Bonds of the Vampire King (Blood Fire Saga Book 7) Bella Klaus (books to read this summer .TXT) 📖

and exhaled a long breath. “Your quick thinking saved us time and casualties, My Lady.”

“Thanks.” I turned to the window, where several of Valentine’s vampires were brushing dust off their armor.

The doors hissed open, and the strains of Annie Chong’s prayer music entered the bus. I was about to step out into the courtyard when Valentine appeared at the foot of the stairs.

“Excellent work with the daylight simulation,” he said.

“Did it get November?” I asked.

Valentine nodded. “And nearly a hundred others, but we can’t assume Nonaginta-Novem is Kresnik’s only master vampire.”

Dread rolled in my belly at the thought of there being multiple turned vampires out there, creating more and more preternaturals until the situation got out of control. I placed an arm around my middle and tried to focus on the upcoming battle with Kresnik.

“Once we’ve dealt with Kresnik, his preternaturals will die, won’t they?” I asked.

Valentine inclined his head. “Has anyone heard from the Demon King?”

I glanced at Corporal Drukor, who shook her head, as did the other enforcers standing around the monitors.

“Didn’t any of that team return to the bus or check in?” I asked.

“We’ve lost contact with them,” said a male enforcer.

I turned to Valentine, whose features stilled into a mask of calm. He stepped into the bus, his power billowing off his body the way steam rose around a volcano about to erupt. I bit down on my lip. This wasn’t a good sign.

“Explain,” Valentine said in an eerily calm voice.

The enforcer was a tall man with textured brown horns that curled back from his head like a ram. From the awkward way he positioned his legs, he could have been a satyr. Anxiety crackled off his body, making me wonder if he had something to hide.

“Your Majesty.” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Every demon who left with our king to fight Kresnik is no longer in this dimension.”

“They fell to Kresnik?” Valentine asked.

I gulped. That was the thing with demons—they never really died. If one of them received a fatal injury, he or she would lose power and revert to a lower-level demon. It’s what happened to Captain Theodore, when Kresnik had captured and tortured him, and reduced him to a wraith.

Even Hades had suffered a similar fate when he’d started off as a middle-aged man, gotten burned by Kresnik, lost a fifth of his ashes, and I’d resurrected him as a handsome young man.

My pulse beat a panicked thrum between my ears as I waited for the male enforcer to answer Valentine’s question.

He raised his shoulders. “We don’t know if they went to Hell voluntarily or were sent there after losing in battle.”

“Can you at least tell if the equipment is damaged?” Valentine growled.

The enforcer paled. “Our technology only functions in this realm, Your Majesty. Inter-dimensional summons communications is the domain of higher level demons.”

A crowd of stricken faces formed outside around the double-decker’s door, and my own emotions mirrored those of the vampires and mercenaries.

“It’s hard to believe that all those trained demons and their king could have died at the hands of Kresnik and his people,” said Caiman.

“The Flame has defeated them in the past,” Valentine said in a low voice.

Caiman’s brows furrowed. It was a subtle movement in his unlined face, but I could tell he was concerned. “Your Majesty?”

“Demon enforcers attacked one of Kresnik’s strongholds, and his people fought back with fire,” I said. “There were all kinds of fire-based creatures, even dragons. Now that Kresnik also stole a large quantity of firestone, who knows what he could have done to those demons.”

Valentine turned to the troops. “We will continue, regardless of the fate of our comrades. Kresnik’s power over the humans must end tonight.”

The vampires and mercenaries nodded, and Valentine turned to me with that same stoic expression. “No matter what happens during the battle, I want you to remain in your shifted form, understood?”

I nodded.

He turned to Caiman. “Bring the containers. The moment Kresnik falls, we will banish him into the containers.”

Caiman inclined his head. “A sound plan, Your Majesty, but how will we find him?”

Valentine’s hands curled into fists. “I spent the past month training to detect his subtle magical signature.”

A shocked gasp lodged in the back of my throat. It sounded like Valentine was trying to track me with his magic during the time I went missing.

The crowd parted, and Valentine turned toward the exit. Caiman swept out his hand, gesturing for me to follow. With a nod, I pushed out my power, shifted back into an ifrit, and tried not to worry about the implications of losing my phoenix.

Valentine paused with his head raised, turning his gaze from left to right as though examining every window overlooking the courtyard for signs of Kresnik. The last time we’d searched for Captain Theodore, Valentine had mentioned Kresnik’s temporal distortion. Perhaps that was what he was trying to sense.

“Over there.” He paused at a window that wasn’t as dark as the others and turned to me. “Do you have your scythe?” When I nodded and opened my palm, revealing its miniaturized form, he said, “Good.”

New-age music drifted over us, as did the sound of Annie’s prayer to the magnificence of Kresnik. We walked across an enclosed space of what was now slush—a disturbing mix of melted snow and vampire ashes.

“Are you alright?” Valentine glanced down at me, his dark eyes shining with concern.

My shoulders sagged. “Those poor women.”

“Don’t blame yourself for their fate,” he murmured. “Nonaginta-Novem was no different from other vampires who grew up in New Mesopotamia. He had little respect for the lives of humans and other beings he considered less powerful.”

“I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

He placed a hand on my cloak. “Kresnik would have found another vampire to raise as a preternatural, and we would have still fought the same battle.”

“His Majesty makes a valid point,” said Caiman. “Half a century ago, we fought entire armies of preternaturals in battles that lasted for weeks. If we can succeed