Blood and Malice

Chapter 1

1

HUDSON

A dark little whisper nagged inside, making my wings twitch.

Something sure as s**t ain’t right.

From my perch on the highest turret on the eastern side of Keradoc’s castle, I scanned the scene, looking for signs of trouble.

Seemed like the whole of Amaranth City had turned out for the Feast of the Beast, and the few who hadn’t shown up were most likely out casing houses and apartments, helping themselves to the revelers’ unattended loot.

Course, the thieves would most likely be tracked down and murdered within a day, but that was all part of the game. Real entertainment was scarce in Midnight; everyone had to make their own fun.

Bass thumped from the ground floor, the music even louder than the shouts and whoops of the drunken assholes in attendance, all the noise making the stones beneath my feet vibrate. The place was so packed, half the guests had already been pushed out onto the grounds. Everywhere I looked, people were either fighting or f*****g—sometimes both. All around the castle, the ground was muddy with spilled booze and puke and blood. I wondered whose sorry ass would be tasked with tomorrow’s cleanup.

Grateful for the relatively fresher air up on the turrets, I took a deep breath and dropped into a glide, circling the perimeter. I spotted three of Keradoc’s gargoyle guards making the rounds, but they looked to be about as drunk as the rest of the riffraff and were easily dodged.

Clearly, the warlord needed better security. Not that I was gonna drop that little comment in the suggestion box.

Shitty security or not, I wasn’t about to let my guard down. Haley was counting on me. All of them were. And that voice inside me wasn’t getting any quieter.

Took me a while, but after my fourth loop around the property, I finally spotted them—Saint and Jax following Gem through the melee outside. They weren’t looking up at me, though. Too focused on their destination.

The hell they going?

I followed from above as they elbowed their way through the mass of sweaty bodies and headed for a back entrance—kitchens, most likely. Some servant or cook was standing outside the door, but Jax took him out.

Shit.

That whisper inside me grew to a shout. No way would Jax kill some random fae on a whim—not even one of Keradoc’s random fae. Way too risky, especially with Haley involved.

I was about to drop down and follow them into whatever shitstorm they were gearing up for, but a new threat buzzed through my blood—sharp and sudden and utterly unmistakable.

Haley. She was in trouble, and f*****g scared. Thanks to the bond, her fear was so palpable, it may as well have been my own.

Leaving Jax and Saint to fight their own battles, I zoomed back up toward the fourth level, following the insistent pull of my connection to Haley. The pain. It felt like a fishing line reeling me in, a sharp hook right through the gut.

In seconds, I knew exactly where she was.

Throne room. I was intimately familiar with it. Centuries ago, before my life went to s**t here and I was relegated to working private security gigs for Midnight’s drug and weapons dealers, I was head guardian to one of the Midnight noble families. They spent a lot of time hobnobbing at the castle, kissing the ass of a different ruler while Keradoc was still clawing his way to power. Keradoc was no different though—all them fae fuckers liked to keep my kind close. Gargoyles were better than fae at taking bullets and arrows.

But Haley certainly wasn’t there as an ass-kissing noble tonight. Or even as a spy.

She was a prisoner.

I saw her the second the windows came into view, bound to the throne on the dais.

The pain in my gut turned to raw f*****g rage.

Hell no, asshole. Wrong f*****g night, wrong f*****g witch.

I tucked my wings close and arrowed straight for the windows, ready to smash through the glass, grab that purple-eyed fae fucker, and rip the spine from his body. But just before impact, a hot streak sizzled up my spine, tearing through me with an agony that left me gasping for air. My back twisted against the pain as my muscles seized up, sending me into a f*****g tailspin.

I crashed to the ground behind the castle like a warplane shot out of the sky, sending up a wave of mud and debris.

My thick hide saved my bones from shattering, but it still f*****g hurt like the devil. I had just enough strength to roll onto my back and wipe the muck from my eyes. I wasn’t far from where I’d seen Gem take Jax and Saint. The door they’d ducked into was mere feet away.

But it may as well have been a hundred miles for all the time I had to get there.

Before I even fully caught my breath, my attackers were already swooping down for the kill shot. Dark shapes closed in fast from overhead—fifteen seconds until impact.

Wings. Claws. Horns and fangs.

Fucking gargoyles.

Not the drunk mercs I’d seen earlier, but street fighters. No sense of honor or loyalty among them—and yeah, I was speaking from experience.

Garrison, Draven, and—worst of the lot—Mad Marco, who made up for his lack in stature with balls-out craziness. Three of the six Stone City homegrown assholes who’d slaughtered people I cared about, destroyed my old life in Midnight, and left me for dead.

Twice.

Haley’s fear spiked again, sending another zing straight to my gut. Pretty sure the other guys were in deep s**t, too. I needed to get to them—and fast.

I closed my eyes. Gave myself one more heartbeat to get my lungs working and get my ass out of the dirt.

Rage was the best fuel there was, and between Haley’s fear and my old enemies attacking me, I was furious. I stoked those flames hard, let them propel me out of the mud and onto my feet. I was still in warrior form, nothing broken far as I could tell, but I wasn’t about to give anything away.

Keeping my wings limp and my shoulders hunched, I struck a weak pose as all three of ’em landed and closed ranks around me, claws out and snarls twisting their gruesome faces.

Unlike last time they’d gotten the drop on me, they’d come alone tonight—no dark witch to do their bidding. But whatever they’d hit me with in the sky wasn’t gargoyle-made. It was magick. And there was a hundred percent chance they were packin’ more, because pricks like them never fought their own battles.

