Embers in the Blood: Deadly Trades Series: Book Two Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Embers In The Blood

  Deadly Trades Series: Book Two

  Jessica Gunn

  Contents

  About Embers in the Blood

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  The Hunted (Hunter Circles Series Book One)

  World Key

  Also by Jessica Gunn

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2018 Jessica Gunn

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Deranged Doctor Design

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  ABOUT EMBERS IN THE BLOOD

  I’m Ava Locke.

  Three months ago, my worst nightmare came back to life. But with Kian’s help and Will’s unwavering support, I managed to take out Veynix the Venomous for good.

  Too bad Talon, Landshaft’s elite assassin and poison masters, won’t go away. A new drug is sweeping Boston. And unfortunately for me and the other Hunters here, once infected, there’s nothing any of us can do but wait to see if we burn, too.

  To make matters worse, the Fire Circle has called in a team from Hydron, a Water Circle-CIA operation outside our jurisdiction, to consult. Talon is still working on their plan, but the only thing we know is that it somehow involves Ember witches.

  Unfortunately, the surprises Talon keeps bringing are nothing compared to the one awaiting me at Headquarters when I return. Because as it turns out, the most dangerous thing to you is also the closest.

  Maybe I’ve been burning all along.

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  Chapter 1

  My wrist ached. As did both of my legs. They had been asleep, but now each limb pounded with pins and needles and an overwhelmingly heavy numbness. And still the stone in my hand, held outstretched toward Krystin, did not move.

  I lifted one eyelid to peer across the small table at my new mentor, Krystin Blackwood. Both of her eyes were closed, but the heaviness of her breaths had me wondering if she was actually awake. We’d been in a secluded corner of the training room at Fire Circle Headquarters since just after sunrise this morning. And because of the lack of windows, I no longer had any idea how much time had actually passed.

  “Focus, Ava,” Krystin said without opening her eyes.

  My own narrowed on her. “How do you even know what I’m doing?”

  “Because I can feel your aura,” she said. “And believe me, I don’t really want to be here either.”

  My mouth thinned. “Then tell Ben we’re both unhappy.”

  This time, Krystin opened her eyes to look at me. “Someone has to train you in your magik, Ava. And since earth-elemental users are relatively rare, especially in the Fire Circle, I’m the best you’ve got.”

  “Right,” I muttered. I was pretty sure Ben had called Krystin to train me in return for never having to ever act as a trainer ever again.

  Krystin moved her legs out from under her, stretching them and sighing. “Again, not my idea. But your magik and aura are strong, so it’s probably a good thing it’s me and not someone else.”

  “Because you can defend yourself if I lose control?”

  Of course, that’d require I got my magik working at all. It turned out the reason I’d never noticed it before fighting Veynix three months ago was that I’d never been in a truly life-or-death situation before then, except for the car accident. Being trapped beneath Midnight and faced with Veynix self-destructing himself and the entire structure definitely ticked that “life-or-death situation” box.

  “More or less,” Krystin said. “I’m a bit acquainted with losing control of your magik. Here, try it without a direct connection. Feel with your magik for the earth and pull on that connection.”

  She’d told me to do this a hundred times since the events in May. And a hundred times—okay, maybe only ninety or so—it’d failed. I just couldn’t get my magik to work again.

  “Breathe,” Krystin said. “Years ago, there was a time I couldn’t always get my magik to work too. It didn’t come easily—and I didn’t even want it. But my mother worked with me. Now it’s second nature.”

  “And you’re fantastic at it,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, it’s tried to kill me more than once,” she said dryly. “I have to be the master—otherwise, it’ll destroy me. Luckily, you don’t have that problem. I tell you this not to brag or chat, but to prove to you that it just takes time sometimes. Not every magik-user immediately masters their power.”

  No. If that were true, I would have been able to save my team the night Veynix killed them. I would have taken him out too.

  At least he was dead now. It was the rest of Talon we had to worry about after playing a role in a big operation of theirs burning to the ground.

  “Ava,” Krystin said, calling me out of my thoughts.

  I shook out my shoulders and took a deep breath. You can do this. It’s just a rock.

  A rock that represented so much more.

  Closing my eyes, I lifted the hand that wasn’t hurting and held it palm out toward the stone. With another deep breath, I cleared my mind. Meditating had been much easier than my magik to master so far. I pushed away my active thoughts and created a barrier they could not pass.

