’d thought my eyes would adjust to the darkness, but apparently, we were too far down for that. All the same...

  I took a breath in, inhaling the scent of the cage.

  The door was old; I could tell that.

  Probably rotted.

  When was the last time they’d put someone down here? Not for a while, I’d think.

  This was a special place, for the worst of the worst.

  I took a few more steps back until my back touched the wall, then bent my knees and took a running jump at the door, feet first.

  The pain shook through me all the way to my head, but the door gave way, blasting off its hinges.

  Now, I needed to get out of the castle undetected.

  I smiled.

  Piece of cake. I’d been doing that the whole time.

  I let my magic rush ahead of me as I carefully climbed the stairs, bent over so that my fingers brushed each step before I put my foot on it. I wasn’t going to trip, wasn’t going to make a single noise that would give me away.

  I don’t know how long I climbed, but it was a while before I sensed a guard before me.

  With a vicious smile on my lips, I reached for his mind.

  Go away.

  I pushed the command at him roughly, not wasting time with a delicate touch, preferring instead to heavy-hand it—to squash all the resistance in his mind. I didn’t bother covering up the obvious influence I’d used. He’d figure it out in a little while, but no matter.

  They’d find out anyway, once they discovered I’d escaped the cell.

  But, damn them, I wasn’t going to wait around to die.

  I continued up the stairs, turning away each guard before I reached them, sending them down the line of cells they guarded so they wouldn’t see me, hiding my scent and stilling my heart for a moment as I passed the entrance to the hallways.

  They wouldn’t detect me. I wouldn’t let them.

  At last, I reached the point in the climb where a small amount of light was let in, where I could see again.

  Things were starting to look familiar. I remembered the flight I’d taken with Conall, the night he’d come to set me free.

  I kept a hand on the wall now, rather than crouching to touch the steps, until I reached the alcove that led to the tunnel we’d escaped from.

  There, I let out a breath of relief. Finally. I was going to make it out of here.

  Excitement started to build inside me as I thought about feeling the sun on my skin again.

  Yes. I could do this.

  I raced down the hallway until I reached another door, pushed through it, and stumbled into the light of day.

  Thank the merciful gods.

  Daylight. Everyone but the guards would be in their beds now.

  I couldn’t have planned this escape better if I’d actually had information to work with.

  Suppressing my need to let out the cheer that rose to my lips, I shot off like a rocket across the grounds and through the woods.

  Freedom.

  33

  Nina

  It didn’t take long to reach the city, and I spent every second enjoying the feeling of sunlight on my skin. It had been ages since I’d been given such a treat.

  There was no getting any sunlight when you lived with vampires, but now I could enjoy it.

  I sped through the city, not bothering to stick to the alleys.

  My long dress tore on the random objects that littered the streets, but I didn’t care. I’d be free of this reminder of Gray soon enough. Then, I’d start the process of removing him from my heart and mind.

  He wouldn’t be able to hurt me anymore. I wouldn’t let him.

  Humans were walking the streets now, but they all moved out of the way for the mad girl racing along like hellhounds were chasing her.

  I knew none of the vampires could follow me right now—the guards couldn’t walk in the daylight—but I was still afraid of being caught and dragged back to the cells.

  Logically, I knew that wouldn’t happen, but the
fear was still there.

  The panic that everything would be taken away from me again.

  Well, it wouldn’t.

  There’d be no cage this time if they captured me again. They’d kill me for certain this time, which would be merciful in its own right.

  Anything to stay out of the cages.

  I tore through the city until I finally made it to Conall’s compound.

  Once I was in front of the door, I stopped to catch my breath, bending over to rest my hands on my knees as I panted.

  I’d made it. No vampires were following me, and they’d never find me again.

  Freedom. I’d gained it on my own.

  My blood was pumping through my veins faster now that I realized no one had saved me but myself.

  I’d done this on my own. I’d earned my freedom. I wasn’t reliant on anyone.

  Laughter bubbled out of me, and at last I stood and pushed through the doors. I carried my head high, despite the torn dress I was wearing and the blood caked on my hands and feet.

  The wolves stared at me as I walked past them, but I didn’t care.

  They didn’t own me. No one owned me.

  I belonged to no one now.

  Conall was sitting calmly at his desk when I walked in still panting and with an exuberant look on my face.

  A flicker of shock and dismay took over his expression, emotion I’d never expected to see coming from him.

  “What in God’s name are you doing here?” he snapped, standing up.

  “They figured out who I was,” I said between breaths. “I was exposed. They threw me in the dungeon, but I got out.”

  Shock, then disgust, rippled over his face, until at last it settled into the calm and empty façade I was used to.

  “Get out,” he said, his voice cool and emotionless.

  I gawked at him. “What?”

  “Get out.”

  “No!”

  “I have no use for you now. You have no place here. Get out.”