“What am I going to do?” she muttered, her eyes on the busy street but her focus turned inwards, locked on unravelling the problem she faced.
She shrugged as she looked at it from several angles, ran through what felt like a thousand scenarios in her head and kept coming to the same conclusion. There was only one thing she could do. She was going to take out the competition.
The elf had made a fatal mistake in allowing her to live.
Now it was time he paid for it.
Chapter 6
It had been three days since Hartt’s source had informed him that the vampire had returned home. Hartt lingered in a narrow alley in the shadows of two dark stone buildings in a large town in the free realm of Hell, studying the high creamy yellow walls looming on the other side of an expanse of black cobbles that formed a square in front of the complex.
The stronghold of the First Legion of the Preux Chevaliers.
If their reputation hadn’t preceded them across the entirety of Hell, the place they called home would have given those who didn’t know the vampire mercenaries the right impression. Hartt had thought he had done well with the décor of the guild, striking the right balance between imposing and awe-inspiring.
The King of Death had gone one further than he had.
It wasn’t the fact the thirty-foot-high walls looked like something straight out of Italy, painted in a stunning Tuscan yellow that complemented the exposed sandstone blocks that formed the corners and square towers of each wall. A colour that was a stark contrast to the black lands of this realm and a strangely sunny choice for a vampire. Hartt could only imagine the expense of bringing that much stone from the mortal realm. It looked as if Lord Van der Garde had transported an entire Italian castle to Hell.
No, what really caught Hartt’s eye and the attention of everyone who passed by, was the nice finishing touch the vampire had added outside those walls, one that was both grim and intriguing.
A morbid display of power.
Six rusted metal spikes had been set into black flagstones at a forty-five-degree angle and the vampire had impaled corpses on them, leaving them to dangle high above the ground as a warning to anyone who passed.
Or an invitation to anyone looking for mercenaries who could get the job done.
Some of them had rotted too much for him to tell what species they had been, but others were fresh, including a demon who had been placed right near the arched entrance in a twisted, proud display of strength.
A male from the Devil’s ranks.
Hartt had crossed paths with demons from the Devil’s domain a few times and had barely come away with his life every time. The demons from that part of the realm were some of the strongest creatures in Hell, up there with fallen angels, and the gods who minded their own business in a realm that bordered both the free one and the elf kingdom.
A few of the people coming and going across the square paused to admire the dead demon, to marvel at it and speak in hushed whispers about the might of the First Legion. Others braved approaching the gates to speak with the vampire guards on duty, and some of them were allowed entrance to the complex.
Hartt debated posing as someone who wanted to offer the legion his business, and then decided against it. Vampires would never believe an elf was coming to them for help and he couldn’t really blame them given their history. He could use his powers to alter his appearance, transforming the colour of his irises and rounding his ears, a trick elves used to blend in with mortals, but the vampires would probably scent that he was an elf.
Worse, they could lure him into the bastion by making him believe they were allowing him an audience with the King of Death and then attack him. Rumour had it that the vampire had employed witches to cast spells upon the sprawling walled complex, ones that stopped people from teleporting into or out of it.
Hartt didn’t fancy being stuck in a walled fortress with two thousand vampires after his blood.
His only option was to wait for Lord Van der Garde to leave the safety of his home, something Hartt was beginning to doubt would happen given how long he had been watching it.
And the fact that two days ago, the vampire had stepped up security, had suddenly dispatched more guards than usual into the streets and around the perimeter wall.
His gut told him that the vampire knew he was being targeted.
Mackenzie.
The foolish female had been too open in her approach in the fae town, had rushed towards the vampire and his mate, obviously heading for them.
Hartt twisted so his back was to the dark stone wall and sank against it, taking a break. She should have taken more care in her approach, should have used stealth rather than breaking cover. What kind of reckless, crazy female came at a mark like that?
It was a miracle she hadn’t gotten herself killed long ago.
His fangs descended at the thought of anyone killing her, at just the idea of her in danger, and he blamed the darkness. It was that seething, corrupted part of him that bared fangs at the notion, because it wanted to kill her. It didn’t want anyone to take its prize.
He kept telling himself that as she danced into his head, as she distracted him for what felt like the millionth time. He replayed their fight, every second of it, letting it unfurl in his mind to heat his blood as she had that night. Something fierce stirred inside him as he let it play out, as he recalled how graceful she had been, how strong and swift and determined.
That brief flash of fire in her golden eyes.
That adorable flattening of her lips whenever he blocked her.
He stilled as that hit him, his blood suddenly running cold as the heat drained from him. Not adorable. She was irritating, a complication that he didn’t need, and one he was going to have to deal with sooner rather than later. Everything he had learned about her pointed towards her not giving up. She was going to come after the vampire.
He looked off to his right at the bastion where the male hid, warily eyeing it as the guards changed, forty males exiting it to relieve the ones who patrolled outside the walls. It would be suicide to attempt to take the vampire down on his home turf, surrounded by an entire legion of highly trained vampires.
Gods, he hoped the female could see that and didn’t do something reckless.
Something that would get her killed.
A tight, hot knot formed in his chest as he thought about her attempting to breach the walls, as he imagined her posing as a client to gain entry and launching an attack on the vampire when he met with her.
She was strong, but he feared she wouldn’t be a match for the King of Death.
His senses stretched outwards, part of him restless with a need to feel her while the rest hoped he didn’t detect her nearby. That hope faltered as he considered the fact that it was no secret that the vampire lived here. She would be coming to this place, whether Hartt liked it or not.
Maybe he could intercept her before she could reach it.
Intercept her and do what?
Kill her?
Just the thought had that knot in his breast twisting tighter, until it was agonising. No. Not kill her. Maybe he could persuade her to drop the contract? Could offer her whatever coin the client had said he would pay her in exchange for her giving up?
Hartt tipped his head back, so the rear of his skull hit the stone with a harsh thud.
“What is wrong with me?” he muttered, aware of the answer to that question, because Harbin had told him precisely what was wrong with him a thousand times in the years they had known each other.