BLOOD MAGIC
STARLIGHT WITCHES
By L.J. Red

Blood Magic

Copyright © 2019 by L.J. Red
First Electronic Publication: September 2019
L.J. Red
www.ljred.com
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without written permission by the author, except
in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. The
unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is
illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the
Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s
permission.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and
incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used
fictitiously and are not the be construed as real. Any resemblance to
persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organization is entirely
coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not
assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

Contents
Title Page
Copyright
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

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Chapter 1

“That bastard.” Mrs. Anderson’s long blonde hair was drawn back in a
neat chignon, better for me to see her disgusted expression as she stared
down at the photograph in her hands. “That fucking bastard,” she said, and
her manicured fingers trembled on the glossy paper.
I flicked my gaze down to the photograph. Oh yeah, the money shot.
Wow, Mr Anderson had a good ass for a man his age. My eyes shifted to the
ring on her finger. I was guessing she wouldn’t be Mrs. Anderson much
longer but Ms. whatever her maiden name was.
“This isn’t the first time,” she said, looking up at me, her eyes starting
to sheen with tears.
I shrugged. You’d be amazed by how many cheating husbands or
cheating wives I had tracked down over the past couple of years since I
became a private investigator. I’d had naive dreams that I would be saving
lives or making a real difference in the city, but it was shit like this that kept
the lights on. “Yeah,” I sighed, “it’s a real tragedy.” She looked up at me, a
frown appearing between her eyes. Oops, had I let the sarcasm bleed
through into my voice? “This concludes our business,” I said straightening
and tapping my fingernails on the table impatiently.
I wanted to get paid, I had bills to pay. Plus, the night’s usual crowd
would be turning up at the bar soon enough, and Joe didn’t like it when I
did business at night. He was stood behind the bar now, leaning on the bar
top and leafing through a newspaper. Joe had a face like a leather boot and a
personality like a kick in the face but he ran his bar with a ruthless equality.
Anyone was welcome provided they paid their tab and covered any
damages after the fight, and boy, were there fights.
The door to the bar opened, noise from the street outside spilling into
the room. Always put the client’s back to the entrance. I was snug in the
corner with sightlines to the front and back of the bar. I’d made the mistake

of sitting with my back to the door only once, but it had been costly. I still
had the scar along my side to show for it.
I glanced over her shoulder, expecting to see a familiar face, but it
wasn’t Michelle, just a group of young men, young magicals, I corrected
myself. Pyromancers. I could smell the smoke from here. Joe wouldn’t like
that, I thought, glancing at the bar. He was never happy when pyros came
in. Not that he had anything against the fire starters, you understand, but
because alcohol and naked flame equalled damages—expensive damages—
and the bar had only just been repaired from the last fight.
Joe’s bar, being deep in the magical district of Seattle, was a witchfriendly bar, open to humans like me or the pyros in the corner. People with
one foot in the half world and one foot in the real one. The supernaturals of
Seattle, shapeshifters and the like, would occasionally turn up as well. I
couldn’t blame them. It was rare to find a place like this, somewhere where
you could be accepted, or at least ignored, to have your drink in peace no
matter what you were. Provided you didn’t set fire to the merchandise of
course, Joe was still watching the pyros suspiciously, brows lowered over
dark eyes.
“But you didn’t use magic.” A voice cut through my thoughts. I
dragged my attention back to Mrs. Anderson. Oh shit, here we go.
“You paid me to do a job for you,” I said, hoping to head her off. “You
wanted to know if your husband was cheating on you with his secretary. He
wasn’t. He’s cheating on you with the pool boy and there’s your proof.” I
flicked the edge of the photograph she was still holding.
She flushed and flattened it on the table, smoothing her hand out and
fixing a glare on me. The tears in her eyes had completely disappeared.
Shit, don’t piss off the client, Tiana, I thought to myself.
She gave me an obvious once-over, taking in the fading bruise on my
jaw from a particularly perky poltergeist; my hair, already frizzing out of its
ponytail; the black choker around my neck; my worn leather jacket and
threadbare shirt. All of it a world apart from her perfectly coiffed hair,
pantsuit and pearls.
“You’re a magical investigator,” she said. “What’s the point of hiring a
magical investigator if all you do is take a bunch of photographs? I could
have hired any old investigator to do that.”
“Yeah,” I said angrily, leaning forward. “Sure, and pay double. Lady,
you know why you came to me and it wasn’t for the magic. It was because

my rates are dirt cheap and you fucking know it. You mundanes don’t want
anything to do with us magicals unless we can do something for you, and
once we’ve done it you stiff us on the check. Are you seriously gonna go
there with me?”
“I don’t see why I should be paying for something you didn’t do,” she
said.
“I got your proof; that was what you hired me to do.” This was why I
asked for half payment upfront and half on completion. Maybe I needed to
start asking for the whole thing upfront from now on.
She started packing her things into her bag, reaching for the photos. I
slammed my hand down on top of them before she could take them away.
“You don’t want to do this, lady. Trust me.”
“I’ve paid you half. That should be enough. You should be grateful
you’re getting anything from me.”
Oh, she didn’t. Anger curled through my veins and I gripped her
tighter, my hands going cold. Her eyes widened, a flicker of fear passing
behind them. “Yeah,” I growled threateningly. “You really wanna piss me
off? Tell you what, how about we do this. You walk out of here still owing
me and maybe I send a nice little poltergeist to fuck up your fancy house
while you and husband dearest are working your way through the divorce;
how’s that? You want to be woken every night by a screaming ghoul?”
I gripped her tighter, feeling the bones shift under her skin, and all
around us the air chilled as I pushed aside the veil and reached into the half
world.

Chapter 2

The room around me turned hazy as my senses attuned not to the real,
physical world that mundane, non-magical humans moved in but the half
world—the world of spirits, magic, and power. I reached out with my
senses, spreading long, trailing fingers of power into the space around me,
searching for the dead.
Spirits were tricky things. Sometimes they enjoyed the company of
magicals, particularly ones like me who had an affinity for dead things, but
other times they avoided me like the plague. Maybe I reminded them of the
life they had lost, maybe I was just enough of a bitch that even the spirits
didn’t want to spend any time with me. Either way, I was lucky tonight.
There were a couple of regulars hanging out at the bar, nothing strong
enough for a good haunting, but hopefully enough to spook Mrs. Anderson
into paying me what she owed.
I beckoned one spirit forward, teasing, coaxing, beckoning with the
edge of my thoughts until I felt it press close to the two of us, the chill in
the air dropping to freezing, sinking, familiar, into my bones, and through
the connection of our hands, into Mrs. Anderson.
I stared at her, knowing my eyes had gone cold and the pits of my
pupils black and merciless.
Through the half world, her outline was blurry and strange, wavering
as if through a heat haze.
“You might want to rethink your last statement,” I said, and even to
myself my voice sounded echoey and hollow. I could feel her hand
trembling under mine, brittle boned and fragile. I could sense the age in her
limbs, the slow, gentle fall towards her death.
She tugged her hand from mine abruptly and the connection snapped. I
felt like I had been plunged in cold water and I stifled a gasp at the
unexpected break.

The half world billowed around me. The spirit by my side suddenly
seemed brighter, sharper, and closer to me now that my connection to a
living human had been broken, and it took me a slight amount of effort to
shove my awareness of it into the back of my mind and pull myself out of
the half world and into the real world. I refocused on Mrs. Anderson, who
was, thank God, getting her handbag back out and pulling crisp notes from
the stack in her purse.
“Here,” she said, throwing them on the table. “Don’t bother me again.”
“Whatever, lady,” I said. “You came to me.” I grabbed the money and
tucked it into my pocket, I made myself act casual, leaning back into a
loose sprawl. I could still feel the chill running down the back of my
shoulders.
I stared at her back as she rushed out, jerking away from the pyros,
already playing with flames between their fingers at the bar.
I sighed and ran my hand through my frizzy hair, catching tangles. I
hadn’t got any sleep last night. I had been up, waiting for that fucking
money shot, until three in the morning. I stood and made my way over to
the bar.
“Joe,” I greeted.
He grunted at me. I slid onto a barstool and propped my chin in my
hand.
“That my rent I saw?” Joe said out of the corner of his mouth.
I twisted my lip. “Yeah, I guess so.” I lived above the bar. It was an
arrangement that worked pretty well for me. Joe let me use the bar for
meetings occasionally and it gave me a neutral place for clients to find me
since my office was basically my living room, and some clients you didn’t
want to invite into your living room.
I kept back a little for groceries and handed the rest over to Joe. “I
know, I know. It’s not enough. I’ve got another case coming through soon,”
I lied.
He was distracted enough by the pyros that he just sent me a halfhearted glare. “I’m not running a charity here,” he growled. I just smiled
brightly at him, refusing to be cowed.
“You’re the best, Joe.” I eyed the bottles behind Joe’s head.
“Whiskey,” I said, “neat.”
“You gonna owe me for the drink too?”

I peeled off a note from my groceries stash. What? It was going in my
body, it counted as food. Drink. Whatever.
“That woman didn’t look happy with you, she gonna cause trouble?
Cause I shouldn’t really be letting you do business in the bar, we aren’t—”
“Zoned for that,” I finished. “Don’t give me grief, Joe. I don’t need it
today, all right?” We went through this drama every couple of months, but
he hadn’t kicked me out yet.
The door to the bar banged and I jerked my head to look but nobody
came in. A shiver ran down my spine and I frowned, feeling the veil that
separated the half world and the real ripple softly like a breeze through silk.
My little trick with Mrs. Anderson had stirred up more than I anticipated. It
made sense, I realized. Halloween, also known as All Hallows’ Eve—the
one night when the veil was thinner than usual—was fast approaching, and
I was a fucking idiot for poking the bear. I could feel the spirit I had called
still lingering around me, but I ignored it. The best approach with spirits
was to pretend like you couldn’t see them, and in return they mostly
pretended they couldn’t see you.
Mostly being the operative word. There were some spirits, poltergeists
for example, that loved to fuck with the living. Ghostly apparitions,
screaming nightmares, and a nice fat check for me. Or at least, in theory.
Cases had dried up lately, even the mundane ones. Apparently, everyone in
Seattle had decided to try being nice to each other. Fuckers. I needed a new
case, or else Joe’s thinly stretched patience with me would snap and I would
be out on my ear.
Joe had never told me why he decided to open a magical bar deep in
the magical district of Seattle when he himself didn’t have a lick of magic.
Maybe he’d moved here, taken one look at the neighborhood, and decided
that welcoming his locals was a sound business decision. Maybe he’d been
here first and just rolled with it as the magical started turning up. Whatever
it was, he had been here as long as I could remember and was enough of a
fixture that nobody bothered to threaten him or make too much trouble. A
good thing too. We all needed a neutral place to drink and to exchange
photos of cheating husbands.
I slowly sipped my drink, time ticking away as the pyros on the end of
the bar grew rowdier. I wanted to go up to my apartment but Michelle had
said she would meet me here. It wasn’t like her to be late.
“You heard from Michelle?” I asked.

“She’s paid up for the month,” Joe said, “unlike you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Well, if you can get me an office job at Washington U
then I’m sure I’d pay up too, but nobody wants ghosts hanging around the
coffee room.” I had tried the whole mundane job, mundane life thing. It
hadn’t worked out. “She called me, said she wanted to meet this afternoon,
but…” I glanced up at the clock; it was getting on for eleven. The afternoon
was well and truly over. “She’s not usually late,” I said.
Joe shrugged. “I ain’t her keeper.”
I finished my drink and asked for another. Time slipped by. I was
feeling a pleasant buzz through my limbs. I’d forgotten to eat dinner again.
Shit.
The pyros on the end of the bar suddenly let loose a tiny fireball that
fizzed and spun before burning itself out against the ceiling. Joe’s
expression darkened. “Hey,” he shouted. “None of that in here.” He pointed
at the door. “Take it outside.”
I nursed my drink as Joe walked down to their side of the bar and got
into a low rumbling argument punctuated by the occasional flicker of fire. I
kept half an eye on the altercation in case I needed to intervene. Joe’s was
my home. I had as much a stake in it as Joe and I didn’t want it to burn
down.
Joe came up to my end again, the pyros looking slightly subdued. “I
got another of those calls for you,” Joe said as I signaled for a top-up.
“Calls?”
“Yeah, from the vamp—”
“Nope, don’t even tell me,” I cut him off, raising a hand. “I don’t
wanna know.”
“You should get your own phone.”
“I have my own phone,” I said, pulling it free from my pocket, my
fingers feeling a little thick. The whiskey was starting to make itself known.
I dropped my phone onto the bar. Luckily, the screen was already cracked.
“I already blocked him. Them,” I corrected, quickly.
“I don’t want vamps coming around here,” Joe said.
“Neither do I,” I said flatly.
Joe eyed my phone. “They’re persistent,” he said. “I’ll give them that.”
“I don’t gotta give them anything,” I growled under my breath. I felt
Joe’s eyes on me but I didn’t look up from my drink. I had never told him
exactly what had gone down between me and the vampires of Seattle, but

none of it was exactly top secret, and there had been enough splashed
across the news headlines five years ago that he could probably put together
a fairly accurate picture.
The voice of the newsreader crackled across the room as the pyros on
the other side of the bar grappled over the remote, flicking channels from
sports to adverts and back to a news station.
“—young man found murdered,” the voice was saying. A picture
flashed up on the screen of a young man, fresh-faced and freckled. The kind
of kid that wouldn’t know how to break a rule if it cracked right in front of
him. “—body was found drained of blood—”
A chill ran down my spine. “Turn this shit off,” I snapped at the pyros.
They were still messing around over the remote, not paying any attention to
the newsreader. One of them, clearly the ringleader in the little troop,
laughed at me. “Oh yeah? What you gonna do?” He clicked his fingers and
flames appeared at his fingertips.
“I thought I told you to take that shit outside,” Joe growled
threateningly.
The pyro glanced at him and I saw his eyes go hazy for a moment as
he dipped into the half world long enough to see that Joe was a mundane.
He smirked. “Chill out, grandpa, we’re just having some fun.” He turned to
look at me, his eyes still half-lidded, and blanched, his face going pasty
white and the flames at his fingers flaring suddenly in shock—dangerously
close to the shots lined up in front of his friends.
I didn’t think, just snapped out my hand, reached into my powers, and
sucked.
His flames snuffed out.
“What the fuck are you?” he said, his voice hollow.
His friends, who hadn’t seen the play-by-play in the half world,
thought he’d ended his flames deliberately and were looking between us in
confusion. The one on the end snatched the remote off one of the others and
switched the TV over to a different station. “She’s just some chick, Chris.
Forget about it.” He tugged at his arm. “Come on,” he said. “Leave it.”
Yeah, Chris. I narrowed my eyes. Listen to your buddy. But part of me
was hoping he wouldn’t. I was suddenly hungering for a fight. I wanted
something to get my blood pumping, something other than drink that I
could lose myself in. Perhaps it was the half world still shifting around me,
but I felt antsy.

He stood abruptly, draining his drink in one go.
“Fuck it, I’m not staying in a bar full of creeps.” He strode, a little
unsteadily, toward the door. Whoops. Had I taken a bit too much?
I turned back to my drink as they left and was surprised when someone
slid onto the stool next to me. It was the guy who had been sitting on the
end, the one who’d switched the channel. “Sorry about my friend,” he said.
“I don’t know what got into him.”
I was pretty sure it was me, my magic that had got into him. I’d only
meant to snuff out the fire. “Whatever, it’s fine,” I said with a shrug. I didn’t
turn away, but gave him a once over. He had soft brown hair, hazel eyes,
and a snub nose, not bad looking in a white bread kind of way
“So, you come here often?”
Despite myself, I grinned at the cheesy line and he smiled back, a
dimple in his cheek. I felt a tightening in my lower belly. How long had it
been? Too long if I had to ask that question. I shifted toward him, the
leather of the barstool creaking underneath me.
I opened my mouth to speak when canned laughter suddenly echoed
through the room.
My gaze fastened on the TV, some sitcom.
But the moment had been broken, and for a second the image of that
freckled kid flashed through my mind. His body found drained of blood.
Old memories stirred and I shivered. My choker was tight around my neck.
I stood abruptly and swayed as the room tited.
“You okay?” He looked up at me in concern. My vision returned to
normal but I was too unsettled to stay.
“Sorry, man, I’m calling it a night.” I drained my drink and slammed
the glass back onto the bar, stepping away, only a little wobbly. “See you
round, Joe,” I said, turning away.
I walked out and up the stairs that led to my apartment. The light in the
hallway was flickering. I paused at Michelle’s door and knocked loudly,
leaning my head against it as I waited. No sound from inside. Where was
she? Spending the night with a friend? That didn’t explain why she’d stood
me up. I sighed, reaching into my pocket to text her. Shit. I‘d left my phone
down on the bar. I rubbed my thumb between my eyes. I would pick it up
tomorrow morning, or whenever I woke up after sleeping off this hangover.
I stumbled to my door. It took me a couple of tries to get my key in the
lock and then I slammed the door behind me and walked through to the

bedroom, collapsing on my bed fully clothed. I rolled over onto my back
and stared up at the cracked ceiling.
My vision swam and I saw again that young man’s freckled face. In
my mind’s eye, it merged and shifted, his skin darkening to a healthy tan,
the lines of his face turning more delicate, feminine, his hair lengthening
until it was someone far more familiar.
I rolled over and stared at the photograph by my bed: Me standing tall
with my unruly hair for once staying in its ponytail. The light catching my
green eyes, making them almost glow in that way that mundanes always
found unsettling. Next to me, my sister, a couple of inches shorter and a bit
curvier, wearing a smile that lit up the room. I had the same smile, not that
anyone ever saw it. She’d always been so much brighter, happier than me.
You would never have guessed we both had the same death magic running
through our veins.
Was that why our parents had abandoned us? Had Violet’s imaginary
friends turned out to be not so imaginary after all? Had they grown sick of
ghostly whispers and objects moving of their own accord? I wished I could
ask her. Fuck, I missed her.
I pulled the photo toward me, curling around it, tracing the lines of her
face. In the photo, she was looking at the camera and I was looking at her.
Five years. I couldn’t believe it had been five years. I looked so young
in that photo. So innocent. Three months after that photo had been taken,
she was dead.
And now some kid had turned up drained of blood and the vampires
were calling Joe’s bar. None of that was good.
I didn’t care. I didn’t want to know. I rolled back over and slammed
the photo down hard enough that I heard the glass crack. Fuck. I raised it
slowly and the glass cracked and crumbled and fell down around it.
I let it go and rolled back onto the bed, closing my eyes. Another thing
broken.
My thoughts drifted and scattered, sleep catching me and dragging me
down. The next thing I knew, I was being woken by a heavy banging that
seemed to be coming directly from the back of my head.
Finally dragging myself to consciousness, I realized it was coming
from my door.
I stumbled off the bed, tripping over the blanket and catching myself in
the doorway. “All right, all right,” I shouted. “I’m coming.” What time was

it? Was it light outside? It looked like it was still dark. Half in a daze, I
gripped the door handle. The cold metal was a shock, but not enough to
wake me up, not enough of a warning to stop me from pulling the door
open wide.
There was a vampire on my doorstep.

Chapter 3

Valerian was just as handsome as the last time I’d seen him. Tall enough
to look down on me with his deep, magnetic eyes, hair tousled like the wind
couldn’t stop running its fingers through it, and those sinful rosebud lips
always hitched into a knowing smirk. My body reacted involuntarily,
heating every place his gaze touched. My heart started beating faster,
thundering through my ears.
“Hello, Tiana,” he said with a voice rich and thick like liquid velvet.
“No,” I snapped, my body coming back under my control, and I went
to slam the door. He smacked his hand against it, fingers splayed, his thick
forearm close to my face. He leaned in close enough that I could smell
cedarwood and smoke, and underneath it that faint, almost imperceptible
tang of death. A sharp scent only someone like me would notice.
I felt it tighten across my skin, the pressure of his presence, the magic
beneath his skin. Vampire magic.
“Whatever it is,” I said roughly, “I’m not buying, so fuck off.” And
there it was, familiar and comforting. Oh yeah, pure, undiluted rage.
Maybe he heard it in my voice because his smirk disappeared and his
eyes turned serious. “Just hear me out—”
“Not happening,” I said, shoving the door harder. It was impossible to
move. Like his arm was made of solid metal. “You’re not invited,” I
snapped. How was he keeping his arm across the threshold? He didn’t even
seem to be struggling. Then I noticed the tension in his muscles, the tiny
vibrations running through his grip. The hair on his forearm was raised. It
was costing him to keep the door open.
Good. I wanted him to hurt.
“You need to listen,” he said.
“I don’t need to do anything,” I replied. “I don’t want anything to do
with you. How did you even find me?”

“Tiana,” he said, and my name on his lips was like sin, “I’ve always
known where to find you.”
“Well great,” I said, “you sure know how to make a woman feel
stalked.” I glared up at him. “It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the one who’s been
calling Joe at all hours.”
“Yes,” he said.
“I don’t know how I can say this any more clearly,” I said, anger rising
within me. “I don’t want anything to do with you, and you made it pretty
damn clear that you didn’t want anything to do with me when you—” I
broke off with a jerk of my head. “Just fuck off, all right?” I was too tired
for this shit. It was still nighttime—clearly, since he was standing here, not
dead asleep like any vampire would be during the day—which meant I had
barely slept. I was still muggy and exhausted from getting Mr. Anderson’s
sexual acrobatics photographed last night. I didn’t need this right now, or
ever.
“I need you,” he said.
I stared at him, the words cutting straight through me. Rage sparked
and took like wildfire. “You don’t need anyone, Valerian,” I said, my voice
empty and chest hollow. “You only care about yourself.”
His arm trembled. Finally, I thought, shoving the door as hard as I
could. It shifted and his arm finally buckled, the lack of invitation pushing
him back across the threshold.
“It’s about the murders,” he said at the last moment. “Someone is
killing people the same way they killed your sister.”

Chapter 4

I rested my forehead against the closed door.
Killed like my sister. Fuck. Valerian sure knew where to twist the
knife. Was he right though? I thought of the man on the news, a body
drained of blood. Did he have family? Did he have a brother somewhere out
there waiting for a phone call that would never come?
I rocked my head against the door. It wasn’t my problem. I wasn’t a
cop. It wasn’t a case for me to solve. I had tried that and look where it got
me. “I don’t care,” I said out loud, but I knew it was a lie.
I groaned, hating myself even as I gripped the door handle and pulled
it back open.
Valerian was still there, but the smirk at least was gone.
“Vampires,” I said. “It’s vampires. There you go, I solved it for you.
Now why don’t you go and stake yourself in the heart and save us all the
trouble.”
“It’s not, Tiana,” he said, his voice serious. “It’s not us.”
Jagged memories swirled through my mind and anger twisted my
insides. “Right, sure. It just so happens that somebody is draining humans
and leaving them in the garbage exactly like last time, but sure,” I drew out
the word, “it couldn’t be vampires.”
“It isn’t us, not this time. We are being framed.”
I scoffed. “Who would frame vampires? You do a good enough job of
poisoning your public image as it is. Everyone already hates you.” But even
as I said it I knew it wasn’t true. Magicals might mistrust them. I certainly
had reason enough to hate them. But mundanes bought right into that
seductive mystique bullshit.
“Just hear me out,” he said. “Take a look at the files, and then if you
want to walk away you can.” He raised his hand and I realized he was
carrying a slim file. I hadn’t noticed, so distracted by the sight of him.

