by Emma Savant
Crimson Daggers
The Complete Trilogy
Emma Savant
Copyright © 2019 Emma Savant
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Dan Van Oss, Covermint Design
Editing by Emmy Ellis, Studio ENP
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
www.EmmaSavant.com
Contents
Dagger
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Sabre
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Stiletto
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
A Note from Emma
Also by Emma Savant
About the Author
Dagger
A Crimson Daggers Novel #1: Little Red Riding Hood
1
I swung my leg and knocked my mother off balance.
She leaped backwards, stumbled, and found her footing. A second later, I had to duck to keep her fist from connecting with my nose.
Her black eyes flashed, and I felt the next blow coming before I saw it. I raised my arms to block the punch, then swung my own fist around. It missed, only making contact with her shoulder, but it was enough to distract her.
I kicked her in the stomach and shoved her back. Her body slammed against the wall, and I was there in an instant, my blade drawn and held to her throat.
She breathed hard, watching me closely. Then her face broke into something that could almost pass for a smile. She slammed both hands back up against the wall.
“Not bad,” she said. “That was better than yesterday.”
“It really was,” someone said from the other side of the ballroom.
I knew that voice, and it made me falter. I looked over at my cousin, Sienna. She was leaning against one of the ballroom’s columns, her pentacle-covered tank top clinging to her muscular figure and her dark-brown hair pulled up in a high ponytail that showed off its red ombre tips. She offered an encouraging smile. “Your form is really getting better, Scarlett.”
I set my jaw and turned back to Mom, but it was too late. She’d already taken advantage of the distraction, and the next thing I knew my dagger was skittering across the polished stone floor and she had me in a headlock. I struggled, trying to break out, but Mom’s arms were like iron.
I’d gotten distracted, again.
I’d failed to take my shot when I had it, again.
I’d failed to finish the job, again,
Sienna pursed her lips into a sad expression. I tapped out. Mom pulled back.
“You’ve got to stay focused,” she said. “Nothing can take your eyes off your target. Where should you be looking when you’re fighting?”
“My opponent,” I said.
“And where should you be looking when you think you’ve won?”
“My opponent.”
“And where should you keep looking if a six-hundred-pound giant from Bolivia comes crashing through the wall and starts to tap dance?”
“My opponent, presumably,” I said. “Unless she’s just as freaked out as I am and we decide to fight the giant together.”
Sienna laughed. “You train us for the kinds of situations no other Dagger would ever consider,” she said. “That’s why you’re my favorite, Aunt Ruby.”
Mom pointed at her. “You think I’m making this up, and you’ll keep thinking that until the day a vampire on a unicycle tries to distract you from your objective with the offer of free cotton candy.”
“I forgot about that story.” Sienna laughed, lightly, the way only someone already on top of the world could laugh.
“Yeah, well, then, try to remember it the next time you’re stuck at a cursed circus,” I muttered. “Since that’s a situation we’ll all find ourselves in.”
I wiped a bead of sweat off my forehead. Sarcasm aside, it was a situation I might find myself in one day, assuming I ever passed enough tests to join my mother and grandmother as one of the Crimson Daggers. I’d been eighteen for months already, and Mom still hadn
’t decided it was time to induct me as a novice Dagger—even though she was second-in-command of the whole coven, following in the footsteps of her own mother. Their roles should rightfully pass to me.
But no, I’d screwed it up during those last few months of training, and Sienna had been named the future Stiletto instead.
It wasn’t right, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
I pulled my hand guards off and fixed my ponytail.
“I’m going to go see if Grandma needs help,” I said, avoiding Mom’s eyes.
Sienna stepped forward, as if to take my place on the sparring floor. “Ruby, if you have a minute, I’d love to work on my blocks some more. I’m just not getting them as quickly as I should.”
Mom waved her in, and I left them both behind as the sound of Mom’s hands striking Sienna’s forearms filled the echoing ballroom.
In the shower, with the cool water pouring down my shoulders, I tried to rinse off my anger the same way I rinsed off the sweat that coated my skin.
It wouldn’t do any good to stay angry at Sienna, or Mom, or Grandma, or any of the other Daggers who’d been involved in the decision. The future Stiletto had been chosen. She’d be my leader someday. I had to make peace with it.
I turned the shower off so hard the faucet squeaked.
The water dripped from the tap for a moment. Most of Grandma’s Victorian mansion had been renovated, and she’d replaced all the old pipes a few years back, but the house still had the odd tap that dripped or window that wouldn’t close all the way. It gave the house charm, Grandma insisted, and I was willing to take her at her word. My grandma was an expert in a lot of fields, but knowing how to kill monsters and maximize aesthetic appeal were probably at the top.
I dressed quickly in a maroon tank top and black jeans before leaving my attic suite. I’d had my own rooms since I’d turned eighteen, which seemed like a small consolation prize for losing the Stiletto title. Still, they were mine, and they had the added advantage of a window that opened onto a slope of roof that was perfect for lying on and stargazing.
Grandma Nelly’s workshop space took up most of the second floor, with show rooms and the ballroom on the first floor, an expansive gym in the renovated cellars, and Dagger quarters filling the third floor and attics above. It was a lively house, and Grandma was its beating heart. She sat cross-legged atop a table filled with fabric scraps. Her head was tilted, and she had one eye closed behind her stylish black glasses as she stared at a half-clothed mannequin.
