Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“I’m not alive.”
“Ugh!” She steps back and throws her hands up. “You fucking know what I mean. I miss the old days when it was me and you, fucking and killing whoever we wanted.”
“Times have changed.” Even I don’t believe the bullshit coming out of my mouth. Times have changed, now that vampires are out and have assimilated into the general public. But that’s not what’s changed me.
What’s changed me is…nothing. The nothing that I feel. That’s taking over me. I’ve done so much in the sixteen hundred years I’ve been undead.
Eliza opens her mouth, fangs drawn, ready to come at me with something else, but we both stop, having smelled it at the same time.
“Blood,” she whispers. “Someone better have dropped a bottle or something again. I’ll deal with it.” She lets out another dramatic sigh and I can’t help but smile as she speeds out of the office. Eliza can be a pain in my ass most of the time, but dammit, I love her. She’s the closest thing I’ll ever have to a daughter.
I used to want a family back when I was human. Before I was captured in war and forced to fight for other humans’ entertainment.[HW1] I lost faith in humanity before I became a vampire.[HW2]
I stand and start toward the door. The boredom makes the emptiness worse. It reminds me that I have nothing to live for—being dead aside. The smell of blood grows stronger, but then I smell something else—magic.
Speeding out of the office, I find Eliza heading toward the basement.
“Wait,” I tell her, holding out my hand.
“Do you smell that?” She turns, brows pinched together.
I draw my fangs and move in front of her. “Yes. It’s a witch.”
Chapter
Two
“Stay behind me,” I growl and tip my head to the side, cracking my neck. Virgin blood did sound tempting, but witch blood…witch blood is strictly forbidden.
For them, that is.
For us…it’s bragging rights.
“Fucking witches,” Eliza huffs. “What are we going to do with her?”
“I’ll deal with her.”
Eliza pulls her lips into a smile. “And I’ll watch.”
“Hey!” a feminine voice floats up the stairs. It’s soft and delicate yet strong and determined. The magic intensifies, but it’s more than a smell. It’s a feeling.
This witch is powerful.
Maybe I’ll get a break from my boredom tonight after all.
“Let her go,” the same woman commands, and I move silently down the stairs. The door leading to the basement is open, and the scent of human blood wafts through, but is nothing compared to magic. It comes off in waves, smelling like the air right before it rains. It’s as charged as a lightning storm.
I inhale, breathing in the scent of the magic and the blood. Blood itself doesn’t contain any magic. It’s one of the reasons vampires and witches historically don’t get along.
They can walk in the light and the dark.
They’re human yet have the power to kill us.
Or at least they used to.
Over the years, witches’ numbers have dwindled, as have their powers. Vampires aren’t the only ones who want to see all witches burn, and as it turns out, humans have killed many, many more witches than vampires ever have.
With vampires and witches both in hiding, the feud seemed to die down over time, yet no one dared forget the great losses we both suffered in the War of Light and Dark…and how the witches nearly wiped vampires out of existence.
And then when vampires had a resurgence and decided to make the general population know of our existence it put us at the top of a lot of other supernatural’s shit lists. Problem is, they’re not strong enough to take us on.
But the witches are.
“Let her go,” the woman who has to be the witch warns.
“Are you volunteering to take her place?” a man answers, and I recognize his voice to belong to Adam, a vampire who rolled into Chicago a few months ago, thinking he was tough shit because he was seven hundred and fifty years old.
And then he ran into me.
Signaling Eliza to stay behind me, we go through the basement door without making a sound. Adam has a human against a wall, with blood dripping down her neck. She looks terrified and on the verge of passing out. Per the new laws put in place by the Vampire Council, biting unwilling humans is prohibited. Adam could be jailed and having humans being attacked in my bar is bad for business. I like making money.
“Sure,” the witch sneers. I round the corner, moving silently like a shadow in the dark, unable to be seen or heard. The last witch I came across was older, confident in her powers, and fucking terrified of me.
This witch…she’s the last thing I expected.
Her long brown hair hangs in messy waves down her back. Her face is set, staring daggers at Adam. One hand is extended, magically holding a dagger that’s plunged inside Adam’s chest. There’s wildfire inside her emerald green eyes, and my God, she’s beautiful.