Read Bitter Night for Free Online Page A

orchard. Deep footprints trailed away in the soft loam, spread widely apart. Max had been running full tilt. As he expected, she was beyond reach. But not for long. Selange was hosting a Midsummer Conclave tomorrow night. Every witch who held a covenstead west of the Rockies would be there, and every one would be bringing his or her Prime. His fingers flexed on the hilt of his gun, and he slowly slid it back into its holster on his hip.

    He rubbed a hand over his goatee as he looked into the trees. This was not over. He would see her at the Conclave, and it would be ugly. Selange did not tolerate trespassers in her territory, and she would want to know what interest Max’s witch had in the Hag and the redcaps. He grimaced. By any accounting, Max should have killed him. It was stupid not to. She could have escaped with no one knowing she had ever been here. What had stopped her?

    But he remembered the devouring pull of her eyes and knew why she had not, just as he knew that when they met at the Conclave, there would be no room for mercy or any of the silent things that swam between them. They would be at war.

    “TELL ME AGAIN WHAT THE HAG SAID. LEAVE NOTHING out,” Selange ordered, the words curling with a faint French accent. She had been in America for more than a hundred years and still the accent clung to her like the sultry perfume that she wore. She sat primly behind her delicate desk, her silky legs crossed demurely together. She was small, only five feet tall and not quite a hundred pounds. She was also one of the most powerful witches in North America. She did not ask him to sit or offer him refreshment. A reprimand’for so many things.

    Alexander examined her with slow deliberation. Her hair was cut in a sleek black cap that curled under at the shoulders, her bangs a straight line across her forehead. Her face was rounded, her eyes brown and lined with thick, dark liner, her mouth a red slash across her pale face. She wore a high-necked, sleeveless mandarin sheath in dark blue. On her feet were four-inch stiletto heels. She was sitting with her hands together, staring intently at Alexander.

    He was surprised at just how little he felt for her. For many years he had adored her with single-minded devotion, captivated by her beauty, power, and exotic charm. There was nothing he would not have done for her. She had wrapped him in spells that made him strong, fast, and deadly’he had been a god among men. She taught him how to read and write, how to speak and dress, and then she had given him the world. There had been nothing he did not want to try and nowhere he did not want to go. He had been like a child ransacking the proverbial candy store. His new life had been as glorious as touching the sun, and he had no words for his gratitude’then or now’for the gift she had given him. The price was worth it. He had embraced becoming one of Selange’s Shadowblades and never once looked back.

    But over the years things had changed for him. He no longer burned with unquenchable desire for Selange. His passion had begun dwindling long ago, and then nearly forty years ago she had dealt those softer feelings a final death. Not that he hated her. He did not know if his compulsion spells would allow it. But neither did he blindly believe in her the way he had when he was first made a Shadowblade. As brilliant and brave as she still was, she was also vain, spiteful, selfish, and ambitious. He did not know if there was anything she would not do to gain power. Certainly she had crossed lines that sickened him’so much so that after the last time, he had threatened to walk out into the sun if she forced him to participate again. It was no idle threat. Even his compulsion spells could not stop him. Hence the need for her to groom another Prime. She did not tolerate rebellion. But it would be a long time before Marcus could best him. Until then, Selange needed Alexander.

    “The Hag asked what the Shadowblade wanted,” he