New Blood: Bloodlines, #4

By Lara Lynwood

Enemies round every corner. My allies missing or trapped. And at the centre of it all, a traitor...

 

There's a spy in the Guild. And they've finally made their move.

My Guild contact and lifelong friend Marci is gone. Missing, presumed dead, on a hunt she should never have been sent on alone - just days after she told me she knew who the spy was.

The only other person who knows the truth is the Guild witch. But she's under house arrest - and that's only going to last until the spy can discreetly get rid of her, too.

And as for me? The Guild's declared that I'm the traitor. And that makes me fair game. Every hunter out there is trying to kill me - and if I'm not careful, one of them might get lucky.

Rescue a witch. Find my friend. Clear my name. Expose the traitor.

All in a day's work, right?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lara Lynwood
• Release date: Aug 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223319634

Book preview

New Blood

Lara Lynwood

Copyright © 2023 by Lara Lynwood

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Contents

1.Meeting

2.Kill Order

3.Simone

4.Mancer Academy

5.Agnes Ness

6.Teacher

7.Aftermath

8.Traitor

9.Sabotage

10.Intervention

11.Rumours

12.Discussion

13.Marci

14.Outcasts

15.Five Days

16.Hunter

17.Answers

18.Alliance

19.Apologies

20.Ada

21.Confrontation

22.Restoration

What to read next...

one

Meeting

Felix and I woke bright and early the next morning. Sephy, Grey, and Luka had already left. Apparently they’d wanted to get an early start on handling the consequences of everything that had happened in the Tunnels, and on getting their people positioned to take advantage of the chaos.

I’d woken at dawn, something I hadn’t done in a while. With the Guild, I’d been trained to do so when I was on a hunt. But since leaving - no, since being cast out - my sleep schedule had, well, become less of a schedule and more of a mess. Something about spending half my time nocturnal and half my time wandering around in vampire-infested underground tunnels.

I took the opportunity to stretch. I’d slept in the living room, on the least grimy looking sofa. Felix himself slept in what I assumed was his own room, somewhere upstairs. I had no idea what time he normally woke, but I remembered him once being horrified that I was what he called a morning person, so I assumed he wouldn’t be up for a while.

I lost myself in the stretches, the movements meditative in a way I had missed. My thoughts drifted to our upcoming meeting with Marci.

And with Simone. The last time I’d seen Simone, she had told me that her oath banned her from helping me. And then she had found a loophole to send me to Felix. I wondered if she had realised just how much that action would affect my life. It was possible; plenty of witches had a touch of prophecy. Even if they didn’t particularly specialise in it.

The fact that she had managed to find a loophole that would allow her to speak to me again, though… That was worrying. It suggested that whatever she and Marci wanted to meet with us about was something that would impact not just on the Guild’s present, but its future. Then again, it was hard to get more impactful than a traitor in the Guild. Especially one as high up as we suspected this one was.

Felix woke earlier than I’d expected. He stumbled into the living room, took one look at me posed mid-stretch, and shook his head and turned around. As he left, I heard him muttering something about coffee.

In fact, coffee sounded like an excellent idea. I shook myself out, and followed him into the kitchen. I paused for a moment on threshold, remembering how wary he had been the first time I’d been in here, shortly after I first encountered Nathanael. Then again, he had had good reason to be wary back then. After all, he’d just admitted to considering trying to kill me.

I stepped over the threshold, and Felix glanced up from where he was staring at a coffee pot. It was the newest looking thing in the kitchen; whilst the kitchen was clean, the decoration was dated. To the point where even I noticed it.

Still, it was functional. I nodded at the coffee pot.

Enough for me? I asked. Felix shrugged, and tipped his head towards the cupboard. I opened it, and found a collection of mugs. Novelty mugs, in fact.

I glanced over – Felix hadn’t gotten himself a mug yet. So I selected two. One was bright pink, with glittering letters instructing the reader to don’t worry, be happy on it. I slid that one over to Felix. The second I took myself – this one had a picture of a scowling cat across the front.

