Bloodtraitor by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes Page A

seek to destroy that empire.
    As for the other groups listed, there were some I knew well, and others I only recognized in passing, such as Macht witches. I had heard Jeshickah refer to them as nuisances and vampire hunters, but I had never met any except failed assassins Jeshickah had already captured and broken.
    “I still don’t see why this needs to be so complicated.”
    This time, Nathaniel didn’t bother to mask his irritation. He glared at the vampire from Silver’s line.
    “Midnight has existed, in one form or another, for over five hundred years,” Nathaniel said. “In my time, I have personally witnessed, heard about, or helped avert more assassination attempts than most of you can imagine.”
    When no one spoke up, he continued.
    “In addition to the fact that Jeshickah and her trainers are all fierce fighters, Midnight proper is further protected by spellwork that limits what magic can be performed inside its walls, by shapeshifter guards, and by broken slaves who are trained fighters.”
    “Jeshickah or her sisters will be able to rebuild from anything other than—get this fog out of my face,” a woman declared. “I don’t care who knows I’m here.”
    The mist cleared to reveal an auburn-haired vampire I had never seen before. Nathaniel’s representative from Kendra’s line, perhaps? Some of them were strongly loyal to Midnight, but I had heard of others who had no interest in Jeshickah’s empire.
    “As I was saying,” she said, tossing her head, “they will rebuild from anything other than complete destruction. The trainers would probably take over even if Jeshickah were gone; they don’t know how to do anything different. And once they realize they’re being targeted, the game is lost. So you need a way to take out Katama, Jeshickah, Acise, Gabriel, Jaguar, Taro, and Varick. And you need it to be fast enough that they can’t fight back.”
    “What about people like Daryl?” Vance asked. “Or Theron? Midnight works with Kendra’s line, too.”
    I winced, hoping I had been wrong about the vampire’s lineage, but she grinned, and said, “That would be a very bad idea. Well, I wouldn’t miss Daryl, but I’d have to object if anyone here somehow managed to harm Theron. And if you take Daryl, you’ll need to take Brina. That would be child’s play, until Kaleo came to avenge her, and if you killed him you would be back facing Theron.”
    Vance looked a little paler, but still had the nerve to say, “That’s why most of us are anonymous, isn’t it?”
    “Safely anonymous, for now,” someone else said—a woman, I thought, but I couldn’t even tell that much for sure. “But everyone Nathaniel has brought in on this plan is by nature swift, intelligent, and deadly.
You
would not survive if any one of us were your enemy.”
    The way she emphasized the word
you
made me shudder, almost certain that speaker knew who Vance was. Either she could see past the sakkri’s power, or Nathaniel had intentionally let her know who we were.
    “True,” the sakkri whispered again, “for you,” she added, more softly. Vance wouldn’t be a deadly enemy for anyone else in this circle.
    “Thank you, Shevaun, for identifying our problem,” Nathaniel said to the vampire from Kendra’s line, as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “Now—”
    “But we have the advantage of numbers,” another woman said. This time the mists revealed a blond-haired woman whose stance and toned form suggested that she was equally trained for combat. “Many of the fighters who guard Midnight used to be our kin. I refuse to believe that they would stand against us.”
    I didn’t know the woman herself, but she had to be one of the Macht witches. Her resemblance to the broken creatures Jeshickah kept around or sold as fancy guard dogs was unmistakable.
    Nathaniel sighed, as if he had heard this argument a thousand times.
    “That misconception is going to get everyone involved in this plan killed,” he said. I