Chapter 10
The musty scent of mildew hangs in the air as we near the abandoned building.
Its tall structure stretches so high I have to crane my neck back just to see the jagged outline of the crumbling roof.
We dare not make a sound, still too afraid of alerting any guards to our location.
My footsteps falter for a moment as the flicker of a shadow appears behind one of the building’s weathered pillars until the wind carries a soft whistle through the air.
“It’s them,” I whisper to Tori, remembering what Cora had said when we discussed tonight’s plan.
Our footsteps quicken, and I suck in a breath as my eyes scan the moss-covered walls that hide the cracks in what was once a beautiful temple.
History books say there were once hundreds of them, but after the gods disappeared, holy places became little more than relics of the past. There are still a few left that the remaining acolytes use to worship, but there aren’t many.
“You’re late,” Cora says as we duck behind the pillar.
Her eyes dart over my shoulder, scanning the darkness, but my attention falls to the cloaked figure standing beside her, their face tucked safely beneath the cover of a hood.
I can’t help but study the way they shift their weight from side to side, the movement oddly familiar.
“What took you so long?” Cora asks.
“I’m sorry, we got delayed,” I say without taking my eyes off the stranger.
She dips her head in understanding. The figure next to her removes their hood, and I let out an exasperated breath.
“Cora, please tell me he is not your contact?”
A cocky smile fills his face, and my fist twitches beside me, desperate to punch the stupid grin off his face.
“I can be very useful when you put me to work, Adina. Cora here knows that.”
Cora looks between the two of us.
“You know each other?” she asks.
“Unfortunately, yes. Finn is my contact, too,” I tell her.
Her eyes widen for a brief second as she puts together the puzzle pieces, then she masks her expression with practiced indifference.
“Your name is Finn?” she asks.
“That would be correct.”
She glowers at him. “You told me it was Jonathon.”
He holds up his hands in the air. “Technically, not a complete lie. It’s actually my middle name. I know that’s a foreign concept to you purebloods.”
I hate to admit it, but he’s right. The only name we’re given is the one assigned to us at birth, along with the name of the orphanage we grew up in.
I was named after the Barron Institute, like all purebloods raised there.
We’re never given anything as personal as a middle name.
That’s reserved for the non-potent humans who remain with their families from birth and pay back the favor with a life of labor.
And when a sired vampire dies, it’s those humans who are snatched from their families and taken to replace them.
I try not to think about how many have met that fate because of the vampires I’ve killed. Instead, I shift my anger to Finn.
“You’re so full of it. Your name’s probably not even Finn,” I say. He bites his lip to hide his amusement.
Cora narrows her eyes at him, but then sucks in a breath and turns to face me.
“Look, we don’t have time for this,” she says. “Irritating as the boy is, he’s the only one trusted enough to receive the locations of the pickups.”
I roll my eyes. The fact that anyone trusts Finn at all is ridiculous.
Not only does he have a secret business of venom-filled medicines, but he also mixes the kind of things that can turn a person invisible, not to mention whatever he has going on with Julian, and now this, too. He’s not the kind of man you trust.
We should have exterminated the vermin when we had the chance, Athriel grunts.
We really should have.
“Is anything you do legal?” I ask him.
Finn laughs at this. “Yes, the apothecary where I mix medicine, it’s not just there to hide my nighttime activities.”
“You could have fooled me.” I snort.
Tori gasps, and we all turn to look at her.
“Wait? This is the apothecary boy? The one with the small di—” I slap her hand as she goes to make a gesture with her pinky finger, and she quickly stops speaking.
Finn eyes me.
“You’re really a piece of work, you know that.” He swivels to face Tori. “And it’s not small. It’s average. I have an average-sized penis, and there is nothing wrong with that.”
Tori lets out a laugh, but Cora is anything but amused.
“Can we please get back to business? We don’t have long. Need I remind you what is at stake if we are caught?”
Tori clears her throat. “Sorry.”
“Good, now I suppose you’ll want to count this?” Cora hands Finn a pouch, and my eyes fall to his greedy little face.
“You’re paying him?”
Cora tries to brush me off with the flick of her hand, but I will not back down that easily.
“You’re an asshole, you know that, right? She’s an oldblood, she needs all the money she can get, and you’re charging her to help people?”
He snorts at this.
