Page 37 of A Blade of Blood and Shadow
I’d been weak from blood loss — half out of my mind — so I hadn’t given it any thought until now. Looking back, I realized I’d killed them with magic.
“Is it . . . Is it that obvious?” I asked, shaken by my own realization. I’d gone my whole life not knowing what I was, and Kaden had guessed it in about five minutes.
He shook his head. “Not to most. The Coranthe line was thought to be extinct. There are very few alive today who remember what they were like.”
“But you do?”
He nodded. “I have known a lot of your kind, so your scent — your taste — is familiar to me.”
My stomach tumbled at his words. Then another question popped into my mind. He’d said that Silas was old for his kind, but the way Kaden spoke . . .
“How old are you?” I asked.
The dark fae looked to be in his late twenties, but livingin the Quarter among vampires, I’d learned that looks could be deceiving.
Kaden tilted his chin forward, and those stormy gray eyes seemed to pin me to my seat. “Old enough to see what I thought was the last of the Coranthe line be killed.”
I swallowed, anger bubbling in my gut. “Do you think . . . Do you think Silas knew what I was?”
“I would almost guarantee it.”
At those words, the fury that had been simmering inside me since Imogen had been taken boiled over.
For five years, Silas had let me believe I was weak — inferior to him and the other hunters because of my mortal heritage. He’d rubbed my nose in the fact that I wasn’t full hunter every day I’d been with him, and Vince and the others had used my half-breed status against me.
Then again, I’d already felt powerless when Silas had found me — battered and broken and weak from blood loss. He’d seen it in my eyes that night and used it to control me.
When I finally broke free from my dark train of thought, I saw that Kaden had been watching me carefully. I had a feeling he saw everything I was feeling, and that made me uneasy.
“I couldn’t believe my senses at first,” he said. “But then I saw your blade, and I knew.”
My hand went instinctively to my witchwood dagger, which I now kept within close reach.
“It’s runed against demons, yes, but those runes also prevent any but a member of the Coranthe line from wielding it.”
I blinked in surprise, looking down at the dagger with its intricately carved hilt that never seemed to tarnish. “Butyou touched it. Back in the alley when you sent those demons away . . .”
“Touched it, yes. But if I had turned the blade on you and attempted to wield it . . .” He shuddered. “The magic in those runes would have shattered my mind if it didn’t kill me outright.”
I raised my eyebrows. All these years, it had surprised me that Silas had never tried to take my blade for his own, but maybe it was because he knew he couldn’t use it.
“A witch has warded Silas’s house against intruders,” said Kaden. “Only a witch can unweave those wards.”
“And that’s why you need me,” I said slowly.
“I need your powers.”
My head spun, and I suddenly felt angry and overwhelmed. “But I don’t —”
“You killed those thugs outside your friend’s apartment with magic,” said Kaden. “In all my years, I’ve never met a hunter who could do what you did, so don’t tell me you don’t have any powers.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but no words came out. If he’d seen what I’d done to Gorm and the others, there was no point in denying it.
“And I’ll bet that’s not the first time you’ve tapped into magic that wasn’t strictlyhuntermagic,” he added.
I swallowed, searching my memories. They were fuzzy, but I could recall a few incidents when I’d been in that horrible group home with Imogen.
There’d been an older boy at the house who wouldn’t leave us alone. One night, he’d cornered me in one of the bedrooms, and I’d blasted him through a second-story window. The boy had broken his back.
