Page 11 of The Veil of Blood and Magic

I hear a couple more familiar screams, my senses picking up on the twins in the corner of the room. Two of the core have them cornered, the sisters submitting with their hands raised, tears streaming down their cheeks.

One of the core raises his baton, even though the twins aren’t a threat. He swings it downward—the blow aimed for Ava’s face but connecting with Jez’s as she throws herself in front of her sister.

Rage blossoms in my chest with such force I see nothing but red. My fangs pop out, pulsing with the need to tear through flesh as I race across the room. The other core is laughing, the sound barely muffled by the helmet he wears.

“Look at them cower,” one says.

“We should keep these two,” the other says. “Play with them a bit before handing them over.”

It’s the last thing he’ll ever say.

I’m on them in seconds. One gets my dagger punched through his back, the other gets my teeth. I bite at his neck, ripping in the ruthless way I used to before I learned how to use my fangs properly. This one deserves no mercy, so I show him none as I tear out his throat.

My mouth fills with his blood, a sour taste coating my tongue. I spit it out, the crimson spray blending in with his uniform as he hits the floor, the other following him to the ground.

“Go,” I say to the sisters. “Out the back.”

“Thank you,” Jez says as she helps Ava to her feet. They both look terrified, and I pretend that it’s because of the core and not me. It’s fun to lie to myself.

I spin around, my eyebrows raising as I spot Jagger and Zev fighting the remaining two core. Interesting. I knew the core and drifters didn’t get along, but it’s odd to see them fight when they work for the same boss.

The Collector forced the drifters—cousins to Fae, which imbued them with small magic, formidable strength, and keen senses—to work for him after the opposing side lost the war. Forcing them to change a code that had been set for centuries, turning them from protectors to his personal bounty hunters. It was their punishment for having a fragment of the Fae power in their veins. The Collector gave them a choice; they could either submit to being his beck-and-call bounty hunters or die. Most chose the prior.

The core look at drifters like trash they’re forced to compete with, seeing themselves in a position of honor since they donned the Collector’s colors.

Again, idiots.

The Red Lionclears out, almost all the patrons and employees having fled to the streets, but the initial damage ofthe core’s entrance has been done. Tables are broken with tons of glass shattered along the stone floors. Aruk is doing his best to put out a small fire creeping its way over the stage. He’s bleeding from a small wound above his eyebrow, nothing but anger and devastation in his eyes as he looks over his wrecked tavern.

Guilt slices through me, tears threatening to prick my eyes.

I swallow it down, giving Aruk a silent apology as I race past the still-fighting drifters, occupied with their battle against the last two core. I dump almost all the gold I’ve earned the past few weeks on the bar, hoping it will be enough to restoreThe Red Lion, then I sprint out the front door.

A hollow space opens up in my chest, aching and raw as I leaveThe Red Lionbehind. I’ve left so many places before, but this one…it hurts. And it doesn’t help that the core wouldn’t have trashed it if it hadn’t been for my slip in magic.

I take a sharp turn down the alleyway, the high stone building offering shadowy cover as I slow my pace, not wanting to be heard?—

A white-hot blow hits me from behind, knocking me off my feet and sending me sprawling to the ground. My muscles seize under the crackles of constricting magic, and I glare as two looming shadows appear above me.

“Bad dove,” Jagger says. “Leaving us like that. Didn’t Zev tell you that you belong to us now?” He smirks, and I strain through the invisible restraint to bare my fangs.

Damn drifter magic. It’s small but powerful, and Zev has rendered me absolutely useless, the power drenched in his scent.

Zev crouches down, nothing but curiosity in those golden eyes of his as he looks me over.

“She took down three cores like it was nothing,” Jagger says, speaking as if I’m not right exactly here, seizing and freezing on the damn cobblestoned path. We’re in the autumn months, and I didn’t exactly have time to grab my cloak.

“Hmm,” Zev says in reply.

“I thought we were picking up a normal succubus,” Jagger continues.

Dread swarms my body, overlapping the pain wracking every inch of me.

“I did too,” Zev says, tilting his head. “What are you?”

I curl my lips. “Pissed off,” I spit out the words.

Jagger laughs.

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