Magic Bleeds Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  EPILOGUE

  Teaser chapter

  GREAT READS—GUARANTEED

  THE ULTIMATE IN FANTASY!

  “Having an already exceptional series exceed your expectations is a rare and wonderful thing, but Andrews unquestionably pulls it off with this astonishing read. For fans invested in this series, the emotional payoff is huge, opening up exciting plotline possibilities. Balancing petrifying danger with biting humor is an Andrews specialty, leaving readers both grinning and gasping Put [Magic Bleeds] on your autobuy list immediately!”

  —Romantic Times

  PRAISE FOR THE KATE DANIELS NOVELS

  MAGIC STRIKES

  “Andrews blends action-packed fantasy with myth and legend, keeping readers enthralled. Magic Strikes introduces fascinating characters, provides a plethora of paranormal skirmishes, and teases fans with romantic chemistry.”

  —Darque Reviews

  “Ilona Andrews’s best novel to date, cranking up the action, danger, and magic . . . Gritty sword-clashing action and flawless characterizations will bewitch fans, old and new alike.”

  —Sacramento Book Review

  “Doses of humor serve to lighten the suspense and taut action of this vividly drawn, kick-butt series.”

  —Monsters and Critics

  “From the first page to the last, Magic Strikes was a riveting, heart-pounding ride. Story lines advance, truths are admitted, intriguing characters are introduced, and the romance between Kate and Curran develops a sweetness that is simply delightful.”

  —Dear Author

  “An engrossing, superbly written urban fantasy series.”

  —Lurv a la Mode

  “Write faster . . . I absolutely love the relationship between Curran and Kate—I laugh out loud with the witty sarcasm and one-liners, and the sexual tension building between the couples drives me to my knees, knowing I’ll have to wait for another book.”

  —SFRevu

  MAGIC BURNS

  “Fans of Carrie Vaughn and Patricia Briggs will appreciate this fast-paced, action-packed urban fantasy full of magic, vampires, werebeasties, and things that go bump in the night.”

  —Monsters and Critics

  “With all her problems, secrets, and prowess both martial and magical, Kate is a great kick-ass heroine, a tough girl with a heart, and her adventures . . . are definitely worth checking out.”

  —Locus

  “[Magic Burns] hooked me completely. With a fascinating, compelling plot, a witty, intelligent heroine, a demonic villain, and clever, wry humor throughout, this story has it all.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “A new take on the urban fantasy genre, the world Kate inhabits is a blend of gritty magic and dangerous mystery.”

  —The Parkersburg News and Sentinel

  “The sexual tension Kate emits has me gritting my teeth.”

  —SFRevu

  “If you enjoy Laurell K. Hamilton’s early Anita Blake or the works of Patricia Briggs and Kim Harrison, you need to add Ilona Andrews to your reading list.”

  —LoveVampires

  “Andrews . . . demonstrates her mastery at balancing dark humor, clever mystery, and supernatural jeopardy. Andrews is the total package!”

  —Romantic Times

  MAGIC BITES

  “Treat yourself to a splendid new urban fantasy . . . I am looking forward to the next book in the series or anything else Ilona Andrews writes.”

  —Patricia Briggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Silver Borne

  “Andrews shows a great deal of promise. Readers fond of Laurell K. Hamilton and Patricia Briggs may find her work a new source of reading pleasure.”

  —SFRevu

  “Andrews’s edgy series stands apart from similar fantasies . . . owing to its complex world-building and skilled characterizations.”

  —Library Journal

  “An intriguing world.”

  —Locus

  “Fans of urban fantasy will delight in Ilona Andrews’s alternate-universe Atlanta.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “An excellent start to a brand-new series.”

  —The Dragon Page

  “Fans of CSI . . . The X-Files, and any other of a host of such subgenre offerings should be pleased.”

  —FantasyBookSpot.com

  “A perfectly paced supernatural mystery with bits of dark humor and—if you’ll forgive the pun—a fair amount of bite.”

