Read Online The Bloodshade Encounters & The Songspinner (Shadeborn Book 2) by K.C. Finn - Free Book Online

impact, falling out of the air with a final screech, yet still the others came to continue the onslaught.
    Lemarick landed with a thump on the stage and the bats ceased, clearing a path for Yannick and his two flanks to approach. The old, burned lord sneered at him gleefully, then reached out to lift him up by his neckerchief. The emerald fabric broke away, splitting Lemarick’s skin once more where it had dried and stuck to the wound on his neck. Yannick and Elise both stood back, apparently horrified by the sight of the punctures below the shade’s ear.
    “Who…” Yannick began with a stutter, “Who has done this? Who drank from him?”
    The demand echoed through the bat swarm and Lemarick noticed, with some small amount of triumph, that most of the humans had made it out of the theatre alive, save for a few unfortunate souls who were still being feasted on at the theatre’s exit. The sound of a throat clearing brought the shade’s attention back to those on the stage.
    “I drank him,” Baptiste replied.

The Broken Code
     
    The hunter crouched down, looking deep into Lemarick’s pale blue eyes, his own shining gaze far beyond that of a senseless, violent beast. He was too evolved to be overtaken completely by the bloodlust that sustained his eternal life.
    “Why would you drink from him?” Elise asked with a gasp.
    Baptiste merely smiled. “I wanted to see what would happen,” he replied.
    A loud smack made Lemarick flinch. A moment later Baptiste too was on the floor of the stage, lying unconscious beside the shade he had defeated. Yannick stood over the hunter’s form, his hand still raised from the blow as his eyes clouded with thought. Elise and the vampire lord spoke in hushed tones above the pair of prone figures, clearly worried by the fateful news that Baptiste had wounded the shade in his unconscious state. Lemarick didn’t understand the laws of blood by which they lived, but he knew that their state of worry was his only chance to escape their clutches alive.
    He needed power. Lemarick heaved himself onto his back with a faint whimper of pain, feeling his ribs reverberate with agony at the motion. He looked up at the domed, painting ceiling of the opera house where pleasant cherubim were at play. Beyond those false daylight skies lay the real night of Paris and with it, the stars. Lemarick concentrated hard on the scene above, dredging every last scrap of energy from his ailing form to penetrate the ceiling in a burst of all his elemental powers. Only the bats overhead seemed to notice what he was doing, but the creatures were as exhausted as he by the fray and they remained hanging from the theatre boxes and the rafters as Lemarick bored a single hole into the roof, right through the heart of a particularly plump cherub.
    When the starlight poured down into the vast theatre, Lemarick felt calmed by its presence. Though its effects were only tiny at first, Lemarick took in a deep, satisfied breath and began to feel the bruises on his torso healing. If he was lucky, then Yannick and Elise would continue their distracted worrying long enough for the shade to regain his ability to fly.
    Lemarick Novel was seldom lucky. Mere moments after he had started to heal from the starlight, Elise grabbed him hard by the back of his neck and dragged him onto his knees. Though he had amassed a little power again, Lemarick knew that using it to be free of her grip was a fruitless effort. Elise’s sharp nails clawed into the back of his fair blonde hair.
    “We can’t let him live,” she said to Yannick, almost pleading, “not after what Baptiste has done. He has broken the code.”
    The hideous, burned face of the vampire lord was solemn and thoughtful.
    “As you almost did, years ago, before this creature stopped you,” he replied to Elise.
    Lemarick felt the hesitation in her grip on him.
    “I… I did not know that they were shades at the time,” she mumbled. “Now, I trust the code. We must never