  I imagined I was in a desert. Nothing but the sun and sand, me and this rock. But in my mind the rock was a boulder, and I stood in front of it. The wind swept sand around my body, tumbling it through my clothes and hair. And in that stillness of distraction, I felt my magik awaken. It slithered around my arm to my hand, branching from my fingertips through the air to the boulder.

  I flicked one of
my fingers, willing the boulder to move, and… it did.

  “Whoa,” Krystin breathed, shattering my concentration. “Ava, look.”

  I slowly came back to myself and opened my eyes. The chunk of rock was now floating in the air at the same level as my hand. “Holy shit.”

  Krystin grinned from ear-to-ear. “Seriously.”

  “Only took a few months,” I said under my breath.

  “You weren’t trained,” Krystin said. “And the power was latent for so long. I’d say you’re doing a great job.”

  I wiggled my fingers and the rock moved in time with them. “Good enough job that you’re no longer mad Ben made you become a trainer again?”

  She shrugged. “Remains to be seen.”

  Honestly, I was pretty sure Ben had assigned her to train me half out of punishment for letting Kian and me go ahead with our plan to fight Veynix alone three months ago.

  “Can you manipulate it at all?” Krystin asked.

  My brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “The only other earth-elemental I really know could change the formation of the rock or metal she was wielding.” A shudder ran through Krystin’s shoulders. “But she’s powerful. So I was curious.”

  I shrugged. “I can try.”

  Now that the rock was responding to my magik, maybe anything was possible. I thought of the shape of a dagger and lifted another hand, moving it away from the palm controlling my magik. The magik shifted between both of my hands equally, a warm glowing sensation that almost tickled.

  Good. Now pull.

  Slowly, the rock began to thin and elongate—like the beginnings of a dagger. Oh, my god! After another few moments, the rock had reshaped into a usable weapon.

  I glanced up at Krystin, grinning. “How’s that for a few month’s work?”

  Krystin gave me a proud smile. “Pretty damn good—”

  A thunderous wave of heavy footsteps sounded on the floor above us. Both Krystin and I looked up at the ceiling, her eyebrows arching.

  “That’s not normal,” I said. Curiosity mixed with some amount of foreboding dread.

  Krystin’s eyes narrowed as she stood. “No… this room’s fairly soundproof.”

  “Want to go check it out?”

  She nodded. “Might want to.” As she headed across the training room to the door, she patted the sheath on her back, currently home to her folded-up three-piece sword.

  We raced up the staircase back up to the main lobby of Fire Circle Headquarters where two dozen Hunters and other Headquarters staff were triaging something. I looked around, peering from person to person. Some were bloody, others were being pushed away by the injured Hunters. None looked remotely fine.

  “Someone get Dacher down here now!” one of the staff shouted. “Or a candidate!”

  Krystin stepped forward, parting the crowd. “I can help. What’s going on?”

  A few Hunters ran up the main stairs toward Dacher’s office.

  “They’ve been poisoned,” a Hunter said, this one younger than me. She had dark brown hair and eyes. “We think, anyway. We found them while on patrol.” She looked over her shoulder at four other Hunters standing in a corner. Her team.

  “Found them?” Krystin asked.

  The Hunter, Abigail, I now remembered, nodded. “We were checking out the Prudential Center when we came across them on the side of the road. It was super weird. They barely recognized us as other Hunters.”

  I glanced down at the team on the ground, writhing and twisting. How long had they been there on the street? “And you arrived at the poisoned conclusion how?”

  Abigail pointed to the team. “Look at them. Their eyes are…” She shuddered. “And they’re each running a fever. They have to be—they’re burning up.”

  Fever. Convulsing. I squatted down next to one of the Hunters and glanced them over. They didn’t have any of the other telltale symptoms of Veynix’s venom. He was dead, but I was sure remnants of his venom remained in various Talon caches around their territory.

  The Hunter under me groaned. His head lulled to the side and… A bright red-orange glow emanated from his eyes as the eyelids lifted.

  I gasped and jumped back from the Hunter. “Krystin!”

  She appeared next to me in an instant. “What? What is it?”

  “It’s the same,” I said, in nearly a whisper.

  “What is?”

  I pointed to the Hunter’s eyes. “It must be the same poison that got Kian and Will when we fought Veynix three months ago. Their eyes are doing the same weird orange glow thing.”

