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

“Not sure,” he replied.

My heart flip-flopped. Kresnik would be here at any moment to investigate. If he found me standing here with the reaper dagger in my hand, I might as well carve out my soul and hand over the phoenix.

“But you told me—”

“That was before you broke the wards and merged the two instances of Kenwood House into one,” he replied.

I glanced from side to side, looking for somewhere to hide, my blood pressure rising to a boiling point. “Where should I go?”

Hades directed me through the hallways, past empty rooms, each of them locked. Eventually, we found a box room with a narrow strip of window close to the ceiling. Artificial light streamed inside, providing the barest illumination.

I leaned against the door, panting hard, my heart clattering in sync with the footsteps thundering past. Panicked shouts echoed through the hallway, adding to my terror. Kresnik wouldn’t think to check that the person who destroyed his wards was still in Kenwood House. Everyone probably thought the Supernatural Council was attacking again.

Hades cleared his nonexistent throat. “Now that you’ve created your diversion, I would advise you to restore my body so we may leave this location intact.”

“Right.” I pulled out the final jar and poured his ashes onto the floor. “I hope you can see in the dark.”

He sniffed. “I am darkness itself.”

There was no time to decipher his words. It was probably some elaborate boast that implied he was the big bad or whatever powerful supernatural men liked to call themselves. I crouched against the door, my pulse quickening.

“Gather all your ashes together.”

Hades did as I asked and formed a largish pile. “Phoenixes can take days to regenerate. If they haven’t found you by morning, one of the maintenance staff will come in, thinking that I’m dust.”

“Trust me, I know a shortcut.”

“You’d better. I don’t fancy dislodging myself from human refuse.”

As the noise outside echoed through the hallways, I smashed the final jar against the wall and cut my hand with a shard of glass. The sharp pain made me hiss through my teeth, and I curled my fingers, pooling warm blood in my palm.

“What are you doing?” he said.

I poured my blood onto the pile of ash, making Hades’ power bristle.

“Blood?” he snarled.

“Blood of the phoenix,” I said in my mildest voice. The last thing I wanted was for him to skitter out from the pile before he reformed.

“What now?” he asked.

I slipped the hand that wasn’t bleeding into the pocket of my cloak and wrapped my fingers around the firestone heart. “Now I’m going to reabsorb this power while we wait.”

Hades fell silent. I hoped this was because the regeneration process was working. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what would happen if he only had eighty percent of his ashes. He might emerge with a missing leg or one-fifth less tall. I pulled out the heart and stared at the firestone, which pulsed and glowed with my power.

Aurora might be right. My fifth chamber was still intact—the part of me that generated my magic—so all that I needed to restore myself to power was a significant boost.

Silence spread through the hallway, and the voices became distant. I wasn’t sure if it meant that the fire users had evacuated Kenwood House or that the wards had been restored and I was locked out of the Flame. Either way, I was safe until Hades emerged from his ashes.

Sucking in a deep breath, I focused on the heart. This was going to be similar to the exercises I did with Coral when she let me draw on her magic. My heart ached, and I hoped she would be alright.

Of course she would. Her blood had accelerated Kresnik’s regeneration, which was why he couldn’t hurt her. It would be the same between Hades and me.

The door swung open, pushing me aside, and every ounce of oxygen escaped my lungs.

Valentine stood in the hallway, glowering down at me with his fangs bared and his eyes as bright as stoplights.

Chapter Twenty-Four

My mouth fell open, but I couldn’t make a sound. I couldn’t even exhale a shocked breath because my lungs had completely emptied.

Valentine stepped into the cupboard, his huge frame looming over my quaking body like a specter. Every bone in my body rattled with terror under the force of his glower.

He stood so still that the pale light streaming in from the window shone against his bronze skin, making him look like he was a statue that had just come to life. What did he want? How did he find me?

I shook off that question. No matter who had taken control of his soul, it was my blood that had resurrected him, my blood that coursed through his veins and animated his dead body. It didn’t matter where I went or where I hid, Valentine would always know exactly where to find me.

A question tumbled to my lips, but so much of me trembled at the shock of his presence that I couldn’t form words.

What if Kresnik had recalled Valentine from his mission and ordered him to bring me back through the wards—or wherever he was—to continue the ritual? What if Valentine realized that the blood oath he’d made me take hadn’t stuck and he wanted to reinstate it with the correct wording? Questions tore through my mind, filling the painful silence.

I remembered something Coral told me about how some vampires would subdue their favorite cows and ensure that they both never escaped and that no other blood sucker found their blood appealing.

Palpitations squeezed my heart, the sensation reverberating across my tightening chest. What if Valentine injected me with so much thrall that I never moved again?

“Valentine—” The word stuck in the back of my throat. “Please, don’t bite me.”

Flaring his nostrils, he inhaled a breath deep enough to spike my adrenaline. I raised a trembling hand, which still streamed with blood. “Take this.”

Without his gaze leaving mine, he snatched my wrist and brought my hand to his lips.