Hunters (Spirit Blade Part 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

his hand before it and a blaze roared to life upon the logs, warming the chill from the room.
    "It must be done, before this world descends into chaos." She stopped at his side, staring into the fire. After a lengthy silence, she looked up to a hint of pain on his face.
    A few seconds later, he stirred from whatever thoughts haunted him and smiled at her. "The young bear the hopes of the old. You see possibilities that the others dismiss. That is a quality this world needs."
    He was far more flattering than she deserved, but she appreciated his encouragement. This would destroy her dagger, but not the others that had been presented at the gathering but rejected. What would happen when those others were ready? Another thought burst from her lips: "I hope Je'Surana heals quickly."
    "She will...Sleep well, Nadia. I will see you tomorrow." He turned to the double doors, his white and black robe sweeping out behind him.
    She shivered from the cold lingering in the room and turned back to the view of the autumn evening. Once the dagger was gone, she would feel better. That was a first step in the changes the world needed, a world in need of healing as much as she had been.

 
    Chapter 3
     
    She was a fool. No demonlord could be trusted, especially those who feigned to treat humans as equals. She knew that. Kaelen hadn't wanted to believe Nadia would be sleeping with them, but seduction was the only way to explain what had happened to her. She had been one of the best in training and her anger had pushed her to succeed better than he had hoped. He was good, but she had been the best, the fiercest. Something had changed that, and he would bet it was the demonlord.
    It didn't help that she despised him for what he'd done, and maybe she was right to hate him, but it had made her a better demon hunter.
    And that was why the sorcerers had entrusted her with one of the four blades. Although he didn't trust sect du Maistri Te'Mea , if they had succeeded in creating weapons that could kill demonlords, he was all for the chance to end the tyranny of the immortal creatures that ruled their world.
    Although Nadia had hurried from the chamber where she had been training the young half-blood and had sworn to keep the dagger, there were ways of making her cooperate.
    Trailing far behind to avoid the demonlord's acute senses from detecting him, Kaelen watched the two enter a room in a quiet corridor.
    Disgusting. She had been enchanted.
    Unless Nadia was the one using Je'Kaoron for her own means. Perhaps Kaelen owed her greater credit. She wasn't a naive young girl who fell for the seduction of a demonlord's lusts but a trained warrior and an Adept. And she was a woman. While female demonlords were cold and aloof to the flattery of any man, perhaps the males were more susceptible to the teasings of a human woman. There was one advantage that Nadia had, and in consideration, she would be one to use the full range of weapons available to her.
    Only time would tell where her loyalties lay. She had, after all, sunk the dagger into the half-blood.
    And Lord Je'Kaoron hadn't batted an eye.
    Kaelen had to wonder if the demonlords had any feelings. They truly weren't human to say they cared and then to allow harm to those they supposedly cared about.
    Upon the stirrings of old regrets like sediment from a river bottom, he adjusted his posture and let them be carried away by the current of the present situation.
    Demonlords knew how to keep Adepts guessing about their motives, and that included the secret meetings of demonlords that many of the sorcerers and hunters had reported at their gathering.
    Nadia hadn't given him the chance to explain, but she would.
    He waited inside an empty room two doors from the one where the two had entered, his door open a crack to listen and watch for one or both to emerge while hopefully containing his scent from the sensitive nose of the demonlord.
    He would wait all night if he had to, but sooner than he expected,