Felix looked at the mug, and then shook his head. Still, he poured coffee into both mugs, and gestured at a couple of dishes that turned out hold sugar.

I don’t have milk, he said, voice hoarse. I shrugged. It was coffee, it was drinkable. There were times when you wanted a coffee for the taste, and times when you just wanted it to keep you conscious. This was the latter. I was still alert and focused, for now. But I’d been running on adrenaline for too long – and no matter how good a hunter you were, biology still meant that adrenaline tended to be followed by a crash. It hadn’t hit me yet, though, and if I was careful I might be able to avoid it.

We both made our way back into the living room. I sipped my coffee. Felix didn’t bother; he just swigged it it, not seeming to notice that it was still steaming hot. I watched with a kind of morbid fascination. Witches weren’t immune to heat, I knew that. So how was he not noticing it? Or maybe he was, and just didn’t care.

Either way, Felix had drunk his entire mug of coffee by the time I was only a few sips into mine, and looked far more alert for it. He set the mug down the table, and leaned back on the sofa.

So, he said. Marci and Simone. What should I know about them? He waved a hand. I’ve heard of them, of course. Marci you’ve mentioned before; your friend from the Guild, correct? And of course I’ve heard of Simone Vonner. One of the brightest young witches of her age, back then. And the Guild’s witch, now. Although as I understand it, that’s meant to be somewhat secret. He snorted. Not that anything ever is, in the supernatural community.

Yes, I said. And if her oath is letting her help us… Then the situation is bad. I shook my head. No, not bad. Worse. Far worse than we had thought. As for Marci… She’s one of the Guild’s best hunters. The same as I was. Although her skillset is more on the magical side of things. We can trust them both.

Although, saying that, I wasn’t as certain about Simone as I was about Marci. I had never known her that well, and while she had helped me by directing me to Felix, she was also loyal to the Guild first and foremost. Not just through choice, but through the oaths that bound her. If something was in the best interests of the Guild, she might be forced to do it, regardless of her opinions on the matter. If, for example, she thought that turning me in was the best way to protect the Guild, she would have to do it.

But I had to trust that Marci was aware of that, and didn’t expect it to happen. Marci was closer to her than I had ever been, – they had met when Marci had been scouted by the Experimental Runes department a while ago. They’d worked together on various magical arrays and theories. For all that Marci was a hunter and not a witch, she had enough knowledge of magical theory by now to go toe to toe with plenty of those from the Mancer Academy. So if Marci thought she could be trusted, then I had to trust Marci.

We should leave soon, I said. I glanced at the burner phone that I’d left on the table. No messages or calls. That was most likely a no news is good news situation, but something about it still sat uneasily with me. Still, if we didn’t leave soon we would miss the window we’d agreed upon for meeting them.

Fine, fine, Felix said, sighing theatrically. A wince of genuine pain passed across his face as he stood, quickly covered up. I frowned. He had been badly injured, and it was only through Sephy’s magic that he had survived it.

But there shouldn’t be any danger in this. It was a meeting to share information. That was all.

Perfectly safe.

***

I want to note, Felix said, that this was your idea.

Shut up, I hissed.

We’d been sitting in the café for nearly 20 minutes now. There had been no sign of Marci or Simone yet. And something wasn’t right. It would have been a cliche to say that I had a bad feeling, but… I was a hunter. And a dhampir. If I had a bad feeling, it meant something. One of the most important things they taught us in the Guild was to trust your instincts.

Right now, every instinct I had was screaming at me that something was wrong here.

We sat for another 10 minutes. Then I shook my head.

Let’s go, I said. I couldn’t help the way my gaze flickered towards the door. If they haven’t shown up by now, they’re not going to. I didn’t mention the way the hairs on the back of my neck were rising. Felix looked just as on edge as I felt.

We barely made it through the door before things went wrong.

There, a voice called. There, they’re leaving now.

My eyes widened. And that was all I had time for before they fell on us.

I reacted without thinking – I dragged Felix down with me, rolled under and below, aiming to get out from the circle we were surrounded by.