I didn’t want to take it because I knew if I opened the file and took a
look at the photos it would become real. Not just a dead guy on the news
but a person with a name and a life and a family and a reason to be
avenged. I glared at Valerian. He knew this; he was counting on my better
nature showing through. God damn him.
I slammed the door in his face, grabbed my keys, and then opened the
door again just in time to catch the edge of his shocked expression before
stepping forward and closing the door behind me.
“I’m not inviting you in,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You think I trust
you enough for that?” I didn’t even wait for an answer, just pushed past
him.
We went downstairs and I unlocked the bar. It was silent and dark.
Joe had given me the key for emergencies. I was pretty sure letting a
vampire in after-hours wasn’t exactly the emergency Joe had imagined. But
what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
I walked over to the bar, pointing at a stool. “Sit,” I said. “Speak.”
Valerian slid onto the barstool, his long legs tucked underneath him,
his eyes dark fastened on me, like he was drinking me in. What did he see?
The sucker that had trusted a vampire? His expression wasn’t right for that,
he looked almost hungry.
I turned away and grabbed the whiskey bottle from the wall, pouring
myself a drink.
Where did he get off looking so good? I left the lights in the bar off
and the streetlight from outside caught highlights in his dark blond hair.
Shadows caught and gathered in his eyes until they looked black. I
remembered what color they were in the light, a deep indigo blue. Unusual,
impossible, a mark of his vampiric nature. I had loved that about him once.
His soft, kissable lips looked unfairly inviting. Remember what’s behind
those lips, Tiana. Remember what’s behind his kiss. Memories shifted in the
back of my mind like quicksand, sucking me in. Hard fangs, a sharp burst
of pain against my neck. I jerked my eyes away, down to the sticky bar top,
my hand going to the choker that never left my throat.
“So,” I said roughly. My voice felt raw. I told myself it was just the
whiskey and took another swig. “Show me what makes this case so
important that you came to me.”
“Because everyone thinks it’s us,” he said, sliding the file over and
flipping it open. The first image was a young woman, her body still and stiff

in death, her eyes closed, skin greyish white, and standing out dark on her
neck, a bite mark.
My shoulders tensed, and for a moment I saw my sister lying there on
the slab, her face in the photograph.
I tore my eyes away from the photo and back to Valerian.
“Six months ago, Sevda Sahin, the court’s PR officer, turned up dead,
drained of blood.”
“So, someone got a little to bite-happy at one of your fucking parties.”
Goosebumps raised all over my skin. “It wouldn’t be the first time,” I
added, my hands clenched into fists by my side, my skin crawling. I was
hyperaware of how close Valerian was to me.
“It wasn’t us,” Valerian said. “We didn’t kill her. Queen Alexandra
wouldn’t let that happen, not after—” He paused, and the silence filled the
room, heavy and uncomfortable.
“You can’t even say it, can you?” I said bitterly.
He looked away, his eyes dark. “Someone is framing us,” he said.
“They are making it look like vampire kills but we didn’t kill this woman,
or this one.” He flipped the page over and there was the dead guy from the
TV. This time a post-mortem shot, looking as pale and as cold as the woman
on the other page. “Oliver Carpenter. A student at Washington University, a
new blood donor at the court.” Blood donor. I shivered.
“So, take it to the police,” I said. “Tell them.” I reached out and flipped
the file shut so I didn’t have to stare at their faces any longer.
“They’re not listening,” Valerian said, voice heavy, his hands braced
on the bar. “It has taken all of the queen’s maneuvering to keep our names
out of the press, but it won’t last. Everyone wants to blame us for this.”
“You shouldn’t be surprised,” I said, he was too close to me, I couldn’t
think past how near he was. I pushed away from the bar.
“I’m not,” Valerian said. “I know it looks like we did it. I know what it
looks like, and I know what we have done in the past, but there is someone
out there killing people and making it look like vampires, and they are not
going to stop.”
I slammed the bottle onto the bar top. “Why would anyone do that to
you?” I said with mock surprise. “Who on earth could hate vampires
enough to frame them, I wonder.”
“Frame us for murder? Tiana, be serious,” Valerian growled, leaning
forward. “Do you really want to see more people die just so this sick

bastard can make their point?” He loomed over me and I trembled, hating
the fear that rose in my limbs, hating my weakness. I could see the flash of
fangs behind his lips and it made my skin crawl, my choker heavy around
my throat.
“Don’t put this on me,” I said. “I’m not the one who drained them to
death.” My throat closed. I couldn’t bear to look at him. The streetlight was
painting his face pale; the shadows in the pits of his eyes made his face look
like a skull. I felt death press around me, and for once it wasn’t familiar and
comforting but cold and terrifying.
“You should go to the police with this,” I said.
“We have,” Valerian said. “They’ve done nothing. We need you. They
don’t know us like you do, and you’ve already worked this case once.”
Anger twisted in my gut. “Yeah,” I said, “I have, and it’s not like I got
justice for my sister, did I?”
“It’s different this time.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “Because this time you’re trying to pretend
someone else is doing the killing.”
“Fine,” he said. His eyes flashed and he shoved away from the bar in
an explosion of movement. “If you really think it’s us, then prove it. We’re
offering you full access to the court. Come and interview every damn
vampire, go wherever you like. We’ll open the court to you.”
“The queen okay with that?”
“Who do you think sent me here?”
I stared at him. I shouldn’t feel disappointed. All he ever did was live
down to my expectations, but still I felt a pit open in the bottom of my
stomach. “Of course she sent you.” He wouldn’t have come here of his own
accord. I leant against the bar, limbs feeling heavy
His expression flickered. “You think I want to be here?” he said after a
moment, his expression going so blank it almost looked like a mask.
“Of course I don’t,” I said, and I ignored the tiny, treacherous part of
me that had flickered into life the moment I saw him on my doorstep. “I
certainly don’t want you anywhere near me, and you made your opinion of
me pretty fucking clear.” My mind shied away from the memories, my skin
crawling.
“The queen sent me here—”
“Since when are you her little lapdog?”
“I had no choice,” he growled, his eyes dark.

“Whatever.” I slumped, exhausted by it all.
“Tiana, she will give you access to the court, to anything you want.”
He leaned closer still. “If it truly is vampires doing the killing, then you will
get your proof. You can take it all to the cops. You can put us behind bars,
hell you can sentence us to death. Queen Alexandra isn’t messing around
this time; whoever is guilty is going to die and it will be up to you to find
them. You can bring them to justice, Tiana. You can make it so these
humans didn’t die in vain.” He placed a hand on the file, so close to my
own, his fingertips just brushing the edge of mine. An electric shock passed
between us and I jerked backward, stung. “All right,” I said. “Enough. You
made your point. You’ve given me your pitch, now fuck off.”
“Tiana—”
“Leave,” I snapped at him, my voice breaking. I couldn’t take any
more of this. The memories that had been stirred up by his presence were
too thick and too cloying. I reached instinctively into my magic and pulled
upon it, tangling its threads around us both, catching his limbs and making
him jerk upright.
My magic was death and vampires were already dead.
“Get out,” I shouted, gripping the threads tightly. It was a struggle, he
didn’t want to leave, and he brought his own vampiric magic against my
own. But I pulled harder until I saw his muscles twitch once more. He took
a step away. “We can pay,” he said. “I know you need the cash.”
“You know? What, so you’re not just stalking me, you’re checking my
financials as well?”
“Tiana—”
But for once his voice didn’t work on me. “Just go away, Valerian. Just
leave, okay?” I said, and all my exhaustion was in my voice.
Maybe that was what got through to him in the end, I don’t know.
Either way, he finally walked out of the bar.
He left the file behind.

Chapter 5

I didn’t open the file for a week. Eventually I got sick of seeing it on my
desk every time I came into my apartment, so I swept it into my bag to get
it out of my sight. I could still feel its presence hanging over me. A little
storm cloud made for one.
The dead guy was still on the news, though the cycle pushed him out
of the headline slot after a few days.
The file was still in my bag when I went to the coven that weekend.
Like any self-respecting modern coven of witches, Starlight Coven
was understaffed, underpaid and about 50 percent underage. I knew we
were in trouble when I was what counted as a rational adult.
The coven had been formed about four years ago when Jasmine had
found me in a bad place, and it had been more of a counseling group than
anything about magic. Two years ago, Jasmine, who went by Jazz to
everyone except the taxman, had taken it a step further and started doing
outreach amongst the local magical community, finally resulting in a
regular training class for young magical kids, and she’d enlisted a few of
the other old hands to oversee. Last fall she’d bribed me into it with a
promise of free snacks, and somehow I was still helping out a year later.
She was a doctor, as well as the leader of our coven, and I guess the caring
for people thing was in her blood.
Most of the kids were teenagers, though we had a couple of young
ones and a couple who were almost ready to go off to college. The majority
were locals from central or international district but a few came from
further out in Seattle. None of them could afford to hire private tutors to
teach them the ins and outs of harnessing their magical powers and help
them to apply to the fancy, powerful covens of the West Coast like Broken
Mirror, Live Oak or Blood Sand, so they came to us, Starlight Coven, the
home of the awkward, the unwanted and the forgotten.

Any witch with magical abilities could cast a spell, it was simply a
matter of learning how to channel power through from the half world into
the real. Words and rituals were just tools we could use. But every witch
had their own affinity for something special; it could be an element like the
pyros I’d encountered at the bar or something harder to pin down, like a
talent for sensing the future, the ability to speak to animals, or, in my case,
to speak to the dead.
Dark shit like that was rare, and had a bad rep, but Jazz had never
made me feel strange or twisted for my affinity to the dead. I loved that
about her, and she brought that same attitude to the training classes.
Jazz’s magic was what mundanes would call ‘pure’. She hated that
term—it just meant she could channel power directly from the half world—
but it was rare and witches who could do it were seriously strong. I knew
only a little about Jazz’s history, some she’d told me, some I’d pieced
together from gossip. Magical Seattle wasn’t a big place. Word got around.
She’d come up through a big name coven in New York, got snapped up by a
magical corporation. The corps pay you well, shower you in benefits and
hope you’ll turn a blind eye to the less-than-legal shit they want you to do.
You think mundane mega-corporations are bad? Trust me, ours are worse.
Whatever happened, Jazz left, and I mean set fire to the room on the
way out, left. She’d crossed the entire country to get away from her
previous employers. I figured I didn’t need to know much more than that.
Either way, her time in a corporation had left her with little love for magical
hierarchies. Magic was different, she would say, but different doesn’t mean
better and it doesn’t mean worse, and anyway a coven was stronger the
more varied its powers.
Not that we had been called upon to do any serious workings.
Nowadays, fights between rival covens didn’t really happen. The fallout
was just too dangerous and anyone with serious power got snapped up by
the big ones and folded into the system. There weren’t many like me who
fell through the cracks.
I’d had my own run-ins with the magical establishment before, but
since no one really wanted a necromancer on staff I’d managed to escape
unscathed. Turned out messing around with dead people even made other
witches nervous. Who’d have thought it? From the way Jazz’s eyes turned
haunted sometimes, I figured I’d dodged a bullet. I wouldn’t have fit in at

any of those swanky rich places anyway, and if my time with the vampire
elite had taught me anything, it was that rich people were plain fucked up.
There was only one other witch of the same strength as Jazz and me in
Starlight coven, and unfortunately, she was my responsibility.
Raven had started coming to the meetings a couple of months ago. She
didn’t talk much about her home life and I didn’t ask, but I could recognize
a fellow foster kid from a mile off. She had enough power to get into one of
the big covens, and Jazz was dead set on training her up well enough to
rival them. The problem with training Raven was that her magic was too
dark for Jazz to get a handle on so that task had fallen to me. Oh Joy.
I didn’t know how to teach, hell I barely knew how to interact with
adults, teenagers, even almost-an-adult ones like Raven, were beyond me. I
was hoping we could work out some kind of exchange programme with a
big coven, you know, they send one of their prissy little kids to slum it with
us, we send Raven to kick up a stink in their fancy houses. It would be good
for a laugh at least, though Raven might not see it that way.
Our coven met in Edgar Community Center, a squat concrete building
on the edge of the park about a ten-minute walk from Joe’s bar. I shoved
open the door with my hip, clutching a coffee, dark glasses covering half
my face, and was met with the usual scent of gym slippers, stale sweat, and
the lingering, inexplicable smell of hard-boiled eggs coming from the little
kitchen in the back. Who boiled eggs in a community centre?
Jazz was the only one there, unstacking chairs and setting them in a
semicircle in the center of the room. She looked up as I came closer and
smiled broadly. “Hey,” she said, “ready for today?”
I clutched my coffee cup closer and mumbled something that might
have been a greeting.
Jazz was about my age, curvier and shorter than me, with dark lined
eyes and inky black hair about as wavy as mine, but somehow it fell in
natural-looking curves rather than sticking up every which way. Maybe
she’d brushed it. I’d heard that helped. She was wearing a soft red sweater
to stave off the morning chill and it set off her olive skin, giving her a
healthy-looking glow.
I fell into one of the chairs and stretched my legs out in front of me,
crossing my boots over at the ankle.
“You can help,” she said.

“I’m overseeing,” I replied. “The space between those chairs is a bit
too wide.” I pointed. She flipped me the bird and I laughed into my coffee
cup. “So why did you tell me to get here at this godawful hour?” I asked.
“It’s only half an hour earlier than usual,” she said.
“Whatever,” I replied, hiding a massive yawn behind my coffee cup.
She came over to me. “Well, we have a little bit of a problem.”
“Problem?”
She nodded. “The library upstairs?” She pointed at the ceiling.
“Yeah.” It was a bit of a stretch calling it a library; we had about three
bookshelves ranged against the walls in our administrative office.
“Somebody’s been taking the books.”
That got my attention. “Stealing our books?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Not many, just a couple gone missing so far. I
thought at first maybe someone had borrowed them and forgot to sign them
out, but there’s nothing on the logbook and they were from the new
shipment; you know, the lot you got from that house cleanout.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. We got lots of our books that way. When people
died, their libraries got auctioned off and sometimes you could find some
real gems in there.
“Well, I was going to start working through them.” She paused. “Let
me be honest; I was going to have Michelle work her way through them.
That’s why I hired an assistant, right?”
“Right.” I smiled but felt a tinge of concern. Where was Michelle? I’d
forgotten about her in the stress of Valerian’s visit, but I still hadn’t heard
from her.
“Well anyway, I don’t think she got to them yet but there’s definitely
fewer in the stack than before and I don’t like the thought of someone
breaking into the office and taking stuff, let alone taking magical books. It
can only reflect badly on us. We’re the only coven that operates out of this
area after all.”
“I’ll look into it,” I said decisively and Jazz smiled at me in relief. She
returned to setting out the chairs and I drank my way through the rest of my
coffee.
“Who we got coming in today?” I asked.
“Not many,” Jazz said. “It’s still break, some people are away, the
twins are sick, and I’ve had a couple of the others let me know they won’t
be back in time. Raven might turn up.”

I shrugged. “That sounds about right. You never really know with
Raven.”
“Rufus said he would come by,” she said. “I wanted him to talk a bit
about opportunities for further magical study, colleges, that sort of thing for
the older kids.”
“Alternatives to the corporate route eh?” I said knowingly. “Might be
useful for Raven,” I said. “How old is she now? Seventeen, eighteen?”
“Something like,” Jazz said. “How are the training sessions coming
along?”
I pushed my sunglasses onto the top of my head and gave Jazz a bleary
look. “I’m sure they’d be going just perfectly if she bothered to turn up.”
Jazz sighed. “Give her time,” she said. “She’s got strong powers and
you know that kind of thing can be… scary.”
“Yeah,” I said. I knew it. That was exactly why I wasn’t expecting
Raven to turn up at all. Which is why I was quite surprised when, about
halfway into the session, her slim form slipped into the hall. We were pretty
thin on the ground that day so she couldn’t exactly slide in unnoticed, but
she did her level best to fade in with the brickwork before coming around to
join me at the refreshments table.
Jazz was holding court in the center of the room, running a question
and answer session. I had made myself comfortable next to the coffee pot
and was slowly demolishing a plate of cookies. Raven sidled over to me.
She was about average height—a little taller than Jazz, a little shorter than
me—tending toward thinness, mostly from lack of nutrition than from any
choice on her part. Unlike my own resting bitch face, she had a deceptively
sweet expression that she deliberately obscured with a scowl.
Her top was threadbare, poked through with holes where she’d
stretched it over her hands and her black pantyhose had long ladders. She
looked like any other teenager stretched out, grown up, and starting to
navigate the world of adulthood. Not yet entirely comfortable in her own
body.
“Working hard?” Raven looked at my cookie plate skeptically.
“Hey,” I said, clutching the plate of cookies tighter. “I am an
invaluable part of this coven I’ll have you know.”
Raven rolled her dark eyes. “You know Jazz just says that to get you
here,” she said. “And she bribes you with cookies,” she added.

I shrugged with one shoulder. “She knows me too well,” I said.
“Where have you been? We were supposed to have a session last week.”
“I was busy,” Raven said. One of her long-fingered hands fluttered
toward her ribs then away. I narrowed my eyes. Was she moving stiffly?
But she was wise to my game and stared me down. I offered the cookie
plate as a peace offering. Whatever was going on with Raven, it wasn’t
really my business. Still, I thought I might try to get her home address off
Jazz, if Raven had even given it to us, I wouldn’t put it past her to have left
that part of the form blank.
The group in the middle broke up, the smart ones making a beeline for
the refreshment table.
Jazz jerked her head for me to join her. I rolled my eyes at Raven.
“Work, work,” I said.
Raven was right; I didn’t do much for the coven. Jazz was pretty much
our leader, and Michelle, whose silent treatment was starting to bother me,
was in charge of keeping our accounts in order and making sure we didn’t
get in trouble with the authorities.
Any group that catered to magic users had to deal with enough
regulation to bury a house under the paperwork.
“Have you heard from Michelle?” I asked Jazz once I was close
enough.
“No, she doesn’t usually come to the sessions.”
“Yeah, I just haven’t seen her at the bar.”
“You do keep odd hours,” Jazz said.
“She left a message on my phone a couple days ago. She sounded
weird, wanted to meet, but then she didn’t turn up.”
“Ask Rufus,” Jazz said. “He works at the university too. He might be
able to pass on a message.”
“Yeah, good idea,” I said.
“So,” Jazz said, “after the break we’re going to run through some basic
forms in small groups. Can you oversee?”
“Sure.” I nodded. This was my main task in the coven. My magic was
rare and creepy but it also worked as a kind of safety check on more active
magics. Like the pyros in the bar last week, I could pull living energy out of
a stray magic spell, hell out of anything, which was useful when you had a
bunch of hormonal teenagers flinging their magic around.
“When did you say Rufus was coming by?”

“After the practice session,” Jazz said. “I see Raven turned up.”
I glanced around. She was still propping up the wall in the corner,
eyeing the other kids with a kind of instinctive hostility. She was a real
charmer, was Raven. “Yeah, making friends as usual.”
I saw an expression of worry cross Jazz’s face. This was the difference
between me and her; she actually gave a shit about other people.
I walked toward the back of the room as the kids began to return to
Jazz. I picked a place in the corner, checking sightlines again, this time so
that I could cover the entire group around Jazz.
I was looking forward to Rufus arriving, or Dr. Allister as he was
known to his students. He was the fourth member of our coven and a
lecturer in the magical department of Washington University. We were
pretty close. He had been the one to pick me up and get me back on my feet
four years ago after… after everything went to shit. I didn’t get to see him
as much as I would like since I’d moved out and found my place above
Joe’s. Since I started working cases, my hours, always antisocial, had
become even more so.
I felt guilty that I hadn’t made time to see him. Hell, if it wasn’t for the
fact that Jazz had managed to make my position on the coven a paid one, I
probably would never see her either.
Jazz called the kids to order and she started off on the simplest of
forms, calling up a trickle of magic from the half world, focusing your
intent and directing it outwards from your body.
Most of them failed to achieve even the first task, to reach the half
world. The only two who managed to get anywhere was Tom a tall blond
who had been coming to the class for years, who managed a puff of air that
rippled through his hair, leaving him gasping for breath from the exertion.
And a young girl with a dark, serious face under a purple headscarf, and
even she was shaking from the concentration it took her to create a small
ball of light between her hands that fizzled out to nothing the moment it got
more than a foot away from her.
“Good job you two.” Jazz smiled at both of them.
I was pretty impressed. It had taken me a long time to create light; my
magic was just too dark for that.
Then, out of the corner of my eye I saw something black flicker.
Raven had her hands cupped in a similar way to the younger girl but it
wasn’t light between her fingers but darkness, a pitiless darkness that

sucked the light out of the room and wavered the edges of my vision.
Raven’s hands shook, and as I turned she looked up at me, her eyes
wide enough to see the whites.
“I can’t… I can’t control it,” she said, her voice trembling with fear.

Chapter 6

I took two quick strides toward her. Her hands flexed and the blackness
started to expand like it was shoving her hands away from each other rather
than anything deliberate on her part. Another step took me close enough to
touch and I smacked my hand down on her wrist and sucked in the magic. It
resisted me, slick and dark, fizzing weirdly under my skin, an power to it
that actively fought against me. I’d never felt anything like it. I sent more
power into my grip and my magic finally cut through and consumed it with
a snap.
Raven sagged against me, and this close I could feel the thinness of her
shoulders under her shapeless sweater.
“You two okay?” Jazz asked from behind me, tension in her voice. I
glanced over my shoulder and saw she had her hands spread, fingers
splayed wide, the almost invisible tendrils of a shield protecting the rest of
the room from the two of us. I nodded briefly, my lips in a flat line. It
looked like Raven and I needed to start those sessions after all.
Jazz managed to distract the rest of the kids while I shuffled Raven
over to one of the spare chairs and sat her down, fixing her a cup of coffee
and pouring in sugar before bringing it over. She wrapped her fingers
around the mug gratefully. I recognized the way she hungered for the
warmth. Magical exhaustion. That blackness or whatever it was, had
drained her, and no wonder; there had been real power there.
“So,” I said, determinedly casual, “how long have you been creating
black holes? Is this a regular pastime?”
Raven looked up at me. “It wasn’t a black hole,” she said in a small
voice. I’d been worried she’d been showing off, but she was seriously
scared and I tempered my expression.
“Yeah, you’re right. It wasn’t,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely
convinced. “But it was some serious magic. Where did you learn it?” I
asked, thinking about the missing books.

“I didn’t learn it from anywhere,” she said.
“You haven’t been reading any strange books or mucking around
online on the dark web?”
Raven rolled her eyes, and for once I was happy to see it. “The dark
web?” she said. “You know how old you sound?”
“Hey,” I said, offended “I’m not old.”
“Whatever,” she said. But I noticed she had relaxed her death grip on
the coffee cup.
“So, if you haven’t been reading up on it,” I said after a moment, “how
did you find out how to do it?”
Raven shrugged. “I just did,” she said.
I sighed. Talking to teenagers was like pulling teeth. “Okay, you ‘just
did’, but how did you know what to ‘just do’?”
“I did what Jasmine said. That’s what we were supposed to do, wasn’t
it? Practice the forms?” she said, staring at me resentfully.
“Calm down, Raven.” I stretched out my hands. “I’m not angry with
you.”
“It sounds like you’re angry with me,” she said.
“Okay,” I said. “Let me rephrase. I’m angry with everyone, all the
time. That’s my natural state, but I’m not angrier with you right now.” That
almost got me a smile. “So, you’re telling me you just did what Jasmine
asked. You focused on the forms, you brought the magic out from the half
world, and that’s what it looked like.”
“I guess my magic is just evil,” she mumbled into the coffee cup, her
shoulders hunched and the smile disappearing.
Shit. That was a problem.
I shoved my chair a little closer to Raven. “Your magic isn’t evil,” I
said firmly.
“You saw it,” she said.
“It’s powerful, yes, but it’s not evil.” She didn’t look convinced.
“Excuse me,” I said sharply so she would look up. “You do know you’re
talking to a bona fide death witch, the queen of the undead.”
She frowned, wrinkling up her nose. “You’re not the queen of the
undead. That’s Queen Alexandra of the vampire court.”
It was my turn to frown. “What do you know about the vampire
court?” I asked sternly.

Raven rolled her eyes again; apparently that was her favorite thing to
do. “Everyone knows about the vampire court,” she said. “It’s like the
biggest supernatural deal here in Seattle. You’d have to be under a rock not
to know about them.”
Okay, fair enough. “My point is,” I said, trying to get back on track,
“your magic isn’t evil. My magic isn’t evil. No magic is. Magic is just a
tool. We can use it for good and we can use it for bad. That’s on us.” I
hoped I was getting through to her. I leant in slightly closer. “You think I
haven’t faced enough stupid people calling me evil? Nobody wants to deal
with the necromancer in the room. You want to know what I think? People
who tell you your magic is evil? They’re the ones who are evil.”
“That all sounds great,” Raven said, “but what happens when my
magic levels a city block or kills someone?”
“All right,” I said. “I think you’re jumping ahead here; you made a tiny
dark ball. You’re not exactly Voldemort. But”—I raised my hand—“you do
need training. You can’t get out of it any longer. We’re going to start having
regular sessions.”
She hunched in on herself. “I can’t always come to these meetings,”
she said in a small voice. “I don’t know if I can come to regular lessons.” I
thought again about the thinness of her shoulders, about the bruise I was
pretty sure she was hiding somewhere under her sweater. “Okay,” I said,
“you come when you can, in the meantime…”—I pulled out one of my
cards with my cell number on the back—“here you go. You think you’re
going to miss a session or you want to change the time, give me a call.” I
hesitated. “Or if you need advice about… anything, you can give me a
call.”
She stared at me skeptically from under her eyelashes.
“Okay,” I said, leaning back. “I think that’s enough sappy emotional
bullshit for the both of us.” She tucked the card into her sleeve so I counted
that as a win and left her to finish her coffee in peace.
The rest of the session was uneventful. One of the kids managed to set
someone else’s hair on fire but Jazz and I put it out before the fire alarm
went off, and the smell of burnt hair mingled with the boiled eggs into a
truly disgusting mix. We spent the rest of the session with the windows
open, quietly shivering but no further bodily injuries.
By lunchtime, the kids cleared out, some of them collected by parents
or older siblings, the others setting off home alone. The young kid with the

headscarf stuck around a little longer as Jazz went to speak to her parents
about letting her come to the extra classes we ran for older students. We
hadn’t done any real recruitment yet, but some of those kids would
probably join Starlight if they stayed in Seattle.
I wondered what her parents would say. Did they already have their
sights set on a more powerful coven, corporate life, the whole shebang? I
couldn’t blame them. Their daughter clearly had untapped potential. I
wondered what the girl wanted. Powerful covens, like any community of
super-rich assholes, weren’t exactly friendly to anyone who looked even a
little bit like an outsider. My gaze snagged on Raven standing gloomily in
the corner. With that winning personality, she was going to have a peach of
a time if we did send her away. Then again, maybe it would give her the
strength she would need as a dark witch. I’d have to run the idea past Jazz
before mentioning it to Raven.
Jazz got the remaining teenagers to drag the chairs back into a circle. I
oversaw, which meant I fixed myself another coffee and braved the smelly
kitchen for another pack of cookies. No luck.
“Who’s doing the talk?” one of the kids asked her friend. I leaned
against the wall and inhaled the scent of coffee.
“Dr. Allister, the lecturer from Washington U.”
“Oooh.”
I frowned.
“He’s so hot.”
I frowned harder.
“Right? He’s old, but he’s, like, still hot.”
“Hey. No talking,” I snapped. They paled and scurried off. How come
that never worked on Raven?
Rufus, hot? I guessed I could kind of see it, in a certain light, but it felt
like looking through a funhouse mirror. Rufus had seen me at my lowest
point. When I was barely human, he’d fed me, bathed me, clothed me, put
me back on my feet. He was like family.
“Slacker,” Raven said as she went past me, dragging a chair.
I sighed, left my coffee on the table, and grabbed a free chair. I’d
forgotten my bag was leaning against it, and as I pulled the chair away my
bag fell and the case file Valerian had left me, that I had forgotten for the
first time in weeks, fell out, photos spilling across the floor. Shit.

