Blood Past - By Samantha Young

Prologue

The Flight

The blood of the Blessed splattered walls and chairs and pooled on the floor like something from a fantastical graphic novel. It was a massacre.

Stellan?!

Eden pushed at Noah, who kept a tight grip, tugging her towards the doorway as the chocolate-eyed warrior and the man who had killed Celine drew towards her, guarding her. They were joined by a pretty woman with auburn hair.

“No!” Eden tried to wrench away from them. “Stellan!” she shrieked.

She caught sight of her brother through the fight, his head swinging around to find her as he heard her cry out his name.

A warrior with a swishing blonde ponytail, a girl perhaps a year older than she, took advantage of Stellan’s distraction.

“Eden!” he yelled, turning away from the warrior to fight his way through the miniature war.

“Eden, no!” Noah tried to pull her back.

“Stellan!” She reached out for him, her eyes widening as the sword came towards the back of his head. “Stellan, noooo!” she screamed.

But it was too late.

The sword cut through him, a sweep of his blood swiping through the air along with the top half of his head.

Agony ripped through her chest and her knees buckled beneath her. She felt arms wrap around her, holding her up as the horrific sight of her brother’s body disappeared from view as she was dragged from the room…

Eden blinked back tears, the burning, choking feeling in her throat making it hard to swallow. The image of her brother’s death had played over and over in her head every day since it had happened.

She kept wishing she could pause and rewind the replay, do something different, not shout out his name and distract him. Why couldn’t it have been Teagan? She wondered despairingly. Her cousin was the lowest piece of scum on the earth and yet somehow, out of everyone, he was the one who had survived unscathed. And she knew he was unscathed. He wouldn’t care that Ryan and Celine and Stellan were dead. He didn’t have it in him to care.

Eden frowned; it was paranoia, she knew it was, but that big puff of cloud outside her window had Teagan’s sneer. Eden growled under her breath at it and ignored Valeria clearing her throat from the leather couch across from her on Cyrus’ private jet.

“Is everything alright, Eden? Need the drug?”

She shook her head without looking at the warrior who was taking time out of her busy schedule of hunting and killing soul eaters to escort Eden across seas. The drug she was referring to was the one that was keeping Eden’s hunger abated. Her hunger for souls.

Being a soul eater sucked ass.

Eden exhaled heavily and leaned her head back on the cushy leather recliner, blocking out the tasty tendrils of soul wafting towards her from all directions. She was stuck on a plane with not one delicious Ankh soul but three. They couldn’t get to Edinburgh fast enough.

If someone had told her six months ago that meeting Noah Valois would lead to the death of her parents and the discovery of an unbelievable heritage, Eden would have snarled at them sarcastically and given them a look that said ‘Did I say you could suck oxygen next to me?’

But lo and behold… here she was.

Opening her eyes to little slits Eden snuck a peek at Noah who sat across from her, reading In Cold Blood again. She curled her lip in agitation, ignoring the way her heart thumped a little harder as her eyes drank in his strong face and elegantly masculine hands – hands that could kill a man in under two seconds, she remembered stubbornly. She snorted inwardly. He was reading that damn book deliberately. Trying to charm her with memories of how their friendship first began.

Reminding her that he had manipulated an entire friendship with her by forcing In Cold Blood on her (a really inappropriate book considering the ordeal she was going through), and pretending to like the manga magazine she was reading, was not the way to soften her up.

“I lied before,” she huffed, drawing Noah’s pale violet eyes up from the pages of his book to her face. His eyebrow quirked up, clearly surprised she had deigned to speak to him.

“About what?”

Eden ignored the little shiver that tickled down her spine at the sound of his deep rich voice. He had the perfect narrator’s voice. Melodic and unusual, and utterly captivating. She hated him for it.

“About the book. It sucked.”

He threw her a look that told her he didn’t