Page 85 of Fated In Blood

The first sixteen years of my life had been filled with plans for the future—a full-scale extermination against our ancient enemies. How good would conquer evil, how light would defeat darkness.

Every minute of every day was spent training me, molding me for that singular goal.

And this dagger was the weapon that would cut our enemy down like stalks of wheat.

The gold blade was tainted by the blood of a hundred thousand victims over a thousand years, both the guilty and the innocent, and could—according to family legend—only be wielded by those of Silverwood blood.

I’d only seen the fabled dagger once before, hoisted over my father’s head, from the farthest corner of the Vault, through a sea of bodies, and only for a second.

But I’d know that weapon anywhere.

I woke up sweaty,starving, and in a foul mood.

After a lukewarm bath, the only thing that had changed? I was clean.

Because I’d lost my bag of clothing during the fucking disaster in Valentine’s basement, I owned exactly one outfit, and even for me, this one smelled ripe. But my life wasn’t a fucking fashion show.

No, I’d spent most of this morning staring up at the cracked ceiling, planning my incursion onto the family grounds, figuring out how to access the Vault and avoid an awkward family reunion that would most likely end up with me dead.

Plus, for the first time since I’d been turned, I wanted actual food, which I supposed was some sort of progress.

Unfortunately, after a particularly hot dream, I wanted Riordan’s blood, too.

And his fingers and his mouth and other parts of him, but this time, I was sticking to just blood. Sex muddied everything up—in my head, at least—and despite His Majesty’s magic fingers, the fewer ties I had to these two males when I left this godforsaken town, the better.

But over and over, my thoughts kept returning to one particular detail of yesterday’s conversation.

Riordan’s fingers lightly resting over his heart as he explained the concept of vampire mates.

The exact spot Blake had rubbed, over and over, after I’d told him my name. The same fucking place my own heart ached when I’d tried to stab him. When he’d been hurt. Every single time I thought about leaving.

The bedroom door squealed when I stepped into the hall trying to get my bearings. I’d only seen a small portion of this place, and there was no rhyme nor reason to how the rambling hallways were laid out or the bewildering number of doors.

My bedroom was in the same wing as the room with the single chair, albeit one floor up. The foyer was at the bottom of a fancy set of carved stairs—vaguely reminding me of the dragon staircase I’d destroyed at Tyrell’s castle—and from there, all I had to do was follow the smell of coffee.

I’d need a change of clothes. Knives. A holster. Probably a gun or two wouldn’t hurt.

Transportation to Virginia, and a few days of reconnaissance to scope out the old homestead and get a head count, since there was hardly ever a time when everyone was there at the same time.

My father had three brothers, plus a generous assortment of nephews, all of them highly trained, some more deadly than others. To my knowledge, I was the only female Silverwood to ever be accepted into their hallowed vampire-slaying ranks.

Also, according to my father on the night he killed my mom, his greatest mistake.

But failure or not, I had the training, and I possessed the proper bloodline to gain access to the Vault—though I wondered if that was technically accurate anymore, given I was now a vampire—but if that dagger was the price of getting my sister back, then I’d gladly pay it.

Anything to get Angel back.

Anything to keep my word to Mom and prove—if only to myself—Iwasworth something.

I came to an intersection of two corridors and the smell of fresh coffee grew irresistible. I hung a right, hoping my nose wasn’t playing tricks on me. Since I’d been turned, this was the first thing I’d wanted to drink as much as blood.

The only good thing about this whole situation? The Vault was never guarded. Since the ironclad room was buried deep in the foundation of what had once been a church, with the house built overtop, my family took a rather cavalier view of their treasure trove.

No one, they reasoned, would be fool enough to steal from them, no one would be suicidal enough to risk a fight with the great and mighty Silverwoods, and nobody could make the four flights down and escape without detection.

No, their arrogance made them overconfident and that was my only advantage.

Since my family hunted in carefully chosen groups and were always off somewhere killing vampires, there were usually only five or six Silverwoods in the compound at any given time, so I’d have to memorize their security patrols and get a bead on who was present to maximize success.

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