Page 3 of Hunters and Prey

She was tied to her word unless the Eirikrson heirs were all dead. The heirs, not Eirikr himself.

It meant that somehow, somewhere, in this world or the next, there was one person still living with the blood of Eirikr in their veins.

"Is that what you're planning, Viola? You want to serve him? Free Eirikr?"

She laughed out loud, striding past Alexius, toward the entrance of Skyhall. The vampire prince moved to grab her hand, make her stay and confess all of her evil plans, but his hand hit an invisible wall.

Alexius swore, and she turned to have the pleasure of seeing him clutch his burned hand.

No one could enter Skyhall's grounds, except for those with Eirikrson blood in their veins. Viola might have been turned by them rather than born into the family, but she qualified.

Alexius's suspicion amused her. The ancients were all terrified of her, terrified that she'd truly consider awakening Eirikr, the monster haunting Cosnoc.

She wasn't stupid. The Eirikrson themselves hadn't sought to free their patriarch. Her duties were simple: renewing the wards around the house—her presence did that—and checking on the Eirikrson affairs. They had money invested all over the world, in anything profitable; every year, she sorted through their finances and ensured that the house remained one of the richest on the planet. They might be dead, but there were a dozen slayers sworn to them who'd been dispatched around the world on the day of their massacre. Those were carrying on the work of the Eirikrson, and it was only fair that they'd get paid for it. That was only possible if the Eirikrson remained wealthy.

After two restless days in the study, the only room in the house that had been occupied for centuries, Viola was done with the bulk of her duties. There was only one left.

Every year, she received a list from the best investigators in the world. A list of people she needed to hunt down and check on. It was a fool's errand; there were nine worlds she knew of, and she'd long ago come to suspect that the liege she responded to lived in another dimension. Maybe he or she ate grapes and ambrosia on Olympus with the gods. But five hundred and seventeen years later, she was still looking for the Eirikrson heir.

This time, there were just three names on the list.

Padma Adah.

Tom Miller.

Lucy Crane.

She paged through the files on the three potentials.

Padma was a witch who lived in Germany. She had no memory of who she was, and could perform some strange blood magic. Promising, but she'd seen others do as much.

Lucy Crane was a vampire who'd recently freed herself from a six-century imprisonment. She was currently insane, and held by the huntsmen on an island to contain her rage while she chilled. More promising.

The last file was intriguing and disappointing all at once.

For the first time in five hundred and seventeen years, Knox's investigators had seen fit to add a plain, regular human to the list.

Viola skimmed the file. Boring, boring, boring. The dude worked in a bank, for heaven's sake. A bank! He did volunteer as a firefighter, so there was that. She found her eyes going to his picture, and frowned. He was handsome, for a human, with short dark hair and darker eyes. But there was something familiar about him. She couldn't pinpoint what, exactly.

Viola checked the notes about him. Why had he been included at all?

Then, she stilled.

Knox's PI had written: "Took complete blood tests to check allergies. Results came up on our radars. No human would have noticed, but this is a fledgling. Bloodline, undetermined."

Fledgling. Bloodline undetermined.

Her cold, dark heart beat hard in her chest.

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