  —Rambles.net

  “The strong story line coupled with a complex alternative history . . . will have readers hoping for more.”

  —Monsters and Critics

  “Magic Bites is an enchanting paranormal whodunit that takes the supernatural into new, natural directions.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “[Andrews’s] world-building and characterizations are exceptional . . . Magic Bites is not to be overlooked.”

  —BookFetish

  “A unique world laced with a thick plot full of strife, betrayal, and mystery.”

  —Romance Junkies

  “The plot moves along at a pleasant clip, and the world-building is interesting and well done.”

  —Romantic Times

  Ace Books by Ilona Andrews

  The Kate Daniels Novels

  MAGIC BITES

  MAGIC BURNS

  MAGIC STRIKES

  MAGIC BLEEDS

  The Edge Novels

  ON THE EDGE

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  MAGIC BLEEDS

&nbs
p; An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the authors

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Ace mass-market edition / June 2010

  Copyright © 2010 by Andrew Gordon and Ilona Gordon.

  Excerpt from Bayou Moon copyright © by Andrew Gordon and Ilona Gordon.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN: 9781101433737

  ACE

  Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To our children, Anastasia and Helen

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Magic Bleeds turned out to be a very difficult book to write. It needed multiple drafts and a lot of patience from everyone involved.

  I would like to thank my agent, Nancy Yost, for holding my hand through it, and my editor, Anne Sowards, who worked on the manuscript as hard as I did.

  Thank you very much to Michelle Kasper, the production editor, and Andromeda Macri, the assistant production editor, both of whom I’ve probably made prematurely gray by this point. Thank you to Judith Lagerman, the art director, Annette Fiore DeFex, the cover designer, and Chad Michael Ward, the artist, for creating a stunning book. Thank you very much to Kat Sherbo, Anne’s editorial assistant, for dealing with my unreasonable requests, and thank you to Rosanne Romanello, the publicist, for tirelessly promoting the book.

  When I was writing the book, the dog had no name, so I ran a contest on my website, asking the readers for suggestions, and the following people offered entries that made it into the book: B. Carleton, Annika Bergstrand, Vina Patel, Zach Hughes, Nneka Waddell, Vanessa Yardley, and Andrea Jackson, who came up with the name we finally used.

  As always, thank you to the beta readers who suffered through many reincarnations of the book: Beatrix Kaser, Ying Chumnongsaksarp, Reece Notley, Hasna Saadani, Elizabeth Hull, Brooke Nelissen, Ericka Brooks, Melissa Sawmiller, Susan Zhang, Becky Kyle, and Megan Tebbutt, and special thanks to Chrissy Peterson.

  Finally, thank you very much to Jeaniene Frost and Jill Myles. This book does have sex in it. Please don’t hit me anymore.

  PROLOGUE

  NO MATTER HOW CAREFULLY I PATTED THE chopped apples into place, the top crust of my apple pie always looked like I’d tried to bury a dismembered body under it. My pies turned out ugly, but they tasted good. This particular pie was rapidly losing the last of its heat.

  I surveyed the spread in my kitchen. Venison steaks, marinated in beer, lightly seasoned, sitting in a pan ready to be popped into the oven. I’d saved them for last—they wouldn’t take but ten minutes under the broiler. Homemade rolls, now cold. Corn on the cob, also cold. Baked potatoes, yep, very cold. I’d added some sautéed mushrooms and a salad just in case what I had wasn’t enough. The butter on the mushrooms was doing its best to congeal into a solid state. At least the salad was supposed to be cold.

  I plucked a creased note from the table. Eight weeks ago, Curran, the Beast Lord of Atlanta, the lord and master of fifteen hundred shapeshifters, and my own personal psycho, had sat in the kitchen of my apartment in Atlanta and written out a menu on this piece of paper. I’d lost a bet to him, and according to the terms of our wager, I owed him one naked dinner. He’d added a disclaimer explaining that he’d settle for my wearing a bra and panties, since he wasn’t a complete beast—an assertion very open to debate.