“Some of us weren’t born with the kind of potency in our blood that guarantees us a roof over our head and food on the table. If I don’t make coin, I don’t eat.”
“You get money from the medicine you sell.”
He throws his head back and laughs.
“Yeah, you try living off that. This is the real world, Adina. You can pretend it doesn’t exist inside your little bubble, but you don’t get to judge those of us who actually live outside of it.”
Cora’s eyes fall on me, and I know she is thinking the same thing.
Life is different for purebloods—we lack nothing.
Yet I want to shout that every privilege I enjoy comes at a cost. But instead, I remain silent as he counts the money, making sure every coin is present, the greed in his eyes adding an extra shine to it.
“Happy?” I ask when he finally ties the pouch and slips it beneath the folds of his cloak.
“It’s all there.”
Our eyes meet, and I see the challenge in them. I hate to admit that his words affected me, and he knows it. He may be annoying, but beneath all of that, he’s smart, and he knows how to hit me where it hurts.
“Good, now we can get going,” I say.
“Yeah, I don’t think so.” He taps the place where he just placed the pouch. “This was for me to provide safe passage for one. You’re not coming.”
I slip out my dagger within seconds, holding it up for him to see.
“Try and stop me.”
He shakes his head and laughs.
“Why do I always come face to face with a blade whenever I’m around you?”
“Because you’re a self-righteous little prick.”
Remember when I told you to torture him?
This isn’t the time for an I told you so.
And yet I did.
Shut up, Athriel.
His distant chuckle tickles the back of my head.
“Put down the dagger, Adina.” I’m surprised when the words come from Cora. I turn my attention to her, but the dagger stays put.
“We need him, and all of this is just wasting time.”
“She’s right, I’ll be fine. I promise,” Tori says.
I ignore them both, turning my attention back to the arrogant idiot with the smile on his face.
“I don’t trust you, and I’m not leaving her side until she’s safely on that wagon. We either go together, or I start cutting little pieces out of you until you reveal the location. Have it your way.”
Now you are speaking my language, Athriel beams.
Cora mumbles something, but I don’t care. I already got Tori into this with my stupid threats, and I’m going to make sure I get her out of it.
“Gods, why do I find you so damn attractive when you threaten me? It’s almost guaranteed that I’m going to die at the hands of a beautiful woman. I just can’t resist.” He shakes his head and laughs. “Put the dagger down, you can come as long as you can keep up.”
I scoff. “You know I can keep up.”
“Don’t I know it.”
After around twenty minutes of walking in silence, we finally stop on a quiet cobblestone street lined with fire-lit lampposts. Sometimes I forget what the flames of a real fire look like since I’m forever surrounded by starlight.
According to Finn, guards rarely patrol here since it’s the side of the court where the non-potent live, and in the eyes of the vamps, their lives are far more expendable. I try to ignore the twist in my gut at the thought of any life being expendable.
Some are.
Not human ones, I snap.
That depends entirely on who you ask, I’m afraid.
I push Athriel’s words to the back of my mind, the truth of them too painful to accept. I shift my attention to the white stone building we are standing in front of, its windows slightly ajar, giving way to a warm glow and a chorus of laughter.
“What is this place?” Tori asks.
“I don’t know,” I say.
A quiet creaking steals my attention, and my eyes lift to a wooden sign swinging against the gentle night breeze, its chipped surface still bearing the ghost of faded red letters. Rita’s Tavern.
My head whips in Finn’s direction as the memory of reading about Taverns in one of the books back at the bloodhouse fills my mind.
“Please don’t tell me that you’re trying to stop for a drink in the middle of what we’re doing?”
He rolls his eyes at me.
“You know, your low opinion of me is really starting to hurt my feelings, Barron,” he says with a stupid smile on his face. “We’re here because it’s exactly where we need to be. You two just focus on looking normal.”
Tori and I exchange a look.
“What in the realm are you talking about? We are normal.”
He laughs at this.
“No, you are two privileged little purebloods and we’re about to walk inside a tavern full of humans who have never spilled a drop of blood to feed a vampire.”
Tori’s eyes widen at his words.
“Your point?” I ask.
“My point is that the people in there just about get by, and if they suspect who you are for even a second, they will sound the alarm quicker than you can say vampire.”
“Why would they do that?” Tori asks.