Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 112001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
“Why’d it… take you so… long.”
“For things to come to this?” Kurling shrugged easily, sure as if he were showing off his freedom of movement. “Well, firstly, I needed my own army. You used humans, I wanted to improve on that, and it took me some time to gather the necessary contacts. You inspired me to start looking into the underground, actually. It’s amazing what you can buy, what secrets are available to the highest bidder. These units”—he indicated the soldiers that were standing all around like radios ready to be turned on, or laptops prepared to be booted up, or cars itching for a driver—“are the future of human warfare. It’s just going to take those rats without tails a decade or two to get the technology cheap enough and the squabbling over rights settled. Issues with you aside, we in the Colony will of course need to have our own stockpile of these weapons, and I have a production facility going already. Further, some of the technological problems the humans hadn’t quite worked out needed to be solved. Battery life is such a difficulty.”
“My heart bleeds for you,” Blade muttered.
“Oh, it will.”
The knife came out from behind his cousin’s back, having obviously been nestled in a holster there. And the blade was solid gold, the precious metal gleaming.
“This is your weapon, cousin.” Kurling held the thing up. “I stole it from your quarters two years ago, but you never noticed. You were too busy being weak—do you have any idea what would have happened if the Colony found out you were ahvenging your whore of a sister? Who fucked a vampire? She brought shame upon the whole of our bloodline—especially those of us who have led our lives in the right and proper way. I have no mate, no prospects, no life because of her, and then you”—the tip was angled forward—“you do something even worse. You are going to get all of us killed. Rehvenge may have reset some of the rules, but the Colony has its own underground and the assassins will come for each one of us. You must be eradicated for the rest of the bloodline to survive.”
Blade’s belly pumped in and out as the point of the gleaming golden knife came to rest against his naked abdomen.
“And as long as I kill you, the infection can be controlled. The rest of us will not be tainted by your inexplicable actions—”
“Not… inexplicable.”
“No? What else would you call them? Xhexania brought shame to your immediate family, and after she was dealt with appropriately, you go off and destroy the very thing that cleansed our bloodline of her infection? I cannot fathom why you would do such a thing.”
Blade stared into eyes that were the color of his own, and thought for an instant of the two of them as youngs, playing outside one of the disguised kiosks that fed into the Colony’s maze of subterranean tunnels.
Now they were here, enemies by circumstance and action.
“Because I am not like you,” he heard himself answer. “That is why I did it. That is why it is anything but inexplicable.”
Kurling blinked as if the response was as confusing as the deeds that had been done in the name of love for a sister who had been treated unfairly by those who should have stood by her the most.
“Well, enough with the catch-up, cousin,” the symphath said. “Let us commence this so that we shall both get our due.”
With that, the knife was driven in hard, the gold cleaving through clothing, skin, and organ, smooth as a surgical strike.
And then came the twist.
As Kurling jerked his fist, the knife bored a bigger hole through Blade’s lower abdomen—
His scream ripped through the foyer, echoing throughout the house, the acreage… the whole world:
“Xhexxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.”
If Blade was going out, he wanted his beloved sister’s name to be the last thing he uttered—
In his delirium, things that couldn’t possibly be true seemed to happen—
This was not possible. There was no way that the doors of the mansion exploded open and the very female he had called out to burst through curls of smoke as if she had answered to her name.
Except it was his sister. And she was not alone.
Warriors, strong of back, with black daggers strapped, handles down, to their chests, flooded the foyer and engaged with the animatronic soldiers, the fighting propagating like an immune response to cancer in an otherwise healthy person.
Xhex went right for their cousin.
And in his surprise, Kurling was no match for her.
Then again, Kurling would have been no match for her even if he had been prepared. She overpowered him with her better skill, taking him to the ground with a smooth and ready move, mounting him and pinning him in place with a strong arm and a grip on his throat.