Page 1 of Cold Sacrifice

Prologue

“I am no longer your weapon,” I told the elders. I stood on the floor staring up at them, my spine stiff, my shoulders straight, and no fear in my heart. There was sadness there, though, and mostly because the demon elder had my blade.

I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it. It called to me, and my hand ached to hold it. I felt incomplete without my blade.

“We wish for you to continue in your capacity as our enforcer, Kait,” the ancient vampire elder told me, his voice calm. It was like he hadn’t even heard me. “You can still be of use to us. You are strong with all the…” He hesitated. “With everything inside you.”

I glared. “You took Joe from me and threatened to hurt him. You stole my blade. There is no way in hell I’m going to walk meekly back and take orders from you.”

“Then why did you come here today?” he asked.

“Curiosity, I guess,” I said. But that wasn’t why I’d returned.

And Kronor knew it. Grinning, he pulled my blade from beneath his robes, and with a vicious glee, he stabbed it into the long table behind which the elders sat.

My blade looked different to me. Deflated and dark, it no longer gleamed with power. And that made me smile, even as my heart stuttered and I had to force myself not to leap upon the dais and take it back.

Kronor would blast me with magic before I was halfway across the gleaming floor.

“It doesn’t live for you, does it?” I asked him, my voice soft. “For you, it’s just a blade. I bet that pisses you off. You can feel its magic, its power, but you can’t touch it.”

He growled and lifted a hand, around which a mildly red magic began to swirl.

“Kronor,” Ti said sharply. “You will not.”

The vampire elder, older than all of them, agreed. “You have convinced her to give you her weapon,” he told the demon. “You will not attack her because of your hatred. Put your magic away.”

I had no magic that I could fight with. None that I could access, anyway. If the demon elder wanted to attack me, I would have to fight him as my wolf or my shapeshifter, and he would destroy me.

I needed magic to fight magic.

“We would like you to return to us, Kait,” Ti told me.

Ael, the wolf elder, thumped his ever-present staff on the floor. “She is insolent and difficult,” he said. “And she has no power. I believe she is of no use to us and would not see her return.” He shrugged his massive shoulders, not the least regretful. “We will bring in another enforcer. A better one. One who knows his place.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What other enforcer?”

“It is not your business,” he said.

“Kait,” the vampire elder said gently, “as the elders of the councils, we cannot leave the confines of the walls that contain us. We have to have people like you policing the cities with the highest needs, or there would be only chaos and destruction.”

“She is chaos and destruction,” Ael growled. “We will bring in someone better. Someone stronger.”

I took a step forward, and then another, and on the table, my blade began to gently smoke. The demon elder frowned, then grabbed the hilt of the knife to pull it from the wood.

It didn’t budge.

He half stood, then leaned forward and hissed, power dancing around his knuckles as once again he attempted to force the blade out of the table into which he’d stuck it.

All the elders were silent, watching him with interest.

“It doesn’t belong to you,” I murmured.

He totally ignored me, but I could see his rage, his embarrassment, and his pride. He’d taken the blade, but it had never done anything for him. It had remained stubbornly silent, unwilling to be a slave to the demon, no matter how powerful he was.

Exactly like me.

The blade recognized me. It always had. And I recognized it. We were a pair, and we belonged together.