I dropped to my knees, scrambling to gather them up before anyone
saw. Dead bodies at the kid’s session was not the kind of news headline I
wanted for Starlight Coven. “Shit, Tiana, you can’t bring that stuff here.”
“I fucking know, all right?” I said, looking up at Jazz. “Here, pass me
that.” I pointed at a photograph that had landed under the table.
She started to pass it over, glanced down at it, paused, then looked at
me. “This is—”
“Yeah, I know.”
“On the news—"
“Yeah, I know.”
“But you—”
“Jazz. I fucking know, all right? Will you give me the damn photo?”
Raven appeared at my elbow, a lightning rod for trouble.
“That from a case?”
I snatched the photo before she could get a proper look and shoved it
in my bag.
Jazz was looking at me with sympathy in her eyes. I didn’t fucking
want it. It felt like prickles all over my skin.
“How did you get them?” she asked.
“We’re not talking about it,” I growled.
“Did the police ask you for help?”
They did that sometimes. Not so many magicals on the police force.
The elites thought it was below them and lowlifes wouldn’t exactly pass the
detective’s exam so they took on consultants. Mostly academics, it was
actually Rufus who’d got me the job. Anything magical or plain fucking
weird, the cops would bring me in on the down-low to see what I could
sense. I worked mainly with homicide on account of being able to talk to
the dead.
I was supposed to get Jazz to sign off on cases as coven leader.
Paperwork, it’d get you every time.
“No.” I shook my head. “It’s not the police.” I bit the bullet. “Val
dropped them off.”
“Valerian?”
“No,” I said sarcastically. “Valerie, the little old lady from two doors
down. Yes of course Valerian. The fucking evil vampire who apparently
knew where I lived this whole time.”

I had a flash, a sense memory of him standing at my door. The sheer
presence of him, like a furnace against my skin, raising the hairs on my
arms, catching my breath at the back of my throat.
Raven piped up from behind me. “Your address is on your card. It’s
not exactly a secret.”
I dragged my mind back into the present and twisted round to face her.
“You, shut it. We’re having a private conversation here. And gimme that.” I
took the photographs out of her grip. When had she picked them up? The
girl was light-fingered.
“I’m not taking the case,” I told Jazz. She didn’t say anything, just
looked at me with eyes that knew me too well.
I wasn’t fucking taking it. Screw the vampires. I wanted nothing to do
with them and nothing to do with Val. His hand braced against my door,
looming in the hallway. Dark eyes—no, fucking no. Stop it, Tiana. I shook
the memories off again.
“It’s about those murders, isn’t it?” Raven asked, pulling me out of my
thoughts. “The ones on the news.”
I glared at her. Luckily, I was saved a response by Rufus’s entrance. A
ripple went through the group, the breeze as the door swung open and let in
the cold. I deliberately ignored Raven, looking over her head toward Rufus.
I could almost see what those girls had been talking about. He wasn’t a
stuffy old professor, that was for sure. Faded jeans, lightly muscled arms
under his pullover, I’d never noticed that before, but it made sense, he went
running, ate healthy. I’d been desperate for a cheeseburger the whole time
I’d stayed with him.
“Hello, ladies.” He joined us, glancing over the photos I was still
holding, his greying hair sweeping over his eyes before he brushed it back.
His eyes widened. “New case?”
“No. It’s nothing.” I said quickly, shoving the photographs back in my
bag and kicking the bag under the table for good measure.
“Okay, why don’t we…” Jazz stepped between us and ushered Rufus
over to the refreshments table. “Coffee, Rufus? Then I can introduce you to
the kids.”
I turned and found Raven watching me with eyes that were far too
knowing. “Everyone knows it’s the vampires, but no one will say anything.
They’re too powerful.” Uneasy memories shifted in the back of my mind.
“It’s not right. Someone ought to do something about it.”

“Go take a seat for your talk.” I ordered her, refusing to answer.
“You don’t think it’s right either. I know you don’t. They shouldn’t be
allowed to get away with killing people. Someone should do something.”
She looked me right in the eyes before walking away.
She was right. Someone should do something, but why the hell did it
have to be me?

Chapter 7

I was being watched. I couldn’t see him but I knew he was out there.
Valerian, my own personal vampire stalker. He didn’t try to approach me
again. Smart. I had taken to carrying my wood bladed knife around in my
bag. Not that I would have the chance to use it. A human, even a magical
one like me, could never move as fast as a vampire. Still, it made me feel
better knowing it was there. Something to grip my fist around when I
walked home late at night and felt the back of my neck prickle with the
sense of his eyes upon me.
It wasn’t just his eyes I could sense. It was something more,
something… deeper. Like his appearance that night had woken something
within me, a power that had lain dormant for years, ever since I was torn
from the vampire court. Something had sparked between us that night in the
bar when our fingertips had touched.
Something that resonated with a heavy thrum of magic.
Or maybe that was just indigestion. It was easy for your mind to play
tricks on you where vampires were involved. They had a way of warping
reality to suit them. I’d learned that lesson already. I wasn’t going to make
the same mistake a second time. Valerian and his fucking queen could find
some other patsy to take the case and exonerate them.
Still, I hadn’t been able to stop myself reading through the files. By all
accounts, Oliver and Sevda had been two normal, innocent people. She had
been about my age, Oliver a little younger. Both of them with their lives
ahead of them. Snatched away at the teeth of some vampire. They deserved
justice but they weren’t going to get it.
At least not from me.
Surely someone would do something. Things weren’t looking so good
for the vampires; whatever Queen Alexandra had done to keep their names
out of the press was starting to fail. The bite marks, the draining, the
vampire connection was too obvious. Still, they’d got away with it before.

Could they get away with it again? Covering up one murder wasn’t the
same as a series of them. Did the vampires have that kind of pull with the
authorities? I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know. It wasn’t my business
I could see Raven’s face in my mind, her eyes silently calling me a
coward.
Maybe I was a coward but I had a reason. The last time I’d gotten
involved with vampires had ended with me bleeding out next to a dumpster,
cold and alone. I’d barely escaped death once. I didn’t think I’d be so lucky
a second time.
I gathered up the papers that Valerian had given me and swept them
back into the folder, shutting it into one of the drawers on my rickety desk.
The door stuck as I tried to push it closed and I shoved it hard, rocking back
in my chair.
Out of sight, out of mind.
My desk was pretty empty, the only papers left on it were bills. Cases
had been thin. As much as I hated to admit it, Valerian had been right. I was
dangerously low on funds. Joe might let me work behind the bar a couple
nights, enough to keep the lights on. I’d given up on hot water three months
ago.
I still hadn’t heard from Michelle. That was concerning. It wasn’t like
her to go off-grid for so long. I didn’t know if she had family in the city. I
realized I didn’t know much about her at all. Some friend I was. We were
witches of the same coven and I barely knew anything about her. I wasn’t
really close with any of them, Rufus I barely saw ever since moving out,
Jazz I only spoke to at coven meetings. I’d closed myself off, retreated
inside myself. It had been so long, I’d forgotten how to reach out.
What if it had been me, I wondered. What would happen if I
disappeared. Would anyone notice? Jazz might if I skipped enough
meetings. She’d come around here, get Joe to open up my apartment for
her. I looked around: empty walls, a couple of threadbare lounging chairs in
the corner, and an old couch that had seen better days. My rickety desk
shoved up against the bookshelf that was little better than cardboard and
leaning dangerously to the side.
Across from me, the breakfast bar separated me from the tiny kitchen
cubicle. On the other side of that, my bedroom, a bed that was little more
than a mattress on the floor.

It was a shit hole, that much was true, but trying to make it a home,
trying to do anything at all beyond getting through the day, just seemed like
too much effort ever since… ever since I’d lost my sister.
I made myself a packet of ramen with a fried egg for protein—actual
food; score one for Tiana—then I fell into bed.
I was exhausted, but my mind wouldn’t stop circling the case and I
slipped in and out of sleep. I was woken sometime in the early hours of the
morning, when it was still dark out, to the noise of the sticky desk drawer
thunking open and someone cursing under their voice.
Someone was in my apartment.
I kicked off the covers, rolled off the mattress, and into a crouch, still
bleary from the half-sleep I’d been in. I swept my hair back from my head,
out of my eyes, so that it fell, tangled, down my back. I reached into the
half world and felt the flickering presence of the dead, the spirits in the bar
below but faint, almost like they’d been scared away by something.
Valerian, that fucker. Ghosts didn’t like vampires. Maybe they resented
that vampires got to be dead and still hang out with the living, unlike them.
Whoever it was rummaging around in my study I was going to have to
tackle them the old-fashioned way. I crept over to the wall and reached
down for the baseball bat leaning behind the door that I kept for the worst
of my cases and nudged the door open with my toe. It was too dark for me
to make out much but I could see at least one person rifling through the
papers on my desk and someone else standing by the bookshelf.
The one by the desk straightened up. “Got it,” he said in a low voice,
and I saw him raise the file. The case file. Valerian’s case file. Shit. I
couldn’t let them take it. What the hell did they want that for? I kicked the
door open and came in swinging. I got the first guy as he was turning
toward me, a strike square accross his face. He fell backward over the desk
and the file went up in the air, papers cascading all over the place.
“Shit, she’s awake.”
I took a second step into the room and that’s when the third man, the
one I hadn’t seen, hit me from behind. I went down hard. I must have
blacked out for a moment; when I came to, they were gone but I could hear
them on the stairway, the thunk and thud of their boots. I tried to leap to my
feet and managed something more like a slow roll. I felt sick. Shit, that
blow to the head had been bad. I was going to have a fantastic lump the
next morning.

Using the baseball bat to prop myself upright, I stumbled over to the
door, jogging down the hallway after them. I almost fell down the stairs,
just catching the railing at the last moment, the baseball bat slipping out of
my grasp and rolling down before me. They were getting away, sprinting
out of the building into the night. I crouched to scoop up the bat and ran out
the door into the street.
At this hour the streets were empty, and, other than me, the three
thieves were the only ones to be seen, their running shapes merging with the
darkness. And then one of the shadows in the corner of my vision moved.
Not a shadow, a person. The shape resolved into a broad recognizable
silhouette. Valerian. He moved through the night like it was made for him.
One second level with me, the next halfway across the street. He was on
them before they even had a chance to scream.
I ran toward the fight, though calling it a fight wasn’t quite right. It
was carnage.
I had never seen Valerian in action before. I should have guessed he
would do it like he did everything: with grace, with fury, and with a lethal
single-mindedness that stopped my breath.
The men didn’t stand a chance.
He threw the first onto the ground, swiping him across his chest with
the blow so hard I heard his ribs crunch from ten paces away. Then Valerian
spun around, pivoting, with the center of his gravity low, his long legs out
wide, and caught the other in the backs of his knees. The man went down
with a crack, his head striking the ground, and he went still. I think that was
the one I had caught across the face once already. Maybe we would have
matching bruises. The third man hadn’t stuck around to save his friends; he
was sprinting for freedom.
I was close enough to catch a glimpse of Valerian’s eyes. They were
black, pure black, and the rage within them was terrifying to see. There was
nothing human in him, all fangs, all teeth, all fury, and it terrified me. He
wasn’t going to let any of them get away alive. He leaped after the third
man, launching with enough power it was like he was flying through the air,
and landed on the man’s back, his jaws wide. He bit down, his teeth ripping
through the man’s throat, blood spraying into the dark.
I felt the veil between the worlds shiver. The anticipation of death.
“Stop,” I shouted. I ran closer toward them but slowed as I
approached, terror stiffening my limbs. Valerian was a predator intent on his

prey, and just like you wouldn’t interrupt a lion at his meal, interrupting a
vampire could be fatal. “You can’t kill him, Valerian.”
He didn’t seem to hear me.
A shot rang out and Valerian’s body juddered with impact, throwing
him forward and off the man. I had ducked at the noise and now I twisted
around to look back. The first man had one hand clutched around his
broken ribs, the other grabbing his gun.
“Stop,” I shouted, raising my hand, but what was I going to do against
a gun?
I didn’t know if Valerian was moving. Was he dead? An icy hand
gripped my heart. I shouldn’t have cared. I should have been glad. So why
did it feel like it was my own body the bullet had landed in?
The veil rippled once more, parted like silk, and the half world rose
around me. Dark shadows clustered around the edges of my gaze. Were
they really there, or was it internal bleeding from the blow to my head? Was
I going to pass out?
I felt my power flex, deep and strange, echoey, almost twinned, strands
reaching out between me and Valerian. I felt strong. Stronger than I’d ever
felt before, and the man with the gun seemed to suddenly sharpen in my
vision. I could see the paleness of his face, drawn tight from the pain in his
ribs. I could see the whites of his eyes. Almost without thinking I reached
for him, my magic flowing down my shoulder to my elbow to my wrist and
out my fingertips like tiny invisible wires straining toward him.
He shivered again, swayed, almost fell. Something ran down the wires
from him to me. Something bright and shining and full of life, it burst
against my skin like breathing in a bubble of air underwater. His grip on the
gun loosened and hit the ground with a crack. The sound of it striking the
tarmac broke my daze, and suddenly the wires were gone, the connection
broken and my sense of the half world was torn away.
Sound rushed in again, the pulse and thunder of my blood in my veins.
Shadows clustered, blooming across my vision. I went down to my knees,
exhausted suddenly. Feeling like I’d run a mile, my muscles loose and sore.
But as I fell, Valerian rose. His eyes were wicked, and the moment he saw
me on the ground, any shred of humanity left them.
I realized what I had thought was rage was nothing to what he was
riding now. His eyes lit with incandescent fury. If I didn’t do something
none of the three men were going to make it out alive.

Chapter 8

I shoved myself to my feet, stumbling upright, and launched myself not at
the men but at Valerian. I crashed into him just as he leaped towards the
man with the broken ribs.
His body was like solid stone against mine, but he stopped moving. I
didn’t have the energy to think, to be afraid, I was exhausted from whatever
I’d done to make the man drop the gun. “Don’t kill them,” I said, staring up
at a face that was all black eyes, white fangs, and blood-red lips. “I need
them to answer my questions,” I said, then I passed out.
Not exactly my finest moment.
When I came to, I was lying on something smooth and hard and the
world was painted in red and blue. I rolled over and came face-to-face with
a collarbone. My eyes traveled up and saw a neck, a jawline, lips, teeth,
fangs.
“Holy shit.” I jerked back, then winced, halting my movement and
clutching my head. I could feel the lump under my fingertips.
“Easy,” Valerian said. His voice rumbled through his chest and right
through me, we were pressed so close.
I pushed myself away from him. There was a police car parked a little
way from us and an ambulance beyond it, a paramedic just shoving the
doors closed. Valerian moved out of the corner of my eye and I spun back
to face him, regretting the movement when my head ached. “Don’t come
near me,” I spat.
“You were the one who jumped on me.”
I glared at him. “You were going to kill them,” I said, dropping my
voice low, aware of the police. “What happened?”
He looked at me. “You passed out,” he said. “I was distracted.”
Distracted? By me?
“The police arrived.”
Oh, right. By the cops. That made more sense.

“I wanted to question them,” I said, angrily. I could feel a migraine
coming on. “Fucking hell, Valerian. They were after the file.”
“The file?” He frowned. “The file I gave you?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Why?”
“How should I know? That’s why I wanted to question them.”
“So…” he looked at me sidelong. “You’re taking the case then.”
I looked around us. The night was cold enough to make me shiver.
Would I take it? Three nameless goons turned up out of nowhere, broke into
my apartment, and tried to steal from me. I had a reputation to uphold, and
more than that, I was pissed. “Yes,” I ground out. “I’ll take it.” I saw
triumph flair in Valerian’s eyes but he masked it quickly. “Don’t kid
yourself,” I said, taking a step away from him. “I’m doing this to prove
exactly what kind of scum you vampires are. I’m not doing this for you.”
He stood, unfolding in one fluid movement. Hadn’t he been shot? He
didn’t even seem injured. The thought distracted me and he was suddenly
standing before me quicker than I could step away. My skin crawled at the
nearness of him, fear rising up my spine, ice in my veins. My gaze snagged
on his fangs, sharp, white, and wicked. I could feel my heart stutter in my
chest. “Don’t,” I said, raising a hand toward him that shook. “Don’t come
near me.”
“We’re going to be working together—”
“I don’t want to hear it, all right? We’re not working together. I’m
taking the case and I’ll investigate it my way. That doesn’t involve you.”
“You’ll need me to get into the court,” he said.
“Fine,” I snapped, “you can be my fucking doorman. How’s that?”
“I’ll be whatever you need me to be,” he said, his voice low, eyes
intent and then after a moment as if he’d almost forgotten, he added, “as the
queen ordered.”
“Well, what I need is for you to get the hell away from me.”
He looked on the verge of saying something more, but he took in my
expression and clearly thought better of it, finally taking a step away. I
turned to look out at the street. There was a dark patch of blood staining the
tarmac. “You were going to kill him,” I said, staring at it. “The man with the
gun, you were going to kill him. I saw it in your eyes.”
“He didn’t deserve to live,” Valerian said.

Fucking vampires, I thought. “You don’t get to decide who deserves to
live or die.”
“He hurt you,” Valerian said.
“He’s not the first,” I spat, and memory shifted like quicksand. For a
moment I thought I saw something slink through his gaze. Remorse? Was
he even capable of an emotion like that?
“You can’t just go around killing people, Valerian, not if this whole
bullshit case is about clearing you vampires’ reputation.”
“No,” There was something light and teasing in his voice. His eyes
sparkled as they caught the light. “I guess not. People frown on that sort of
thing. It is so tedious.” Tedious. I rolled my eyes. Right. Not murdering
people was tedious. “Far simpler”—he grinned, his fangs sharp—“when
you could simply remove anyone who got in your way.”
He wasn’t joking. I could see he meant it, despite the smirk. They were
all like this. Vampires. Fucking psychos. I didn’t know if it was living for
such a long time that erased their humanity or if vampires only turned
people who already were psychopaths but I had never met a vampire who
wasn’t one. Oh sure, they could mimic human emotion just like
psychopaths could. But when you got down to it, when you asked them to
feel, to care, to love? They didn’t know how. They were selfish, vicious,
and dangerous. And I wasn’t going to let myself forget it. It didn’t matter
what he looked like. It didn’t matter what half-remembered feelings he
brought out in me. He was just like the rest of them. He had proven that a
long time ago.
I’ll take the case,” I said finally. “They didn’t get the file; it’s still up in
my apartment. Tomorrow night you can take me to court. I’ve got some
questions to ask your queen.” I turned away from him.
“You need a doctor,” he said, waving for one of the paramedics to
come over.
“I’ll be fine.” I just wanted to go back to my apartment.
“You passed out,” he snapped, “a blow to the head. I felt the lump.”
“Did I ask you to touch me?” I snapped, feeling violated.
“You were out cold, Tiana,” he said. “I was—”
“Don’t bullshit me,” I cut him off. “You were worried your investment
would be ruined and you would have to find some other PI to take your
case.”

He glared at me and I was glad. That was an expression I wanted to
see reflected in his eyes. It kept things simple when we hated each other.
“Tiana.” He took a step toward me, reaching out, and winced, his hand
going to his shoulder.
I frowned. Shit, so he had caught a bullet. I’d thought so.
“How bad is it?” I asked grudgingly.
“It’s fine,” he said.
“This is a good neighborhood,” I lied shamelessly. “I can’t have a dead
vampire passing out in the corner and then burning himself to death when
the sun comes out just because you were too stubborn to seek medical
attention.”
“I believe the phrase is, pot meet kettle,” he said, his eyes sharp, and
his lips quirked into a grin.
I grit my teeth. “Fine,” I said. I turned to meet the paramedic.
“Oh, so we are allowed to get close now?” she said, shooting an angry
look at Valerian. “Your bodyguard wouldn’t let anyone near you.”
“I’m fine,” I told her.
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
She took me through the usual routine after a blow to the head, the
flashing light in my eyes not helping my headache at all.
“You’ve done this before I take it?” she said, taking in my bored
compliance. “Got someone to keep you awake?” She glanced at Valerian.
I had a sudden vision of Valerian in my bed, the covers around us in
tangles, our bodies pressed up close. I gasped, jerking back. “No.”
“No?”
“No, I mean yes.” I refocused on the paramedic, studiously ignoring
Valerian. “I can call a friend.” Jazz would be thrilled to be woken in the
middle of the night I was sure, but no fucking way was I letting Valerian
into my apartment.
Someone shouted from the ambulance and the paramedic turned,
waving her hand. “Coming.” She looked back at me. “We have to get the
other three to the hospital.” Her lips flattened into a line. “They’re in bad
shape.”
“Hey, they’re the bad guys here.”
“Yeah, the detective interviewed your… friend already,” she said,
starting to walk away.
“Detective?”

“He left with the first ambulance, said you could give your statement
tomorrow at the precinct.”
Great. Something to look forward to.
I turned to Valerian. “Wait, your bullet wound.” The ambulance was
already pulling out, the police car behind it.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “A scratch.”
“Are you trying to impress me?” I snapped. “Because it isn’t
working.” The front of his shirt was still pristine white which meant the
bullet was still lodged in his back. “Turn around,” I said. Slowly he did so
and I saw the rose-red bloom of blood across his shoulder. “I need to call
them back.”
“No,” he snapped, “there is no need for that. If you have something to
get the bullet out, my healing will kick in.”
“Why aren’t you healing now?”
“The bullet is lodged under my shoulder blade.” He turned back to me.
“It will need pulling out.”
“I have something in my apartment,” I said begrudgingly. He took a
step toward me. “Whoa, buddy.” I took a sharp step back so he wasn’t
looming over me and held out my hands. “I’m not inviting you into my
apartment so don’t even try. Wait here,” I said, and I went up to my
apartment to get my first-aid kit.
After I’d come back from enough cases bruised and bloodied, I’d
started keeping a full first-aid kit in my bathroom, it saved time.
When I came back down, he’d already taken off his shirt. I hesitated in
the doorway, most definitely not distracted by the way the light from the
streetlamps seemed to highlight every line and curve of his muscles. I
swallowed roughly. It was the dizziness, the head injury, making me woozy.
Right.
I walked up to him. “Turn around,” I said, my voice low.
He took a moment. I could feel his eyes on me, but I refused to give
him the satisfaction of meeting his gaze and kept my own focused
somewhere above his right shoulder. Finally, he turned and I sucked in a
breath at the messy, bloodied entry wound from the bullet.
I took a step closer. I could smell the salty tang of blood. The
indefinable male scent that I had been trying to get out of my mind ever
since he’d turned up on my doorstep. I crouched and busied myself pulling
out the tweezers from the first-aid kit. This close to him, I could feel my

magic reacting. It behaved differently to him than it would to a living
breathing human. The living it pretty much ignored. Valerian, being dead,
was a kindred spirit and it welcomed him, reaching out soft little fingers of
magic. I cut them off brutally and forced my magic back down inside my
chest, pulling tight the veil between the worlds. None of that, thank you.
But I couldn’t block my sense of him entirely.
Like I’d noticed when he was stalking me over the past few days, his
presence was sharper. There was an edge to it, the spark running between
us. I couldn’t understand it. I took a deep breath, held the tweezers in one
hand, and then rested my other on his shoulder. The spark jumped from skin
to skin again and I shivered. Nerves. Had to be nerves. Valerian was like a
rock under my palm. He couldn’t have felt it. It was just in my head. I
gripped the tweezers tightly, my palms already sweaty. “Brace yourself,” I
said, and then I shoved the tweezers into his back.
I heard him take in a sharp inhale but he betrayed no other outward
sign to the fact that I was rummaging around inside his wound with a tiny
piece of metal. It was nerve-racking and more than a little disgusting, the
wound making wet, squelchy noises as I twisted the tweezers around,
finally clinking against the bullet that was lodged, as he had said, under his
shoulder blade. It took me a while to get a firm grip on it, the points of the
tweezers slipping off the metal a couple of times before I finally gripped it
securely and was able to draw it out.
I stared as the flesh of his back knitted itself together until all that was
left was blood smeared over smooth unbroken skin. I was still touching him
I realized, and I jerked back, letting him go, stumbling slightly as the backs
of my heels hit the bottom step. “All done,” I said. My heart was beating
fast. I needed to get away from him. I packed up my first-aid kit onehanded, my other hand bloodied. I didn’t want to think about the fact it was
Valerian’s blood that had got onto the base of my thumb and the tips of my
fingers. I didn’t look at him as I quickly tucked the first-aid kit under my
arm and started to climb the steps.
He said nothing, just watched me go, and I could feel his gaze, heavy
on my back all the way up the stairs.