  He’d set a date, November 15, which was today. I knew this because I had checked the calendar three times already. I had called him at the Keep three weeks ago and set the place, my house near Savannah, and the time, 5 p.m. It was eight thirty now.

  He’d said he couldn’t wait.

  Food—check. My most flattering set of bra and panties—check. Makeup—check. Curran—blank. I drew my finger along the pale blade of my saber, feeling the cold metal under my skin. Where exactly was His Majesty?

  Did he get cold feet? Mr. “You’ll sleep with me and say please before and thank you after”?

  He’d chased a flying palace through an enchanted jungle and carved his way through dozens of rakshasa demons to save me. Dinner was a huge deal to shapeshifters. They never took food for granted, but making a dinner for someone you were romantically interested in took a simple meal to a whole new level. When a shapeshifter made you dinner, he was either pledging to take care of you or he was trying to get into your pants. Most of the time, both. Curran had fed me soup once, when I was half-dead, and the fact that I had eaten it, even without knowing what that meant, amused him to no end. He wouldn’t miss this dinner.

  Something must’ve held him up.

  I picked up the phone. Then again, he enjoyed screwing with me. I wouldn’t put it past him to hide outside in the bushes, watching me squirm. Curran treated women like wonderful toys: he wined them, dined them, took care of their problems, and once they grew completely dependent on him, he became bored. Maybe whatever I perceived to be between us was only in my head. He’d realized he won and had lost interest. Calling him would just give him an opportunity to gloat.

  I hung up the phone and looked at my pie some more.

  If you opened a dictionary and looked up “control freak,” you’d find Curran’s picture. He ruled with steel claws, and when he said, “Jump,” there was hell to pay if you didn’t start hopping. He infuriated me and I drove him out of his skin. Even if he wasn’t truly interested, he wouldn’t miss a chance to see me present this dinner in my underwear. His ego was too big. Something must have happened.

  Eight forty-four. Curran served as the Pack’s first and last line of defense. Any hint of a significant threat, and he’d be out there, roaring and ripping bodies in half. He could be hurt.

  The thought stopped me cold. It would take a bloody army to bring down Curran. Of the fifteen hundred homicidal maniacs under his command, he was the toughest and most dangerous sonovabitch. If something did happen, it had to be bad. He would’ve called if he’d been delayed by something minor.

  Eight forty-nine.

  I took the phone, cleared my throat, and dialed the Keep, the Pack’s stronghold on the outskirts of Atlanta. Just keep it professional. Less pathetic that way.

  “You’ve reached the Pack. What do you want?” a female voice said into the phone.

  Friendly people, the shapeshifters. “This is Agent Daniels. Can I speak to Curran, please?”

  “He isn’t taking calls right now. Do you want to leave a message?”

  “Is he in the Keep?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  A heavy rock materialized in my chest and made it hard to breathe.

  “Message?” the female shapeshifter prompted.

  “Just tell him I called, please. As soon as possible.”

  “Is this urgent?”

  Fuck it. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

  “Hold on.”

  Silence reigned. Moments dripped by, slowly, stretching thinner and thinner . . .

  “He says he’s too busy to talk to you right now. In the future, please go through proper channels and direct all your concerns to Jim, our security chief. His number is—”

  I heard my voice, oddly flat. “I have the number. Thanks.”

  “Anytime.”

  I lowered the phone into the cradle very carefully. A tiny sound popped in my ears, and I had the absurd idea that it was my heart forming hairline cracks.

  He stood me up.

  He stood me up. I cooked a huge meal. I sa
t by the phone for the last four hours. I put on makeup, my second time in the past year. I bought a box of condoms. Just in case.

  I love you, Kate. I’ll always come for you, Kate.

  You sonovabitch. Didn’t even have the balls to speak to me.

  I surged off the chair. If he was going to dump me after all that shit, I’d force him to do it in person.