“Look what the cat dragged back from the human realm, boys.” Marco started in right away, predictable as f**k. His eyes were wide and crazy, his familiar gap-toothed grin splitting his face—the rare gargoyle who looked the same amount of ugly whether he was a statue or a human. Now, in his warrior form, he shook out his tattered wings and shifted from one foot to the other, twitchy as hell. “Guess your vacation on the other side didn’t work out so well.”

“Welcome home, motherfucker.” This, from Garrison, the biggest and dumbest of the lot. Talked a good game but sucked in a fight.

I pretended to cower in silence, keeping my head low. The closer they got, the less energy I’d have to expend taking them down, and no, that wouldn’t hamper my enjoyment of it in the least.

“What’s wrong, Hudson?” Marco taunted, tilting his head and peering up at me with those crazy eyes. “After all these centuries, you’re still not talking? Not even to your oldest friends?”

Talking? Totally unnecessary, much as he liked to flap his lips. Midnight-bred gargoyles were connected—long as no one was actively shielding, we could tap into one another’s minds to communicate. I’d been shielding against every last one of them fuckers since I set foot back in this realm, but now it was time to send out a broadcast.

That you, Marco? Hard to recognize you when you’re not cowering behind a witch. s**t, boy. You’re a lot shorter than I remember.

“And you’re a lot more alive than I remember,” he sneered. “Guess we’ll have to do something about that.” He slammed a fist into my gut. I was ready for it though—saw it coming a mile off. I doubled over, feigning pain, and the other two rock-heads pounced on cue.

Yeah. Not happening, fuckholes.

I reared up to my full height and smashed my fists into their faces, sending them both sailing backward through the air. They hit the ground with twin thuds, and I spun around, landing a solid kick to Marco’s chest. He stumbled back but didn’t go down.

With a fierce growl, he came at me again, slashing his talons across my chest. I dodged the worst of it and ducked low, then plowed into him headlong, taking his ass down.

Set to the soundtrack of the still-thumping party music, we wrestled on the ground, trading punches and slashes—a blow to the jaw here, a gash along the ribs there. I was bigger and stronger, but that little fucker was fast and wily. One cheap knee-shot to the balls, and he sent me rolling off him, giving him just enough time to scramble back to his feet.

Ignoring the throbbing pain in my groin, I sucked in a breath and rose to face him once more. Garrison and Draven were back in the mix now, all three of the beasts circling me like wild dogs, panting and growling, salivating for a bite. Blood and sweat dripped into my eyes, but I didn’t dare blink. Didn’t dare give them fuckers a chance to take me out.

Three on one? They probably could’ve, had they been smarter.

Yet no one made another move.

Whole thing was f*****g futile, anyway. Gargoyles in warrior form were nearly impossible to kill—aside from a soft bit of flesh at the throat that could be pierced with a sword or an arrow, we had thick, ultra-protective hides, massive muscles, and we could escape most ground skirmishes by taking flight. Best chance at killing us was to take us by surprise in our human form or get us to turn to stone, then smash us like bad pottery.

But here, tonight?

Without a sunlight spell to turn my ass to stone—or a few sharp weapons and better aim—these fuckers didn’t have much of a shot, and they damn well knew it.

Which meant…

Fuck.

They weren’t here to take me down. They were just a distraction.

I could still sense Haley, though the signal was getting weaker. I hoped that didn’t mean she was getting weaker.

“What’s wrong?” Marco asked, wiping the blood from his mouth as he leered up at me. “Lose another one of your charges? Guess some things never change.”

“Too bad, really,” Draven piped in. He licked his lips and grunted. “Such a pretty little witch. I would’ve loved to have a go at that.”

The tremble began in my hands, quickly shooting up my arms and across my back. My muscles tensed for another fight, talons curling, everything inside me eager for a bloodbath.

You’re f*****g dust, I sent out. All of you.

Marco nodded, finally shutting his trap and letting his thoughts come to me instead. Someday, maybe. But not tonight.

He raised his arms and pointed something at my chest. A gun, I realized. Manmade. Useless against me.

I spread my arms and smiled, welcoming the nip of those useless little bullets. Looks like someone’s got a new toy. Compensating, maybe?

You tell me, cocksucker. Marco fired off a whole mess of rounds, the bullets biting into my hide like annoying mosquitos. I plucked one of them from my chest and tossed it at him.

He hit me with one last shot in the gut.

When he was done jerking off his new gun, he stood there watching me expectantly, smoke curling from the end of the barrel.

Yeah, definitely compensating. I laughed, inside and out, and stalked toward him, my talons itching for a chance to spill more of his blood. All of it. Got anything bigger, or is that the best you—

All at once, my body froze up on me, and a new grin lit up that motherfucker’s face.

A dozen tiny explosions tore through my insides, chewing through bone and muscle, unleashing a flood of pure, white-hot agony.

These were no ordinary bullets. None that I’d ever had the f****d-up pleasure of being shot with, anyway—not in the realms of monsters or men—which was saying a lot.

Fuck. Me.

I stumbled to my knees as my muscles stiffened. Everything inside me was turning to stone, but not because I’d shifted. Felt like I’d chugged a few hundred gallons of cement.

“Ultraviolet bullets,” Marco boasted out loud, admiring his gun. “They ignite on contact—little balls of sunshine packed into a human death machine. Say what you will about dark witches, Hudson, but they really are ingenious bitches when they need to be.”

Before I could even ask what constituted a witch’s need for ingenuity, he lifted the gun again. Stepped close.

Then he spat in my face like a f*****g coward. Jammed the barrel into the spot between my eyes and...

Bang.

My world disappeared.