Silver Under Nightfall (Reaper, #1)

by Rin Chupeco

She’d called him Armiger; not Lord or Lady, but a neutral title he felt was more in keeping with who he was. She hadn’t mocked him like so many others had.

Like most of the damned, she was beautiful. She’d always been breathtaking, but death had a curious way of remolding her features, shaping them into an artificial perfection that mere mortals could never reach. He was reminded of his old school lessons; of chameleons who changed their colors for camouflage, of butterflies that mimicked flowers for their own protection.

“I have fought this weapon before. I know who your father is. They say you are not completely human. A mooncalf. A cambion.”

Freshly turned vampire bodies sold well in the black markets of Aluria—a novelty item for the extremely wealthy and privileged, sources of experimentation and study for those who dabbled in the sciences. Remy didn’t like it, but his disapproval wasn’t worth bollocks in Aluria.

“No.” He had no desire to explain that he remembered her kindness more than he did their conversation, that it was all he required to fight for someone else’s dignity. Lady Daneira had treated him with the respect very few in upper society had ever given him. She had called him Armiger. It had mattered.

Time had softened the subsequent trysts, even made them pleasurable. But always, he remembered her ceiling.

Your mother was bitten before you were born, boy. She died birthing you, possibly at the cusp of her own turning.”

trezirea sângelui; Alurian hunters found bloodwaker easier to remember.

Staring back at his child, the fireplace casting sinister shadows over his face, the Duke of Valenbonne appeared rather like a moving, talking corpse himself. “You look so much like your mother,” he finally said, looking slightly repulsed by the observation, and turned away.

It was mandatory for all notable peers of the realm to convene in the springtime to Alhmeister House at Gold Street to fulfill the roles their fathers had paid the privilege for, which was to pass lucid, preferably decent, laws to govern the kingdom-states of Aluria.

Gossip served as currency, and if there was anything the peerage had in surplus, it was money and rumormongers.

Her voice sounded like sex and sin, smoky and low.

Tell me I didn’t staple this dress on for nothing, Zidan. It’s not like you to have so little control of your temper.”

She grinned at him, baring a perfect set of lovely, ivory fangs. “That this is what I do is exactly why you should listen to me. I can spend the night with a gentleman and think no more about him the next morning. Beautiful gems have kept my attention for far longer. But you, love. You’re too kind for this. You’ll always leave pieces of your heart behind, whether you want to or not, and to people who deserve it least of all. I owe you my life. Consider this one of the small ways I am trying to repay my debt. Why, you haven’t even shown me the papers yet, to see the quality of espionage I’m up against.”

“They call her the Sunbringer. I do not know how she came to possess such abilities—the first I’d known of it was after witnessing her fight in the war between the Third and Fifth. She wiped out my clan with it. If I had been slower to move…” She shuddered. “Etrienne feared her. A vampire who could manifest the very thing capable of its own destruction—he called it a curse, said she would be better off dead. The Fourth Court’s decline was not a coincidence.”

She wore a long dressing gown—one right out of his wardrobe, a luxurious red silk from Situ that he’d splurged for on a whim. It exposed a lot of her neck and legs and looked fetchingly good on her. It wasn’t supposed to look good on her. It wasn’t supposed to be worn by anyone but him, and now he couldn’t stop staring.

Xiaodan took hold of the bars separating her from Remy. The metal twisted under her hands, distending so that it created a hole large enough for him to walk through. Her smile throughout her unnecessary destruction of kingdom property remained as sweet as honey. It was both frightening and oddly seductive. Feiron and Aglaice gaped, a pair of inedible fish who’d been robbed of water.

Now that she’d put Feiron in his place, Xiaodan was back to her chipper self, and she’d never been more beautiful. Malekh, too, remained as elegant and commanding as he’d always been, and Remy took that personally.

pretty people

“I am not just milady, I am Song Xiaodan, heiress presumptive of the Fourth Court. I outranked the Duke of Astonbury, and now I outrank you.” The noblewoman had the uncanny ability to sound imperious despite her soft, lilting voice.

Montgomery Bellinger, the queen’s general-at-arms;

I love this name

Her Majesty raised a tawny eyebrow. “And why are you so determined to have him?”

And they are, too

Xiaodan’s smile was as bright as the sun. In contrast, Zidan Malekh’s scowl was like a thundercloud on the cusp of a terrible storm.

A broken star on the back of his right hand, as confirmed by two eyewitness accounts—a mark of those beholden to the Night Court.”

“I was hoping to find Malekh, but you’ll do for now. You must be his newest plaything—he always did have an itch for the brunettes.”

Oh -

the knob in his throat bobbing like a fishing lure.

THERE HAD always been preachers in Elouve. In a city ruled by gold and genteel decadence, most of the citizens were ripe for guilt. A few of the more outspoken sermoners were of the hellfire-and-brimstone variety, but they’ve always avoided Gold Street and its mansions, knowing full well that their admonitions would be little appreciated there.

