Marked For Death: A Dark Urban Fantasy Novel by Becca Blake (english novels to improve english .txt) 📕

With my blood on his finger, he drew a circle on the wall. When he placed his palm in the center, hot energy escaped from the portal, and invisible flames licked my cheeks. He tossed my sword across the alleyway, then stepped into the opening.

Despite the searing pain in my shoulder, I crawled over to my sword, knees dragging through dirt and puddles of rainwater.

Behind me, the demon whistled, calling his creature to his side. The hellhound bounded out of the club and, after a short growl in my direction, jumped through the portal with its master.

“Do not come for me again.”

As the demon stepped through the portal on the wall, I made it to my sword and dove for him in a final desperate attack. The portal closed behind him, and I collided with the hard wall.

More police sirens sounded in the distance. It wouldn’t be long before they responded to calls about the accident. Ayla and I had to disappear before they arrived. I opened the door, coughing as smoke billowed out of the club.

“Ayla?” I called out.

No answer.

Panic rose in my chest. “Ayla?”

A beam crashed from the ceiling, and the fire spread further through the room.

I pulled my arm up to cover my face and coughed again. Where was my partner?

In the middle of the room, light from the flames glinted off two pieces of metal on the floor. A body lay beside them, broken and charred to a crisp black color, unidentifiable except for the two daggers next to it.

Though the fire raged around me, the world stopped.

I should never have left Ayla alone. I should have listened to protocol and fought the hellhound with her rather than running off to fight a demon who was too strong for me alone. We’d hunted him as he fled from one city to the next—we could have found him again.

Now, we never would.

Or at least, Ayla wouldn’t.

Tears stung in my eyes from both the heavy smoke in the air and the grief from discovering my partner dead.

I picked up Ayla’s daggers and ran, leaving what was left of my friend to burn along with the building.

Chapter Two

I unbuckled the leather belt holding the sword to my hip and tossed it on Ayla’s coffee table. It had been a month since I last needed my weapons, but I hated how I felt naked without them.

The guilt and grief since Ayla’s death had been unbearable. At some point, I knew I would have to move on. I just didn’t know how. I would have loved to throw myself into work and do some hunting to get my mind off her death, but I hadn’t been cleared for duty yet.

Instead of spending the day in bed, nursing away my hangover from another night of drinking at the Rusted Blade, I’d decided to confront my grief directly.

No one had been in to clear out Ayla’s apartment, so it was just as I remembered it: a maze of books piled throughout her living room, a stack of empty energy drink cans on the counter, and the ever-present smell of an old library. The only difference was the thin layer of dust that now covered everything.

I flopped down on the worn blue couch, kicked my feet up on the coffee table, and leaned back. I’d hoped that going to her apartment would help me say goodbye, but so far, it was only making me feel more alone.

The door creaked open behind me. I spun around, instinctively reaching for my gun, but I relaxed when I saw Alexander Orion standing in the doorway. To someone else, he might have been handsome with his chiseled jaw, tan skin, and sandy brown hair, but I could never think of him that way. Orion—absolutely not Alexander or Alex or Al—had helped my father raise me after my mother died on a hunt. I loved him as I would any other family member.

“What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” He shut the door behind him and looked around the small apartment.

“There’s nothing else to do on forced leave.” Turning back around, I let myself fall into the soft cushions.

Instead of joining me, Orion walked into the kitchen. Cabinets thudded as he dug through them.

Part of me wanted to yell at him for being disrespectful, but what was the point? Ayla was gone. Someone from headquarters would come by to throw everything out eventually.

When he returned, he held a bottle of whiskey and two glasses, which he set down on the coffee table.

“Bit early, don’t you think?” I asked, raising a brow.

“Maybe.” He poured our drinks and slid one my way.

“How did you know I was here?”

“Lucky guess.”

“If I wanted company, I would have called.” I picked up the glass and took a sip. “Besides, don’t you have work to do?”

“Looking after the wellbeing of a hunter in my unit is work.” He sat down on the couch beside me and gave me a pointed look.

Besides being a second father to me, Orion was also my commanding officer. Sometimes, that came with its perks. Him knowing me well enough to track me down when I wanted to be alone wasn’t one of them.

“I’m fine. I don’t need you to look after me.”

He downed his drink, then set the empty glass on the table. “I didn’t take it well either when I lost my first partner. It was his own damn fault, letting himself get blown to hell, but I couldn’t help thinking it was mine, you know?”

I did know. I’d been experiencing the same guilt myself for the past month. “It was my fault, though. I shouldn’t have broken protocol. I left her to die.”

“Sometimes we have to make tough decisions in the field. You did what you thought was right.”

“I should have been dead, too. The only reason I’m not is because the idea of me wallowing in my failure amused the demon.”

“So, here you are, wallowing?