by Becca Blake
How dare he stand there in silence, when he knew damn well the truth of what happened that day?
“If a demon declared war on Haygrove, why didn’t you stop it?” I asked Marcus, turning my attention back to the present, where it belonged. I could worry about Jacob Thorne later.
“We are planning to kill the demon, of course,” Marcus said with a tight-lipped smile. “We just need to prepare.”
“Liar,” Celia cried out.
“After your service on the Council, it’s such a shame to see you join a group of Oathbreakers. Thankfully, it hasn’t been hard to replace you.” Marcus put his hand on Jacob’s shoulder.
“I’m glad you got everything you wanted,” I said, unable to keep the disgust from my voice as I looked at Jacob. I didn’t want to do this here and now, in front of an audience, but I couldn’t stop myself from speaking up. “I hope it was worth it.”
He had no response for that. He just stared at me with those dark eyes that had once seemed so soft.
Was he angry with me? With himself? Did he regret what he’d done?
I wished it didn’t hurt so damn much to see him at his father’s side.
“As fun as it’s been to catch up, I think it’s time this ends,” Marcus said. He gestured to a group of hunters who had been standing off to the side, and they started toward us.
“Wait.” I put my hands up, waving to everyone gathered around us. “We’re here to tell the truth about the Arbiters of Shadow, and what the Council has done.”
“Oathbreakers!” someone in the crowd shouted.
Another person spit in our direction.
These were people I’d seen around town my entire life, people I’d grown up with. They were neighbors and friends, fellow hunters.
I took a breath as I reminded myself that a month ago, I probably would have been just as angry as they were to see Oathbreakers drive into the center of town and make demands.
I just needed to get them to understand why we broke our oaths. If I could do that, we could turn this around.
“I’m Riley Collins. Many of you knew my dad, Owen, and my mom, Carolyn. They were both killed by the Council of Shadows,” I yelled.
At that, the men who had been advancing toward us paused.
“We left because we learned about the Council’s corruption,” I continued. “We learned they’ve been working with the demon who attacked the city.”
Silence overtook the crowd for a few beats before a hushed murmur rippled through them.
“That’s absurd,” Marcus said.
“It’s true.” Celia climbed up beside me on the roof of her car. “The Council has been working for powerful demon lords as long as the Arbiters have existed.”
“She’s telling the truth, and every single one of your commanding officers knows it,” Orion said. “I did as I was told for too long, and I was repaid for my years of service by being framed for a crime I didn’t commit.”
“These are all lies,” Marcus snapped. “We would never work with demons.”
I searched the crowd for faces I recognized and found a few of Orion’s commander friends. “Then, let the officers step forward. They can tell everyone the truth.”
It was a gamble, considering I didn’t know any of them well enough to even guess what they would say. But the people of Haygrove would never believe a group of Oathbreakers without people they respected backing us up.
There was a painful silence before one of them, a female commander whose name I thought was Amber, pushed her way through the crowd to join us.
“Everything they’re saying is true,” she yelled. “But the Council says we work for them because we have no other choice. We can’t defeat them.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “The demon lord Raxael, the one who attacked Haygrove with his army of hellhounds, is dead.”
I received only a stunned silence in response from Marcus. Whatever he’d been expecting us to say, that wasn’t it.
“They want you to think it’s not possible, that our only option is to serve these demon lords because it’s what the Arbiters have done for centuries. But we proved last week that it’s not true,” Orion yelled. “Raxael is one of five demon lords, but it only took four of us to bring him down. Imagine if we all worked together to fight the rest.”
“You have no proof,” Marcus said.
I gestured to Ayla, and she walked around to the trunk to retrieve the strange orb Raxael left behind.
“This is what happened to Raxael,” she said, holding it up carefully to avoid touching it with her bare hands. Green lines glowed beneath the surface as it pulsed.
“I’ve had enough of this,” Marcus said. “Arrest them!”
The hunters he sent after us earlier hesitated.
It was working—we were getting through to them.
“Some of you already knew about the demon lords,” I said. “Most of you, like me, didn’t. They couldn’t trust that you would fall in line once you learned the ugly truth.”
“Stop her!” Marcus snarled.
No one moved.
“We’ve been following their orders while pretending to be paragons of justice. This Council, and all the Councils before them, were wrong. If we stand up against them, we can win.”
“That’s enough,” Marcus yelled. “Just shoot her!”
Celia stepped in front of me and put up a ward. “Don’t you dare, Marcus.”
Another commander stepped forward. I recognized him as a friend of Orion’s, though I couldn’t recall his name.
“I’ve fought alongside Orion. He’s a good man. We’ve been given orders that would make your blood curdle, but we’ve always done everything they asked. The Council dragged Orion out. Made a spectacle of him. And we all went along with it. It was wrong.” He turned to look at Orion. “If you really killed a demon lord, then you can count on me to stand by your side.”
Marcus scowled at the commander, then looked back at me. “This will lead to nothing but more war—more destruction. This is reckless, and it’s going to get the rest of us killed. Maybe you did kill Raxael, through sheer luck. But know this: there are four more demon lords out there, each as strong or stronger than Raxael was. These five creatures nearly wiped out our species, and when they hear of their brother’s death, they will come after us with a vengeance. You have no idea what you’ve started here.”
“We will never be free of them unless we fight for it,” I yelled. “Who’s with us?”
The two commanders who’d spoken up joined us, and a few other hunters followed behind them. More people continued to surround us, until the entire crowd had split into two groups—those behind the Council, and those behind us.
I met Jacob’s eyes again and silently pleaded with him to join us. Even after his betrayal, I still wanted him to come back and fight with me. I wanted to forgive him, to return to the connection we’d been starting to explore.
But as the crowd settled around us, he never moved from his father’s side.
I shoved those hopes behind the wall in my mind, the one that protected me from my emotions. Those thoughts of what might have been between us had no place here.
Jacob made his choice, and I made mine.
“So, here we stand,” Marcus said once everything stilled. “What will you do? Attack us?”
I sized up the two groups, which seemed to be very close in size. Close enough that a fight between us would go either way, and it would end in nothing but meaningless bloodshed.
Marcus, calculating as he was, had likely arrived at the same conclusion.
“No,” I said. “We aren’t fighting here. But those who’ve had enough of the lies are welcome to join me. Humanity needs real protectors—ones who will fight for justice. We will be that justice.”
Surrounded by a sea of cheers, I jumped down from the
SUV to join my friends. Whatever was going to happen next, they’d be by my side, and that was all the reassurance I needed.
We’d done the impossible once, and we would do it again.
***
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed Marked for Death, please consider leaving a review. It really makes a difference and helps other readers find my books!
Riley’s story will continue in Marked for Pain.
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Also by Becca Blake
REIGN OF BLOOD TRILOGY
Blood Bound
Blood Debt
Blood Queen
Blood King
ARBITERS OF SHADOW
Marked for Death
Marked for Pain
About the Author
Becca Blake writes dark and deadly fantasy stories. If you ask her about her hobbies, she’ll tell you she likes to spend her time seeking vengeance against her enemies, but in reality she spends most of her free time curled up on the couch watching Netflix with her cat. She currently lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with her husband and their two kids.
Read More from Becca Blake
www.beccablakebooks.com