A drop of truth in a goblet of lies. The preachers had made the rest of it up, but they’d known about Astonbury’s corpses, somehow.

“I thought you didn’t want me along,” Remy muttered. “I never said that I didn’t want you.”

“I’ll go where you both go,” he found himself saying, feeling strangely at peace with the words.

“A tattoo of a broken star. The mark of the First. It is no easy feat to carve a vampire, Remington. Only Ancient blood can ink those permanent designs on their accursed flesh. It is, or so I am told, an excruciating process. If a vampire bears that seal on his body, then they are one of the Night Empress’s soldiers.”

“It’s not—it’s unusual to find someone living so close to Elouve helping Court nobles.” The woman stared at him, confused. “But you’re doing the same thing, aren’t you, Armiger? Helping them, I mean.” Remy supposed she had a point.

The equine anomalies responsible for his predicament were standing placidly off to the side, pretending to graze.

I love the irreverence and jauntiness in narrator tone

It wasn’t fair for them both to be this attractive, he thought sourly; one was his ideal woman if she wasn’t spoken for, the other a Lightdamned shitpouch even if he was the best-looking man Remy had ever seen.

“Why not?” Remy asked, taken aback by the man’s reaction.

Remy is emotionally stunted cmv

“Just because he’s one of the undead,” Paolo grunted as they watched the noble leave, “doesn’t mean he hasn’t got demons ten times as old as you haunting his head, either.” “I just want to know why my mother died,” Remy said. “Your mother’s gone, child. But you’re not. Your life isn’t any less important than hers.”

Everything looked damp and diseased. The trees might have appeared evergreen and leafy from two miles away, but up close, the brown miasma radiating off them grew more visible, as if the previous greenery had been camouflage or bait, or both. A rotting scent—a combination of petrichor and shit—prevailed against the fog, as if something had died of dysentery all around them. Something eyelike and red winked at Remy from the gloom before dissolving back into darkness.

“Can’t I just have a little bit of slaughter? I’m sure they won’t notice.”

us. Every court has its own prerequisites, its own rules for acceptance. The Sixth Court appeals to those seeking an immortality of mind rather than just of the body, through meditation and pacifism. The Seventh Court has a military bent, while the Eighth seeks to bring back the allure and glitter of the older courts.”

He didn’t loathe Zidan Malekh. At least, not when the man said flattering bullshit like this.

“Bless the Gatherer for the lives we’ve led,” he prayed, “and bless the Mother for the souls we’re given. Bless the Hunter for the lives we’ve lost, and bless the Light that our sins be forgiven.”

“And it was a wonder we could talk much business, with you constantly underfoot.” There was a rare unrestrained affection in Malekh’s voice, which he made no effort to hide. He sat close to Xiaodan, and his hand found hers, stroking absently at the back of it.

the past was back in his brain, rotting through.

The beautiful girl in Malekh’s arms trembled, her lips leaving his neck briefly. “Yes,” she groaned, eager and filled with need. “Yes. I want him, too.”

On the other hand, Remy never pretended to be the smartest in the room; he wasn’t one to crunch numbers and probabilities. He didn’t have the skills to calculate the force he would need to take another man’s head off. His greatest strength had always been his instinct. His other strength, possibly the only strength in a fight against Malekh, was that his moves were unpredictable enough to give anyone pause.

Malekh whispered; guttural, coldly furious, and, Remy realized, stunned, thick with desire.

“Fuck you,” Remy said. “Perhaps one day, Pendergast. Now, shut up and strike me.”

The idea of looking weak to Malekh by having Xiaodan talk to him in Remy’s stead was unforgivable. “There’s no need for you to intervene. He can do whatever the hell he wants. I can take it.” “Oh,” Xiaodan said, somewhat faintly. “Oh.”

“You are an infuriating human who constantly tries my patience,” Malekh said, “but I’ve never pretended.” And slowly, without breaking eye contact, the man pressed his fingers against the small wound, tongue briefly flicking out, and Remy’s breaths spilled out of him in soft, jittery waves.

“Let us in!” he hollered. “Open the gates! If there are any inside, then you have to fucking let us in!” Some of the men stared blankly at him. Others raised their bows again. “We’ve just beaten up corpses for all you absolute gits,” Remy yelled again, “and I’d really appreciate some fucking reciprocation!” “Who’s to say you aren’t one of them, too?” someone yelled back. “My name is Remington Pendergast! I’m a Reaper!” “Are you constantly this loud?” Malekh had caught up to him. “We can simply leap over the walls, if gaining access to the village is what you’re concerned with.”

I need this animated, mad Castlevania vibes

and I doubt Yingyue would rouse from her stupor to defend her own daughter, much less you and your human lover.” “I would really fucking appreciate it if someone actually corrected him on that,” Remy said.

I am wheezing Remy with the jokes