A Shade of Kiev 2 Read Free

long the illness would take to disable me, and dying sick was bad enough to not want to die hungry as well.
    That meant only one thing, since I’d run out of food and money in the cottage. Another trip up to the highway. Another robbery. The last one I’d ever need to make. And, God willing, this time without murdering anybody.
    I decided to pick a spot a little further up the road than last time. By the time I arrived, it was well past midnight.
    I sat myself down on a tree stump and waited. My ears ached for even the slightest crunching of gravel. Any distant whinnying. Any clattering of wheels. I waited for hours in vain. Nothing came that night, and as morning was about to break, I felt too frozen to move. I’d stayed sitting in one position for far too long.
    My eyelids became heavy and I fell face forward into the snow, my limbs no longer capable of supporting me. As I began to lose myself to the darkness, a chilling wind whipped past me, rousing me to my senses. It was so biting, it was as though it was seeping into my very bones.
    And then I heard it. A whisper… a rasping voice… drifted through the dark woods.
    “You want food.”
    At first I thought that it was the whistling of the wind through the trees playing tricks on my ears, my hunger and cold making me hallucinate.
    But then it came again. “You want a cure.”
    “Who are you?” I gasped.
    “You miss your family.”
    I managed to find the strength to sit up and look around me. I couldn’t see anyone. It was hard to even tell which direction it was coming from.
    “I can give you everything you want.”
    “Show yourself!”
    A figure shot out from a tree a few feet away from me. A man, it seemed. He wore a long black cloak, his hood pulled down over his eyes. As he approached me, his walk was jerky. And his smell. It was the stench of rotting flesh.
    “Follow me.”
    What other choice did I have than to follow? Even if this stranger intended to murder me, I was dying anyway. The mention of food ringing in my ears, I found strength in my limbs again to stand up.
    I followed him for hours, and he refused to answer any questions. It was a constant struggle trying to catch up with him. I’d wanted to walk side by side with him, but somehow, no matter how much faster I pushed myself to walk, he was always a few feet ahead of me. Finally, as I was on the verge of giving into numbness again, we entered a clearing and a magnificent dark castle came into view. A castle I’d had no idea ever existed. A castle I was sure our village didn’t know about either.
    We walked through the courtyard up to the giant oak doors. I followed him inside.
    “Welcome to The Blood Keep.”
    His voice echoed around the chamber as the doors creaked closed behind us. And as they did, the man crumpled to the ground in a heap. His face became visible for the first time—that of a corpse. A rotting, maggot-infested corpse.
    But it was too late now for second thoughts.
    The Elder kept his promise.
    Over the following years, he cured me of my mortality.
    He provided me with more blood than a single vampire could consume.
    He made himself my father and gave me new siblings.
    In exchange, he dragged my soul to hell.

Chapter 1: Kiev
    “ M ona’s gone .”
    I stared at Saira as she stood in the doorway of my room.
    “Gone?”
    “She left this note.” The werewolf handed me a piece of damp parchment with words scrawled in the witch’s florid handwriting. Don’t try to find me.
    “It means that she left voluntarily.” Matteo appeared next to the werewolf. He placed a hand on her shoulder to comfort her, though he looked unsettled himself.
    “I know what it means,” Saira snapped. “But why? And where?”
    “Why the hell are you asking me?” I said.
    “You became close to her,” Saira said, looking at me pointedly.
    “Let’s get one thing straight, wolf.” I glared back. “I finished that stupid task you asked of me. Now I don’t know where the witch is. And I