Thrall of the Vampire King (Blood Fire Saga Book 4) by Bella Klaus (elon musk reading list .txt) 📕

in the places where it dipped and curved around the contours of my organ. It was about a third larger than Valentine’s, which made sense, since it had formed a crust around my heart.

“Do you know how to siphon magic from an unwilling object?” Hades asked.

My fingers wrapped around the stone heart, which throbbed in sync with my pulse. “I’m just going to suck the power into my body.”

He scoffed. “I’ll take that answer as a no.”

“How do you do it, then?” I asked.

His magic crackled. “Put your cloak back on.”

Without hesitating, I shook out the reaper cloak, slung it around my shoulders, and fastened its clasp. After pulling up the hood, I asked, “Why?”

“Four goons are headed your way, each of them looking determined to find you,” he said.

I slipped the heart in my pocket and gulped.

A heavy fist knocked on the door. “Sister Hemera?”

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Our Lord requires your presence in ritual room two.” The man opened the door. He was tall with copper skin that made his bald head appear especially polished. I had never seen him around. “Attendance is mandatory.”

I stepped back, but the man threw out an arm and lassoed me around the shoulders with a rope of flame.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Somehow you escaped Brothers Nigel, Peter, and Desmond. Our Lord is waiting, and the ritual cannot start without you.”

Bitterness coated my tongue, and I clenched my teeth. “What’s your name, so I can tell General Sargon how you ensnared me like a wild horse?”

His hearty laugh told me everything. After tonight’s ritual, I wouldn’t be telling Valentine a thing. The man reeled in his rope of fire, making me jog across the room to stop him from dragging me into the hallway.

I glowered into the back of his bald head, wishing I was the kind of shifter that could spit acid long distances. He was following orders, but did he have to be such a dick?

The man led me through the empty hallway, and I stared at the white walls, wondering if this was the last time I would see them alive. This morning, when Kresnik had tried to extract my magic, he had wanted to keep me intact, but I got the feeling that he wouldn’t hesitate to crack me open to access my power.

Ritual room two was a square space where around a hundred young people sat cross-legged with their backs against the earthen walls. In the middle, a dozen four-foot-tall candles stood in a circle with flames that stretched three feet toward the vaulted ceiling.

The usual chalked symbols decorated the floor, forming overlapping six-pointed stars that connected to each of the tall candles. Three sets of cushions occupied the center of the shapes. Healer Calla sat cross-legged on one with her eyes closed and her hands resting on her bent knees. As was customary for these events, she wore a white robe.

The space next to her was empty, which I guessed would be for Kresnik, and on the third cushion sat Aurora.

She sat as still as death, meeting my gaze with an expressionless mask. Sweat beaded across her brow, and her breaths were shallow, making her lean forward with each exhale. As the man led me to a corner seat, I stared back, wondering if she was terrified or if the pain was returning.

The fire around my shoulders fizzled out, releasing the tension from around my body, and the man pressed a heavy hand on my head, indicating for me to sit.

A moment later, the candles in the ritual circle flared, expanding to twice their width and stretching toward the ceiling. I squinted against the glare, and when I finally blinked my vision into focus, the white-clad figure of Father Jude stood in the circle with his arms outstretched.

“Good evening,” he boomed.

Gasps echoed across the ritual room, and everyone applauded. I rested my head in my hands, trying to drown out the applause and pushing away thoughts of how these people could admire someone who performed cheap tricks with stolen magic and treated them like cattle.

My fingers grazed the firestone in my pocket. It was too late to siphon my magic from the heart. If Kresnik called me up and tested my power levels, it would be his for the plundering.

Valentine.

A surge of desperation forced me to call out for Valentine in my mind. Kresnik had taken my magic, but how much of it did he have left? My blood still coursed through Valentine’s veins, and he had heard my distress and risen from his grave once before. He had fed from me every day—surely he would hear me from within this ritual room.

“Thank you, my dear children,” Kresnik said in his fatherly voice.

I glanced around the ritual room for friendly faces and locked eyes with Coral, who sat directly opposite me. To her left was Gail, who also stared at me, and Leman, who bowed his head, looking like a man in the throes of grief.

How I wished I knew what they were all thinking right now. We hadn’t gotten much of a chance to talk about Roman being turned into a preternatural vampire.

Whatever Kresnik said became muffled by the boom of my heart and the ragged breaths heaving in and out of my lungs. Any moment now, Kresnik would call me to the center and extract the magic from my heart.

I curled my hands into fists. Maybe I should offer him the firestone that encased my heart. But if I did that, he would ask where I got it, and if he discovered that Aurora had taken it for herself, he would punish her.

And one more punishment would mean her death.

“Five hundred years ago, when warriors from the Supernatural Council stormed our compound and wanted to drag all fire users into Hell, I cast off the majority of my magic to make them think I had perished.”

My brows furrowed. Kresnik faked his death five hundred years ago? They told us in the academy that