Underworld: Blood Enemy Read Online Free PDF Page A

snatch the baby from her limp fingers before it crashed to the earth as well. He held the yowling whelp at arm’s length from his body, wrinkling his nose at the reek of the infant’s soiled flesh.
    He stared down at the woman’s insensate form. An ugly bruise already marked her temple, but Lucian knew that she would soon recover from his blow. I did not lie, he informed her silently. I have shown you mercy.
    You and your child shall live to serve the vampires, as I have always done.

    The raid was over almost as soon as it had begun. Dead lycans were strewn across the blood-soaked floor of the clearing, their unclean bodies left to rot where they fell, while the surviving pack members—mostly women and children—were chained together by links of forged iron too dense to be broken by any immortal short of an Elder. Metal collars were fastened around their necks, holding them in place. Heavy manacles locked their wrists together.
    Lady Ilona kept her distance from the foul-smelling captives, letting Soren take charge of the prisoners. He wielded his silver whips freely, dealing out painful lashes at the slightest hint of defiance. He took obvious pleasure in his work. Castle gossip had it that while still mortal, the dour Irishman had been stolen away from his homeland by Vikings and forced into slavery himself. Four centuries later, he clearly enjoyed being at the other end of the whip.
    Dawn was still hours away, so there was time enough to introduce the defeated rogues to the realities of their new existence. Soren lined the captives up before the fire, which had been stoked to a blazing intensity by the vampires. All resistance whipped out of them, the pathetic lycans miserably awaited their fate. Shaggy heads drooped over their iron collars. Their arms hung limply before them, weighed down by their shackles. Strapping Death Dealers gripped the chain at both ends, holding it taut. Sobs and whimpers were all that escaped the line of prisoners.
    Several yards away, Lucian watched the proceedings from beside Lady Ilona’s black steed.
    Seated above him, the pure-blooded vampiress casually fed bits of lycan flesh to her mount. To his considerable relief, she did not offer any such morsels to Lucian himself. I may be no more than a lycan, he thought, but I am no cannibal.
    Soren handed off his whips to an assistant, then pulled a heavy leather glove over his right hand.
    He reached into the fire and drew out a silver-plated branding iron that he had placed in the blaze several moments before. The heated end of the iron glowed in the night, as bright and red as the fires of perdition.
    A rare smile lightened his usually stoic features. He had removed his war helmet earlier, revealing a thick black beard and a mane of long black hair. Iron in hand, he approached the front of the line and a slender lycan youth, who appeared to be roughly fourteen years in age, although looks could be deceptive where immortals were concerned.
    Most immortals, vampires and lycans alike, were originally mortals, transformed by the bite of either a vampire or a werewolf. And only the most fortunate of humans survived the process; an immortals bite proved fatal in the vast majority of instances. Rarer still were purebloods, such as Lucian himself, who had been born immortal, conceived by the union of two immortals. Both of Lucian’s parents had been lycans, so he had never known any other life.
    He wondered idly what this particular lad’s story was. Had he been human once, or had he always run with the pack, wild and undisciplined? Lucian hoped for the former; the boy might be easier to train if he had once lived a semi-civilized existence as a mortal.
    At the moment, however, the youth’s eyes grew wild with terror as he watched Soren approach with the red-hot branding iron. “No!” he cried out, thrashing violently within his bonds. “You can’t!
    Stay away from me!” His bare feet clawed at the grass beneath him as he tried