  Her jaw stiffened. “The same poison that woke up Will’s Ember witch heritage?” I nodded. “Fantastic.”

  Then, in the blink of an eye, the Hunter below us reached up and grabbed Krystin’s arm. He used the force to knock her back as he stood, his body erupting in a wave of orange flames that danced feet above and beside his frame. He wasn’t on fire himself, but that didn’t make this display of power any more frightening.

  “What the hell?” Krystin exclaimed as everyone in the room took a giant step away from the Hunter.

  “All will burn,” he said before reeling back his arm. An orb of glowing ether formed in his hand—orange Ember witch ether.

  Chapter 2

  The deranged Hunter hurled a ball of ether right at Krystin’s face. She ducked and spun out of the path before reaching behind her and drawing a length of metal from a sheath she carried on her back. Flicking her arm, the three-piece sword snapped into place.

  “Stop this,” she growled at the Hunter. “We’re all friends here.”

  He snarled and grew another ether-based fireball in his hands. This time, he directed it at me. “They all will burn!”

  Burn. There it was again. Will had said something similar—Veynix too, now that I thought about it. I’d always assumed “they” meant the Ember witches or the Hunter Circles at large. Now I wasn’t so sure.

  The Hunter’s lips twisted as he reeled back his arm and attacked again.

  I threw up my own hands to block my face—and also search for magik to protect myself with, but there was no earth to grab in sight. A block of ether came soaring past, knocking the Hunter’s attack off course. I turned to the ether-shaper, a female Hunter named Jennie, and nodded a thank you.

  Krystin took that moment to jump in and aim the hilt of her weapon at the Hunter’s head. But he must have seen it coming because he turned fast, readying another ether attack in his hands. I leapt across the room and slammed my palm against his back.

  “Requirem!” I yelled. The explosion of ether growing in his hands fizzled out in the next moment. Gone.

  Krystin knocked the end of her weapon into his temple. He fell to the ground, unconscious. She spun and addressed the rest of the wounded and poisoned team. “Anyone else want to take a crack at me or the others?”

  The poisoned Hunters cowered beneath Krystin’s glare. A set of footfalls echoed down the nearby staircase. Kian and Will, both now functioning again after their bout with Talon’s latest poison, bounded down the stairs.

  “Didn’t think so,” Krystin said when no one protested.

  “What happened?” Kian asked as he reached my side. “Are you okay?”

  I inched away from him. “Yeah, I’m fine.” I didn’t want or need his concern, not when it was obvious other people needed it more. And honestly, as into Kian as I was, being stuck inside Headquarters for the past three months hadn’t exactly done wonders for us. Even this huge building wasn’t enough space sometimes, not when you were around the same people day in and day out.

  Krystin walked to the center of the now-large crowd in the lobby. “Anyone wounded from this fight or another, or anyone who was poisoned, needs to head to the Infirmary immediately. Quarantine if you’re infected.” She nudged the knocked-out Hunter’s shoulder with her shoe. “This guy needs to go with you.”

  “I got it,” one of the Hunters said. “Everyone join hands.”

  Within a matter
of moments, they had all used teleportante to bring everyone upstairs.

  Krystin stood with her hands on her hips, her eyes closed as her chest heaved a heavy breath. “It’s always something.”

  “You’re not worried?” Kian asked with a scowl.

  Krystin gave him a hard stare. “If I worried about everything that went wrong in the Fire Circle, I’d never breathe.” She glanced up in the direction of the others. “I’m going to see if I can help at all.”

  I took a step toward the stairs. “We’ll go with you.”

  “No,” Krystin said. “You’ve all had enough time dealing with this poison. Go practice some more, Ava. Take Kian and Will with you.”

  Then she was gone, climbing the stairs to take the long way to the Infirmary.

  I pulled both Will and Kian down the side corridor that led to the freelancer job board. At least here, we’d be out of the way. “What the hell was that?”

  Kian’s face became a hard mask. “Talon’s enacting its plan.”

  “How?” I asked. “We destroyed the entire stockpile beneath Midnight.”

  He shrugged. “There’s probably one of equal size beneath Crimson’s ring in L.A. Not to mention any more they had laying around. I doubt Veynix was the sole producer of his mutated platypus venom.”

  “You’re probably right.” I crossed my arms and glanced over the job board. Not a single mission had been posted in days. “Wish we could get out of here and look for information ourselves.”

  Kian’s eyes lit up. “Why don’t we?”