Blood and Sin (The Infernari Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

me. The demon dropped into a crevice and vanished.
    I wiped off my mouth with the back of my hand.
    I was so fucked.
    That shouldn’t have happened—him healing like that. Demons heads didn’t fuse back onto their bodies in five seconds flat. They didn’t get pulverized only to reform before your eyes.
    It didn’t work like that.
    As far as I knew, this particular demon didn’t have an affinity for accelerated healing. Sure, he would have healed eventually, but only marginally faster than a human.
    He’d been helped.
    My gaze went back to the dark forest, now creaking with night sounds.
    Instinctively, my nose wrinkled.
    There was another demon in these woods. Operating behind the scenes.
    I should have known.
    But to have healed one of its kind from a distance . . .
    I’d never encountered that kind of power before.
    I needed to capture it. Tonight.
    Come tomorrow, I would have the entire race of demons hot on my scent and I would be a dead man for sure.
    If this one was smart—and it must be smart, since it hadn’t shown its face—then it would probably head straight for the portal.
    Lana
    We call it misfortunate magic.
    Just as an animal must give its life to feed you, so too must creatures pay a tithe for the magic that sustains us. It’s all part of the circle of life. Why the victims must pay that debt is the mystery of the ages, but that is the way it’s always been.
    And now, somewhere in the world, twenty-six blood donors would be having a very bad day. I murmured my thanks for their sacrifice, unwilling though it might be.
    I rose silently to my feet, listening to the sounds of the night.
    I knew Fidel escaped—that much I could sense through our connection. Which meant that somewhere out there, the most formidable human known to Infernari just lost a kill.
    He would be angry.
    He would ask questions.
    He would figure out Fidel had help.
    He would hunt me.
    He would kill me.
    I whispered a prayer to the Great Mother, and then I sprinted for dear life toward the cave entrance.
    If I died, my kind would be doomed. That was how tenuous our existence was.
    I paused just inside the cave’s mouth, where the ground fell away and plunged deep into the darkness below. Salvation lay somewhere down there.
    I threw a glance over my shoulder. My ears twitched.
    Utter silence.
    I faced forward again, took a deep breath, and jumped.
    The trip down wasn’t particularly smooth or pleasant this time. I was too fraught with panic for much finesse, and I hadn’t thought to save much power for myself to make up for it with magic. Foresight was a skill better suited to humans than Infernari. And still, despite my hurried movements, the descent felt like it took ages.
    The cave narrowed abruptly, and my hands slapped the wet, gummy walls as I lowered myself. The cave opened once more, and I knew I was getting close to the bottom. So close.
    Even in the deep darkness, I saw the cave floor far beneath me. A mass of stalagmites covered it, several thicker at their base than the tree I’d hid behind.
    Abruptly, I released my hold of the wall, dropping down. I landed in a crouch between two large spires, my excitement mounting.
    I’d be home in less than a minute.
    I stood, casting a glance far above me. No sign of Asher.
    Jame Asher .
    No wonder I had been so intimidated by him even before I learned his identity. On some level I knew, I knew , how formidable the man I stared at was. And then, to see him in action . . . He managed to turn the portal master into nothing more than raw meat. Twice.
    I had to tell the others that Asher was alive. That he was just as powerful and ruthless as the stories made him out to be. No human should have been able to capture, let alone kill, a portal master.
    But he had.
    I headed towards the lapping water, towards the portal.
    That’s when I felt it—or rather, when I didn’t feel what I should’ve.
    The alluring pull of the gateway was absent; the cave lacked its usual breath of