Page 4 of Shadow's Heart

He did. Earlier, when his erection had waned, he hadn’t missed it?—

A threat shivered in the air. Those male voices pierced the veil of floating once more. Though the Gaolers couldn’t enter Poly—he didn’t know why—they posted bounties for hunterswho could, and he was worth forty pieces of priceless dragon’s gold.

Had someone come to collect?

Impossible. Silt’s physical and mystical boundaries had kept intruders out of his pyramid for more than half a millennium. Scores of hunters had arrived to claim the Gaolers’ bounty, and they’d all been eaten alive.

No more denying it; Silt wasn’t in his bed. He lay on what felt like a cold, dirty street. He struggled to rise, finally managing to sit upright. His head swirled. “Where’m I?” Had someone dressed him in his pants?

He opened his eyes, his vision blurring. “The hell’s going on?” Adrenaline surged, clearing his sight. Two males stood before him, a black-haired vampire with clear eyes and a blond demon with horns. “Who’re you?”The fuck is happening? Am I shackled?

Seeming apologetic, the vampire said, “I’m Mirceo Daciano. My mate and I have captured you for the bounty. No hard feelings.” These two hunters had breached Silt’s every defensive measure to abduct him!

Daciano? This Mirceo must be a Dacian, a super vampire. Supposed to be a myth.

When Silt’s breaths condensed, his gaze darted around to find that his nightmares had arrived. The Gaolers. Like rotted horsemen of the apocalypse.

The four had tattooed their faces to resemble skulls, but over the millennia, their regeneration had slowed, their skin peeling from the bone, their eyeballs shriveling to nothing.

These silent enforcers took lawbreakers to a dimension from which there was no return:Nightside.After all these eons of dreading his delivery to hell . . .

It was about to happen.

“Can’t be.No!” Silt thrashed against his shackles, calling forth the emergency sand he always kept in his pocket, but the shackles neutralized his already withered sorcery. “I’ll kill you two for this! I’ll destroy anything you care about and murder anyone you love.” Lips drawn back from his teeth, he hissed, “I’ll replace the blood in your veins with sand!” Revenge roused inside him like a dragon stretching its scales after slumber, ready to lay waste toeverything.

“Note to self”—the vampire tapped his temple—“beware of the Sandman.”

One of the Gaolers dropped a clinking coin bag at the demon’s feet. Transaction complete.Nothing remained but to deliver Silt to hell.

With a wave of that Gaoler’s hand, Silt’s consciousness dimmed, but he fought it. He caught Mirceo’s gaze a final time and mouthed,You’re a dead man.

Three

Outside of New Orleans

Eve of the Hunter’s Moon

Surrounded by her mist, Mina strolled the forest near the Tree of Delight for a last time. After weeks of observing, her mission was complete. Lothaire had left a message at Loa’s for Mina to report to court upon the setting of tonight’s moon.

She agreed it was time. She’d observed all she’d needed to at the Tree, without a single fainting spell (though it’d been touch and go in the beginning). Nor had her brother come storming this place to drag her home. He must still be working to win over Caspion.

As she wove around spears of moonlight, Mina recalled the letter she’d written back in Dacia, informing Mirceo of her upcoming adventure:I can’t wait to behold the otherlanders’ world—the splendor of its natural beauty and the nobility of its peoples.

She’d witnessed sex, sex, and more sex. Yet her initial titillation had dulled. Every scene blurred into the same aspects.

Arousal. Friction. Outcome.

Yawn.

Even the wild gaiety bored her. At one point tonight, too many party-goers had crowded onto one side of the great oak, and the tree had shifted, roots lifting from the ground.

Mina too had shifted.

Unlike that tree, Mina couldn’t count on a coven of drunken witches arriving to repair her. Everything she thought she’d known about the nymphs, this realm, and herself had been turned upside down.

Lothaire had been right about one thing: observing these females—audacious immortals in charge of themselves and their world—had changed her,inspiringher.

What if she could set boundaries and navigate the course of her own life? She blushed just thinking about the possibility of telling her family that she’d like to leave the kingdom again in search of adventure.

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