“You okay there?” I said.
Only her eyes moved. She glanced at me, then back at the mannequin.
“I’m waiting for inspiration.”
“Do you need a muse?” I said. “I could invite Sherry back over.”
“Goddess, what a magnificent idea,” Grandma said dryly.
Sherry was a wealthy, eccentric muse who lived in the neighborhood. She was eternally eager to help Grandma, both through her patronage of the House of Carnelian and copious offers to shower Grandma with the magical inspiration only a muse could provide. Grandma had accepted the offer exactly once and, after designing twenty-six separate gowns with neon-pink fur trim over the course of one manic night, had written Sherry off as being past her sell-by date and had given the Daggers strict orders to keep her away from the studio at all costs.
I lifted myself onto the table, too, and waited for Grandma to stop squinting at the mannequin. It took a few minutes, but then she sat up straight, shook out her short, silver-white curls, and raised a hand. A length of cream silk from a neighboring table floated through the air and draped itself across the mannequin’s shoulder, forming itself into a pleated sash.
Grandma made a disgruntled noise and threw the silk back onto the table with an irritated flick of her wrist.
2
“I thought it looked nice,” I said.
“Too safe,” she said. “All wrong.” She sighed and turned to me, and squinted again, this time with concern. “Are you all right, darling?”
I knew I didn’t look upset, but that didn’t matter around Grandma. She was a witch armed with grandma’s intuition, as she’d informed me more than once, and not to be trifled with.
Not that anyone would dream of trifling with Carnelian Hunter. It didn’t matter whether they knew her secret identity as the Stiletto or just saw her as the powerhouse behind the House of Carnelian’s fashion empire: she was the same tough, focused woman either way.
I looked from her to the inspiration boards set all around the room on easels. Cool sunlight filtered in through the windows, and it was almost tranquil in here, except for the intense energy that always radiated from Grandma like heat from a fire.
“I am totally fine,” I said.
“That’s a very convincing lie, dear.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I practiced.”
“Perhaps you can practice helping me figure out what to do with this gown,” she said, pointing at another mannequin. “It appears tedious no matter what I do to it.”
The sleeveless gown was a soft, peachy pink, with the flowing material gathered into a knot on one hip.
“Beads?” I said. “Just a light scattering down the skirt? The kind of thing you’d only see in the light?”
We stared at the gown, but Grandma was right. It was pretty, but it wasn’t spectacular—and spectacular was Carnelian’s calling card.
“Why this?” I said.
She tapped her manicured nails on her knee. “Don’t know. Maybe that’s the problem. I keep thinking we need to go more conservative with our look. It feels wrong. But the Faerie Queen needs clothing suitable for state functions.”
“Which describes pretty much nothing in Carnelian’s history,” I said.
We were one of the more daring houses in the Glimmering fashion scene. Ours was a hidden world of faeries and witches and magicians and characters from fairy tales, and I couldn’t think of one of them that might want a plain pink dress like this.
“You’re trying to dress her like a Humdrum politician,” I said.
“That’s exactly what I was trying to do,” she said. “And it’s terrible, isn’t it?”
I made a face. “Kind of.”
“Well, damn.”
Grandma flicked a hand at the gown, and it promptly disassembled itself and fell to a heap of fabric and thread on the floor. I hopped off the table, crouched at the materials, and pointed. A spark shot out of my finger and sent the thread spooling neatly back onto a bobbin.
“Carnelian’s look is sexy,” I said. “It’s bold. It’s gothic.”
“Which begs the question of why I’m trying to dress a faerie,” Grandma said.
I glanced over my shoulder at her. “Faeries aren’t all pink and gossamer these days,” I said. “Queen Amani’s a modern woman. You can do Carnelian’s aesthetic and still win a few contracts with the Waterfall Palace.”
The Waterfall Palace was the home of the Faerie Queen. The Faerie Queen was the ruler over every coven, sorcerer’s order, faerie agency, and vampire brood in our world. And the Faerie Queen was going to be at the upcoming Glimmering Fashion Week, choosing the star designers who would dress her for the next year.
Grandma was determined to be among them.
She pursed her lips. “You’re right. I’m overthinking it. What would you do, darling? Imagine you’re trying to dress Queen Amani for an evening reception with the High Wizard from Tokyo.”
“Are cherry blossoms too obvious?”
“Depends on the gown,” Grandma said.
“I’ll light a few candles for focus, and we can get to work,” I said.
I roamed through the stacks of fabric, running my fingers across the different textures and picking up anything that spoke to me. Grandma and I designed together for the next few hours, pinning fabric and stitching makeshift blossoms and then throwing everything away again.
A few of the Daggers stopped in to ask Grandma questions or say hello, but no one offered
to help. They all had their own lives and their own jobs and covers. Only a handful lived here, like Mom and me, and I was the only one out of the whole coven who seemed interested in Grandma’s dreams of fashion domination.
For the other Daggers, their day jobs were just a way to distract the world from their real calling as underground monster hunters. For Grandma, the fashion house was as much a part of her life as leading the coven.
