Free Burning (Brotherhood of the Blade Trilogy #1) by Eve Paludan

time commitment?”
    “ We’re a family, not a convent. A few have left us. They may have wanted to kill vampires, but found they didn’t have the stomach for it. It’s a job, not a cult. You can quit if you don’t like it.”
    “ I have no problem being an assassin of vampires, or swearing my temporary allegiance, but when I get Kristen back, I need time to be a father. She will be very damaged.”
    “ Indeed. It’s a very personal choice to join us.”
    “ My quest for vampire blood is intensely personal.”
    “ As is mine,” Ambra said.
    “ Something happened to your loved ones, too?”
    “ All of us at the castle have lost someone, Rand. There’s a reason why we are united.”
    “ Who did you lose?”
    “ My husband. We met on the streets of Zürich, where we were both doing parkour stunts in an action movie. He had already lost someone in his family. I followed him into vampire hunting. And then, they took him from me.”
    “ I’m sorry.”
    “ My grief is not as fresh as yours.”
    “ Megan was my best friend, my lover, my life partner, a good mother. She was everything to me.”
    She looked at me. “My advice is to leave the country. Now .”
    “ It will make me look guilty of murder and arson.”
    “ If you don’t come with me to Switzerland, precious time will slip away in which to find and recover your daughter, if she still lives.”
    “ I know. When does our flight leave for Switzerland?”
    “ When we get to the airport, we’ll get in line to take off as soon as we get clearance. It’s a private jet.”
    I nodded. “Fine. I need you to stop at the next scenic overlook and turn off the headlights.”
    “Last look at the homestead?” Ambra asked.
    “ Something like that.”
    After Ambra pulled over, we got out of the car.
    “It must have been a magnificent house, perched on the edge of the cliff.”
    “ Now, it’s a burned-out shell full of my footprints and other forensic evidence that could be used against me.”
    “ We’ll get you out of the country, don’t worry. We’ll protect you in Switzerland.”
    “ I hope I don’t need that protection.”
    I got a remote out of my pocket and unlocked the device with a numerical password. I then pointed it at my family’s house.
    “Is that what you got out of the hollow tree?”
    I nodded, took in a lot of air, and pointed it at my house. I paused only briefly before pressing the button. A chain of explosions happened, starting at the girders that pinned the house into the bedrock at the edge of the cliff. After the last charge went off, our house, the burned-out shell and foundation, the rebar, everything, neatly slid off the cliff and into the ocean below.
     
     
     
    Chapter Fifteen
     
     
    “ Oui. You are formidable.”
    “ Not as formidable as that le parkour stuff. You could totally kick a vampire’s ass.”
    “ I’ll teach you. If you want.”
    “ I do.”
    I wiped my prints off it and tossed the detonator over the cliff into the ocean below.
    “Let’s get the hell out of here. It’s getting dark and I can’t seem to get the smell of vampires out of my nostrils,” I said.
    The smell got stronger.
    “Ambra!” I shouted.
    We turned around—a vampire was almost upon us. I had no idea where he’d come from. Had he followed us in a car? Had he flown? I didn’t have any time to ponder. His eyes were alight with murderous intent and his mouth was open—fangs bared.
    He came at us, and I recognized him as one of Vlad’s henchmen from the ship. No longer pathetically weak, he had had first blood and he was strong and agile. His topaz-colored eyes sent chills through me.
    He was aiming for me first. Ambra did a bad-ass flip in the air and kicked him in the nuts toward the edge of the cliff. She grabbed the winged hood ornament of the Hyundai Equus so that her momentum wouldn’t take her off the cliff, too. I ducked and he sailed right over me. I felt his clothing brush mine as I flattened myself to the ground.
    As