Chapter 9

I called Jazz and she came over a little while later to poke me awake
throughout the rest of the night and left sometime around breakfast the next
day. I drifted in and out of an uneasy sleep for a few more hours, haunted
by unsettling dreams: Visions of Valerian with his teeth in that man’s neck,
only sometimes it wasn’t the man, it was me, and sometimes it felt
exhilarating like my entire body was on fire with pleasure. Other times I
was screaming and beating at him but he wouldn’t let me go. Finally,
sweaty, achy, and feeling even more exhausted than when I had gone to bed,
I pulled myself up and into the shower.
Jazz had left a bowl of apples on the table with a note to eat
something, but I couldn’t face food. My stomach was clenched like a ball of
lead so I fixed myself a coffee as the sun went down and was ready to go as
the last rays faded. I pulled on my leather jacket and slid the wooden bladed
knife into the holster around my waist. It was about as long as my forearm,
edged in steel, which wouldn’t do shit against vamps but stayed sharp better
than wood. I had a set of three. Detective Pierce had gotten them for me
after the last case I did with Seattle PD had ended in a showdown with
werewolves. A silver blade for wolves, the wooden blade for vampires, and
cold iron for the fae. Guns weren’t always as reliable against magical foes.
These knives were a last resort. I tried not to need them. I wasn’t a fighter, I
was an investigator, but tonight I wanted the edge.
Valerian was waiting for me downstairs, leaning against the wall like
he hadn’t taken a bullet just last night. His smile was wicked as he took me
in.
My hair was wet from the shower and curling dark around my
shoulders. My jeans were formfitting with enough stretch that I could kick
someone in the face from standing. For a moment, under his eyes, I felt
naked, taken apart. Then I recovered and shouldered past him, ignoring the

shiver that went through me as we brushed. “Come on then,” I said. “The
night’s a-wastin’.”
“After you,” he said, and clicked his keys. There was a muted chirp
from down the street and I followed the noise until I saw the sleek, smooth
lines of his car. I had to hold back a whistle of appreciation. I gave him a
look from under my eyelashes. “Boys and their toys,” I said sarcastically,
walking over. Still, I couldn’t help myself from reaching out and trailing my
fingers along the smooth side as I slid in, surrounded by the scent of leather
and musk. The sound of my belt sliding home was like key sliding into a
lock, and for a moment I wondered if I’d made a terrible mistake. Valerian
slid in beside me and it was too late, the engine hummed, almost silent as
we drove through the city streets like another night shadow.
The familiar lights blurred as I stared out the window. It was a new car
but something about this was painfully familiar. I glanced down at the space
between the seats. The only difference was, if this had been four years ago,
I’d be holding Valerian’s hand. Fuck, was I ever so painfully naive? I turned
back and leaned my head against the cold glass. “The victims,” I asked
without looking at him. “Did you know them?”
“The woman, by sight. The man, no.”
“Did you drink from them?” I asked, my throat tightening, aware of
the choker around my neck, but the question came out steady.
He was silent for a moment, then, “Perhaps once or twice. I don’t keep
track.”
Right. Because why would he? Do you really care which mug you
drink out of? You might have a favorite one. The one you make your
morning coffee in, but when it cracked you didn’t exactly mourn it, did
you? You just bought a new fucking mug. I realized my hands were
clenched into fists and I deliberately stretched my fingers out flat against
my legs.
“This PR thing,” I continued after a moment. “Sevda. She work
alone?”
“With other humans perhaps. The queen put Gloria in charge of our
public image; you’ll have to ask her.”
Gloria, great, because she’d always been my biggest fan. This entire
night was going to be hell. Why had I agreed to this? Sevda’s dead face
slipped into my thoughts. Oh yeah, I thought, stomach heavy. That was
why. Mercer Island crept up on me, and suddenly there was water on either

side of us, lights glinting and reflecting against inky black, and then we
were driving through familiar streets. Buildings no longer close-clustered to
each other, but expensive mansions on the waterfront. Everything brightly
lit so that even the darkest point of the night would feel like daytime.
Artificial sunlight for the vampires, all glitz and glamour, all fake.
We drove up to the biggest building on the island, sprawling gardens
stretching around us. Manicured lawns and perfect, primped bushes and
trees. Valerian drove us down into the depths of a subterranean garage, the
concrete lit up with strip lighting and enough cars to fill a showroom all
gleaming under the lights. He slid into a free space and cut the engine the
two of us, for a second, in a cocoon of silence. He turned toward me but
whatever it was he wanted to say, I didn’t want to hear it. I unbuckled my
seatbelt and climbed out before he could speak. He didn’t try again as we
walked toward the elevator.
The doors closed on gray concrete and opened on lush glamour.
Shining hardwood floors and chandeliers that poured out enough light to
make a mockery of sunlight. I looked around and the memories came thick
and fast, overwhelming me for a moment, so I couldn’t even move. I
remembered seeing this place for the first time, my breath taken with the
grandeur of it all. I hadn’t seen it for what it really was—a mask.
Soft music and conversation wound through the air, punctuated with
the clink of champagne glasses. I crossed the threshold and the noise
suddenly muted, half the people in the room stilling then turning toward
me. Not people. The humans were left staring in confusion at conversations
left half broken. It was the vampires. Every one of them staring at me. The
room was still but the veil to the half world was rippling and I could sense
every vampire around me, as aware of them as they were of me.
Had Violet felt this? Had my sister been just as aware of the dead? Was
that how she had got caught up in their court so quick and so deep? I
slammed my walls up, threw myself into the real world, and muted my
awareness of the half down to a hum. The spell was broken. The vampires
turned back, fake smiles and empty laughs. My skin was chilled.
“You didn’t say there was an event on,” I accused Valerian out of the
corner of my mouth. He was silent, and when I turned I saw he was staring
at me, a light in his eyes I couldn’t define. Once I might have called it
desire.

“I was going to tell you as we got out of the car. You didn’t let me
speak,” he said.I rolled my eyes as if he hadn’t had a hundred chances to
tell me before then. “But this is a good thing,” he went on. “You can
interview anyone you like.”
Yeah, I thought. Great. I just have to brave the lion’s den. Before I
could reply, a blond vampire broke off from the group he was with and
made his way toward us. Here was someone I recognized from before, and
for once my past self and my present were in complete agreement. “Kyran,”
I said, my lips drawing back from my teeth. “How have you not been staked
yet?”
“Well if it isn’t the little death witch,” he said, his mouth twisting into
an ugly sneer that ruined any chance at handsomeness his blond blue-eyed
face might have. “What did you bring her here for?” he asked Valerian.
“Hey,” I snapped, “I’m right here, you know.” He cut his eyes to me,
then back to Valerian. Great, I thought, back to being ignored again. How
did I not get sick of this the first time around?
“The queen wishes her to have every access to our court,” Valerian
said, his voice cold. There was no love lost between these two.
Kyran transferred his sneer back to me. “Asking questions didn’t get
you very far last time, did it?”
I growled, leaning forward and reaching for the half world. Valerian
pressed a warning hand to my shoulder, the touch going right through me.
“Back away, Kyran. She’s under the queen’s protection. And mine.”
I shrugged off Valerian’s grip. I had my knife. I’d very much like to
christen it by shoving it through Kyran’s throat.
“Yeah?” Kyran stepped forward and Valerian moved me out of the way
until his body was blocking mine.
“Fucking move,” I hissed, slapping at his arm. It was like hitting rock.
He was so tall I could barely even see the room beyond him.
He ignored me. “Don’t push me, Kyran,” he said, his voice a low
growl.
“I thought you didn’t care about the little human bitch, but here you
are, all protective over her. Like she matters.” I could hear the sneer in
Kyran’s voice, I didn’t need to see it. His words made me shrink in on
myself, taking a step back from them both. Valerian didn’t care about me. I
knew that. He’d made that painfully clear, and not just to me apparently.
Kyran was still talking. “Maybe this time I’ll take a sip.”

Valerian’s growl cut through the room, raw and dangerous. It raised the
hair on the back of my neck. A pool of stillness rippled out around us,
vampires watching out of the corners of their glittering eyes. Even the
humans close by had stilled, some animal part of them recognizing the
sound of a predator on the edge of violence. Then the crowd rippled, parted,
and a woman glided forward.
“Now, now, Kyran,” she said in a voice like cut glass. “Valerian is
right. Ms. Waters has our complete cooperation.”
Queen Alexandra, the leader of all the vampires in Seattle. The most
powerful vampire on the west coast transferred her icy gaze from Kyran to
me and I felt my spine pull taut.

Chapter 10

She was exactly what you would expect a vampire queen to be: lips bloodred and her hair an icy blonde. The waves were glassy and perfectly
smooth, falling in a cascade down one shoulder and pinned in place with
tiny glittering stars that were probably real diamonds. More clustered at her
throat, drawing the eye down to some impressive cleavage. Her figurehugging dress skimmed her body like a spill of blood. She moved with that
same vampiric grace that they all did, but concentrated and honed into a
weapon. Her eyes were sharp and missed nothing.
“Ms. Waters, welcome back. I hope the court is as you remember it.”
“Yeah, I growled, exactly like.”
Her gaze flickered between Kyran and Valerian. “I do hope the
unfortunate events surrounding your exit from the court have not affected
your opinion of this case.”
“I think my previous experience has given me exactly what I need to
find out which of you vampires is killing these people,” I said bluntly.
Her eyes flashed and she took a step closer, putting herself between the
rest of the visitors and me. Did she not want me coming here during the
party and asking obvious questions about the murders after all? “I had not
realized you would be investigating the case today,” she said. I didn’t look
at Valerian. He hadn’t told me he was breaking rules. My jaw tightened. I
didn’t like being made a tool in the game of vampire politics.
“Well, I’m here now,” I said.
“Indeed,” Alexandra responded, and her smile was as empty as her
eyes. I swear I felt it cut straight through me and into Valerian. I turned to
look at him, feeling like a spectator at a tennis match. His eyes were dark
and pitiless. Where Alexandra was all ice and glass, Valerian was a hulking,
brooding darkness, and for the first time I felt the true edge of his power.
The air between them thickened. Oh, I so did not want to be in the middle
of this fight. I’d always assumed Alexandra ruled because she was the most

powerful of the vampires. I was beginning to wonder if that was the case.
From the look in Alexandra’s eyes, she was wondering it too. “Whatever
we can do to assist you, I’m sure Valerian will be only too happy to oblige,”
she said, neatly turning the conversation. She glided past us both, slipping
her hand into Kyran’s arm. “Come, Kyran.”
He didn’t move and I saw her hands tighten imperceptibly. A nothing
of a gesture unless you were magical and could sense the deathblow she
dealt through the half world. Kyran paled and swayed, muscles standing out
thick in his neck as his entire body went rigid then slumped. “I did warn
you about your behavior, Kyran. Do not disappoint me again.” He swayed,
his head bowing, and for a second I actually felt sorry for him. Then he
jerked his head up, his eyes almost red with hatred, and I took an
involuntary step back. “Come,” she said again, and swept him along beside
her. The crowd filled in around them and I finally took a deep breath.
Fucking vampires.
“Shall we?” Valerian said, offering his arm, which I ignored and
stepped forward into the crush.
It was easy to pick out the vampires amongst the humans even in a
crowd studded with movie heartthrobs and rock stars. They had a
preternatural beauty that set them apart. Valerian cut through the crowd like
a shark through water, with more than one admiring gaze lingering on his
back. They ignored me as I followed in his wake. Had it always been like
this? The vampires only concerned with their own kind. The humans that
flocked around them little more than entertaining playthings. Alexandra had
tried hard to rehabilitate their image since the scandals of violence and
death but nothing really changed. Just a new lick of paint on a rotten
building.
I had brought the photos with me, the ones of Oliver and Sevda alive,
not the morgue ones and I got them out and started showing them to people.
With Valerian looming over me like a dark cloud, the vampires clammed up
tight, their lips pressed in unyielding lines. I sighed. “You’ve gotta leave me
to work.”
“I am your protection.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I get it. Alexandra forced you to do this as part of
whatever power game you’re playing with her, right?” I’d finally figured it
out.
His face was a mask.

“Whatever, don’t tell me. I don’t care. Go loom in that corner for a
while.” He didn’t move. “For fuck’s sake, Valerian. You don’t really want to
be here, I get it. You don’t have to pretend. Alexandra isn’t here right now
so give me some space.”
He stared down at me. “Thirty minutes,” he said finally.
“Okay, sure, whatever.” I turned away. I’d take what I could get.
I didn’t have as much luck catching people’s attention without him, so
I decided to be rude. What could I say? It came naturally. “You kill this
woman?” I snapped, shoving the picture in a vampire’s face. They jerked
back as if my general attitude was contagious.
“No, of course not.” They didn’t even look at the photo.
“You recognize her then?” I asked, toning it down slightly.
It took me a while to get a balance between pushy enough to break into
their tittering conversations and not too pushy that they just clammed up,
but even with the ones that spoke to me I didn’t learn anything new.
Nothing more than what Valerian had already given me in the file. Yes,
some of them recognized the photos. The humans had been hanging around
the court for a while. No, they weren’t attached to any specific vampire, but
they would come to some of the parties. There for the glitz, for the glamour,
for the bite. I shivered. They weren’t the only ones. There were enough
humans around sporting glittering earrings or little bracelets. The usual
pretty gifts a vampire might offer in return for a suck and fuck.
It was a heady mix being bitten and having sex, I should know. You
could lose yourself right up until the moment you died from blood loss. A
pleasant way to go? You’d have to ask Oliver, Sevda, or my sister. The
lights were too bright, the noise jarring. I needed a break.
I turned and saw Valerian coming toward me, alerted by some vampire
sense of my change in purpose. I raised my hand to ward him off. “I just
need a minute,” I said and walked away as the crowd shifted and moved
between us. I didn’t make it to the doors.
“What are you doing here?” an acid voice said from by my shoulder.
I felt her vampiric presence pressed close and I spun just before she
could put her hand on me, her long, red-painted nails closing on air.
“Gloria,” I said, “just what this night needed.”

Chapter 11

“What the fuck are you doing back here?” Gloria said, the scowl on her
face marring the perfect beauty of her appearance. Her hair was a rich dark
brown, verging on red, and where Queen Alexandra favored diamonds,
Gloria clearly preferred rubies. She was glittering with them. “I thought
we’d seen the last of you four years ago.”
“Yeah, well,” I said, “I live to surprise you, Gloria.”
I was surprised at the level of hatred on her face. We had never got on
before but I had always counted Kyran as the only real threat in the court.
Gloria had been sitting on a lot more hatred than she had ever let slip.
Vampires were good at masking their expressions when they thought they
needed to. Apparently, she didn’t think she needed to anymore.
“Trying to get your claws in Valerian again? Well, it won’t work this
time.”
Ah, there it was. She didn’t know why I was here. Foolish Gloria.
“Oh?” I asked. “Why won’t it work?”
“Because he finally realized a human wasn’t enough for him.”
“Oh, is that how it is?” I barked out a laugh. “I hope you both are very
happy together. I’m sure you deserve each other.”
Her mouth twisted.
“Oh, I’m sorry, did he reject you?” I put on an expression of mock
sympathy. “ I hope the experience wasn’t too bruising for your fragile ego.
Don’t worry, I’m sure Kyran will say yes. Of course, he’ll fuck anything
that stands still long enough, so…”
“Shut up,” she hissed. “You’re not supposed to be here; this is an
invite-only event.” She gripped my arm tightly and tugged me toward the
doors to the courtyard.
“Gloria, let go,” I said as her next tug almost took me off my feet. I
tried to lever her fingers off my arm but she only gripped me tighter and I

hissed as her sharp nails punctured the leather of my jacket and cut into my
flesh. “For fuck’s sake, Gloria. Let me go.”
“This isn’t a party for the likes of you,” she hissed. “Don’t think I
don’t know what you’re doing. You finally realized what you gave up when
you walked out on Valerian. Well, you’re not getting him back. I won’t let
you.”
“Walked out?” I said, my voice empty with shock. “Is that what you
think happened?”
She looked at me, halting our progress to the edge of the room, and I
saw her eyes flicker with a hint of confusion. How could she not know what
really happened? I thought everyone knew. “Oh, don’t lie to me, Gloria,” I
said. “I’m sure you all had a good laugh about it. The stupid human getting
in too deep, learning her lesson.” I tried again to pull my arm free, but no
use; she only gripped me tighter.
“I don’t care whatever stories you’re making up. Riffraff like you
shouldn’t even be here. Just like your sister.”
Anger flashed through me and I growled. “Don’t mention my sister,” I
said between clenched teeth.
A glitter appeared in her eyes. “Oh yes,” she said, and I hated that
she’d clearly remembered exactly where to twist the knife. “Didn’t anyone
tell you? Your precious sister was just like you, sniffing around all the
vampires, desperate for—”
She didn’t finish her sentence because my fist connected with her face
before she could get the words out. Satisfying as it was to punch her, it
barely even marred the makeup on her flawless skin. I winced, shaking out
my hand, it was like punching a rockface. She refocused on me, her eyes
blackening with rage, her fangs sharp against her lips. Fuck. I tugged
sharply but her grip on my arm was tight.
“You’ll pay for that, you little bitch,” she said, pulling me in close and
gripping my shoulder with her other hand, squeezing cruelly as she widened
her jaw. I froze, paralyzed with fear. I even forgot about the knife in my
waistband. All I could see was her fangs and all I could remember was the
fluttering kick of my heartbeat as it came close to its last. The veil around
me rippled and swelled. For a moment I could hear the spirits whispering
“welcome” in my ear. She was going to bite me right here in the middle of
all these people, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Her fingers curled around my choker, pulling so that it cut into my
neck, but before her fangs reached my neck, she was torn away, my jacket
ripping as she was flung out past the door, into the courtyard by a sudden
violent force. I dragged in a deep breath, movement returning to my limbs
in time to see the shape that had hit her resolve into Valerian. Blurring fast,
he swiped at Gloria, catching her face as she danced back, his nails scoring
three red lines across her cheek.
Shit. I glanced over my shoulder at the rest of the revelers. A vampire
throwdown in the middle of their swanky party wasn’t exactly going to help
my case. Alexandra might be willing to let me ask my questions now, but
not if I let her party turn into a brawl. I walked quickly after the two of
them, pulling the courtyard doors closed behind me.
“Stand down, Valerian,” I said, remembering last night and the wild
rage he had unleashed on the humans. Neither of them listened to me.
Valerian growled, his eyes flashing dangerously, lit with an inner glow, and
placed himself squarely between me and Gloria. “For fuck’s sake,” I said to
Valerian’s broad muscled back. “Get out of my way.” I was hesitant to
touch him; I didn’t want to risk accidentally unleashing his violence. And
yet this was the third time now that he had stood between me and danger.
What was he playing at?
Gloria’s voice was a whispering tremble. “Valerian? What did I do
wrong?”
“Stay the fuck away from Tiana,” he said, his voice low and menacing.
“We were just talking.”
“I can smell blood,” he snapped. Shit. My arm. I clutched it, holding
the tear in the leather together, hoping that would stem the blood flow, and I
hissed as it pressed on my wounds.
“You’re protecting her,” Gloria said, shock staining her voice.
There was a pause, and then Valerian said in a different tone of voice,
“The queen has ordered it so.”
My chest tightened. That was why he was doing this. Stepping
between me and danger. The queen wanted me alive long enough to clear
their name. It wasn’t anything to do with Valerian and me. Gloria caught
my eyes over Valerian’s shoulder. Her pale hand was pressed to the cut on
her cheekbone and she looked livid, high spots of color in her cheeks. I
certainly hadn’t won any friends here.

“Leave, Gloria,” Valerian said. “Don’t let me see you again or those
scratches will be the least of your troubles.”
“You know the rule,” Gloria said, her anger transferring to Valerian, a
bitter twist to her words. “Queen Alexandra won’t allow any fights. Not
after the murders.” Her eyes slid to mine, widening in realization. “That’s
why you’re here.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“Little Miss Investigator,” she sneered, “just like last time.” I glared at
her warningly but she didn’t bring up my sister again, perhaps because of
Valerian’s looming threat. “These murders had nothing to do with us.”
“One of them worked for you, didn’t she?”
“Yes,” Gloria said hesitantly, her eyes darting to the side. I just waited,
very aware of Valerian’s silent, ominous presence beside me. “Sahin, yes
she was passable I suppose. Hard-working at least.”
“Hard-working? She come here during the day as well as the night?”
“Perhaps. How should I know? Vampires sleep through the day.” She
rolled her eyes.
I glared. “She never mentioned it? Did she have an office here? Room?
She did work for you. What, did you just glide in, bark orders, and then
glide out without ever listening to her?”
Gloria sneered. “She was just a human.”
“Lovely. Great working environment. Work for us, get shit on, then get
brutally murdered.”
“No one murdered her.”
“Someone fucking murdered her. She didn’t trip, fall on a tuning fork,
and bleed out by herself.”
“It wasn’t a vampire, I mean. Not someone from the court at least.”
“So, some random vampire came down from, what, Canada? For a
spot of good time American murdering and then went home again?”
Gloria just sniffed.
I tried to level my breathing, adrenaline still pumping. This wasn’t
helping the investigation. “Hard-working,” I said, returning to what she had
let slip. “Better than you.”
I caught the slight widening around her eyes.
“Feeling threatened, Gloria?”
“By a human? Hardly.”

“The human who knew her job, who knew how to rehabilitate your
image better than you did. A human Alexandra favored?”
“She didn’t favor her,” Gloria said angrily. “I’m a vampire. I’m in
charge. It was my project.” Her voice rose. “No upstart human was going to
replace me.”
Her words echoed in the silence.
She realized what she’d just said. “I didn’t kill her.”
But I wasn’t convinced.
“I’ve had enough of this,” she snapped. Gloria sped away from us, her
body seeming to ripple through the air she moved so fast, across the
courtyard to the edge of the gardens and then disappearing into the night.
Well that wasn’t suspicious at all. I scanned the darkness, still tense.
What she planning to come at me again?
“She won’t come back,” Valerian said. I jumped, his voice was closer
than I expected, and when I turned he was at my shoulder.
“No,” I said, “I suppose she won’t.” There was something to be said
for having a wrathful vampire protecting you. It was kind of like having an
attack dog. I caught a glimpse of Valerian’s fangs peeking out from behind
his lip and was suddenly aware again of the choker around my neck. Yeah,
an attack dog, only you could never be sure the dog wasn’t rabid.
I sighed, my shoulders slumping. It was tempting to pin it on Gloria,
she had clearly resented Sevda’s position at court, but Oliver? What did he
have to do with it? Gloria was a brittle vampire with not much confidence
and a raging jealous streak. I could see how Sevda—good-looking,
competent, valued by the queen—could set her on edge. But Oliver? A
random blood donor? He wasn’t even her type.
“Tiana,” Valerian said, his voice rough, the same light in his eyes as I
had seen in the car on the way here. Yeah, Oliver wasn’t her type at all.
“What?” I asked, tired, angry, and now injured. This night was just
getting better and better.
“You should be more careful. The court is not safe—” His nostrils
flared and his eyes fastened on the rip in my jacket sleeve. Fuck. I’d
forgotten about the wound.
“Valerian,” I said warningly, ice creeping down my limbs. He inhaled
deeply, his lips drawing back from his teeth, long fangs protruding sharp
and wicked. “Get away from me,” I said. My voice had a tremble in it that I

hated to hear. My heartbeat thumped hard against my ribs as I took a step
back.
He swung his head to track me, his eyes unerringly on my sleeve.
“You’re injured,” he said, and I could practically hear his teeth grinding.
“That bitch cut you,”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Just a scratch. I’ll live.”
He took a half step forward and I flinched away from him. He pulled
short, his eyes flaring with as he finally seemed to realize just how terrified
I was. His gaze left my arm and flicked over my body, taking in my tense
stance and landing on my neck, on my choker, before rising to my face. I
knew my eyes were wide, pupils blown. Blood rushed to my head and
heart. Fight or flight; it was instinct and I was a human facing a predator.
Gloria’s aborted attempt to throw me out was nothing on the terror I felt
facing Valerian. Gloria had never hurt me like he had. Was he going to
attack? Was this the short and stupid end to my life? Falling foul of
vampires once again.
“Wait here,” he said. And the air rippled around him as he moved so
fast, he almost seemed to disappear. My heartbeat stuttered. I hadn’t
expected that.
I looked about me. The courtyard doors were open again; I hadn’t even
heard him go through them. A second later there was a wash of displaced
air and I spun back. Valerian was before me once more, but this time he
wasn’t alone. Clutched in his grip was a young woman with tight, curly
brown hair and a somewhat dazed expression on her pale face. He stepped
away from her and she stood unsteadily. “Phew,” she said, “I can never
quite get used to moving that fast.” Her smile was a little wobbly as she
turned to look at me. Who the fuck was this?
“Who the fuck is this?” I asked.
“Eve. She will help you,” Valerian said. “She is a human.” Then there
was another wash of air and he was gone. I spun around. The courtyard
doors were closed again. I turned back to the woman, Eve, now thoroughly
confused, and fixed her with a glare. “You’d better tell me what the fuck is
going on,” I said.

Chapter 12

Eve looked up at me. She was a couple of inches shorter than I was and
maybe a year or two younger, or maybe it was just her fresh-faced, innocent
expression that made me think that.
“Your arm? He said you were injured? I’ve got a first-aid kit back in
my room.”
“Your room?” I asked, confused, but as I said it, I suddenly
understood.
“Yes,” she said, “I live here.”
“Of course,” I said, sighing, “you live here. You’re a blood donor. You
can’t expect vampires to leave the building to get a meal after all.”
She frowned at me.
“Nothing, ignore me,” I said, finally, the pain from Gloria’s attack
finally breaking through the adrenaline and terror of my face off with
Valerian. “Lead on.”
Eve took me round the back stairs, away from the room where the
party was going on, up to a familiar narrow corridor lined with doors.
Bedrooms. I wondered how many were filled right now. “Here,” she said,
pushing open the door, and I was struck with an overwhelming sense of
déjà vu. Had I been in this room before? Was it this exact room? Or did
they all look the same? “You can come in,” Eve said hesitantly. She
laughed. “It’s owned by vampires anyway, so the invitation thing doesn’t
even—”
“I’m not a vampire,” I said, cutting her off and striding in, shaking off
the memories clustering in the corners of my mind.
The room was small. A tiny window secure with blackout blinds set in
the corner. A little bed, desk, and door on the other side that led into a
shared bathroom. She emerged with the first-aid kit and gestured for me to
sit on the bed. The bed was a single but the mattress was plush as I sank
into it. I looked around again. While the room was spare, it wasn’t spartan.

