Crown of Ash (Blood Skies, Book 4) Read Online Free Page A

and when she opened them again their normal cold green color had returned.  She looked dazed for a moment, and then regained her composure and looked at Kane .  Whatever she saw on his face made her smile .  “ What, did I creep you out? ”              
    “What?” Kane said with a flippant smile.  “Oh, no…you know.  It’s all good.”
    Jade laughed .              
    She was such an enigma to him.  Even with as much power as she supposedly possessed, Kane though t Jade lacked that harde ned edge he was used to seeing i n other mercenaries. 
    Well...most of the time, at least.  Keep your head straight, pal.  She could fry your balls off with a gesture.
    She turned back to the open desert . 
    “What did you see?” he asked.
    “I saw something the vampires might want,” she said.  “We should go and check it out .”
     
    Blacksand had to date managed to stay out of the war between the So uthern Claw and the Ebon Cities, in part because the criminal port- city only had a relatively small human population .  Most of the inhabitants of the ramshackle and crime-ridden place were Doj, Vuul, Gol and the little-seen Draj , a race of Cruj offshoots who kept to the shadows and were generally distrusted and feared.  There was no true ruling authority in Blacksand .  As had been the case in Kane’s home city of Kalakkaii, the crime guilds competed for control .  I n Black sand the upper hand unquestionably belonged to Klos Vago and T he Shard, but Kane understood they’d recently been challenged by a new band of thrill- seeking mercenaries and robbers called t he Shadow Guild . 
    Yeah, I do n’t see that ending well. 
    Unfortunately for Vago, holding the reins of power in the city also meant that he had to deal with the city’s problems .  W hile he maintained a fairly traditional city militia that handle d local troubles, the problem of the downed arcane barricade warranted sending out the heavy hitters to investigate . 
    And since you own our asses at the mom ent , why waste your goons when you can send us instead ?  Seriously, we get all of the fun jobs .               
    Sightings of Ebo n Cities scouts in the region – which was unusual in and of itself , since Blacksand was literally hundreds of miles away from both Southern Claw and vampire territories – had forced Vago to take some initiative and find out what was going on.  The last thing the Shard or any of the nomads, natives or settlers of the southern wastelands wanted was for one of the major powers to move in and start taking over the area. 
    Kane thought about Danica, stuck back in the city with Vago, who both of them suspected had no intention of ever keeping up his end of the bargain.  He was worried about her.  She’d probably kill him if she knew that, but that didn’t change anything.
    He thought about Cross, and wondered if they’d ever be able to bring him back.  He’d not woken since they’d rescued him from the ruins of Shadowmere Keep, ca rried him across the wastelands and hitched a ride on the Dubrakki Railway to get to Blacksand.  He ’d not stirred in the three weeks since they’d found him .  Not once.
    Kane shuddered, and tried to calm his mind.  He’d been at odds ever since Ekko had died, but his new family – there was no other way he could think of them now, not after all they’d been through together – had helped him heal his wounds.  In a way, Cross’ s disappearance had brought he and Danica closer .  They trusted each other now, and worked well together. 
    That was important, he thought .  I spent two years blaming Danica for what had happened to Ekko.  It was past time for me to get over that shit.
    Before, it had been Cross that had fused the team together, but Mike felt sure that even after Cross came back the three of them would be even more tightly knit than ever before.  Others came and went, but it was those three, the survivors of