Bloodkin Read Online Free PDF

but Farrell to negotiate the sale of the hides she had tanned and other tools she laboriously created throughout the year. Those could usually be exchanged for blood coins, mostly from the Shantel, which was why we had planned this trip to coincide with their normal spring trading window.
    Torquil had Vance memorize a list of spices and other ingredients we needed, in order of importance. He didn’t mince words as he admitted that the Azteka who sold most of those would either give Vance a better deal because he was supposedly related to one of their holy bloodwitches, or they would try to cheat him because he was considered a bloodtraitor. “If they give you a hard time, don’t hesitate to remind them that your coins are as good as anyone’s, and if they don’t believe you, they can ask one of the guards to check.”
    Vance paled a little but didn’t respond except to nod.
    We were about to get on our way when Aika pushed a few extra coins into my hands. “Get a better knife this time. The handle on that last one was loose. Take care ofVance,” she added, dropping her voice. “This can’t be easy for him. And …” She glanced at Misha, as if to check that the white viper wasn’t listening. “If there’s trouble, you and Vance get out of the way. Don’t go jumping into the middle to protect her. You hear me?”
    Others might have called it cowardly advice, but I nodded, because it was futile to go up against Midnight, and fighting a futile fight for some idea of honor wasn’t our way. Such was the life of the Obsidian guild, my chosen family, which lived and sometimes died by the ideals that no man had the right to rule any other, and that he who lives to run away,
lives
.

“DID YOU KNOW Aika and Torquil are trying to breed?” Misha demanded of Farrell, almost as soon as we had stepped outside the bounds of Malachi’s magic, which hid our camp from passersby.
    If we looked over our shoulders, we wouldn’t see or hear the camp, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t still hear
us
. I could picture Torquil restraining his mate to keep her from coming after us.
    “I know they want a child,” Farrell replied blandly, replacing Misha’s coarse wording with something less … 
Less like Midnight
, I thought.
Midnight talks about breeding people as if they were horses or dogs
. “I also know they were trying to keep it quiet until they were successful,” he added, with a touch of censure in his voice and a nod toward Vance and me.
    I hadn’t known, though I wasn’t exactly surprised. Serpiente didn’t find marriage or monogamy as important as humans did, but Aika and Torquil had declared themselves mates well before I had ever met them. It seemed natural enough that they would want children.
    Misha shook her head. “It’s ridiculous, not to mention selfish,” she huffed. “This is no life for children.”
    I saw Farrell flinch, and remembered that he had once been a father. His mate, Melissa, had shared Misha’s opinion. After Naga Elise’s death, when the first accusation of treason had fallen on Farrell, Melissa had left the Obsidian guild and begged sanctuary from the serpiente king, Julian. She had brought Farrell’s child with her, and when she had become Julian’s second queen, her son, Aaron, had become his son as well.
    Therefore, the only son of a man who had dedicated his life to the principles of the Obsidian guild was now called a prince. Before I had joined the Obsidian guild, I had known Aaron fairly well. He had treated me like a kid sister, but it was obvious that he was every inch a young man used to privilege, and blind to anyone else’s struggles. He had no idea that the infamous outlaw Farrell Obsidian was his father.
    “Weren’t you born in the Obsidian guild?” Vance challenged Misha. “Would you rather Farrell had left you and you brother where you were?”
    “Vance!” I gasped, shocked. If Farrell hadn’t boughtMalachi and his mother from Midnight, Misha would