Eve had introduced a few luxuries: flowers on the desk, a rug in the center
of the room.
“So,” she said, “are you here for the party?” A small frown appeared
on her face as she took in my leather jacket, clearly too polite to tell me I
wasn’t dressed for it.
“Not exactly,” I said, shrugging out of it and carefully pulling my arm
free. Blood had soaked into my shirt, more than I expected. Gloria’s fingers
had gone deep. I ended up taking my shirt off completely so she could more
easily clean the wounds.
“You do this kind of thing often?” I asked.
“Oh, no,” she said, glancing up at me quickly from under her
eyelashes. “Not often. They treat us pretty well; it’s just sometimes,” she
laughed nervously, “the bite, you know. It can get a little out of hand.” I
flinched under her hands. “Oh, I’m sorry did that hurt?”
“No,” I said shortly.
She didn’t need to know it wasn’t her touch that had made me flinch
but old memories better put to rest.
“They’re usually really careful, have an EMT on hand at parties and
everything.” You break it, you bought it, I thought.
“How long have you worked here?” I asked.
“Oh, about six months now,” Eve said. “It’s just fantastic. I mean
vampires are so glamorous and—”
“Spare me,” I said wryly.
Her eyes narrowed, and I realised there was a mind in there, behind the
airhead persona, interesting.
“If you’re not a fan of vampires,” she said, “then why are you here?”
I leaned back a little, casting my eyes over her again. I’d made the
same mistake vampires did. Assuming the humans around them were dumb,
easily controlled. I didn’t know anything about this girl. I decided not to
play my hand too soon.
“I’m not, not a fan of vampires,” I said. “I just haven’t spent much
time with them,” I lied shamelessly. “What’s it like working here? Are the
other humans friends of yours?”
“Well,” she tilted her head to the side, “some, yeah, but we all have our
own duties, you know? I mean, we are on hand if they need blood, but
mostly we’re here because we can serve the court in some way.”
“So, bed and board. I suppose that’s part of the deal?”

“Yup,” she said. “They give us reduced rent and it’s a pretty great
place to live. I mean, Mercer Island. I would never be able to afford this if it
wasn’t for the vampires.”
“Sure,” I said, “and the blood tax, that’s just part of the deal?”
“Not if you don’t want it to be,” she said with a frown, leaning back.
My arm was neatly bandaged, she’d done a good job. “But who wouldn’t?”
she continued. “I mean the bite, it’s so…” Her eyes fluttered shut in
remembered pleasure. “It’s indescribable, really. It just feels so great.” She
ended with a breathy little laugh.
“Yeah,” I said, looking down, unable to hide the bitterness in my
voice. “So great.” I looked up and she was frowning again. Whoops, tone it
down, Tiana. “So, when they need you, they just click their fingers and you
come, is that it? Any of them?”
“Well, yes,” she said. “I mean, I’m not looking for forever if that’s
what you mean. I know some people are. Some of the humans are taken,
you know, in a relationship with a single vampire so they don’t give blood
to anyone else.” She looked at me consideringly. “Is that what you have
with your vampire?”
“My vampire?” I said, my turn to be confused.
“Yes,” she said, “the enforcer. He doesn’t come to court much.” She
leaned forward and dropped her voice, her eyes shining. “Valerian.”
I stood abruptly. “No,” I said shortly, “he is not my vampire. That’s not
—that’s not what this is.”
“Oh,” she said, abashed. “I’m sorry, I just thought—”
“The forever thing is bullshit anyway,” I said, talking over her. “The
mystical bond when a vampire gets their teeth in your neck. It’s just
chemicals and mind games.”
Her frown was deeper. “I don’t know; I heard about this guy who can
talk telepathically with his—”
“Spare me the fucking mystical crap.” I might be a witch, but I had to
draw the line somewhere. “Thanks for the bandage.” I went to the door,
stopping before pulling it open. The case. I had to finish questioning her,
even if being here was stirring up uncomfortable memories. I turned. “You
ever heard of someone called Oliver working here?”
“Oliver?” she said, straightening the edge of her bedcover. Her hands
curled protectively over the blanket. Good job, Tiana. She looked at me and

I could see an edge of hurt in her eyes. It was like kicking a puppy. I felt
like shit.
“Yes,” I said, “Oliver.” Trying to focus on the case. “He worked here
for a little while.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so,”
“About yay height, red hair, freckles.”
“No,” she shook her head, “sorry. Maybe he worked here before me.”
Could Oliver have left the court six months ago? No, it would have
been in the file. They should have crossed over. Maybe the court employed
enough blood donors that they could work shifts.
“But you must know Sevda,” I said casually.
“Oh yes,” she said, lulled by my tone, then her eyes widened as if
she’d just admitted something she hadn’t meant to. She knew something.
“It’s very sad,” she said, looking down.
“Hmm, very sad,” I said leaning back against the door. “So, she was a
donor too?” I fished.
“No. I don’t think so; she didn’t really come to the parties.”
“Then how did you know her?” I coaxed.
“Oh, well, she showed me around on the day I got here. I’m not sure
why. I think maybe she worked for the court? She was the one who gave me
the tour and settled me in. Then she didn’t turn up for a few days, and then
about a month later I saw her face on the news.”
“You didn’t find that weird? Unsettling?”
“The queen told us there was nothing to concern ourselves with. An
outside vampire must have killed her to discredit the court. She said we
could use the court’s chauffeured cars if we were worried about going out at
night but”—she shrugged—“I spend my nights here and daytime isn’t any
trouble.”
“How kind of Alexandra,” I said wryly.
“Oh yeah, she’s so great.” Her voice warmed. “She’s always so
graceful, so in control, and in charge of all these vampires. Talk about
female empowerment.” Eve’s eyes glowed.
I was pretty sure Alexandra, queen of an actual race of predators, was
not what people were talking about when they said female empowerment,
but whatever. Eve was clearly drinking so much of the Kool-Aid it was
practically running through her veins. “What did you talk about when

Sevda showed you around?” I asked, pulling the conversation back to
Sevda.
Eve shrugged. “Just what it would be like here and what it was like
serving the vampires. A bit about what my duties would be.”
“That it? All work? What about relationships? People she knew?”
“No,” she said, “sorry.”
“That’s okay,” I told her. “You’ve been very helpful.” She hadn’t
really, but it didn’t hurt to keep her sweet. “Here, if you remember
anything.” I pulled a card out of my pocket and passed it over to her.
Her eyes widened when she read it. “Oh shit,” she said. “I don’t want
to get anyone in trouble.”
I shook my head. “I’m not the cops, and anyway it was your precious
vampires who hired me,” I said, finally pulling the door open and stepping
outside.
I glanced around the empty hall. Well, looked like this night might not
be entirely a bust. I couldn’t hear the party from here. We were in an
entirely different part of the building. Aware of Eve in her room behind me,
I pulled the door closed and walked quickly down the hall, ducking around
the corner.
Time to do a bit of exploring. I closed my eyes and relaxed into my
magic, finally letting the veil that had been rippling and twisting in the
presence of the vampires pull free and opened myself to magic.

Chapter 13

I slipped into the half world, my magic expanding out from me. The half
world wasn’t exactly a different place. I didn’t move, I was still standing in
the hallway, but it was like I was looking through a sheet of smoky glass.
The solid items that mattered in the real world—the floor, the walls the
doors—all of those went blurred and insubstantial. The only things I saw
clearly in the half world were the living and the dead.
I opened my mental eyes to a world of shadows and whispers.
Everything was insubstantial and echoey. I could see the loose threads that
connected the dead to the living trailing through us, ghostlike. I sent myself
out of my body and into the world around me.
Hot and bright, I could sense Eve’s presence receding slowly as she
left her room to return to the party. The living I could only sense when they
were close, but it was different with the dead, my range had been growing. I
was surprised to find I could sense the partygoers downstairs. At least, the
dead ones. The vampires were like pinpricks of cold, eternal light, and as I
watched them, I swear some of them turned to watch me just as they had
when I had first entered the court.
I turned away hurriedly; that wasn’t what I was looking for. Instead, I
sank my senses into the rooms around me. If Oliver or Sevda had lived here
then they would have left a mark on the half world. A lingering echo of
their presence. The dead didn’t just haunt the places they died but also the
places where they had lived. I reached deep and, in my heart, I knew I
wasn’t just reaching for Oliver and Sevda; I was reaching for my sister as
well.
But there was nothing there. Just like four years ago, when I had stood
in a room much like Eve’s and desperately searched for an echo of her
presence, Violet was gone. The threads that had connected her to the world
were faint now after five years and at the ends, where her spirit should be

waiting to talk to me, was nothing but frayed threads. Someone had cut her
out of the world and I still didn’t know who, or why.
I forced myself to stop looking and turned my attention to Sevda and
Oliver, fixing their images in my mind’s eye. Nothing. I frowned. Wait.
Nothing? Not even the faint threads that I could sense from Violet’s life
here?
Everything that lived left its mark on the half world. A trace, an echo,
something. The frayed edges of my sister’s presence had always bothered
me, but I’d assumed it was something to do with being killed by vampires,
the dead creating the dead. A kind of infinity loop of magic that had tangled
and torn her threads and robbed me of her spirit.
But this was different. Oliver and Sevda’s threads weren’t there at all.
Where there should be some mark of their history here, something to show
they had once lived, there was nothing. It was as if the entire place had been
wiped clean. Like every single thread that had connected them to the world
had been called upon, wound up, and taken away.
Was it because I didn’t know them? I had never had trouble sensing a
spirit from a photograph before, even sometimes just from a name. Could I
be looking in the wrong place? I pushed myself harder, straining for some
echo, some hint of their presence. It should be here. If they had lived with
the vampires there should be some mark left in the half world. Something I
could use to prove what happened to them. Something I could use to give
them justice. But it was useless. There was nothing. No matter how hard I
strained. No matter how desperately my mental fingers swept through the
air, they caught on nothing at all.
I finally came back to the real world, my eyes feeling grainy and my
eyelids heavy. Fuck, I had overreached. I took a step, then, feeling shaky,
half sat, half collapsed, sliding down the wall to the floor. I rubbed my hand
against my forehead. Not enough sleep, not enough food. Stupid.
I took a moment to catch my breath, then shoved myself to my feet. I
still felt shaky and on edge. The lack of Sevda’s and Oliver’s presence had
unsettled me. And I didn’t like feeling weak while in enemy territory. I
needed to get out of here.
I went down the stairs quickly, one hand tight on the handrail. I didn’t
want to run into any of the vampires on my way out. I just wanted to get out
of here and get back home, inject coffee into my veins, maybe eat
something, or just sleep for a week.

No luck.
“Tiana.” Alexandra’s deceptively gentle voice greeted me at the foot of
the stairs.

Chapter 14

I turned the corner and there she was, coming up the hallway toward me.
“Lexi.” I pulled a twisted smile on my face. “I was just heading out.”
She didn’t bat an eyelash at the nickname, merely smiled, but it was an
empty one, that didn’t meet her eyes. She looked down at me from her
unfair height. How dare she glide in heels that high? If I wore anything
taller than two inches I wobbled around like a penguin.
“Where is Valerian?” she asked, looking over my shoulder as if he
would appear there just by the force of her gaze.
“I staked him and left him for dead,” I said. “I’m sorry. Did you want
him back in one piece?”
Her smile widened. “Always so quick, Tiana.”
“You don’t know me,” I said.
“Hmm,” she hummed, noncommittal, coming closer to the stairs. “If
Valerian has been anything other than polite, do let me know. I can find
another escort for you.”
“Now you tell me,” I said. What the fuck was her game? Of all the
people to send, Valerian was both the worst and the best. She knew that.
She knew I couldn’t ignore what had come before. The good and the
terrible. “Four years you all act like I don’t exist, now I’m suddenly guest of
honor?”
“For your healing,” Alexandra said. “I thought it better you have no
reminders of—”
“Yeah right,” I said, talking over her. “Like you gave a shit about my
healing. And even if you did, you think being here, surrounded by vampires
in this fucking building isn’t reminder enough? I guess when people started
dropping like flies you changed your mind, huh?”
“You were so obliging as to become a private investigator and the
number one in Seattle for solving magical crimes.” I rolled my eyes. That
was an overstatement. “I knew you were the one we needed.”

“You knew I’d take the bait, you mean.”
“I hope you have found enough evidence to prove these murders had
nothing to do with us.”
I scoffed. “Are you kidding? Oh Lexi, it’s early days yet. I’m sure I’ll
be able to prove you bloodsucking leeches are to blame eventually.”
She only smiled wider. “So much anger,” she said.
“Can you blame me?” I spat.
“Of course not,” she said, her expression transforming into a perfect
mockery of sympathy. “After what happened to dear Violet—”
I raised my hand. “Number one, never, never say her name in my
presence again. Number two, don’t even think it, because I can hear you
thinking.” I turned on my heel, done with this conversation.
“She was special, you know,” Alexandra said from behind me. “We all
had such high hopes.”
“High hopes?” I said, rounding on her. “Are you kidding? You left her
to die. That’s where your hopes got her.”
“Yes,” she said, “it was unfortunate.”
Unfortunate? I couldn’t fucking take this. “My sister was brutally
murdered and left to die alone in the cold and you call that unfortunate?”
“And yet, she didn’t have half the fire you have.”
“Yeah, well. If it had been me murdered, I’m pretty sure she would
have been here to kick your doors down too.” Was that true, I wondered. If I
had tangled myself up with vampires first, would Violet have found herself
in the same trap I did? Would she have repeated my mistakes just like I
repeated hers? I supposed it didn’t matter. We would never find out.
Alexandra had come a step closer while I was thinking and I was
suddenly on edge. My personal space limit for vampires was about three
meters, or maybe an entire state line, one of the two.
“I’ve gotten up close and personal with enough vampires today,” I said
warningly.
Alexandra’s mouth tightened into a line. “Gloria will be reprimanded,”
she said. “I have a no-tolerance policy for harm against humans.”
She looked at me, and for once her eyes were honestly serious, the
temperature in the hallway dropping. “You can believe that, Tiana. If I find
out any of my vampires were responsible for the deaths of these humans,
they will die for it. I will not have a repeat of what happened to your sister.”

“Yeah,” I said, the words dragged out of me. “You wouldn’t want to
ruin your perfect public image, right? I get it, Alexandra. Murder is bad for
business. That doesn’t change anything. You vampires are killers and you
can pretty it up all you like with your fancy dresses, your jewels, and your
parties but it doesn’t change the truth and it won’t stop me from bringing
you down.”
I turned and left her standing there in the hallway, glittering and cold
like blood on snow.
Valerian was nowhere to be seen, which meant I was missing my ride
out of here, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to see him anyway. I decided to
head for the street and call an Uber once I’d put some distance between me
and the vampires. I almost made it out, but Kyran accosted me before I’d
cleared the doors.
“Great, just what this night needed. A second run-in with the asshole
in a fancy suit.”
Kyran smoothed his hand down his lapels. “You finished stirring up
trouble?”
“Never,” I snapped back.
“Haven’t you gotten sick of doing this? It didn’t get you any answers
the first time round.”
I clenched my hands into fists. I had had enough of these people
bringing up my sister. The half world trembled around me as if it was
responding to my rage.
“Or maybe you were too busy fucking Valerian to even care about
what happened to Violet—”
I didn’t even think about moving. One second, I was standing across
from him, the next my knife was pressed against his heart, the wicked sharp
tip digging into his shirt. “Stop talking,” I said, my voice so low and steady
it didn’t even sound like my own. His eyes had widened in shock. I didn’t
know how I could have caught a vampire by surprise or how I had moved
so fast. All around me the veil was shivering.
“Your little witch magics won’t be enough,” he said, recovering, and
lightning-fast his hand whipped out and smacked into my wrist, knocking
my arm aside and spinning me away from him. “You should have stayed
away,” he said. “You don’t want to be here. This court may be shining on
the outside but there’s a darkness here that will eat you up.” His fangs
flashed and he leaped at me.

I don’t know if he really would have followed through on the threat. It
would be stupid to break Alexandra’s rules when he was already on her shit
list. But then Kyran had always been stupid. Either way, he didn’t have a
chance to touch me. Valerian was suddenly between us and Kyran ran
straight into his fist.
He reeled back, roaring in anger, his eyes flared with rage as he
focused on Valerian and went right for the throat. I scrambled out of the
way. I had thought Valerian was scary when he put down those humans in
the street but the sheer violence unleashed in the clash of two alpha
vampires was terrifying to see.
Valerian was alight with it, the violence seeming to wake something in
him, something deep and dangerous and full of glittering hunger. He struck
out at Kyran, his fist cracking against Kyran’s face. It terrified me, thrilled
me. It was like staring into the heart of a tornado even as it ripped
everything around you to pieces. The blows literally shook the room, the
glittering chandelier above us clinking, sending fractured light up the walls.
At this rate we wouldn’t be alone in the entranceway much longer.
Kyran snarled, blood dripping down his lips. “Such a devoted
protector,” he spat at Valerian. “I know why you’re doing this. Careful now,
Alexandra might decide you’ve climbed too high. She’ll find another way
to bind you.”
“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand, Kyran,” Valerian spat,
and swiped at Kyran when he made the mistake of coming too close.
A new way to bind him? What was Kyran talking about? How had
Alexandra bound Valerian? He was too smart, too selfish, to let Alexandra
get any power over him, wasn’t he?
Kyran snarled, unable to get close enough to attack Valerian. His eyes
slid to me and Valerian’s warning growl echoed through the room. The
tension in the room sharpened, It was as if the attacks from a moment ago
had been posturing and only now were they unleashing the real threat. They
both stopped moving, sinking into the terrifying stillness of the dead.
My sense of the half world suddenly expanded, as if the fact of them
tapping into their vampire abilities somehow resonated with me. Valerian’s
power flared around him like an aura of fire, open to me, vast and familiar,
calling to my own magic with sweet, wordless desire. Beyond him I could
sense Kyran. Not just the usual pinprick awareness of the dead, but his aura

of power bloomed too, through Valerian, like Valerian was the channel
connecting me to vampire magic.
Unthinking, just wanting this fight to be over, I reached out and sank
my hands into the power. They both jerked upright, then turned to me,
shock knocking them out of their rage. I froze in confusion. I had never felt
anything like this before, but I could sense them clearly, sense their own
power running through the half world so familiar to my own. Cold and
bright. Death magic.
But the stretch of my powers was too much for me after the searching I
had already done and I swayed, turning it into a step backward at the last
moment. My eyesight went hazy for a moment. I thought I saw concern on
Valerian’s face before it blanked smooth. I let go of the magic hastily and
swayed again, locking my knees so I wouldn’t hit the ground.
Valerian turned back to Kyran but I could see the fight was over, both
of them unsettled. Kyran turned away and strode back into the court and I
released the breath I’d been holding. “We should go,” Valerian said and
didn’t even give me time to respond, gripping me by the elbow and tugging
me out of the court.
“Get off me,” I said, pulling roughly free the moment we were clear.
“What the hell was that?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Bullshit. Some vampire trick?”
“Tiana.” He reached for me and pulled me round to face him. “I swear
to you I don’t know what that was. I can’t explain it. But it’s not the first
time I’ve sensed your presence in the half world. Your magic is changing.
Between us, something is changing.”
He was right. There was something going on with my magic, not just
in the half world but here now, in his grip around my arm. That spark I
could still feel shivering under my skin and at every point of pressure under
his fingertips. The feeling was suddenly too much, too strong, and I pulled
free of him. “You need to stop touching me,” I said.
“You need to stop putting yourself in danger,” he said. “I cannot
protect you—”
“Protect me? Right, because you weren’t enjoying the hell out of that
fight.”
“Tiana, please—”

“No,” I said. “You didn’t fight Kyran for me. You’re not protecting
me. You did it because you get off on it. I saw it in your eyes; don’t lie. It’s
the same thing I saw with those thieves last night. It’s nothing to do with
me.” I forgot myself in my anger and stood toe to toe with him. “And that’s
fine. I didn’t take this case for you either. I did it for the dead. They deserve
justice and I’m going to prove that it was vampires that killed them and
then I’m going to leave, you understand?”
We were standing close. Close enough I could see the gray outline
around each blue iris. Close enough the deep black of his pupils pulled me
in, the red of his lips looked soft and inviting, and his sharp fangs ever so
wicked. I hated him, hated him with a passion that I couldn’t express, and
yet his presence was like a drug. I drank in the sight of him like I’d been
dying of thirst and he was the first drink of water I’d had in years. I felt it
again. The power rising between us, uncontrollable, unstoppable, fueled by
something I couldn’t name. Something I couldn’t even begin to understand.

Chapter 15

“Do you feel this,” he whispered, the words falling into the disappearing
space between us.
I couldn’t lie. I nodded my head. I felt it, like the beginning of a storm.
Raising the hairs on my arms and charging the air. His eyes darkened as he
looked down at me and I recognized the desire within them. He looked at
me like that once before. Back when everything had seemed so perfect, so
right. I’d never seen the end coming. The sensible voice in the back of my
mind was shouting at me to step back, to run away. To run away from
Valerian and the vampires and never look back. But my body was warming
to his presence and waking up under the dark look in his eyes. I wanted… I
wanted…
“I never expected this,” he said roughly, his voice so low he was
almost talking to himself. “I never meant for this to happen.”
Did he know? Did he know what it was that was causing this? But
before I could ask, he reached for me, his broad palm landing on my
shoulder. I shuddered under his touch, a complicated snarl of emotions
rolling out through my limbs. Want, fear, hate, desire. All of them thick and
heavy and violent enough to roll my eyes up in my head and run through
me like a lightning bolt.
My skin under his hand was taut, and my awareness of him bloomed
into life as if I was already in the half world. I dragged my eyes open again
and I saw him edged with light. I swear I could see electricity crackling in
the air as he ran his fingertips across my shoulder. His touch, so delicate, so
light, yet I could feel it all the way through me. Wonder dawned in his eyes.
Could he feel it too?
His fingertips brushed the edge of my throat, my choker. My heart
clenched, the voice in my mind was screaming. “Don’t,” I said, my voice
little more than a whisper.

“Tiana,” he said, and his voice sounded hazy, drugged, as if the power
arising between us was working on him too. He drew me in close, his hand
slipping round to the back of my neck, fingers sinking into my hair. My
gaze fastened on his mouth. I licked my lips even as terror ran, icy, down
my veins. Desire tangled with fear. Memories of his kiss tangled with
memories of his bite. My heartbeat fluttered, kicking too fast against my
ribs, but I couldn’t step back. I couldn’t break the connection.
“Give in to it,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, the words
escaping between red lips. “Give in to the feeling.” I wanted to. Oh fuck,
how I wanted to.
His eyes caught mine, darkness expanding out from the pupil, eating
the blue and sucking me down deep. Delicious languor flooded through my
veins and into my limbs, wiping clear the terror, the pain, and the memories
until all that existed was right now, this moment and my body a livewire,
full of need. Desperate for more of his touch.
I arched up toward him, wanting him so badly my desire seemed to
swell right up and out of my body into the air around us. His lips were a
hair’s breadth away when a shrill ringing broke through the air.
Like a drill into my brain, it shattered the connection between us and
shoved me out of the dreamy haze of lust. I gasped a deep breath, stumbling
away and knocking his hand from my neck. I felt like I had been doused in
cold water, gasping and floundering for air.
The noise, the ringing. I realized it was coming from my back pocket.
It was my cell phone. I took another step and turned away from Valerian,
shaky from what I had almost let my desire lead me into. I pulled out the
phone with trembling hands. It took me a couple of tries to hit the answer
button. “Yeah?” I said. My voice was hoarse, as if I’d been screaming.
“Tiana.” A curt voice came down the line. “What’s all this about a
break-in?”
It took me a moment for my brain to switch gears. A break-in? I pulled
the phone away from my head and glanced at the caller ID. Detective
Pierce’s scowling face looked back up at me from the photo I’d snapped for
my address book.
“Break-in,” I said, “right.” I drew in a shuddering breath and tried to
focus. Tried to ignore the overwhelming presence of Valerian behind me.
“You okay?” she asked. “You sound a bit—”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine,” I said. My hand crept up to my neck, trailing
over my choker. “Rough night,” I said.
“You were supposed to come in and give a statement.”
“Shit, yeah. I forgot.”
“You forgot? Tiana these three guys are lucky they’re not smears on
the ground. I heard there was a vampire on-site? What the fuck?”
Shit. “Yes.” I drew out the word. “I wanted to speak to you about that.
It’s… it’s connected to the two murder victims, the drained ones.”
“Fuck.” She sighed. “I didn’t want you involved in that.”
I knew why. Detective Pierce knew most of my whole sordid history
with the vampires.
“I’m in it now,” I said dully.
There was a short silence then. “Meet me at the morgue,” Detective
Pierce said shortly. “I’ve got to go; see you soon.” And she hung up. Never
one to waste words.
Steeling myself, I turned back to Valerian. He looked nothing like the
magnetic, desire hazed temptation of a moment ago. Instead he was as calm
and unruffled as if the last few moments hadn’t happened. How the fuck did
he do that? I was still a shaking mess, still chewed up tight on the inside. I
firmed my spine and forced my shoulders down from around my ears,
glaring at him. “I don’t know what you’re playing at,” I said, and I hated
that there was a shake in my voice, almost imperceptible unless you had a
vampire’s hearing. Then again, he could probably hear my heart battering
away at my chest.
I swallowed roughly and tried again, more firmly. “Whatever that
was.” I gestured to the air between us. “It doesn’t change anything,” I said
firmly. Everything looked normal now, just the usual darkness of the Seattle
night, but it had been there. I was sure. The edging of golden light, the
electricity. I hadn’t imagined it.
“Whatever you say,” he said silkily, his expression cold and remote.
I didn’t trust him at all.

Chapter 16

We drove back over Lacey Bridge in a silence just as charged as the way
here, but much more uncomfortable. My mind kept replaying that moment
over and over. His eyes, his lips, the sensation of his hand on the back of
my neck. Shivers ran up and down my spine and it took all my strength to
tear my mind away and focus on what I was going to say to Detective
Pierce.
The morgue was in the basement of the medical examiner’s building,
and I left Valerian to negotiate parking, not wanting to spend any more time
with him than I had to. The night was getting on, and part of me was hoping
Detective Pierce would keep me inside long enough that Valerian would
have to go to ground before the sun came out. The medical examiner’s
office wasn’t that far from central district. I could get back home without
him.
Detective Pierce met me at the doors. She was a black woman of
medium height, curvy and deceptively soft, when she smiled you might
mistake her for an easy mark, suspects often did. But there was a sharp
mind behind her dark eyes, and muscle under the fat. She’d had my back
every step of our fight with the werewolves, and I wouldn’t have wanted
anyone else. Her hair was trimmed close to her head, short curls with a
much heavier dusting of gray than four years ago.
“Nice car,” she said, looking over my shoulder.
“It’s not mine,” I replied, brushing past her.
She took the hint and turned the subject. “You look like shit, Tiana,”
she said.
I glanced at her, sidelong. “You’re not looking so sparkly yourself,
Detective.”
“What the hell happened last night? You didn’t put those guys in that
condition by yourself.”
“The officers didn’t say?” I asked.

