Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 112500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 563(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 563(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Ink adjusted the staff slung across his back. A stone bowl hung from one end by a short length of chain—the peculiar tool she’d given him with little explanation. “This task might be deadly,” he said. At best, it was baffling. At worst, it hid a lethal trap. “I will demonstrate for you what I’m capable of. Up close.”
The vampire glared.
“What exactly did you think would happen to me after I set off to do your bidding?”
She waved a careless hand. “Any time you inch near the Helter, things get strange.” Tonight she’d traded her slippers and dress for worn trousers and sturdy boots. Sensible. If one expected to run. She’d also belted her sword at her side. “That’s why the pay is so high.”
Only the desperate or the damned came this close to the Helter, and they tended to strike first and ask questions later. Any encounter could be one’s last.
“Logically,” he said, “you should want to get rid of me. I alone know your secrets. So if you want me to return you to your room as easily as I just took you from it, you’ll ensure I survive the night.”
“Your teleportation is valuable to me,” she said simply.
He nodded without warmth. “A successful outcome suits you. An unsuccessful one suits you. Or at least it did before I forced you to come along.”
The faint flush rising in her cheeks told him all he needed to know.
She was hiding something. Again. And this mission—on paper so simple—reeked of complications. So he had traced her with him. If I go down, so shall you, little flame.
He hoped she wasn’t spinning a second web around him. In truth, his accounts were less robust than he remembered. Rare books weren’t a hobby of the unemployed, so Nadje’s promised payment glimmered like salvation.
Plus, he still wanted to solve the mystery of why he’d reacted so strongly to the plump blood drinker. “Now that we’re here, you can divulge who the buyer is.”
She raised her chin. “He’s a moneyed warlock. I’ll explain more once we’re at the meeting place.”
“And where might that be?”
“I’ll reveal that once we have our prize in hand. Patience, incubus. I need to protect myself.”
“From me?”
“You could trace me across the river and abandon me in the Helter, surrounded by monsters. Then take the meeting yourself.”
“Didn’t you survive the Badlands?” he asked. “Can the Helter be much worse?”
Her gaze went distant, her mind clearly turned to memories. “Maybe not. The strigoi of the Badlands attack regular vampires with a particular viciousness, like a resentment. Or appetite.” A shadow crossed her face. “I’d prefer the Helter’s beasts. Their motives seem purer.”
Ink inclined his head. Everyone had their specific fears, the limits of what they could tolerate. I have my own. He frowned down at the vampire as she sauntered beside him.
“And you?” she asked after a moment, gazing up at Ink from under her thick auburn lashes. “Always lived in Grimrock?”
“Yes.” He pictured the jagged peaks, endless quarries, and remarkable temples of his home territory. “Most incubi, stone, and rage demons make their home there.” The remaining demon breeds roiled in neighboring Rhun.
“You can only trace to places you’ve already been,” she said thoughtfully. “So when were you in this area before?”
He’d teleported them far enough away so that they didn’t land in lava should the river have shifted course over the ages. “My sire brought me,” Ink said. “As a lesson.”
That memory still tasted of smoke and fear, yet he wished he could go back to that time. His father would be dead less than a year later.
After demons had carved out a rich region from the All-Battle, they’d continued fighting for centuries in the old Ruin and Stone Wars. Father had fallen in a blood-soaked field between two emerging demon territories.
“As a lesson?” Nadje said.
“That this is where immortals come to die—or to do cowardly murder.”
“I’ve heard the tales. They say the river’s haunted by all who perished here.”
He nodded. “Any immortal who’s lost a mate can find deathly solace in those depths.” But then, more than one gullible immortal had been shoved in as they’d gazed into its flames. “Did you consider pushing me in?” he asked.
“And lose my ride home?”
“Vampires can’t lie, so they often answer questions with questions.” Now that she seemed so apparent to him, he wondered how she’d managed to dupe him in bed.
She only smirked, scanning the gloom with one hand on her sword hilt. She readied for threats but also likely for prey. Nadje was a predator; she couldn’t turn off her drives, no more than he could turn off his appreciation for certain females. A buxom beauty’s pleasure was his favorite meal.
Yet he hadn’t fed since her, too confused by their bed play. Over these days away, he’d begun to find the memory of being with her less distasteful and more…tasty.