Empire of Dark, A Creatures of Sin & Seduction Book 1, (EBOOK)

{ Chapter 1 }
 
~ Ada ~

The metal clashed next to my ear, blade on blade, and I smiled.

Well, this was fun.

My skin had been tingling since we walked into this pub, telling me exactly who was around, so the blade coming down at my head shouldn’t have been a surprise.

Malefics all around.

I rolled across a rough-hewn table to avoid the hit and landed on my feet, my own blade swinging up in a wide arc to block the next blow from a brute with bulging eyes and a mountain-man beard that had decided a woman half his size was a match for him.

His blade locked onto mine, reversing my momentum, and he shoved me backward with a roar. I crashed hard on a round table and spun off it, dropping to the floor.

Ooof.

In the melee, the tip of someone’s boot had landed under my stomach, jabbing me hard in my diaphragm. As I curled into myself, gasping for breath at the brutal blow and the pain vibrating along my spine, I surveyed the body that was attached to the boot. A malefic with blood dripping from his ear and his head swaying back and forth like he’d just had the snot knocked out of him.

It looked painful, but at least he wasn’t an immediate danger to me.

A simple meal. That was all we’d wanted.

A meal, maybe a drink or two, and then some sleep before we tackled the mission tomorrow.

The Grog & Ale had seemed like the perfect place. Quaint, multi-colored stained-glass windows lined the front of the stucco building with the swooping slate roof, reminding me of a nineteenth century coaching inn I’d once seen in a German village. Never mind that we were in the middle of the Swiss Alps.

As we’d walked down the cobblestone street, the sun had been setting in a mountain valley behind the building, sending an orangey glow about the white stucco of the pub. Postcard perfect, the ideal place to relax after the travel.

Or so we had thought.

Simple had turned into complicated the moment we’d entered the pub to find it swarming with malefics, but that hadn’t stopped Triaten. No. Like the panthenite leader he was, he strode in like we owned the place and found us a corner booth—he was ballsy, but not stupid.  

Granted, he was one of the panthenites’ best, a warrior with every right to his swagger. But still. He’d promised me simple. Time to talk.

We hadn’t even gotten our plates of food before all hell had broken loose.

My fingers curled into the dirty wooden floor. With my breath back in place, I surveyed the space above me. I’d landed a table away from the bearded malefic trying to slice my head off and he was having a hard time pushing other people in mid-battle out of the way to get to me.

I glanced across the pub to Triaten.

He was in the far corner, taking on four drunk, angry malefics, two of them with swords swinging. All that, and he still had an eye on me. He winked.

Show-off.

But also, thanks, Uncle Tri.

By the time I gained my feet, Triaten had knocked two of his attackers out.

Okay. So, no killing tonight. Noted.

Damn. It’d been so long since I was actually in a brawl like this. More than a hundred years.

Training could never truly simulate a real battle.

And that was all I’d been doing for the last hundred years. Training. Not living.

I swept a glance about the fracas around me, my blood pumping fast in my veins, adrenaline surging.

Barely able to hold a giggle in, I reinserted myself into the fray. It’d been so many damn years. I’d missed this.

Actual feeling in my veins. Panic, sure. But also power—this was what my body was always meant to do.

Even the pain still vibrating along my spine felt good in a weird, bruise-you-like-to-poke-at sort of way.

Triaten could have told me this was going to happen. I saw one of his idiot men start the initial argument at the bar on purpose—probably to draw out how many malefics were swarming the area. But an idiot starting something usually meant the idiot had no de-escalation tactics, so here we were. Battling our way out of the pub.

I blew hair out of my face, ignoring my rumbling stomach.

Idiot. He could have at least waited until we ate.

I jumped to my left, blocking the swing of a dagger that was aimed directly at the back of one of Triaten’s men—no one got stabbed in the back on my watch. The dagger flew out of the woman’s hand and she turned to me, drawing a short sword just as a man next to me swiped a scimitar directly at my neck.

My blade instantly up to block, the metal never clashed against mine. Just above my shoulder, someone else’s sword had deflected the blow.

I spun around.

What the hell was this?

Another malefic stared down at me. This one tall and dark, in an impeccable suit, and utterly imposing.

Probably wanted the kill.

I wasn’t about to give him the chance. I sprung, my sword flying through the air, sending the malefic backward with blow after blow that he managed to block. Annoying. This space was too damn tight for my long sword.

The back of his thighs shoved up against an overturned table as he blocked my last blow, holding my sword on his, and he leaned in on me, his words a growl.