“I wanted to hear it from you,” she said.
“It was a vampire,” I said, and she reached out to pull me to a stop.
“Tiana,” her voice was tired. “What the fuck are you doing with
vampires?”
“It’s fine,” I said, shrugging her off. “Show me the bodies.”
“Oh no,” she said. “You don’t get to do that, not with me.”
“Do you want this case solved or don’t you?” I snapped, rounding on
her. I was at the end of my tether and taking it out on her.
She glared right back at me. “Don’t be a bitch, Tiana,” she said. “I’m
just looking out for you.”
“Maybe I don’t need you looking out for me, all right? Maybe I’m
doing just fine as I am.”
She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Take a moment,” she said, her voice
hard. “And step the fuck down. I don’t have to let you in here, you realize
that?” Her hands were on her hips. “What the hell has you so chewed up?”
The answer was still parking the car outside, not that I could tell her
that.
“Look, can we just focus on the case,” I said, the fight going out of me.
She wasn’t happy, I could see that, but she was a cop and she knew
how to prioritize. She wanted this case solved as much as I did.
“Fine,” she said, “but afterwards you’re giving me an explanation.”
I nodded, hoping I could find a way to escape without telling her
anything. We kept walking.
“I didn’t expect to see you on this case,” she said after a moment.
“I didn’t expect to be on it,” I said.
“So why are you?” she asked.
I couldn’t tell her about the vampires; she’d only blow up again, and
with good reason. She knew too much of my history to let that slide. I
racked my brains for an answer. “Eve,” I said suddenly.
“Eve?”
“Yeah,” I said. I tried to remember if the girl had given me a last name.
I didn’t think so. “She works for the court, she knew Sevda, and she asked
me to look into the case.”
Detective Pierce opened the doors to the morgue. Cold air rushed out
to meet us.
“Well then, let’s see what you can find out,” she said.

Chapter 17

Sevda’s body looked small in death, her skin a pallid grayish color, her
eyes cloudy. Her dark blonde hair lay lank around her shoulders. I could see
her natural brown that had started coming through at the roots.
I imagined her face with a fresh coat of makeup, a new dye job. I
glanced at her nails, noting the chipped polish. She would have been
stunning, just the kind of polished go-getter Alexandra would have wanted
fronting the vampire marketing machine. Just the kind of person Gloria
would feel threatened by.
I could see her sipping lattes, clacking down the sidewalk in high
heels, rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous. That was over now.
She’d never see any of them again. Not until they all joined her in the
ground.
Detective Pierce reached out with gloved hands and turned Sevda’s
head to the side, exposing her neck and the two distinct, jagged bite marks
beneath her jaw. For a second I was paralyzed, but I forced myself through
the dread that coated my limbs and stepped up beside her.
“You sure you’re up for this,” she said, noting my hesitation.
“Just fucking get on with it,” I said gruffly.
She quirked a smile. “Ah, that winning personality. This is why no one
else in the precinct wants to work with you.”
I was pretty sure it was because of the necromancy actually, but hey,
whatever works. “The bite marks,” I said. “Any matches?”
She shook her head. “Neither of them match the molds we took from
the Seattle vampires.”
“All the vampires?”
“Yes.”
“The queen too?”
“Yes,” she said.

Huh, Alexandra must really want to sell this whole innocence schtick
if she had sat through someone making a mold of her mouth.
“Can I continue?” Detective Pierce asked.
“Yeah, sorry.”
“So, the bite marks. Deeper and messier than you might see from a
casual feeding.”
The skin around the holes in her neck was paler and slightly cracked,
dried out.
“How much did they take?” I asked Detective Pierce.
“She had maybe three pints left in her when her heart stopped.”
A common misconception was that vampires could drink an entire
body’s worth of blood in one sitting. You ever seen those videos on
YouTube where people try to drink a gallon of milk in one go and then end
up vomiting all over themselves? Well that was about how much blood was
in a human body, and vampires were far too image-conscious to want to
risk vomiting up all the blood they just drank all over their fancy clothes.
Most vampires took little sips regularly to keep their fresh blood topped up.
That also minimized the risk of losing themselves in the bite. It didn’t just
feel good for humans after all.
My skin crawled.
“So, you think someone got a little too blood happy and didn’t know
how to stop?”
Detective Pierce hummed, noncommittal. “We can’t say exactly how
much was sucked out of her and how much was pumped out by her failing
heart.”
“What about the crime scene?”
Detective Pierce shook her head. “She was killed somewhere else and
left in an alleyway well after she was dead.”
“So, someone kept the dead body around long enough to dump it?”
This was sounding less and less like an impulsive, accidental kill. It
was sounding planned, premeditated.
“Come on,” she said. “Do your thing.” She stepped back and I took her
place by Sevda’s body.
The police didn’t like to refer to the victims by name, easier for them
to keep it impersonal. I was different. I wanted anything that would give me
a personal connection to the dead. Anything I could use to call them out of
the half world to speak to me. I raised my hand, hovering above Sevda’s

head for a moment, then I dropped it, my skin connecting with her cold
forehead. I closed my eyes and sank into the half world again.
The presence of the dead around me suddenly bloomed into life,
flickering shadows everywhere. I hated doing this in the morgue. It was
always so noisy. The clamor of voices rushed my ears and I felt the
sensation of ghostly hands plucking at my clothes. They were stronger than
usual, or perhaps it was just my exhaustion talking, but it took all my focus
to block them out. Each and every one of them miserable and confused.
Morgues were worse than graveyards; at least in graveyards most of
the spirits there had died peacefully from old age. Morgues were more
likely to contain the violently murdered, and they were the hardest to
ignore. But using my physical connection, my hand on Sevda’s forehead, I
was able to hone in on her body and I reached my senses into it. Nothing. It
was cold. Empty. I could have been touching the table for all the resonance
I got. I snapped my eyes open.
“That was quick,” Detective Pierce said. “What did you get?”
“Nothing,” I said, in shock.
“Nothing?”
I turned to look at her. “It’s like she’s been wiped clean.” It was just
like the empty nothing I got from the humans’ rooms on Mercer Island.
I forced my eyes closed once more and reached again into Sevda’s
body. It was like someone had wiped every trace of her essence away and
left just an empty shell. I have never experienced anything like this before.
Maybe it was something to do with Sevda herself. “Is she magical?”
“Why do you ask?” Detective Pierce said.
“I should be getting something off her. Some kind of presence.” There
was nothing left on her body except for the tag on her toe. No amulets, no
charm. “She have any tattoos or strange scars?” Detective Pierce walked
over to the computer in the corner and pulled up Sevda’s records. I sent my
senses into her body over and over again as Detective Pierce clicked
through, but every time I came up empty.
“No,” Detective Pierce said, coming up to join me. “Nothing. Just
holes in her earlobes for earrings.”
“Show me the other one,” I told Detective Pierce.
We rolled Sevda back into her drawer and pulled Oliver out.
Something about him was more pathetic than Sevda. Perhaps because he
was younger, perhaps because his innocence still seemed visible on his

grayish face. I wasted no time reaching for his forehead and opening myself
to the half world once more. Again, I pushed away the clamor. Again, it
was a little harder, exhaustion making sweat break out on my skin. I grit my
teeth and reached into Oliver.
Nothing.
I snapped my eyes open. “Fuck,” I swore under my breath, pulling
away from the body. “I don’t get it,” I said. “There’s nothing there.”
“You run out of juice or something?” Detective Pierce asked.
I rounded on her, feeling shaky. “It’s not me,” I snapped.
She held up her hands. “Okay. I believe you, but maybe you need to
take a break. You don’t look so great.” She eyed me with concern.
“It’s not—” I broke off. Was that it? Could it just be that I was tired
out? But then, how come I could still feel the presence of the rest of the
dead around me? I shook my head. “That’s not it. I said it’s not me.” I
pointed to one of the drawers. “Hit and run,” I said. I pointed to another.
“Heart attack.” I pointed to the other side of the room. “Stab victim.” I
could sense each of those ghosts perking up and paying attention as I
pointed them out. I turned back to Detective Pierce, closing my mind to the
half world. “I’m getting impressions from everything else, but not from
them. Not from these two, and I don’t know why.”
Detective Pierce frowned. “I can try and get a clairvoyant in here.
There is that man who practices down in San Diego.”
“You can bring whoever you like, bring the whole circus in if you
want, but they won’t tell you any different,” I said.
“I believe you, Tiana,” Detective Pierce said, coming up next to me.
She looked down at Oliver. “I just wish…” She sighed. “Well, I guess it’s
back to old-fashioned police work.” She pushed the drawer closed. “You
still need to give me a statement.”
I nodded. “Yeah, okay.” I was exhausted, and another few hours sitting
in the police station filling out reports was the last thing I wanted.
Detective Pierce looked at me measuringly. “You can come in
tomorrow,” she said.
I had been staring at Oliver’s drawer and I turned to look at her.
“I told you, Tiana. You look like shit, and I may be a hard-ass but I’m
not a total bitch. Come on, let’s get out of here. I don’t know about you,
death witch, but this place gives me the creeps.”

I let her escort me out of the morgue and back up the stairs. “I know
it’s not my place,” she said, after a moment, “and I know you don’t want to
hear it, but I’m not sure you should be taking this case after what happened
with your sister, after what happened to you.” I tensed, my shoulder blades
contracting.
“That’s why I’m taking it,” I said finally. “It’s because of what
happened to Violet. I owe her.”
“Tiana, I can see you’re already spiraling.”
“I’m not,” I said. Not thinking about the lack of sleep, the missed
meals.
“Don’t lie to me,” Detective Pierce said. “I saw you after. You were a
mess. If Dr. Allister hadn’t taken you in—”
“But he did,” I said, “and I’m back on my feet. It’s been four years
since then. I’m doing better.”
Detective Pierce reached out to stop me. “I know you’re lying to me
about this case. You’re trying to tell me some random little vampire groupie
came and asked you to investigate the murders that could destroy the
vampires here in Seattle? I know who put you on this case, and I don’t like
that you’re anywhere near them.”
“It’s not like that. I know what I’m doing. I won’t get in too deep,” I
said, striding past her and walking out of the morgue, straight into Valerian.

Chapter 18

The parking lot was almost empty. We were approaching the dead hours of
the early morning. I could see the sky starting to lighten in the east. Valerian
didn’t have much time left.
Detective Pierce drew up beside me. “Who is this?” she said.
I grit my teeth. Great. Exactly what I needed. She was looking at
Valerian with eyes that saw far too much.
“Valerian, Detective Pierce. Detective Pierce, Valerian,” I said shortly.
“Let’s go,” I told Valerian.
“Whoa, wait a minute,” she said. “Slow the fuck down, Tiana.” She
turned to Valerian. “Valerian, huh? Nice to meet you.” She smiled and it
was all the teeth. “You’re the vampire that put those guys in the hospital last
night.”
“They were attacking Tiana,” Valerian said shortly.
She glanced sidelong at me. “It will all go in my statement,” I said
after a second.
“I bet it will,” she said. She dragged me over to the side, not making
much effort to lower her voice. It was futile with vampires, after all.
“What are you doing, Tiana?” she said, and I could hear real concern
in her voice.
“It’s not like that,” I said. “He’s my liaison for the case. You’re right;
Alexandra wanted me on it, okay? Look, I said I wasn’t going to take it, but
then those goons turned up and tried to steal the file and I decided I wasn’t
going to let it go. I walked away from this once and it was the wrong thing
to do. It was the cowardly thing to do, you understand?”
“For fuck’s sake, Tiana,” Detective Pierce said. “You don’t have to
solve everything. This isn’t on you. You’ve already been through enough.”
“That’s why it has to be on me,” I said. “I’m not dropping the case,” I
said firmly.

I turned and walked away from her, jerking my head at Valerian to fall
into step.
I could feel her unhappy eyes on my back. I knew she meant well but
her concern wasn’t what I needed. I could protect myself. I wasn’t the
foolish girl I had been four years ago.
I turned to look at Valerian. It was true. All of this was stirring up
memories that I would sooner leave buried, but it didn’t matter how
powerful the feelings were that I had around him. I wasn’t so stupid as to
fall for any of that again.
“What did you find?” he asked when we reached his car, turning and
leaning up against it.
“None of your fucking business,” I said shortly.
“Tiana, we are working together on this.”
“Excuse me?” I took a step back from the car. “Working together? Is
that what you think? Like we were working together when I was
investigating my sister’s death?” My voice began to rise. “Like we were
working together when you found me in the vampire court? When you
pretended to be there for me, pretended to look out for me, and the whole
time you knew exactly what had happened to her. You kept it from me, you
lied to me. Working together like that?” I was shouting, my breath coming
short and painful.
He pushed away from the car and loomed over me. “I know I kept
things from you last time. I wasn’t entirely honest with you before.”
I laughed bitterly and it felt like breathing through jagged glass.
“Entirely honest? You weren’t honest at all. It was a lie, all of it.”
He looked at me, his eyes dark and merciless, and then he did
something I never would have expected. “I’m sorry,” he said.
My heart stopped.
“Sorry? You’re sorry?” I whispered, pure incandescent rage washing
through me and setting my every nerve on fire. “Are you fucking kidding
me? Four years of silence and now you come here and you say, sorry?” I
stepped up close to him and shoved him hard on the chest. “What exactly
are you sorry for? Are you sorry for lying to me? You sorry for pretending
to love me? You sorry for tricking me into thinking…” I broke off, choking,
my throat thick. I could feel my eyes stinging. I scrubbed away my tears
and stared up at him. “Or are you sorry for the fact that you did to me the
same fucking thing that one of you did to Violet? That someone out there is

doing to these new victims right now?” My throat was hoarse, my heartbeat
kicking against my chest. I raised my hand to my neck and ripped the
choker away so he could see the bite mark. So similar to the bite marks on
Sevda’s and Oliver’s dead bodies. “Are you sorry for almost killing me?
For draining me to the point of death and dumping me in the fucking trash
like I was nothing?”
“Tiana, I—” He broke off.
“That’s it? No explanation, just a fucking apology, four years too late.”
I was screaming now, my voice raw, pain filling up my insides, and the
memories I had tried so hard to keep under lock and key finally
overwhelmed me.
I remembered that night. The vampire party. Dancing, wild with pain.
I’d finally discovered the truth about my sister that he had known all along
—that she died in a vampire party that had gotten out of hand. I’d been wild
with grief, desperate to drown my sorrows. So angry with him but still so in
love. Dancing, spinning, whirling lights. His lips on mine, his mouth on my
neck. His fangs in my throat. I remembered his embrace turning into a cage.
The iron grip around me that had turned cruel. Scrabbling at his arms.
Lethargy stealing over me as my blood drained from my body. And then
only flashes. I remembered being carried through the glittering rooms of
Mercer Island, low murmuring voices, and then the darkness of the
alleyway. The stink of trash and the skitter of rats’ feet on the ground. Blue
flashing lights. Detective Pierce’s face swimming into view. Hold on kid.
I’ve got you, hold on.
I finally clawed my way back into the present, the memories fading
around me. I stared up at Valerian silently, tear tracks wet on my face.
He didn’t try to speak. Didn’t try to excuse himself or apologize again.
He just stood there, watching me with those dark eyes that saw far too
much.
“I can never forgive you,” I sobbed. “I’ll never forgive you for what
you did to me.”

Chapter 19

I paid no attention to my surroundings on the way home. Somehow my feet
managed to take me in the right direction while my mind was awhirl with
memories.
Five years ago, I had been so oblivious. Living my life, consumed by
my studies, my new friends, parties at college. I hadn’t even noticed that
Violet hadn’t contacted me for a couple of weeks until I got the call to come
down to the morgue and identify the body. I could still remember how she
looked on the slab. Small and shriveled in death, nothing like the bright,
vibrant sister I remembered.
I’d sank into depression, given up on my studies, my friends. I was
consumed with a desperate need to find out what had happened to her. I
spent months tracing her steps back to the vampires. Why had she gotten
involved with them? Was it her magic? Had she been tricked by the glitz
and the glamour that vampires carried with them? Or had she fallen for one
of them quickly and completely, just like me. Because that was what had
happened. My investigation had taken me to the vampire court and straight
into Valerian’s arms.
I thought he was a prince and I was his princess. I thought I’d found
everything I wanted, everything Eve had talked about when she said
forever. An unbreakable bond between two souls. Death magic and vampire
combining, unstoppable. True fucking love.
I had been such a fool.
All the while he’d known exactly what had happened to my sister. That
one of their parties had gotten out of hand, that the drink and drugs and
blood flowing freely had resulted in Violet’s death. And how once they
realized they’d gone too far they’d dumped her and covered it all up. He’d
lied to me, and when I’d found out I’d been mindless with grief and rage.
Then I’d done the stupidest thing yet; I tried to drown my sorrows. Still in

the vampire court, I’d dragged myself, drunk and wild and dumb, into a
party and let Valerian kiss away my tears.
It had been a year since Violet had died and I had been drowning under
my grief. So tired of hurting, so tired of searching. I just wanted a moment
to forget, to sink into his kiss and the delirious rush of the bite. But it had
been too much, too deep, too fast, and I had felt my blood pumping out of
my veins and down his throat. I had felt myself dying, slipping toward the
half world in freefall, and there had been nothing I could do about it.
I don’t know why he didn’t kill me that night, just like whoever had
killed Violet. Perhaps he didn’t even care whether I lived or died. I don’t
know what Good Samaritan had tipped off the police about the body in the
alleyway, but if Detective Pierce had arrived even minutes later and the
paramedics hadn’t reached me in time, I would be dead. Just like my sister.
That was why, no matter how good it felt to be around him, no matter how
well my body remembered the pleasure, it also remembered the pain.
I forgot to eat when I got home. I barely had enough energy to kick off
my boots before collapsing into bed. I should have guessed my sleep would
be uneasy after the night I’d had.
I opened my eyes and I was back in the vampire court. The edges of
the room glittered into a shining light, formless and vague. I was dreaming.
I was wearing a dress, something I would never actually pick out for
myself. Something slinky in a deep emerald green that set off the color of
my eyes. I was dancing, and for a moment I felt free within the music. Free
to move, light-footed, as if I didn’t have a care in the world.
My partners were faceless, just an exchange of hands and smiles and
shining eyes, until I spun and came face-to-face with Violet. She was
wearing the color that was her namesake and her curly hair tumbled in loose
locks down her back. She smiled at me, wide and bright, and gripped my
hands. My heart ached. “Violet,” I said, my voice a whisper of longing, and
she pulled me into her embrace, holding me tight. I clutched her back, tears
appearing in my eyes. “I’ve missed you,” I said.
She pulled away and wiped away my tears. “Don’t cry, little sister,”
she said. “I’m right here.”
“How come I never see you?” I said. “I see all the dead, but I don’t see
you.”
She shook her head, her smile turning sad. “I’m sorry, T, I wish I could
come to you more often but I can’t; it’s difficult for me.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why is it difficult?”
She shook her head again. “It’s complicated. There’s so much you
don’t understand.”
“Then tell me,” I said. “Explain it to me.”
“I can’t,” she said, looking over her shoulder, and for a second the
lights around us weren’t so warm but were sharp and clear, like spotlights.
She pulled me away from the dancers toward the courtyard doors and
outside. We slipped out of the light, into the darkness, and she led me down
onto the soft grass, fresh with dew. “I don’t have long,” she said, pulling me
after her. On a chain around her neck was the necklace I had bought her for
her birthday, a tiny five-petaled violet flower in gold filigree. It glinted,
catching the light. She tugged me into an arbor, night-blooming jasmine
crawling over the arch around us.
“You have to listen, T,” she said, seriously. “It’s not about the murders.
You’re looking in the wrong place. The real threat is somewhere else.”
“Where?” I asked. “What threat?”
She bit her lip; I could read frustration in her gaze. “Everything is not
as it seems.” She reached out and placed her hand over my heart. “Trust
this,” she said. “What you feel in your heart will guide you, it will guide
you right. You’re stronger than I was, Tiana. It makes them want you more
but it also means you have the power to stop them.”
“Stop who?” I asked, “Violet, tell me.”
But she was pulling away, the dream around us slipping and changing
as a bright light swept through the gardens, piercing the shadows, piercing
through her body. She became formless, just another ghost. “You have it,
Tiana,” she said, her voice turning echoey, resonating all around me. “You
have the power they are looking for. Don’t let them win. Trust yourself,
trust your heart.” And she was gone.
The night around me was dark again, just the wind through the trees, a
gentle whisper that almost masked the sound of a footfall behind me. I
spun. Valerian was there. He wasn’t wearing his suit jacket, and his shirt
collar was unbuttoned. He looked windswept, relaxed. His skin had a
healthy glow, his lips warm and red. He had that almost human sheen of life
that drinking blood gave vampires. I took a step away from him.
“No,” he said. “Please, don’t leave.” His voice softer than I’d ever
heard it, coaxing, urging. It called up a strange flicker of half memories,

disappearing like smoke when I reached for them. “I have already lost you
once. At least allow me to dream of you.”
Dream of me? I was the one dreaming, wasn’t I? My confusion cost
me my chance to escape. The next thing I knew, his hands were on my
waist, his deep smoky scent enveloping me, and despite my resolution not
to give in to desire, despite all the memories, the pain and trauma that had
been stirred up, I still felt a connection to him. That strange, undeniable
bond that I couldn’t explain away.
It had never been like this before. Four years ago, when we met, there
had been no magic between us, just foolish emotions. The magic, the
power, it was new. It was something that had happened after he drank my
blood, after he drained me almost to death. Except that made no sense. Here
in the dream he wasn’t real. None of this was real. This was just my mind
playing tricks on me, drawing out my memories, giving me what I wanted.
My sister and the man I once loved.
“How can I feel this here?” His wonder echoed my own. He looked
down at me, his hand tracing the line of my jaw. I shivered under his touch.
The way he held me, like I was something precious to him. It didn’t make
sense.
“I don’t understand you,” I said. “You act like you don’t care, and then
the look in your eyes. What are you hiding?”
His eyes darkened with secrets. “I wish I could tell you; there is so
much I want to say—”
There was a flutter at the edges of the dream. A slow unravelling as
my sleep started to fade away.
“No,” he whispered, “a little longer, just a moment.” He leaned
forward, his lips almost on mine, and at the last moment the dream broke
and fell apart.
I opened my eyes to the cracked ceiling in my apartment, the lumpy
mattress underneath me, and the cold, bright light of day shining through
my window.

Chapter 20

I forced myself to eat something before going down to the precinct to give
my statement—a slice of toast that tasted like ash.
“Hey, it’s the ghost whisperer,” one of the officers shouted as I stepped
through the door. I flipped him the bird and walked past. “Detective
Pierce?” I asked the officer at the desk.
He nodded to me in recognition and waved me past.
I walked through the precinct, feeling slightly on edge. As a witch I
wasn’t exactly the most welcome sight in the precinct, but thanks to the fact
that I did consultancy work for homicide they mostly gave me a free pass.
Perhaps because she had been hard on me yesterday, Detective Pierce
didn’t put me on the spot again, just talked me through the events of that
night.
“Did you get the head wound checked out,” she asked.
“Jazz took a look at it,” I said.
She nodded and leaned back in her chair. I noted the coffee cups and
take-out boxes that littered her desk. “Did you go home last night or were
you chasing down leads the whole time?”
“Leads?” She scoffed. “What leads? This entire case is one massive
dead end.”
“What can you tell me about the thieves?” I asked.
She turned back to her computer screen. “Thugs for hire. We’ve got a
long list of B&E charges, minor assaults. Nothing new. But they won’t give
up the name of whoever hired them.”
“Loyalty?”
She shook her head. “They live on their reputation,” she said. “No
one’s gonna hire them again if they know they’ll squeal on their employers
the moment we pick them up. Do you know what they were after?”
I shifted uncomfortably. “The vampire file,” I said.
“The drained victim case? What was in there, your notes?”

“Valerian brought me the file direct from the court.” She leaned back
in her seat. “Don’t even go there,” I said.
She raised an eyebrow. “Did I say anything?”
“You were thinking it,” I said.
“So, the vampires turn up out of the blue and offer you a file on the
murders?” I nodded. “Anything in there I’d like to see?
“It’s nothing you don’t know already,” I said, “but here you go.” I
pulled the file out of my bag. I’d guessed she would ask for it.
I had no problem sharing information with the police. These were
murders we were talking about, and I wanted the vampires to pay for what
they had done. I had a vivid sense memory for a second—Valerian pressed
up against me—but I shoved it out of my mind. Dreams didn’t matter, facts
did, and the fact was that these two innocent humans had been drained dry
by vampires and they deserved justice.
“Can I keep these?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Make a copy.”
She gestured for me to follow her over to the copier.
“Listen,” she said, half closing the door and starting the machine so
our words were masked by the sound. “You’re lucky those thieves aren’t
pressing charges. The injuries your vampire gave them put them in the
hospital.”
“He’s not my vampire,” I said.
“You’re not listening,” she said. “They were seriously injured.”
“Why do you care if the vampires get sued?”
“That’s not what I mean. That vampire you were with—”
“Valerian; his name is Valerian.”
Her eyes were a heavy weight and I knew she was seeing more than I
liked. I’d never told her, never told anyone, exactly who it was that had
drained me and left me on the street.
“He’s dangerous,” she said, “violent, and I don’t like that you’re
working with him.”
“First of all,” I said, “I’m not working with him. I’m working this case
my way. And second, you think I don’t know that? He’s a fucking
psychopath. They all are. They get off on it. The violence. Vampires are
incapable of human emotions. I’m not going to make the same mistake as
last time. I know you think I’m running into danger but I need you to trust
that I’m not going in blind.”

