Ignoring Bruno’s stream of curses, I took another pull from the bottle of whiskey and retrieved my dagger in one quick motion. Bruno’s whole body curled over his bloody hand, and I took my time cleaning the blade on the sweatshirt slung over his seat.
“You’llpayfor this,” he ground out, glaring up at me with eyes that promised pain and retribution. “Watch yourself, little bitch. One day, Silas will be sick of you, and he won’t care when I sneak into your room at night and slit your fucking throat.” His eye twitched as he sneered up at me. “But not before I have a little fun first.”
I blinked back at him, careful to keep my expression blank and my breathing steady so he wouldn’t see how much his words rattled me.
Bruno could be so dramatic. With his quick healing, the wound would be completely scarred over by morning, though it would take longer for his pride to mend.
The other hunters watched me with a mixture ofwariness and loathing as I stalked through the house, headed for the front porch. The door opened before I could reach it, and Vince appeared on a cloud of cigarette smoke.
One look told me he’d already filled Silas in on what had happened in the Quarter. Bastard. I shot him a glare as he shoved past me, the dented screen door slamming behind him.
Sucking in a breath, I pushed it back open and walked out to the porch. Silas was seated against the house in a rusted metal chair, and I was grateful for the whiskey still warming my belly.
“Heard you wasted your mark tonight,” came a low, croaking voice.
Inwardly, I cringed. I was going to throttle Vince.
“According to Vince, you took your sweet time findin’ him.”
I froze. Silas had always spoken with the lazy drawl of someone raised in the Quarter, but the twang became more pronounced whenever he was angry.
“You must have selected your vamp mighty carefully.”
I bit my lip. Apparently, the othershadnoticed that I’d slipped away to visit Julian. Did Silas suspect something was amiss?
“So what the hell happened?”
I swallowed thickly, focusing on the truth in my story so Silas wouldn’t smell a lie. “He turned as I was getting ready to stake him,” I murmured. “He took me to the ground and I had to —”
“I trained you better than that,” Silas snapped, disgust dripping from every syllable.
“I know.”
“And now, because of your carelessness, we have one less vampire to drain.”
“Iknow.”
“I should take you down to the basement for this — cut you up until you’ve learned your lesson.”
I shuddered, and the scars between my shoulder blades prickled at the threat.
“Clearly,halfhunters only have half a brain. Or maybe you’re just losing your edge.”
“No,” I said, trying and failing to hide the tremor in my voice.
“How are the boys gonna eat if you don’t do your part? We rely on that money, Lyra.”
Irritation flared in my gut, overriding my mounting panic. Silas spoke as if he were some great benefactor who took in wayward hunters, when in reality he used all of us to fund his drinking and whoring so he didn’t have to lift a finger himself.
The others might be too stupid or too loyal to question how much each vampire’s blood brought in — and how much Silas kept for himself — but I wasn’t. I knew what a quart of blood on the black market was worth. I knew how much I’d made him over the years, though I never saw any of it.
As Silas put it, every bit of what I brought in went toward “clearing my debt” — whatever arbitrary amount of money he decided he’d spent feeding and housing me over the years. He’d never told me how much that was exactly, and I knew better than to ask. I’d been backhanded enough times to remain silent as he said, “You werenothingwhen I pulled you out of that godsforsaken alley — just a pathetic human waif with some hunter blood in you.”
I could feel my rage bubbling just beneath the surface, but I focused on tamping down my emotions so Silas wouldn’t scent the bitter tang of my fury.
“I know,” I choked. It didn’t bother me to agree with him anymore. Self-preservation was worth more than my pride.
“It’s that human heart of yours that makes youweak,” he murmured. “You are not and will neverbeone of us.”
