Poison Tree

Poison Tree Den of Shadows 8 Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Poison Tree is dedicated to my wife, Mandi. Her love and support helped me through many revision-related rants and breakdowns, while her feedback and insight helped me untangle several snarls in the story itself. As I write this, we have just celebrated our one-year anniversary. She hasn’t given up on me yet.

As always, I owe profuse thanks to my writing group: Shauna, Bri, Zim, Ria, and last but far from least, Mason. Mason has been one of my strongest supporters—and greatest critics—throughout Poison Tree ’s editing process, constantly needling me to reexamine the characters and the story line.

Like most of my books, Poison Tree required research into a bizarre variety of topics. Though this list is by no means complete, I would like to thank Karl for his weapons support, Bri for her archery instruction, and Devon for his technological expertise.

Final y, I must go back to 2002 and thank the cast and crew of Tiger Eyes, especial y Ol ie, who instigated that project, and Sam Kruger, who prodded me to develop a story I might otherwise have given up on long ago. You al helped me see and hear these characters in a way I had never expected.

I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,

Night and morning with my tears;

And I sunned it with smiles,

And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,

Til it bore an apple bright.

And my foe beheld it shine.

And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole

When the night had veiled the pole;

In the morning glad I see

My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

Wil iam Blake, “A Poison Tree”

PROLOGUE

SIX YEARS AGO

THERE WAS BLOOD on her hands, congealing slowly. The body in her arms was cold, its once-

vibrant cheer forever vanished from the world.

The dead girl had a thick rope around her throat, attached to a chain hooked into the wall. Sisal bonds held her wrists behind her back. If she had been able to shapeshift, that rope would have burst or blended into her form, but the innocent eleven-year-old girl who had been bound, beaten, and murdered had been human, nothing more.

I failed you. I’m so sorry.

The survivor looked up at the sound of a sti ed gasp of pain; someone was moving across the room, through a pile of what she had thought were dead bodies. She couldn’t summon fear, not with a corpse in her arms that had once been a little girl she had sworn to protect.

The vampire pushed himself to his hands and knees slowly, painfully. Though bones broke the bloodied surface of his skin, he still moved toward her and said, “We have to get out of here.”

She remembered this one now. He had spoken up against his leader and refused to help torture the human girl.

If he had been anything more fragile than a vampire, he wouldn’t have survived his leader’s response, but now his bones were knitting back together. She knew how that felt; as a pure-blooded shapeshifter, she healed almost as quickly. She could have survived everything they had done to Cori’s poor human body. But Cori … Cori was just dead.

“What’s your name?” the vampire asked as he crawled toward her.

“Sa-Sarik,” she stammered, a jolt of fear going through her at last. She was harder to kill than a human, but that didn’t mean she wanted anyone to try.

“I’m Jason,” he said. “Help me and I can help you. There’s another door, but I can’t get there on my own like this, and I don’t have time to heal before they get back.”

She looked around. Once this had been a wine cellar, but now it was just dry and cold, and reeked of blood, fear, and pain. How could she abandon her sister here?

“It’s too late to help her,” Jason said. “Come on. We need to go.”

There was blood on Alysia’s hands. Some of it was slick red—which meant it was probably hers—and some was swiftly drying, caking, and turning to dust, which meant it belonged to her prey.

Alysia didn’t know exactly who this nest of vampires had pissed o , but she did know that it was someone with enough money to o er a good price. Given what she had been told about this group’s behavior, Alysia might have done the job for pennies. Then again, she did have a reputation to maintain—and important toys to buy. There was no need to make a charity case out of some rich vengeance-seeker’s problem.

Sneaking up on a creature who could hear her human heartbeat and smell her blood would normally have been tricky, but this group had spilled a great deal of blood lately, sating their hunger and dulling their senses. They were also distracted by their own concerns and were whispering among themselves about their most recent assignment, which clearly had shaken up a few of them.

Alysia waited until one had walked away from the others, and then she stepped up behind him and drove a slender steel stake hardly larger than a pencil into his back, beneath his shoulder blade. The tip found his heart unerringly. When she twisted the implement and removed it swiftly, the barbs on the tip shredded the once-vital organ and the vampire dropped without a sound.

Three down. Five to go, she thought. Eventually, they would realize she was there, but each one she took out before they did was one fewer face-to-face fight.

“You!”

Five on one, not the best odds, she thought, spinning toward the voice, only to discover that the vampire who had shouted was not talking to her.

Poacher, she thought indignantly. This was her job. What was worse, the jerk who had cut in was obviously an Onyx boy: brash, bold, with no concept of stealth. The black crossbow he had slung over his shoulder was an Onyx trademark; that guild tended to favor long-

distance weapons and rarely jumped into an up-close fight when they could avoid it.

As one of the vampires noticed her and cut into her path, though, she decided she was magnanimous enough to share. Let this Onyx newcomer distract some of them while she picked the others off, one by one.

There was blood on the girl’s hands and face, but that didn’t seem to distract her as she crept up behind the vampire Christian had been ghting and, with one swift backstab, took the creature down.

“Thanks,” Christian said, the only word they exchanged as they instinctively moved back to back. They didn’t