The copier stopped, the silence suddenly falling between us. She
handed the originals over to me. “I do trust your judgment, Tiana,” she said.
“That’s what I wanted to say. I wanted to apologize for going so hard on
you last night. I know this is tearing you up inside. But I also know what
you’re like. I’ve seen you chase down the truth before. You’re like a dog
with a bone, single-minded, and it scares me to see you doing that on a case
like this. The stakes are serious and I don’t want to see you get hurt. Not
again, not like that. If anything happens,” she said, “if you get spooked at
all, call me. I’ve got your back on this.”
I met her eyes. “I know you do,” I said, my voice as serious as hers.
“Since we are in a sharing mood,” I said, changing the subject. “What can
you tell me about the two victims? I forgot to ask at the morgue, do either
of them have family in the city?”
“Sevda Sahin,” she said, walking me back to her desk and pulling out
her notebook. “Lived with her parents and younger brother in international
district. We already interviewed them.”
“Did you get anything?”
“Not much. They didn’t know very much about their daughter’s job—
she kept to herself—but they said she seemed stressed over the last few
days. They just thought she was dealing with something big at work.”
Something big, I thought. Something benign, like a fundraiser, or had
she found something out the vampires wanted to keep hidden?
“Right, that’s where I’m headed next. Even if they can’t tell me
anything new, seeing the place where she used to live might give me
something.”
“You find anything,” she said, “you share it.”
“That goes both ways,” I said, waving the case file in goodbye as I
headed out of the precinct, back into the city.

Chapter 21

Sevda’s parents owned a Turkish grocery store. Fresh produce sat in crates
outside, the name Sahin emblazoned in curly script across the front. Inside,
packs of dried seeds, flours, and spices lined the shelves along the walls.
The woman behind the till was somewhere in her sixties, and I recognized
the same slope of eyebrows and cheekbones as in her daughter.
“Mrs. Sahin?”
She raised her eyebrows, taking in my ripped leather jacket, scuffed
jeans, and boots.
“Can I help you?” she asked, her accent giving a soft curl to the words.
“I have some questions,” I said, “about your daughter.”
She frowned. “I already told the police everything.”
I know,” I said. “I won’t take up much of your time. I’ve been asked to
investigate her murder by one of her friends, Eve.” I handed over my card,
figuring the lie would spook her less than the truth.
She frowned down at it. “A private investigator? I don’t know Sevda’s
friends,” she said. I nodded, trying to look understanding and trustworthy.
“Like I said, I won’t take up much of your time.” As I spoke, I was
unfurling my connection to the half world. Stepping past the veil and
reaching out through the shop. I suspected the Sahins lived above the shop,
and so I sent searching tendrils upwards into the apartment upstairs. “I
understand that she was unusually stressed in the time leading up to the
incident,” I said. “Can you tell me anything about that?” She frowned, and
in her drawn face I suddenly saw that the marks I had thought were age
were actually grief. I recognized the hollowness in her eyes.
“I told the police she didn’t tell us much. We were so proud of her, of
her job. I wish we had never encouraged her to apply. I wish she had stayed
here in the shop with us.”
I looked around. “It’s a family business, right?”

She nodded. “Sevda wanted more. She wanted to look after us. She
always said she would earn enough that we could close up the shop, retire
back to Istanbul.” Mrs. Sahin smiled, but there was no humor left in it. “She
had such dreams,” she said. I saw the sheen of tears appearing in her eyes.
Shit. This wasn’t getting us anywhere. “Can you tell me anything
about the job?”
She swallowed, pulling her tears back under control. “Everything
seemed to be going fine, she was enjoying it, and then in the last couple of
weeks before… she changed. She wouldn’t talk about it. She became
secretive. Going out all the time.”
“At night?”
“No, the night was when she worked. She started going out in the
daytime too. So tired, running herself ragged.”
I frowned. That didn’t make any sense. Why would she be going out in
the daytime if vampires were involved?
“It would be really helpful to me if I could see her room.”
Mrs. Sahin stood, surreptitiously brushing away the tears from her
eyes. “Of course,” she said. She flipped the sign on the door to closed and
led me up into the apartment through the back door. The apartment was
small but spotlessly clean. Arabic calligraphy on marbled paper graced the
walls and the upholstery was worn but well maintained.
Sevda’s room wasn’t much bigger than the humans’ rooms in the
vampire court. A little window looked out onto the back lot with a fine view
of dumpsters and a fire escape. “Thank you,” I said, glancing around. It
would look a bit weird to her if I stood in the middle of the room with my
eyes closed and my hands spread. Anything to avoid nice Mrs. Sahin from
realizing she’d just invited a witch into her house. People could be weird
about magic. And since her daughter had died connected to vampires, I
thought the least amount of supernatural behavior was best.
“Could you… I’m sorry, could I trouble you for a glass of water?”
She was hesitant, clearly uneasy leaving a stranger alone in her
daughter’s room, but politeness won out. “Of course,” she said, stepping out
but leaving the door open. The moment she left, I surreptitiously nudged it
almost shut with my foot, then turned and stood straight in the middle of the
room.
I breathed in deeply. I could smell the faint scent of perfume. The
wardrobe door was open, colorful clothes inside. I stepped up to it and ran

my hand over the soft silks and warm cashmere. Sevda was clearly doing
well for herself, and yet… I turned back to the rest of the room. The red and
black coverlet on the bed was worn like the rest of the things in the
apartment. These were work clothes, I realized. She put on her face, put on
her fancy clothes, and went out into the world pretending to be the affluent
and successful woman she wanted to become. The clothes would be too
new to give me anything.
I turned toward the bed and pressed my hand against the coverlet. The
design was abstract and geometric, black cloth with handstitched red
embroidery. I spread my fingers, sinking them into the soft fabric. This was
better. This was made with love. It should be imbued with memories, but
when I shut my eyes and shoved my senses into it I found nothing at all. I
unbalanced; it was like missing a step. My physical body stayed still but my
mind tumbled head over heels, a jarring disconnect that shoved me up and
out of the half world and back into myself. Not a moment too soon, as
Sevda’s mother returned, pushing the door open, a glass of water in her
hands.
I straightened quickly and took it from her, still feeling jittery, the
water spilling slightly over my hand as I took a long sip. How could this be
happening? How could her presence have been erased not just from her
body and from the vampires’ lair but from here as well. There was no way
the vampires had been invited into this house, not after what had happened,
and I couldn’t sense them anywhere. There was no scent of death anywhere
in this apartment, which made no sense. The loss of their daughter should
be hanging heavy in the air, but instead I felt the void where their
daughter’s spirit should be. It was like a missing tooth, painful and hollow.
I lost no time in thanking Mrs. Sahin for her help, urging her to contact
me or the police should she remember anything else and getting out of
there. I stood on the street outside the store, trying to still my shivers.
Mundanes got creeped out when they sensed ghosts; I got freaked out when
I couldn’t sense them.
I turned to face the city. Perhaps I would have better luck with Oliver.

Chapter 22

Walking through university district took me back. This entire case had
been a trip down memory lane. An unwelcome one. Not that my memories
of Washington U were negative exactly. I had enjoyed my time here, but it
only reminded me of how oblivious I had been. How I hadn’t been there for
Violet when she needed me the most.
The winter sun was shining—it always seemed to be shining on
campus—and I was surrounded by happy students just as oblivious as I had
been, thinking themselves grown-up and experienced, thinking the world
was their oyster, ready to open and expose the pearl within. Boy, were they
in for an unhappy awakening. I cut through the clusters of brightly clothed
students like a black cat dragging bad luck behind me.
Outside the admissions office, I put my game face on, unbuttoned the
top two buttons of my top, and fluffed up my hair before striding in
confidently. I smiled at the security guard and leaned down on the
countertop, giving him a good look down the front of my shirt. “Hi,” I said,
my voice pitched higher and more girlish. “God, I’ve been such an idiot.” I
curled a strand of hair around my finger.
“How can I help you, little lady?” he said. Bingo. I smiled even wider
and then bit my lip, watching with satisfaction as his eyes dropped down to
my mouth.
I leaned in. “I spent last night with this guy.” I grinned. “He was really
cute, like, really cute. And I just, you know how it is…” I giggled and
shifted position, tilting down even further.
“Sure,” he said. “I know how it is.” His eyes weren’t anywhere near
my face.
“Well, I left my phone. Can you believe it? I left my phone in his
room, only, I can’t remember which halls he was in.” I closed my eyes as if
mortified and pressed my hand to my chest, surreptitiously pulling my top
down a little further. “Can you help me out? I can tell you his name.”

There was a pause, then. “Sure,” he said, dragging his eyes away from
my tits. “What’s the name?”
“Oliver,” I said. “Oliver, um, Carpenter? He’s a freshman.”
The guard tapped away at his computer for a moment.
University bureaucracy was glacially slow. I was betting, in the couple
weeks since Oliver had been found dead, they hadn’t taken him off the
roster just yet.
“Here we go,” he said. “Oliver Carpenter, Oakwood Hall. Room 203.”
“203,” I exclaimed. “That was it. Oakwood. Oh, you are a lifesaver,
thank you.”
“Happy to help,” he said to my breasts.
Yeah, I bet you were, I thought, pushing up from the countertop with a
little wave and walking quickly back out into the sunshine.
Oakwood Hall was a pleasant grass-lined building on the edge of the
university district. Windows looked out onto the street, a pride flag handing
from one, music drifting out of another.
Breaking into halls of residence was depressingly easy. Students were
never the most safety conscious of individuals. All I needed to do was find
a likely looking group of students and slide in behind them, grinning and
flicking my hair back as if I was laughing at what they had just said. I
caught the door in their wake and slipped inside. I took the stairs two at a
time up to the second floor and found the hallway to Oliver’s room.
I’d come prepared with lock picks and I only had to wait for a noisy
conversation between a girlfriend and her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend to finish.
Her door finally slammed closed and he walked past me with a face like a
thundercloud. True love, I thought wryly.
It was the work of seconds to get the door open and then I was inside.
The tell-tale white powder from fingerprint dusting lay over the surfaces.
The police had already been in here. Oliver’s things were half packed into
boxes. I suspected his parents were still in the city somewhere, forcing
themselves to go through their dead son’s possessions. I didn’t envy them
their job. I still had boxes in storage that had belonged to Violet. Things I
couldn’t bear to look at. I pushed the thought away and focused on the
room. Oliver had a single room, which must have cost him, or more likely
his parents, a little extra, but other than that, it was just like any other
student room across the country. Small, messy. Bed, desk, chair, a closet
and a couple of narrow bookshelves against one wall. I pushed open his

closet door and fingered some of the shirts and sweaters. Designer labels.
Nice stuff. I pulled open the drawers on the desk. There was no laptop; the
police would have taken the electricals but Detective Pierce hadn’t
mentioned finding anything useful so far.
I sat down at his desk. There was a photo on the side: smiling family.
Hands around each other’s shoulders. He’d inherited his hair from his
father, red fading into gray with age. I closed my eyes on their smiles and
settled into the half world, reaching, not expecting to find anything. I was
right. The room was empty, wiped clean just like Sevda’s, and it was
starting to seriously freak me out. I spent a few more minutes searching
through his things, but all I found was stuff relating to his studies and the
extra curriculars and societies he was part of. Not much sports but a lot of
charitable efforts. A bookmark shaped like the Amnesty International logo
and a volunteer schedule for some kind of organic food co-op. I noted they
were running a street market today. Maybe I could find some of his friends
there.
I gave the room a final look before heading out the door. He’d been
just another student full of energy and excitement. Where had all of that
gone? Why was there no mark of his presence left in the world? I walked
out into the sunshine and crossed the campus. How had he even got in with
the vampires? That was the missing link here. Sevda made sense, she
wanted good employment, wanted to climb the career ladder, I might hate
it, but the vampire court was a big deal in this city, hell in the entire West
Coast, not a bad place to start a budding Public Relations career. But
Oliver? A freshman with no apparent connection with the supernatural. He
had no reason to seek them out.
The market was being held on the other side of campus—a row of
about twenty stalls selling cheeses, breads, cakes and pastries, and, on the
far end, fresh vegetables packed up in colorful printed tote bags. The line
bunched up in front of me, blocking my view of the stall until the last
moment. Standing there, cheerily greeting me by the till was a familiar face.
Eve’s smile dropped off the moment she recognized me. “Oh shit,” she said.
“Well, this is a surprise,” I said.
“I can explain,” she said, raising her hand. I looked down. She was still
holding a bunch of carrots.
“With those?”

“Huh? Oh, no. One second.” She placed the carrots in the basket and
smiled at the lady who had been in front of me in the queue. “My colleague
will finish your order,” she said in a rush. She grabbed the girl standing next
to her and tugged her over, stepping toward the back of the stall.
I circled round to meet her, wary and ready to follow should she try
and run. But she didn’t. She just came over to me, wringing her hands. “I
didn’t say anything,” she said before I could speak. I hadn’t intended to
anyway. I found it was best to stick to silence in cases like these and let the
suspect do the talking. I crossed my hands over my chest and glared.
“I just thought it would look bad, you know, if I told you I knew
Oliver. I didn’t mean to lie. It just kind of happened, and then you knew
about Sevda and I thought it was too late to say anything. Better to just keep
quiet.”
“Well, you better stop keeping quiet now and tell me what the hell is
going on,” I snapped. “Why didn’t you just tell me you knew Oliver?”
“I didn’t,” she said, “not really. I just…” She sighed. “I thought it
would make me look guilty.”
“Thought what would make you look guilty?” I asked. “Because you
know what definitely makes you look guilty? Lying.”
“It’s not like that.” She ran her hands through her hair. Her shoulders
hunched. “I didn’t want to get in trouble. All I did was introduce Oliver to
the court.”
Aha, and here was my missing link. “Tell me how.”
“He saw one of the trinkets I had. A silver necklace one of the
vampires gave me after feeding. They do that, they give you a little gift. It’s
not a big deal. Kind of like a thank you.”
Kind of like buying you off, I thought, but I didn’t say it. I thought of
the designer labels in Oliver’s wardrobe. “He saw your flashy bling and
wanted a bit of it.”
“He thought it was cool.” She shrugged. “Edgy, you know.”
Yeah, I knew. Sheltered rich kid just stretching his wings in a new city,
looking for something to set him apart from the rest of his classmates.
Vampires were just the thing. The edge of danger, the allure. What a
fucking idiot. I uncrossed my arms. So, Oliver and Sevda. Totally different
backgrounds, different lives, both of them fell afoul of vampires. But which
vampires? And why? If Alexandra really was coming down heavily on
vamps since what happened to Violet and I, why would any vampire go

against her? She was a bitch, sure, but she was a scary fucking bitch. She
backed up her bark with a serious bite. I’d felt her power before. Hell, I’d
seen it just recently used on Kyran. I knew what she was capable of.
“That’s all,” Eve said, shifting her weight, her eyes flicking off to the
side. “I just introduced him. It’s not like there’s any law against signing up
to give blood in the court.”
“But that’s not all, is it?” I pushed, sensing a lie. “Stop lying to me
Eve, you don’t want to piss me off.” I used every inch of my height to loom
over here. She hunched down, unable to look away from me.
“I… I…”
“You what?” I snapped, widening my eyes.
“I recruited him,” she finally admitted.
“I knew it.” I said, though I hadn’t known any such thing. Still,
thinking about it, it made sense. Vampires had to get their supply of fresh
blood somewhere, who better to seduce into it than innocent, gullible
students. A fresh supply every year. “What do you get for it? A perk? A
bonus?” She shifted uneasily.
“It’s not like that. They’re not paying me.”
“No,” I said. “Because that would be illegal.” Paying people to give
blood or to recruit blood donors was illegal in Washington state but gifts
like those trinkets, like the gold ring Eve was twisting around her finger,
that was totally okay. Fucking loopholes. “How many of you are there?” I
said, making a snap decision. She stared at me in confusion. “How many of
you recruiting for the court here at the university?”
“Only a few,” she said, and then blushed. “I mean, no, there aren’t. It’s
not—there aren’t any.”
I pulled out my notebook and passed it over to her. “Names,” I
snapped. “Right now. Or I’m reporting you to the cops.” She didn’t take the
notebook, her face going white.
I pulled out my cell phone and started to dial. “Your choice.”
She glared at me but finally gave in and started scribbling in the book.
“I don’t know them,” she said. “It’s not a plot or anything. Oliver just
asked where I got my jewelry from and I told him. I gave him the address of
the vampire court and told him when the next party would be.”
“Yeah,” I said bitterly. “You’re a real angel.”
She finally finished writing and I took the notebook back from her.
“So, you met Oliver here at the stall and you led him to the vampires and

then that was it. He was hooked.”
“It’s not like it’s a drug,” she said, affronted.
“You’re telling me you’re not addicted to the way the bite feels?” I
asked, stepping close and looking down at her. I caught the tremble in her
lip, the widening of her pupils, the flicker of her eyes to the side. Yeah, she
knew exactly what I was talking about. I stepped back. “You better hope
there’s nothing else you’ve neglected to tell me about, Eve,” I said
warningly. “Because I’m not going to be so lenient next time.”
“That’s it,” she said. “I swear. I didn’t know him. I just introduced him
to the vampires. I don’t know why he ended up dead or how. And I’m
telling you they’re careful nowadays. Stuff like that doesn’t happen.”
I rolled my eyes and walked away from her. Stuff like that is exactly
what happened to Oliver and to Sevda, and I was going to find out why.

Chapter 23

For the third time in so many weeks I was woken abruptly from an uneasy
sleep. My dreams broke apart and faded before I could get a good grip on
them. Had Violet visited me again?
A renewed knocking came from my door and I realized that was why
I’d woken up. I rolled out of bed and scrambled into my jeans. “Coming,
coming,” I shouted, straightening my T-shirt and walking over to the door. I
pulled it open, staring blearily out at the two uniformed officers standing in
the hall, Raven stuck between them.
“Ms. Waters,” the one on the right said. I dragged my gaze away from
Raven’s guilty face.
“Yeah?”
“This girl here says you’re her guardian.” Guardian? A frown appeared
between my eyes. “She gave this as her home address,” the officer
continued, skepticism entering his gaze. I looked back at Raven, denial on
the tip of my tongue. But she caught my eyes with a pleading gaze. My
mind was working slow, still half asleep, but something in her expression
got through to me. I forced myself to straighten.
“Right,” I said slowly. “Yeah, sure, that’s it. Home address. Guardian.
Got it. Raven.” I pinned her with my eyes. “Inside.” I pointed.
She tried to slip past the police officers, but the one who had been
speaking gripped her more tightly. “She was caught shoplifting,” he said.
“Shoplifting?” I looked at Raven. “For fuck’s sake. You’re eighteen,
Raven. You’re not a kid anymore.” She shrugged, one-shouldered. “It won’t
happen again, officers,” I said. “I’ll make sure of it.”
But instead of his suspicious expression fading away, it only deepened.
“Can you please confirm that you are, in fact, her guardian, Ms. Waters,” he
said, his gaze flicking up and down, taking in my appearance.
I glared at him. Okay, I might not look exactly like prime guardian
material, but I’d just been dragged out of my bed for fuck’s sake.

“Seriously?” I said. “She’s my sister’s kid, okay? I’m looking after her.”
“Can you please call your sister and get her to confirm.” I glared at
him. Well no, I thought, I can’t, because A, my sister is dead, and B, she
never had a kid, and C, if she’d had a daughter, I was pretty sure any child
of Violet’s wouldn’t be such a complete fucking handful like Raven. I didn’t
say any of that out loud.
“It’s the middle of the night,” I said flatly.
He stared straight back at me, unmoved. Fuck. I wasn’t sure how I was
going to get out of this one. I could call Jazz, but she wasn’t Raven’s
guardian either. As coven leader she had some pull, but not enough to trump
a guardian’s rights. I could call Detective Pierce but it wasn’t really her
department and I didn’t know if she’d have any luck. Damn it, why did I
even care? Raven had real guardians somewhere in the city. I looked at
Raven’s face and the answer was obvious. I’d been that kid, dreading going
home to a foster family that hated me for my magic. At least I’d had my
sister. Raven didn’t have anyone. Just me.
“Look, officers,” I said. “She’s not going to appreciate being woken up
at this hour. Can we please let it go and I’ll get her to call you tomorrow
morning if that’s what it takes.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m afraid that’s not going to be enough. We’re
going to have to take her down to the station.”
Shit. Taking her to the station meant booking her, and booking her
meant a permanent record. She really wasn’t a kid anymore. I glared at
Raven. How did she get in messes like these? “Wait, we can work this out
—” I broke off as something moved in the darkness of the hallway behind
them. Valerian appeared at the top of the stairs, striding toward us down the
hall.
“Officers,” he said, smoothly drawing their attention to him. Even
from this distance I could see his pupils expand, his gaze going black. I felt
a shiver through the half world as his vampire magic reached for the
officers’ minds. Fuck. I hated this shit. “Please excuse my niece,” he said.
“She can be a handful.” He smiled and I didn’t understand how the officers
couldn’t see the mouthful of fangs he was sporting. I wanted to grab them,
shake them out of it, but I forced myself to stay still. He wouldn’t harm
them, and Raven would be okay. “You can leave her with us,” he said, his
voice a low hum urging them to listen and obey. “She’ll be safe here,” he
continued, finally coming close.

The officers both nodded jerkily in creepy unison. “Of course,” the
first officer said slowly, his voice a little lower than before. “I can leave her
with you,” he said. “She’ll be safe here.”
I stared at Valerian, guilt winding around my spine. I was such a
hypocrite, accusing vampires of using their powers to get their way, then
letting Valerian do exactly that for me.
“Thank you, officers,” he said, his hands coming to rest on Raven’s
thin shoulders. I saw her jump. Interesting, a spark of curiosity burnt
through my guilt. His voice wasn’t working on her just like it wasn’t
working on me. Something to do with our magics?
“You can leave us now,” he purred, his eyes moving past the officers to
land on me. I swallowed thickly. His voice might not be sucking my mind
into a daze, but the seductive burn in his eyes said he knew exactly what the
purring tone was doing to my body. He didn’t need magic to turn the air
thick with seduction.
I forced myself to straighten from the lean I had sunk into against the
doorway and watched as the officers stiffly walked down the hall behind
Valerian. I dropped my gaze to where his hands were still on Raven’s
shoulders. “Let go of her,” I said, clearing my throat roughly. He lifted his
hands and I jerked my head. Raven shot past me into the apartment.
I glanced down at my feet and stepped back so that I was fully inside
the doorway. “The fuck was that?”
“That was me helping you out.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“I think you did.”
Damn him for being right. “I don’t want your help.” I said, but I knew
I just sounded petulant. “Don’t pull that shit again.”
“And leave you to talk your way out of trouble? You were doing so
well.”
“I’d have thought of something.”
“It was easier—”
“It shouldn’t be easy.” I snapped. “Life shouldn’t be that easy. It’s a
trap, you treat people like objects, you lose your humanity, a bit at a time.” I
tilted my head. “Do you have anything left at all?” I said, my voice sharp.
“Is there anything human about you, or is it all a mask?”
“You tell me,” he said, his voice a low, winding rumble and he leaned
forward, his presence a furnace against my front, his eyes magnetic, I could

fall into them for days.
I stepped back. It took me a second to find my words. “What were you
even doing here?”
“You know what I’m doing, Tiana,” Valerian said. “I’m here to protect
you.”
“Right,” I said, mouth twisting, my voice growing stronger, “on
Alexandra’s orders. Wouldn’t want your investigator disappearing while she
is on the case, right?” It wasn’t disappointment curling low in my belly.
He said nothing. For a second I could have sworn I saw something in
his eyes, a flicker in his gaze, a secret behind a veil. I remembered his
words in the dream. His frustration over things he couldn’t say. Violet’s
warning. Nothing was as it seemed. I blinked. but that was a dream, I
reminded myself. It couldn’t really have been Violet. I hadn’t seen her
ghost, not once. I’d reached for her many times, and while her presence
wasn’t wiped clean like Sevda’s and Oliver’s, the threads connecting her to
me were snapped and frayed, blowing in a ghostly wind.
None of that helped me with the vampire standing in front of me.
“You’ll have to trust me eventually, Tiana. You will need me.”
“How can I trust you after what you did?”
“I’ve apologized and I know”—he said quickly, before I could cut him
off—“I know it will never be enough. I can’t give you a reason. But I will
never do it again. I swear to you Tiana, I will never hurt you again.”
I let my tired eyes close for a second. I was so exhausted. Part of me
wanted to believe him. I wanted to go back to the person I was four years
ago, the person who still had trust left in her. But you can’t go back; you
have to keep moving forward.
“You never told me what you were sorry for. Sorry for lying to me?
For hurting me? For abandoning me? Sorry you lost your regular supply of
blood and sex?”
He moved up close to the doorway, his broad shoulders blocking the
hallway light, casting me in his shadow. “Does it matter?” he said, his voice
a purr that went right through my bones.
Yes, I wanted to say, because one tells me there’s something worth
saving inside you and the other tells me you’re a psychopath. But my words
tangled behind my lips. I remembered Violet telling me to trust what was in
my heart, and between us, like smoke from a flame, rose that strange,
otherworldly connection, thickening the air between us. The heaviness in

my limbs drew me toward him, both of us leaning in, attracted like
magnets. It wrapped us up and bound us together, throbbing deep and heavy
all around us. I felt the ghostly half-remembered pressure of Violet’s hand
on my chest. Trust this. Her voice echoed through my mind.
Was I insane? How could I trust a dream memory of my sister over the
cold facts of the past? This was a mistake. But I couldn’t deny the way he
made me feel. Despite everything Valerian had done, I still wanted him.
Being with him still felt right.
I stepped back, holding his gaze, my eyes measuring, and then I said,
“Come in, Valerian.”
“Tiana,” he purred, his eyes lighting with need.
His hand was at my waist, sliding between the edge of my jeans and
my T-shirt, burning hot against my skin. There wasn’t a hair on my body
that wasn’t standing up. His touch was electric and I was all current.
“So, are you guys an item or what?” Raven’s sharp voice punctured the
aura of lust around us. I jerked back as if burned.
“No,” I snapped, “we’re not.” I turned away from Valerian. It felt
stupid showing a predator my back, but then I’d just given him a free pass
to my entire apartment. Today was the day for stupid decisions apparently.
Thinking about stupid decisions. “Shoplifting, Raven?”
She shrugged and turned back toward the kitchen. “You got anything
to eat in this apartment?”
I stared at her. “Are you going to explain why you gave me as your
contact?”
She didn’t even shrug this time, just pulled open my fridge and started
rummaging around. I rolled my eyes and stomped back into my bedroom
for a sweater. “Put the coffee machine on,” I shouted over my shoulder. If I
was going to deal with these two at this hour of the night, I needed coffee.
I was still feeling half asleep and I decided to duck into the bathroom
for a quick cold shower. It had nothing to do with the way my body was still
tingling from Valerian’s touch. Then I pulled on my warmest, comfiest
sweater. It was threadbare and poked through with holes but it gave me the
sense of protection I needed as I ventured back out into the apartment.
There was a delicious smell coming from the kitchen.
Raven was sitting at the breakfast bar, her legs tucked into the stool.
On the table in front of her was a stack of steaming pancakes. Beyond her
Valerian had his back to me, messing with something on the stove. He

turned around, a pan held in front of him, and slid another pancake onto the
stack.
“You made pancakes?” I said, dumbfounded.
“I did,” he said, and looked up at me with a sharp grin. His shirt
sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, exposing thick muscled forearms. I
felt a low pulse of lust turn deep in my belly and right down to my core.
His grip on the saucepan tightened.
“I didn’t—” I coughed to clear the sudden block in my throat. “I’d
forgotten you could cook,” I said. I caught his eyes and, for a second,
something passed between us, a shared memory, a shared regret, and then
he turned back to the stove.
“I had to make do with what you had,” he said, indicating the almost
empty bowl of apples Jazz had brought.
I walked up beside Raven and pulled out the stool next to her. “You
don’t have syrup,” she said, shaking sugar onto a pancake. “What kind of
animal doesn’t even have syrup?”
“Hey, you’re getting free pancakes out of this deal.”
She took a big bite. “They are pretty good,” she said, though I could
barely understand her with her mouth full of pancake.
“Give me some of that,” I said, grabbing a plate and sliding one onto
it. This was surreal. I wondered if I was somehow still dreaming, still in
bed, imagining all of this. Only it didn’t feel like a dream. It felt sharpedged and real. The sugary pancakes sweet on my tongue, the apple melting
and hot.
I couldn’t hold back a hum of satisfaction. “Delicious.” I looked up,
straight into Valerian’s eyes. I was caught, held like a fly in amber.
“You’ve got…” he said, his voice low, and reached forward. Time
seemed to slow, molasses thick, as his thumb touched the edge of my mouth
and swiped down my lip. My heart stopped as he raised his thumb to his
mouth and sucked it between red, red lips.
All he’d done was touch the edge of my mouth and I was burning up
with desire. Holy fuck, this was a terrible idea.
“Jeez,” Raven said from beside me. “Get a room, you two.”
For the first time, I was thankful for the teenage kleptomaniac in my
apartment. I coughed and tore my eyes away from Valerian, keeping them
down on my plate.

