Julie Kagawa - Julie Kagawa Blood of Eden Complete Collection

Dont miss the Blood of Eden trilogy by the New York Times bestselling author of The Iron Fey and The Talon Saga! This darkly thrilling series, set in a destroyed, near-future world, will captivate fans of the Divergent, Hunger Games and Maze Runner series.

WHAT IF HAVING A CHANCE TO SAVE HUMANITY MEANT BECOMING WHAT YOU HATE AND FEAR MOST?

Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a walled-in city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten. Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of themthe vampires who keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself diesand becomes one of the monsters.

Forced to flee her city, Allie must pass for human as she joins a ragged group of pilgrims seeking a legendEden, a place that might have a cure for the disease that killed off most of civilization and created the rabids, bloodthirsty creatures who threaten human and vampire alike. But hiding her identity is nearly impossible as she comes to know and admire her companionsand starts to fall for a human. Soon Allie will have to decide whatand whois worth dying foragain.

Originally published in April 2012.

THE IMMORTAL RULES

Julie Kagawa

CONTENTS

Part I

H UMAN

CHAPTER 1

They hung the Unregistereds in the old warehousedistrict; it was a public execution, so everyone went to see.

I stood at the back, a nameless face in the crowd, too close tothe gallows for comfort but unable to look away. There were three of them thistime, two boys and a girl. The oldest was about my age, seventeen and skinny,with huge frightened eyes and greasy dark hair that hung to his shoulders. Theother two were even younger, fourteen and fifteen if I had to guess, andsiblings, since they both had the same stringy yellow hair. I didnt know them;they werent part of my crowd. Still, they had the same look of allUnregistereds; thin and ragged, their eyes darting about like trapped animals. Icrossed my arms tightly, feeling their desperation. It was over. The trap hadclosed; the hunters had caught them, and there was no place for them to run.

The pet stood on the edge of the platform, puffed up andswaggering, as if he had caught the kids himself. He was walking back and forth,pointing to the condemned and rattling off a list of crimes, his pale eyesgleaming with triumph.

assaulting a citizen of the Inner City, robbery,trespassing and resisting arrest. These criminals attempted to steal Class Onefoodstuffs from the private warehouse of the Inner City. This is a crime againstyou, and more important, a crime against our benevolent Masters.

I snorted. Fancy words and legal mumbo jumbo didnt erase thefact that these criminals were just doing what all Unregistereds did tosurvive. For whatever reasons, fate, pride or stubbornness, we nonregisteredhumans didnt have the mark of our vampire masters etched into our skin, thebrands that told you who you were, where you lived and who you belonged to. Ofcourse, the vampires said it was to keep us safe, to keep track of everyonewithin the city, to know how much food they had to allow for. It was for our owngood. Yeah, right. Call it what you wanted, it was just another way to keeptheir human cattle enslaved. You might as well be wearing a collar around yourneck.

There were several good things about being Unregistered. Youdidnt exist. You were off their records, a ghost in the system. Because yourname wasnt on the lists, you didnt have to show up for the monthlybloodletting, where human pets in crisp white coats stuck a tube in your veinand siphoned your blood into clear bags that were placed into coolers and takento the Masters. Miss a couple lettings and the guards came for you, forcing youto pony up the late blood, even if it left you empty as a limp sack. The vampsgot their blood, one way or another.

Being Unregistered let you slip through the cracks. There wasno leash for the bloodsuckers to yank on. And since it wasnt exactly a crime,youd think everyone would do it. Unfortunately, being free came with a heftyprice. Registered humans got meal tickets. Unregistereds didnt. And since thevamps controlled all the food in the city, this made getting enough to eat areal problem.

So we did what anyone in our situation would do. We begged. Westole. We scraped up food wherever we could, did anything to survive. In theFringe, the outermost circle of the vampire city, food was scarce even if youwerent Unregistered. The ration trucks came twice a month and were heavilyguarded. Id seen Registered citizens beaten just for getting out of line. Sowhile it wasnt exactly a crime to be Unregistered, if you got caught stealing from the bloodsuckers and you didnthave the Princes cursed brand gracing your skin, you could expect no mercywhatsoever.

It was a lesson Id learned well. Too bad these three neverdid.

eight ounces of soy, two potatoes, and a quarter loaf ofbread. The pet was still going on, and his audience had their eyes glued to thegallows now, morbidly fascinated. I slipped into the crowd, moving away from theplatform. The smug voice rang out behind me, and I clenched my hands, wishing Icould drive a fist through his smiling teeth. Damn pets. In some ways, they wereeven worse than the bloodsuckers. Theyd chosen to serve the vamps, selling outtheir fellow humans for the safety and luxury it brought. Everyone hated them,but at the same time everyone was jealous of them, as well.

The rules regarding Unregistered citizens are clear. The petwas wrapping up, stretching out his words for the greatest effect. According toclause twenty-two, line forty-six of New Covington law, any human found stealingwithin city limits, who does not have the mark of protection from the Prince,shall be hanged by the neck until they are dead. Do the accused have any lastwords?

I heard muffled voices, the oldest thief swearing at the pet,telling him to do something anatomically impossible. I shook my head. Bravewords wouldnt help him. Nothing would now. It was fine and good to be defiantto the end, but it was better not to get caught in the first place. That was hisfirst mistake and, ultimately, his last. Always leaveyourself an out; that was the first rule of the Unregistereds. Dowhatever you wanthate the vamps, curse the petsbut never get caught. I pickedup my pace, hurrying past the edge of the crowd, and broke into a jog.

The clunk of the trapdoors releasing echoed very loudly in myears, even over the gasp of the watching crowd. The silence that followed wasalmost a living thing, urging me to turn, to glance over my shoulder. Ignoringthe knot in my stomach, I slipped around a corner, putting the wall betweenmyself and the gallows so I wouldnt be tempted to look back.

* * *

L IFE IN THE F RINGE is a simple thing, like the people who livehere. They dont have to work, though there are a couple trading posts set uparound the Fringe, where people collect what they find and exchange it for otherthings. They dont have to read; there are no jobs that require it, and besides,owning books is highly illegalso why risk it? All they have to worry about isfeeding themselves, keeping their clothes mended, and patching up whatever holeor box or gutted out building they call home well enough to keep the rain offthem.

The secret goal of almost every Fringer is to someday make itinto the Inner City, past the Wall that separates the civilized world from thehuman trash, into the glittering city that looms over us with its great starrytowers that had somehow resisted crumbling into dust. Everyone knows someone whoknows someone who was taken into the city, a brilliant mind or a great beauty,someone too unique or special to be left here with us animals. There are rumorsthat the vampires breed the humans on the inside, raising the children to betheir thralls, completely devoted to their Masters. But since none who are Takeninto the city ever come out againexcept the pets and their guards, and theyarent talkingno one knows what its really like.