I managed it, taking Felix with me too. He staggered and I pulled him to his feet, only half paying attention. The rest of my mind was focused on assessing the threat.

Because threat it was. A dozen, all told. Younger than I would have expected, men and women alike – teenagers, really.

And every one of them wearing Guild uniforms.

Guild apprentices. Fresh hunters, at best.

And somehow, they’d known exactly where we would be. Exactly when we would be here. And there was a reason they were attacking us.

An icy feeling trickled down my spine.

Marci wouldn’t. She wouldn’t.

Cassandra Blackthorn, one of them said, stepping forward. I took a moment to assess her, since she’d presented herself as the apparent leader of the group. Young, one of the older ones of the group. A qualified hunter, if fairly new to it. Well armed, but not as well as I always was – usually was, anyway. I hadn’t brought much to this meeting, not wanting to be too obvious. A mistake, and one I was regretting now.

I didn’t recognise her, but that wasn’t unusual. The trainees were amusing enough, but I had never had much of a close hand in their training. I’d been pulled in for the occasional class, just as most hunters were, but the bulk of my work had been in hunts, rather than education.

She recognised me, though. Was that because she had seen me before, or because of some kind of wanted poster?

You, she declared, are a traitor to the Guild.

My world stopped for a moment. And restarted again just as quickly. I didn’t have time to freeze up, not now. Not when I was faced with a dozen near-children from the Guild. Who, despite my skill, might be able to defeat me. Simply for the fact that I didn’t want to hurt them. Didn’t want to kill them.

They, however, had no such qualms. The woman’s next words were a clear enough indicator of that.

You can’t escape, she spat. Even if you manage to get away from us, there’s a kill order out on you. Just like a traitor deserves. Every hunter in the city will be tracking you.

Ah, fuck.

Kill orders were rare. Kill orders that extended to every single hunter in the Guild… That was unheard of.

That’s nice, I said, keeping my tone as neutral as I could. It was a deliberate attempt to provoke her, and it worked.

The girl’s face twisted in fury, and she lunged forward, a blade appearing in her hand out of nowhere. Well – seemingly nowhere to anyone except a trained hunter. I had seen her go for the weapon, the girl telegraphing her movements far too clearly. And that meant that I had plenty of time to bring my own blade up to catch the blow.

Go home, I told her, easily pushing the blade down and away. Kill order or not, I’m out of your league. Let the adults take care of things.

She was young. Too young to have the self-control needed to ignore an opponent’s taunts. Well, no. If she was a qualified hunter, then she should be able to cope with that. Standards had clearly slipped since I had passed my test.

Then again, that was nothing but helpful for me right now. The others didn’t seem to know what to do – it was clear they had little experience of fighting groups in the real world. There was only so much that training could do. Things were very different when you were faced with the reality of it, the flesh and blood and fear of a true fight.

I could have killed them. It would have been terrifyingly easy. Was this really the calibre of hunters the Guild was sending out now?

But I didn’t need to. All I needed to do was get away.

So I flipped the blade out of her hand, flinging it above and behind the group. And then, as they all turned to follow the blade’s arc, I ran, Felix beside me.

two

Kill Order

Well, Felix said, once we’d made it safely back behind the walls of his home. That was a shit show.

I groaned, and buried my face in my hands.

I’d pushed it aside at the time, but I had to let it sink in now.

A kill order. The Guild had put out a kill order on me.

And it had to be recent. Because otherwise, Marci would have told me.

Unless…

They’d called me a traitor. Not a monster, a traitor. That meant they thought I’d betrayed the Guild somehow.Did they think I was the spy?They had to know that there was a spy. Even barely-trained hunters like those would have noticed the problems Marci had told me about, the missions gone wrong, all of it. And if they thought it was me… It’d tie up neatly with the way I’d vanished from the Guild, with the position I’d held before that. Nothing formal, but I’d been respected – enough to have been able to get information, if I’d wanted it.

Did Marci believe it? Did she think that I could be the spy?

It didn’t make sense, not really. Not when she knew that I was in no position to be passing information on. Not when I didn’t have access to any recent information.

But if she thought I was working with somebody