A Fall of Silver Read Online Free

a wide gesture, his palms upwards in appeasement. “We came here for a purpose at your request, Mr. Sutton. You asked for our assistance. This interruption changes nothing.” He turned to Quicksilver as if just noticing her. “What is your name, Miss?”
    “ Miss nothing, you don’t need my name.” She wasn’t about to let vampires know who she was. Give away your name and you give away your soul . It might be a superstition, but then again, so were vampires. No one except fringe crazies believed in the undead.
    With a suspiciously serious expression, he replied, “Miss Nothing, please, relax and put away your weapons. I’m sure it was unintentional, but you’ve walked into serious negotiations and interrupted them at a critical stage. I understand—” he grabbed the second whip out of her hand—her weak hand—and kept a loose grip on her right wrist, “—that you’re justifiably concerned, but I assure you, nothing will happen to your friend, will it, Jason?”
    The vampire shook his head , a false expression of innocence smeared across his face. “No, Mr. Hilliard, I swear—”
    “ Liar! He tried to kill a girl, a—a child! And as long as he survives, she’s in danger. You don’t realize—you were in here with them, doing God knows what—but he was hunting her!” Quicksilver’s words came out in a rush, the phrases tripping over each other in her effort to make him understand.
    He was consorting with evil. Pure evil .
    “ Therefore, you own the right to kill us all? Because of this one?” Sutton’s words dripped with sarcasm. “ We —not a human—will take care of this situation. If he acted without honor, he’ll be punished, right enough.”
    She stared at Sutton, searching for vulnerabilities, weaknesses. The short, stocky vampire wore dark slacks and an old linen shirt under a navy blue, dusty vest that had seen better days. If she’d seen him on the street, she’d have assumed he was a street person. However, despite his frayed clothing, his round face had an air of alertness that spoke of a vicious temper and need for dominance.
    A man who was desperate to keep control and feared he might not. That roiling cauldron of emotion made him unstable, unpredictable.
    Instead of reassuring her, that thought frightened her. If the clan leader was unstable, the clan itself would be rife with infighting and maneuvering that would necessitate blood—human blood—to fuel them.
    As if to confirm her assessment, he moved his wrist and seemingly out of nowhere, a butterfly knife appeared. He grinned slyly and began rhythmically flicking it open and shut with sharp, metallic clicks.
    As if a vampire needed a knife.
    “Right,” Quicksilver muttered, steeling herself for an attack. “The problem is going to be solved. Because unlike you—I take care of things like this. Immediately . ”
    A ripple of anger flowed through t he room. The vampires leaned forward, eyes half-closing, stiffening to attack.
    The air seemed to leave the room.

Chapter Three
    Quicksilver took a deep breath, centering her self and letting her eyes unfocus. Her peripheral vision would catch movement from either side. She’d strike whoever moved first. God help her, she hoped she’d be fast enough to counter the threats from both the humans and vampires in the room.
    Although Sutton’s face hardened with embarrassment and rage, a glance at Kethan forced him back a step. The thick muscles in the master vampire’s jaw flexed. With unsettling clarity she realized Sutton’s lack of control over his clan, and her observance of it, made the situation even more volatile. Her stomach tightened as the air crisped until it was crackling with tension.
    H is position was crumbling. He’d apparently been weak enough to attempt negotiations with humans. His clan had to resent his efforts to make peace with their enemies, certainly Tyler and Jason had since they flouted his orders and broke the truce when they picked up Kathy. Their