Free Wild Hearts (Blood & Judgment #1) by Eve Newton, Franca Storm Page A

from behind me. I go crashing into an end table, sending a vase flying and smashing all over the hardwood floor.
    “Jesus fuck!” a voice cries and I look up to see Aria standing in the doorway to the bedroom. “What the hell is going down out here?”
    “Get out!” I shout at her as the two vamps take an interest in the newcomer.
    Aria’s eyes go wide as she takes in the two angry vamps, but to her credit she goes on the defensive. She puts her fists up as the vamp who had taken me down advances on her.
    “No!” I yell and break off a leg of the end table. I aim and send the makeshift stake straight at his back. It plunges into him and stabs him directly in the heart. Aria steps back as he bursts into a cloud of ash in front of her.
    “Two down,” I say, getting steadily to my feet. I grab the quiet vamp by his neck and haul him to his feet. I throw him across the room as if he is a rag doll and he slumps down the wall, still bleeding from his eye socket. I break off another table leg with my foot and spin it in my hand.
    “Wait,” he says, putting his hand up in fear, knowing his end is coming. “We can make a deal.”
    “No deal,” I say coldly.
    “I can take the heat off you, say that you went across the world. They will spend ages looking for you in the wrong place,” he stammers.
    I hesitate. It’s enticing and about the best deal I will hear for a long time. I will never truly be free from Edric unless he decides to die, which is damn near an impossibility, but a few months of stability isn’t to be scorned at lightly.
    “Come on ,” Aria scoffs. “You believe this asshole and the lies he’s spinning here?”
    “Stay out of it,” I hiss at her. “You have no idea what you are talking about.”
    “Like hell, I don’t. And I can smell his lies,” she says with her arms crossed. “Take him the hell out before he takes you out. Kill or be killed.”
    I come to the same conclusion after another moment of dreaming of a near future without being on the run. I don’t trust anyone for a reason and just because he is offering me this to save his life, doesn’t mean he will come through for me. More likely, he will go back to Edric on his hands and knees, telling him exactly where I am, who I am with and where to find his missing eyeball, which incidentally, is still skewered on my spiked heel.
    I am about to step forward to plunge the stake into his heart when the look of sheer terror that crosses his face makes me stop.
    “That afraid to die?” I mock him and raise my arm, but he points a shaking finger behind me, his mouth opening and closing like a goldfish.
    I frown at him and turn to where he is pointing, catching a glimpse of Aria in the process. She has gone ashen, but her face shows a determination that makes me swing my gaze further around.
    I gape, as in the doorway of this trashed villa, is a man so tall and so wide I have to lift my gaze from eyelevel to about two feet above that.
    “Christ,” I mutter as I stare at the looming Ambassador.
    “I am Cahl,” he says in a voice so flat and commanding, I drop my arm and place my back flat against the wall. I hear a faint crashing of glass and I don’t need to be a genius to figure out that the henchman has done a runner through the window.
    We would be wise to follow him. Now!
    “Aria,” I say calmly, holding out my hand for her.
    “You have a name?” Aria sneers, not seeming the least bit surprised to see him.
    “Aria,” I hiss at her, waving my hand in her direction.
    “Oh no,” she says giving me a look that speaks volumes. “This is going to make my day.” She slams her fist into her palm and I groan.
    “Humph,” I say with a grimace. “You can’t…” I leave the sentence hanging, not really wanting to tip off this beast that she is less than her best. Although, all he has to do is use his eyes. She is still bruised and bandaged and favoring her broken ribs. “Shift then,” I murmur to her and circle around away