Read Online Angel of Death: Book One of the Chosen Chronicles by Karen Dales - Free Book Online

to spill any blood. Mocking a salute by slightly raising the cup, he did as ordered and gave it back to Valraven, soiled rag and all.
    The Mistress’ assistant ignored the handkerchief and hesitantly went to stand before the tall pale vampire. Valraven did not look up to meet the angry red glare and instead chose to stare at the black lapelled suit jacket that fit perfectly across the muscular chest.
    Carefully, taking the cup from Valraven, he soiled his hands as the blood soaked through the kerchief. This was all that remained of Peter, a homeless nobody who never did anyone harm, one of the countless many who received what little help they could from a priest wise in the world of suffering. He did not salute the Mistress. He just took a slight sip and passed back the chalice. At first he could not bring himself to swallow, but hunger won out but not before he noticed the subtle, almost nonexistent, sickly sweet taste.
    “There is nothing wrong with this blo–” Fernando halted in mid-sentence, his anger rapidly dissipated to a look first of surprise and then illness.
    Trying to blink away the blurriness, the Angel ran a pale hand across his face. He followed Fernando’s collapse to his knees, all sensation in his extremities suddenly replaced by paralysing numbness.
    “You bitch!” croaked Fernando, “You poisoned me!”
    “Not quite, my dear,” purred the Mistress, enjoying the submission of her subjects. “Give it a moment. It will pass.”
    She was true to her word. Feeling rapidly returned to arms and legs. Blurred eyesight cleared. Steadily they rose to their feet. Glancing quickly at the other out of a habit of concern, Fernando seemed fine and yet somehow familiar. He did not match the other’s enraged expression. He finally believed the threat the Mistress mentioned.
    “You see that I do not lie.” She sat down on her throne, absently smoothing out the wrinkles in her black dress.
    “Lie? You sit there after you poison–”
    “If this is what you wished to show me, you need not abduct Notus,” his soft spoken words cut short Fernando’s rant.
    Brown eyes flickered from the Angel to the Mistress. “Nor steal my holdings,” remarked Fernando, jumping on the bandwagon.
    “Ah, but I had to.” The Mistress smiled and raised her hand to halt the words ready to explode from Fernando’s lips. The Angel stood silently still, waiting for her to make her point. “Taking the Father and the possessions were not only to get your attention, but to hold your attention until such time as I decide you are worthy for me to release them. Think of them as my hostages.”
    “What?” he balked. This was impossible, unheard of. To hold another Chosen hostage was an anathema to the honour he was taught that the Chosen should hold. His cool façade slipped into horror.
    “O grande puta! Como e que tu podes fazer isso? Eu vou te cortar em pedacos. Meu Deu que quero—” Fernando absently slipped into the language of his birth, his fury forcing him to forget English.
    “Quiet!” roared Valraven. His voice reverberated throughout the theatre until there was nothing but silence.
    Satisfied that Fernando’s seething would not burst forth into another non-intelligible rant, Valraven nodded to his Mistress and placed the chalice on the edge of the stage. A red ring connected gold and wood.
    “Thank you, my dear,” said the Mistress, sweetly. Reclining into the soft cushions of her throne, she crossed one slender leg over the other, exposing a finely shaped pale calf.
    Suppressing his shudder of rage, her nonchalant attitude infuriating him to the point he could not hide it, he stated through clenched teeth, “What do you what?”
    “How wonderful that you should ask such a question. It is too bad that you didn’t phrase it correctly, but no matter.” The Mistress leaned forward, hands folded on her knee. “I cannot expect too much from you too soon.”
    “Get on with it, Katherine,” spat Fernando, his