Total pages in book: 401
Estimated words: 390373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1952(@200wpm)___ 1561(@250wpm)___ 1301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 390373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1952(@200wpm)___ 1561(@250wpm)___ 1301(@300wpm)
Lowering the hood of my cloak, I looked up. A golden chandelier hung from the pitched ceiling, each arm containing nothing but the edges of shattered glass globes.
“They’re downstairs,” Naill said. “You’d think having only four windows in the entire damn house, they wouldn’t go underground.”
“I suppose living so close to mortals has—or had—them paranoid,” Emil remarked. “It’s a lot harder to pull their asses from their underground chambers and into the sun.”
Naill snorted as he opened the door. A sweet yet stale scent immediately hit me.
Sage halted just inside the foyer, her hackles rising and her upper lip peeling back.
“You okay?” I asked her, tasting her unease.
The wolven nodded but didn’t follow Naill. As I entered the dark stairwell, I looked back to see her pacing in front of the front doors, her ears pinned flat.
That was noticeably odd behavior for a wolven.
“So,” Naill said from in front of me, “the eyes.”
“Yeah?” Glass crunched under my boots as I descended the steps.
“I noticed Kieran’s are different, too.”
“We think it’s because of the Joining. Not sure what it means, though.” My gaze rose, finding another blown sconce in the darkness. “Is every light in the house like this?”
“Yes,” Emil said from behind me. “And it’s the same way in the other two homes.”
“They all look like they exploded,” Naill added, reaching the bottom of the stairs. “Which is only one of the many odd things you will see.”
At the landing, Naill turned left. The hall was short, with heavy, reinforced doors opened to a chamber lit by candlelight at the end. Hisa appeared in the doorway, her long, dark braid lying over one side of her armored breastplate.
“We left everything as we found it—found them,” she informed me.
The stale scent got worse as I entered the dimly lit chamber. My vision adjusted quickly, and I took in what appeared to be a common area with several thickly cushioned chairs and two long, deep-seated couches.
One of the chairs was occupied. A head rested against the back, its short, wavy brown hair ruffled by the churning ceiling fans.
“We found two in here during our evening patrols,” Hisa explained as I walked forward. Each Ascended’s home was checked in the morning and at night to make sure they were where they were supposed to be. “There are two more in one of the bedchambers down here and another in the other.”
Rounding the chair, I looked down. A man was seated, one leg crossed over the other, pale hands resting in the lap of his trousers. Next to him, a woman lay on her side on the floor, her long, golden hair splayed across the thick, gray carpet. My attention returned to the man. His clothing wasn’t wrinkled, nor were there signs of a struggle. My gaze lifted to his face.
I stiffened.
He appeared to be in his third decade of life or so, even though he could’ve been dozens of years older—if not hundreds. But his skin was like an elderly mortal’s: paper-thin, stretched taut over bone, and a ghastly shade of white—too pale for even an Ascended.
A few small drops of blood stood out on the high collar of his white shirt. Mortal eyes wouldn’t have seen them, but I did. I reached forward and carefully moved the stiff collar to the side.
He had two small puncture wounds on his throat, the edges of the torn skin purple.
Letting go of the collar, I knelt and turned to the woman on the floor. The others were quiet as I scooped the hair away from her neck, my fingers brushing her ice-cold skin.
I found the same wounds on her throat.
Wounds I knew hadn’t been made by any weapon. Fangs had done this.
The Ascended had been drained of blood.
What the fuck?
If not for my confusion, I would’ve thought an Ascended—a vampry—dying in the manner so many of their victims did was highly ironic.
“Are the others the same?” I rose.
Hisa nodded. “The bite marks are the only wounds we’ve been able to find.”
“They’ve been drained of blood.” I stated the obvious because it needed to be said. “Which doesn’t make sense.”
“Exactly.” Naill stood in the entryway, his arms crossed.
A vampry’s blood held no value. The Ascended fed on each other for pleasure, but I’d never heard of an Ascended draining another’s blood to the point of death.
I glanced around the space. Beside the chair was a gilded table with an ashtray and a half-smoked cigar next to a wineglass. “How many Ascended were supposed to be in this home?”
“When we placed them into lockdown, there were four,” she answered, resting a hand on the hilt of her sword.
I frowned and turned to Hisa. “Someone got in and out under our watch?”
“Ma’lin and Vasilis were covering this home,” she said. “They said no one came in or out.”
I knew Kastor Vasilis. He was a wolven roughly Jasper’s age. Ma’lin? It took me a moment to put a face to the name. Nerina. She had been in the Crown Guard for many years.