Page 1 of Lifeblood

CHAPTER1

It is impossible to count all the stars.But after two hundred years of life, I’ve certainly counted more than others.

I was on the rooftop of my London flat, taking stock of more stars and wondering of the divinities behind them when I received the alert. A low ping on my phone that vibrated nearly sensually, different from normal calls, as it always did every year. Maybe the demon kings thought it would lessen the fear that alert instilled, a preview of what might come.

It didn’t. Every year, fear of the wife lottery was the same. In others, as well as in me. After so many years of not being selected by it to become a demon king’s wife, I sort of assumed that I was safe by luck or fate. But those I cared for weren’t. They never had been.

Plus, I was never truly safe. Any thought to the contrary had only ever been an illusion. For a lifeblood like me, whose parents had been part of the lineage of the last true divines to walk this world, there was never any safety—certainly not in numbers. Not anymore. All of the other lifebloods had been killed long ago, when I’d been a child.

Now only I remained. The sole remainder of a lineage that traced back to the true divines.

And until last night, I’d avoided the very same demon kings whose immortality was sustained with the blood of my fallen kin.

I was the last lifeblood. And I’d been alone, except for the last five years with Maria, my best friend, and her family. Aside from them, I’d stayed on the edges of society out of fear I’d be found out. But meeting Maria had been chance on a beach in Cornwall, and I’d taken that risk for friendship.

I glanced down at my phone and brushed a fallen lock of long, brown hair out of my face. I almost wanted to obscure the screen again as if it’d delay the inevitable.

1 New Alert: Wife Lottery occurs in two hours. Please assemble at your designated location.

Every year, the Demon Courts held a lottery to send the demon kings new wives. Every year, four women were sent to satiate those kings’ lust and needs—and the women’s own. Or so the story went. But those women never returned. I, and many others, had always assumed that meant they were killed. Why else not return them to assuage the fears of women like me who feared this lottery?

I never wanted to learn the truth about what had happened to all those women. Maybe so that I could continue to ignore the nagging guilt knowing that with my very blood, I could have saved them.

I could stop it, these lotteries. I’d always known this. But it’d mean my death. And with every passing lottery I’d survived, that desperation to stay alive had grown stronger.

My fear kept me safe. But my shame kept me hidden. Unsure. Guilty.

I groaned and hopped back in through the skylight in my bedroom. Faking my way through society’s cracks had been easy enough. I got by with selling stolen goods from the rich elite with ties to the Demon Courts. Avoiding being chosen as a wife has been suspiciously easy for over a hundred years as well. But it wasn’t as simple as not having a social security number or ID. No, the demon kings had magical means that somehow accounted for every living woman over the age of eighteen.

Others were surprised by the demon kings’ power. I was not. They’d been powerful enough to slay my lifeblood parents, after all, and they’d been the reasons for that war lost to time.

My phone buzzed again, this time with a phone call. My hand still trembling, I squeezed the phone tightly so I wouldn’t drop it and picked up the call. “Hello?”

No one spoke for a moment. So long that I started to draw the phone away from my ear to check the caller ID. Maria’s picture—all brown innocent eyes with short hair framing her face—filled most of the screen.

Maria’s quiet voice filtered through in the silence. “I hate today.”

I grimaced. I did too. I hated especially that I’d never before had the guts to stop it. “I know. Me too. But the chances—”

“Don’t say that,” Maria snapped, which took me aback. She was normally such a gentle soul. She volunteered at animal shelters and watched her sister for their mother when she was younger. Maria had a quiet sort of strength. And being with her family always warmed my heart, since I’d never known my own. My parents had been killed when I’d been a child, and the rest of the lifebloods had hidden me away. For as long as I could remember, there’d been just me and various guardians who’d disappeared or shuffled me off.

Until, at least, they’d all been hunted down and killed.

“Sorry,” Maria continued after a few moments, a sob soft on her lips. “I’m just scared, Ava.”

I knew why. Last year, we’d known one of the women who’d been chosen. Like all the others, she’d never returned and aside from memories, it was like she’d never existed at all. Every year, the lottery seemed to pick women closer and closer to us. Fate didn’t appear to be on our side.

“I know, Maria,” I said softly. “Still, the odds are in our favor. Want to head over together?”

Silence again, shorter this time. “It’s Piper’s first lottery. And we saw a fortuneteller last week who said our lives were about to change irrevocably.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. There were certainly individuals besides the demons with magic. Other supernaturals existed. Witches, vampires, fae, other undead. None of them could see the future. “They always tell you that because it’s so vague that you’ll think they were right no matter what happens.”

“But what if this time it’s true,” Maria argued. “Something just feels off. Like the fortune teller was right.”

“I don’t think so. At least, not about the lottery.”

Silence fell over the call once more. “I hope you’re right.”

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