Blade Song by J.C. Daniels Read Free Book Online Page A

put your hands on the fucking car,” he snapped.
    “Why?”
    “Because I’m going to pat you down and make sure you don’t have anything else.” He leaned in and all but snarled the words into my face.
    He reached for me. I lifted a hand to block but damn he was fast. A split second later, I was face down against the trunk of my car, the metal smashing against my cheek while one big arm crushed against my neck. His other hand jacked my wrist up high between my shoulder blades. My bones screamed and thanks to the pressure he had on my neck, the oxygen in my lungs dwindled down to nothing and panic tried to crowd in on me. Pain and dread gripped me and my free hand itched, so desperately bad. The blade…my sword, she sang to me, called to me… Ask, just ask…
    No. Not yet —
    I lay there, limp, fighting back the rush of fear. If I panicked, it would be worse. It would use up my oxygen and make it that much harder to fight when I had to. And, if I did fight, it would be worse—
    No. You’re not back there. He’s not Fanis —
    I battled back the terror, focused on the pain and called up anger. Anger grounded me. Focused me.
    No fear, damn it. I could still breathe…barely…and he wasn’t trying to kill me. He just wanted me afraid while he yelled at me.
    My blood is noble. My heart is strong. My aim is true. I am aneira…my heart is strong —
    No fear, damn it. I could be drowning in it, and he damn well could smell it on me, but I sure as hell wouldn’t show it.
    As he leaned in closer, his mouth against my ear, I clenched my jaw.
    “Listen, you little fool. You’re going into a place that we keep safe for our young,” he growled. “You got that? And while you aren’t exactly what I’d call a threat in our world, our young still aren’t precisely ready to defend themselves. You go in there swinging silver or anything else, it’s going to piss them off. Some of them may try to shift, which will scare you enough that you might try to defend yourself and you’re obviously too stupid to know when to pull back and when to fight. If you hurt one of them, somebody in there will try to kill you. Which means I’m bound, by my word to My Lady to kill them—just because they are defending our young.”
    He all but spat each word and I knew if he wanted, he could snap my neck in an instant. It was getting hard to breathe, too hard, and I could all but feel the warming in my palm as the magic that connected me to my blade started to waken.
    Then it was done. Damon loosened his hold and let me go. “Do you think you can get that into your fool head?”
    Shoving upright, I glared at him over my shoulder. “Go fuck yourself,” I rasped out and it was like I had to choke the words out through a fucking straw. My face throbbed; my wrist and arm weren’t feeling too much better, but my throat felt like it had been pulverized.
    Burning hot with rage and humiliation, and yet somehow cold with fear, I placed my hands on the truck and stood there as he did a quick, impersonal pat-down.
    One thing was certain.
    He was enough of an ass that my long-dormant libido had settled back into complacency.
    Hell, he might be on the same level of dangerous as Jude, but he was a few steps higher on the asshole meter. Kind of pathetic. I hadn’t thought anybody could outpace the vampire, but this guy had managed to do it in a day.
    Now that takes talent.

 
     
    Chapter Four
     
     
    My right hand itched.
    From the minute we stepped foot inside those gates, it itched.
    I had no weapons.
    I didn’t have my sword.
    And although I could have the damn sword at any time I wanted, if I let her come to me, it was going to incite riots, according to my asshole bodyguard, and if that happened, he’d have to kill people to protect me.
    That shouldn’t bother me.
    The problem was that it did and he’d figured out exactly what nerve to hit.
    I didn’t like death.
    I’d killed people and I’d do it again, probably before this job was