“A thank you would have sufficed.”

“For what?” He had my sword locked on his so I contorted my body and slammed my knee into his gut. A satisfying whoosh of air seethed out of his lips.

“For saving your damn life.” He drew our tangled swords downward.

I scoffed. “So you could kill me? I don’t think so.”

“Why would I save you to kill you?”

I tried to yank my sword upward, but he had it locked onto the floor. “You know exactly why. You thrive on the kill—all of you are the same.”

He smirked and crowded over me so far I had to crane my neck to look up at him. “You have a lot to learn, little dove.”

“Then why save me?” I ducked a chair that came flying at my head and he jerked away, giving me enough space to free my sword from his.

“Because a beauty like yours should live, no matter what side of the coin you fall on.”

I smiled sweetly at him. “Well then, thank you.”

Then I sliced him across the chest and darted around him.

“Bullocks.” He caught my sword arm, spinning me back toward him before I could escape him. “This was my favorite suit.”

I glanced down at it. Blood seeped along the cut into what I imagined was very expensive fabric. Who participated in a melee in a suit like that?

I shrugged. “Not anymore.”

His look went murderous.

A whistle. Triaten’s whistle.

It’d been forever since I’d heard it, but it would also be forever locked into my memory.

Time to get out of here.

Lifting my left arm, I spread my fingers wide and drew a metal stein into my hand from the table to my left. My fingers wrapped around the thick handle. I didn’t usually resort to using this power in a battle, but alas, no killing.

Before he saw it coming, I smashed the stein into the malefic’s head.

He reeled back a step and it gave me a sliver of space to get my leg up and kick him in the belly.

His eyes squinted closed from the impact and I disappeared.

Outside into the night, I gulped a mouthful of the clear, crisp air, trying to stop the right side of my head from starting to pound. I didn’t expend enough energy inside the pub. I’d created a damn surge of energy and let it run free through my body, but now there was too much in me buzzing around—a hornets’ nest under attack.

I had to get control now. Breath in. Whistle it out. Breath in. Whistle it out.

Out of nowhere, Triaten grabbed my arm and pulled me down a side alley. I looked for the line of his and his men’s vehicles. There. I aimed straight for them—as much as the haphazard cobblestones would allow.

One step. Two. Breath in. Whistle out.

One street down and Triaten shoved me into the back of one of the black SUVs, jumping in behind me.

“Drive.” He barked out to his man at the wheel.

I leaned back on the cushions, my eyes closed. Good. The pain of the manic energy wasn’t so bad I couldn’t move. Wasn’t frozen in place.

It was sometimes.

Sometimes for days.

Filling my head. Torturing me.

But this. This I could handle.

“Ada—your hands—they’re shaking. Are you hurt?”

My fingers curled into fists as I opened my eyes, steeling my look before I glanced at Triaten. I forced a smile. “I’m fine. This is the first time I’ve been out in society in more than a century, and then not even a day in, I’m in a battle. That’s all.”

His dark eyes narrowed, his stare running over my body and scrutinizing my face hard—too hard.

“Tri, I’m fine, I swear it.”

“Are you fine? Tell me now or we abort this plan.”

I held his stare. I couldn’t afford to give him the slightest reason to pull me from the mission. I hated the Folottos and I was determined to be the one that was going to dive into the den of them.

“Tri, if this is how we find out where all of the Folotto brothers are so that we can wipe them from the earth, then I am fine.” My voice vibrated with intention. “I will be fine. I will make this happen.”  

His mouth pulled to the side and then he nodded. He straightened in his seat, brushing crushed glass off his dark sleeve.

It didn’t take long before we pulled up to the hotel nestled just outside of the mountain village.

We both got out and I rushed ahead of him. Knowing he would have to regroup with his men, I glanced at him over my shoulder as I headed toward the elevator. “Night, Tri, see you in the morning.”

He stared at me, not saying a word. I pretended not to notice the definite tic along his jaw at my words.

I knew he could see how nervous I was. How much I needed to slip away from him before he deemed me unfit for the mission.

But I had to escape him. He couldn’t see me like this. Couldn’t see what could happen. He wouldn’t send me into the Folotto compound if he did.

I couldn’t let him question me.

Because I needed this. Needed to be the one on this mission.

My foot tapping, I waited for the elevator doors to close before I collapsed back against the rear mirrored wall, the pain stabbing through my head, blinding me.

I just needed to get to my room.

Into my room and I could curl into a ball and let the pain have its way with me.

I’d be in control of it by the morning.

I had to be.