I pulled my brain back on track. “You can’t stay here,” I told Raven,
not with Valerian sticking around, even if he was channeling some kind of
vampire Martha Stewart. And not since those goons had broken in. My
place wasn’t safe. Raven had gone very still beside me. Did she think I was
just gonna kick her out? “I love Jazz too much to wake her up in the middle
of the night for a second time,” I continued. “So it’s going to have to be Dr.
Allister. You got any objections?” Raven unclenched and shook her head.
“Good,” I said, and I escaped from the breakfast bar and retreated to
my room, unable to deal with the complicated emotions that Valerian was
dragging out. How could my body be such a traitor?
I called Rufus. He sounded half asleep but woke up pretty quick when
I explained what happened with Raven and told me he’d be over in half an
hour. I wanted to hide out in my room like a complete coward but I forced
myself to go back and sit down.
My appetite was still wonky but the pancakes really were delicious and
I managed to get my body’s unruly reactions back under my control while I
ate.
Raven inhaled an entire stack. Valerian just leaned against the counter.
“Watching your figure?” I asked him. “There, that’s healthy.” I pointed
to the last apple in the bowl. He took it and raised it to his mouth, fangs
flashing as he took a bite. I shivered. He brought the apple away from his
lips, shiny with juice. Shit. I shouldn’t have said anything.
There was a knock at the door. I escaped Valerian’s heavy gaze and
pulled the door open. “Hey, Rufus, thanks for coming.”
“No problem,” Rufus said with a tired smile.
Raven came out to meet him. “Hi, Dr. Allister.”
“Raven, Tiana told me you were in a spot of trouble and needed a
place to stay.” She nodded. “Well, I’ve got a guest room,” he said. “Tiana
has stayed over more than once; she can vouch for the comfortableness of
the mattress.” He traded a look with me. I had spent more than just a couple
of nights in Rufus’s guestroom. Hell, I spent an entire year and a half there
after my violent exit from the vampire court.
Valerian exited the kitchen and I felt Rufus go still next to me. “Um,
right…” My words awkwardly fell into the silence. “Rufus, this is Valerian.
Valerian, Dr. Rufus Allister.”
“What’s he doing here?” Rufus said, and I was surprised at the depth
of hatred in his voice. His eyes were hard. He didn’t know it was Valerian

who had left me for dead, I had never told him that. I knew Rufus disliked
vampires after seeing what they’d done to me, but I hadn’t expected such a
reaction.
“Valerian, give us a minute.” I pointed to my bedroom. He gave me a
look but did as I asked.
“He’s here on the case,” I said, turning to Rufus.
“The case?” Rufus asked.
“Yeah, you know, the drained murders.”
“Cool,” Raven said, “the photographs you brought to the coven. Using
a vampire to hunt vampires, smart.” She glanced at my closed bedroom
door. “Does that mean he’s a good vampire?”
“He’s…" Fuck. What could I say?
“Tiana,” Rufus said, stepping close to me.
I turned away from Raven, but I couldn’t meet Rufus’ eyes. I didn’t
want to deal with his concern. Guilt was already starting to eat me up.
Seeing Rufus here brought back all the memories of how much of a wreck I
had been in those first few weeks and months after Valerian left me for
dead. I had just blithely invited him back into my house, into my life. What
was I thinking? Eating pancakes and joking around with Raven like this
was some kind of normal situation? This wasn’t fucking normal at all.
“Don’t, Rufus,” I said. “I know.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think you do.” He turned away from me
sadly.
I didn’t know what to say to him. I turned. “Raven, come here.” I tried
to hide the tremble in my voice. Rufus took a step away from me, toward
the counter.
“Sorry to ruin your night,” Raven said.
I put my hand on her shoulder. “You didn’t. None of this is your fault,
Raven.” I turned away from Rufus slightly. “Rufus and I, we have…
history,” I finally said. “History that involves vampires. It’s not you, okay?
Although, don’t think you’re getting a free pass for shoplifting. If you’ve
got time to go around stealing shit from stores then you got time to turn up
to my sessions. I’ll see you tomorrow at the community center, got it?”
“Got it,” she said, glancing up at me with a tiny smile. “I’m kind of
looking forward to it.”
“Yeah? Well don’t. I’m going to work you until you sweat,” I said with
an evil grin. I let her go. Rufus walked out behind her without looking at me

and I felt the strength of his disappointment.
A moment later, Valerian stepped back out into the silent apartment.
Any hint of the relaxed expression from before was wiped blank. “I should
go as well,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said, awkwardly stepping to the side of the doorway. “You
probably should.” He paused as he passed me. Despite everything, I ached
for him to touch me. Desire involuntary and entirely unstoppable. I didn’t
dare look at him. I fastened my gaze somewhere around his collarbone and
held my breath. I heard him inhale as if to speak but, in the end, he said
nothing. He brushed past me and he was gone too.
I pulled the door shut behind me and stared at the empty kitchen. The
pancakes eaten, the plates cleared. Even the apple was gone, a scatter of
sugar on the countertop the only mark to show he had been here at all.

Chapter 24

The next day I was still feeling guilty, groggy from broken sleep. I wanted
to get to the community center before Raven, to have a chance to
investigate the stolen books. I thought I might also have a look at
Michelle’s desk and see if I could find any hint as to where she had gotten
to. It had been over a week now and I was worried. Part of me ready to
suspect the worst. I pushed the thought away. It was the murders preying on
me. Sometimes people just had to go out of town, suddenly and without
telling anyone. Right. Sure.
The room where we normally had our coven meetings was being used
for band practice and the squeaky noise of brass and woodwind followed
me up the stairs. The admin office was little more than a storage cupboard,
with a narrow window in one wall, Michelle’s desk directly under it, and
the other three walls were lined with bookshelves. The one thing we cared
most about at Starlight Coven was our books. This was entirely due to
Jazz’s efforts. From the start she had insisted that we invest in a real library
for the coven. She wanted future generations to be able to learn and share
our knowledge.
So many witches kept their magics in private family grimoires, and if
the magical line died out or a feud broke the family apart, grimoire were so
easily lost either to age and damp or to collectors who locked them up in
fancy safes for the antique value, not for the value of the spells themselves.
A few of our books were old, worn copies of magical textbooks from
Washington University library’s discards courtesy of Rufus, our very own
magical studies professor. But the rest had been gathered painstakingly, one
by one, by the coven members over the years. So, the fact that somebody
was coming through and taking them was an insult not just to our coven but
to us personally. I pulled the door shut behind me, closing out the sound of
the tortured orchestra from downstairs. I took a step into the room, closed

my eyes, and sank into the half world. It rushed up around me, quicker than
ever before. Sharper and clearer than I had ever known it.
Was it just because I had finally eaten a real meal? Or was there
something more going on here? My magic was awakening in a way I had
never experienced before. Like something deep inside me had finally been
unlocked.
I walked toward the shelves and brushed my fingers along the spines,
sensing old memories, loves and frustrations on every page. It was far too
much information. Almost everyone in the coven had read these books at
one time or another; it was impossible to untangle a single presence or pull
out the most recent. Time passed weirdly in the half world. I couldn’t tell
you why some of the oldest books felt the most alive, while others, fresh
and new in their bindings, felt almost dead. I opened my eyes, frustrated. I
wasn’t going to track the thief this way. That would have been too easy.
While my affinity was with the dead, I was still a witch and I could
cast spells with the best of them. I decided the best thing to do would be to
set a few traps for the unsuspecting thief. I raised my hands, then paused.
This might be a good thing to do with Raven, I realized, and lowered my
hands again, deciding to wait until she arrived.
In the meantime, I could get some investigating done. I turned to look
at Michelle’s desk. I walked over and sat down at the seat, smoothing my
hand over the surface. It was entirely clean of papers. I had no idea how she
did it. My desk in my apartment was a mess of files and photos. I could
barely find my laptop most days under all the stuff I’d accumulated.
I pulled open the drawers one by one and found a great deal of
documents neatly filed and labeled, stationery in the top drawer, but nothing
interesting, nothing useful, nothing I could use to track her down.
I pressed my hands down on the surface of the desk and closed my
eyes, calling up the half world once more. My senses flooded and I reached
into the air around me.
Downstairs, I felt the familiar presence of Mrs. Jones, who had died of
a heart attack in the middle of her knitting club three years ago, and to my
left the faint flicker of a dead mouse that had crawled behind the air vent
and been unable to find its way out. All around I felt the ghostly echoes of
generations of people who had come to the center for classes, for meetings,
and for celebrations. A fluttering rush of emotion, highs and lows. All of it
natural, balanced. Part of the ebb and flow of life. But directly around me

was a total aching void. A pocket of silence, terrifyingly familiar. I snapped
my eyes open, my skin cold, goosebumps on my arms.
I pulled out my phone and dialed Detective Pierce.
“It’s Tiana,” I said, my voice tight. “I need you to log a missing
person’s report.”
“That’s not my department,” Pierce said.
“It’s connected to the killings.”
“Connected how?” she asked.
“You know how, in the morgue, I tried to sense something from the
bodies and didn’t get anything?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I felt that again, that nothing.”
“Okay?”
I could tell she didn’t really understand. I didn’t know how to explain
how skin crawlingly wrong it felt to touch a body and not get any sense of
the person who had lived in it. I brushed that thought aside. I didn’t need to
explain to her how my magic worked. I just needed her to understand why
she needed to start looking for Michelle.
“Just trust me,” I said. “It’s unusual, it’s not right, and I’ve sensed it
again. That lack of presence, like their imprint on the world has been wiped
clean. It’s a friend of mine, a neighbor actually. She works with me at the
Starlight Coven and she’s been missing for about a week. It’s not like her.
She wanted to speak to me before she disappeared. She left a message on
my phone. She sounded tense, she sounded afraid. I’m sitting at her desk
right now and I’m not getting anything, you understand? I’m not getting a
sense of her. It’s like she never existed.”
“Okay, okay.” Pierce cut me off. “Slow down, Tiana. Give me her
name.
“It’s Michelle,” I said. “Michelle DuPont.”
I described her quickly to the detective and gave her any information I
could think of to help track her down. I didn’t know Michelle that well; she
had only joined the coven recently. Rufus had recommended her to Jazz
when she’d mentioned needing an assistant to deal with the paperwork. I
was kicking myself for not finding out more about her. If I’d known her
better, I might have been able to stop this, whatever this was. I finally hung
up with the detective’s promise that she would accelerate the paperwork and
start looking.

A hesitant knock came at the door and I turned to see Raven in the
doorway. “Are you busy?” she asked. “I woulda waited in our room
downstairs, only there’s some kind of brass band playing there.”
“Hey,” I said, “yeah sure. Come in.” I put my phone away. “We can
practice in here,” I said. It wasn’t easy to switch tracks from my fear for
Michell and my plans for Raven’s lesson, but I forced myself to do it. I had
to trust Detective Pierce to do her job.
I stood up from Michelle’s desk and walked over to Raven. “Did you
sleep all right at Rufus’s?”
She nodded. “Yeah, he’s all right,” she said.
“All right, well that’s a resounding seal of approval from a teenager.”
“You realize I’m practically not a teenager anymore.”
“Oh? So, in that case you can tell me how long the stealing thing has
been going on?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, a year or so I guess?”
“And is it just shoplifting? Or have you found yourself breaking into
banks in your free time?”
She stared at me, and while she didn’t roll her eyes this time, I could
tell she was doing it in her mind. “It’s just a few things. You know, nothing
anyone will really miss.”
“I’m pretty sure the shop owners would disagree with you, but okay.” I
pointed at the books. “You ever felt the need to take any of these?”
She turned to look at the books with a frown of confusion. “Steal the
coven’s books? No,” she said, shocked, and I could see the emotion was
entirely honest. “No way, I wouldn’t do that.”
“Don’t shit where you live,” I said. “Smart.”
She blushed red. “It’s not like that, okay? I’m not a thief. I just…”
“You just take things that don’t belong to you,” I finished.
“Look, it’s not a big deal, all right?”
“Um, excuse me? You were escorted to my house by the police. What
happens next time? What if Valerian isn’t there to save your ass?”
“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t my ass he was concerned with,” she said.
“Hey,” I snapped. “Focus, I’m being serious here.” I didn’t want to
think about Valerian staring at my ass. He hadn’t been, had he? No. Shut up
brain. I stood and advanced on her, damn girl was too tall for me to loom
over properly, so I settled for a solid glare.

“You think the police will treat you well when they find out you’re a
witch? You think us magicals get slaps on the wrist? Because the world
doesn’t work that way. We’re not some powerful coven that rules the city,
hell, we don’t even own the building we practice in.” I waved my hand to
indicate the community center.
“You work with the police.”
“I work for them. For one detective. The rest just tolerate me, and
believe me, that took work. Mundanes don’t trust us. We’ve got too much
power for them to trust us. Hell, look at what Valerian did to get you away
from those cops. You think that shit is okay?”
She hunched her shoulders and I saw a flicker of doubt cross her face.
Good. Relying on vampire mind tricks was a slippery slope to full blown
evil in my opinion.
“Look, Raven, I don’t want to stand here and chew you out, all right?
We’ve all done stupid things; hell, I’ve done my fair share. But you’ve gotta
grow up. You can’t afford to be a kid with powers like yours. I’m sorry, but
there’s no room for messing around, no space for fuckups. You don’t get
three strikes, you get one, and you just used it up.”
She was looking down at her feet now, scraping her toe across the
floorboards. I softened my voice. “You’ve got potential. I know Jazz thinks
you do as well, and neither of us want to see you wasting it away in a prison
cell somewhere. Understand?”
“Yeah” Raven said. “I guess.”
“No,” I said, “not, ‘I guess’. You have to want it. Really want it. I can
teach you. Jazz and Rufus as well. We can train you and give you all the
tools you need but if you don’t want it, all of that is meaningless.”
I stared at her downturned head, hoping she’d look up and take the
opportunity I was offering her. I had no idea what I’d do if she didn’t.

Chapter 25

Raven straightened and stared me in the eyes. “I do,” she said, her voice
quiet, but growing stronger. “I do want it. I want to get a handle on my
magic.”
“Okay then,” I said. “I’ll make a deal with you.” I stretched out my
hand. “You put the effort in. You make this your priority. You study hard.
And I swear, I’ll teach you everything I know, and when I can’t teach you
anymore, I’ll find someone who can.”
She stared at me as if unable to entirely believe what I was saying,
then she reached out, her palm slightly cold in mine but her grip firm.
“Deal,” she said.
“Good,” I said, dropping her hand and standing. “Right, this is the part
where you say goodbye to all your free time.”
Since it was our first proper session, I began by taking her through the
basics, running over a lot of the stuff we did in the group classes. She was at
the point of manifesting her power, the tiny little baby black hole that had
caused so much drama at the last session, so I took her over and over up to
that point, but no further. Making her pause on the brink of manifesting
power from the half world into the real. The channel of her body, her magic,
held trembling and taut.
By the end, she was sweating and frustrated. “Why can’t I just let it
out?” she snapped.
“Because,” I said, “it isn’t about letting it out and making a flash. Real
magic is about control, testing your own limits until you know them
instinctively. Until you know when you can push past them and when you
can’t. If you can light a single candle flame in the midst of an inferno, that
is the proof of a master sorcerer.”
She sagged into the chair. “All right,” I said, “I think you’re done for
today. Let’s try something a little more fun.” I pulled out the book I had
been leafing through as she had been practicing and opened it to the correct

page. “Here’s a tandem spell, it’ll take both of us. I need you to read it out
while I cast.”
She blinked her bleary eyes and stared down at the page. “This is a
pranking spell,” she said after a moment, checking the cover.
“Yup,” I said. “You know how I asked you whether or not you had
been stealing the books? Well turns out someone really has been taking
books from the library, and we are going to catch the thief red-handed.”
With Raven reading the spell out behind me, I spun the sticky strands
of spiderweb across the front of the bookshelves that stood out black and
thick for a moment before sinking into the wood. Then we spread sparkling,
jagged shards across the floor and reaching grabby tendrils from the ceiling.
After a few minutes, Raven started getting into it, flicking back and
forth through the book, picking even more clever traps.
“This book is awesome,” she said. “Where is it from?”
I smiled. “That’s always been one of my favorites too,” I said. “A
witch traded it to me when I got her son out of a spot of trouble with the
fae.”
She looked at me wide-eyed. “You’ve dealt with the fae?” she asked.
“Yup,” I said. That was not an experience I would be repeating
anytime soon. I stretched, feeling the stiffness in my back from the wound
that had never healed straight. Those fae bastards could be mean.
“Okay,” I said, stepping back and surveying the bookshelf. To anyone
else’s eyes it would look exactly the same as before. But to Raven and I, as
the casters of the spells, it glowed like the entire room was bound up in an
intricate, shining web.
“You see it?” I asked, seeing her eyes go half-mast. She opened them
again and swayed slightly.
“Yes,” she said, a little breathless. “I see it.”
“Good,” I said. “You extended a lot today. I wouldn’t dip into your
magics for a couple of days. Just like physical exercise, you don’t want to
strain anything.”
She nodded.
“Book, please.”
She handed it over and I slid it back into its place.
We left the office and walked slowly out of the center. The orchestra
had finished at some point during our lesson and the center was quiet.
“How are you getting home? I asked.

“Dr. Allister said he’d pick me up,” she said. “I told my foster parents
I’m staying with friends.” She glanced up at me, then away. So that was
confirmation on the foster situation, and I was willing to bet Raven hadn’t
told them anything about the coven or her lessons. She seemed to have a
handle on it for now but I reminded myself to look into it later.
“There he is now,” she said, pointing. I looked up and saw Rufus
approaching.
“I come bearing gifts,” he said, and handed me a coffee and Raven
some kind of sugary nightmare.
“How can you touch that stuff?” I said.
She peered over the rim at my inky black coffee. “How can you touch
that?” she asked.
“Raven,” Rufus interrupted, “would you mind waiting in the car for a
moment? There is something I need to say to Tiana.”
Oh shit. I thought I had gotten away too easily last night. Raven’s eyes
went wide and she glanced between us both, hesitating for a second. I
realized she was waiting for me and I nodded for her to go. We both
watched her walk across the lot.
“Seems you’ve gained yourself a fan,” Rufus said.
I shrugged. “For now. It won’t last, trust me. Give it a couple more
sessions and I’ll be that hard-ass teacher.”
He laughed. “Well, as someone who has made a career out of being a
hard-ass teacher, I can tell you it isn’t so bad.”
“Talking about teaching, I wanted to ask you something, as a professor
I mean.”
He turned to me. “Of course.”
“I’ve noticed my magic expanding, I mean. It feels like it’s growing,
only I know that’s not really possible. Magic isn’t really something you
have, it’s something you channel through you from one world to the next
but… it’s like I’ve suddenly gained the ability to channel more than I could
before. And it’s not just magic; it’s my connection with the dead as well, to
the spirits, to the whole of the half world.”
Rufus hummed. “It could be because you have been spending more
time with the dead lately,” he said.
I blushed without meaning to, thinking of Valerian and the moment in
the kitchen last night, his thumb, the sweetness of sugar. My lips tingled. “I,
yeah… I guess so. For the case, you know.”

“Perhaps it’s that,” he said, his voice determinedly level. “Perhaps it is
merely the proximity of the dead to your magic that is stirring it up. If you
leave them alone it may settle again, or perhaps it will settle of its own
accord.”
“Maybe,” I said. It sounded right, but I wasn’t convinced. I’d
encountered dead spirits before, some cases took me right into the half
world, communing with ghosts of all kinds. This felt different. It felt like
something deeper, something in me changing. I could feel it in my very
bones.
“Tiana,” he said, his voice dropping, “I know I can’t persuade you to
walk away from this case. But you must be careful of the vampires. You of
all people know what they are capable of.”
“I do,” I said, feeling defensive. What was with everybody trying to
warn me away from this case? I was the one who had suffered. I knew
exactly what I was risking.
“You can’t trust them,” he said, and I heard once more the hatred in his
voice.
“I don’t trust them,” I said. “I’m not taking the case for them; I’m
taking it to prove it was them. Do you understand?” His eyes widened. “I
know what they’re doing. They’re killing people just like before. I can
prove it was them. I can make sure they pay for what they’ve done.”
“Oh,” he said.
“What? Did you think I was working for them? They may have
brought me onto this case, but trust me, they are going to regret it. I know
who the real culprit is.”
“The real culprit?”
“Yeah, they are trying to pin it on some outsider, a vampire from
another city. Someone framing them. It’s bullshit.”
For a second, I couldn’t read the look in his eyes, but after a moment
he nodded decisively. “Good,” he said, finally. “They should pay. They
should pay for what they did to you, to your sister, to—” He broke off and
was silent for a moment, looking down at the coffee cup in his hands. The
wind picked up, whistling through the trees around us. It sounded mournful.
“I never told you,” he said suddenly. “I had a daughter.” I stared at him in
surprise. “It was a long time ago, she was younger than you, seventeen. Her
whole life ahead of her. He looked at me, his eyes pale with memories.
“Vampires killed her.”

My breath caught. “My God, Rufus, I’m so sorry.” Now that I knew, I
saw his grief clearly. It explained his hatred of vampires, that was what I
had heard in his voice last night. Was that why he had been willing to take
me in four years ago? Was saving me an attempt to make up for not saving
his daughter?
Was I doing the exact same thing with Oliver and Sevda? Trying to
find justice for them when there was no hope for justice for my sister.
“I hate them,” he said, and I could hear it clear in his voice. “I hate
them like nothing else in this world. They are a danger to us all. They prey
on humanity and use us like playthings. They feel no emotion; they
understand no love or friendship. They only want power and they will
destroy anyone who stands in their way.”
I gripped my coffee cup, feeling a chill in the air. He was right. The
vampires of the city had only caused pain. I needed to remember that. And
yet I couldn’t help but think of Valerian last night. I wanted so much to
believe he was different.
Rufus didn’t say anything else, just gave me a brief hug, a promise to
keep an eye on Raven, and he walked across the lot to the car. I watched
them drive away, raising my hand in a wave as they turned the corner. It
didn’t matter what I felt for Valerian. I needed to focus on what was right in
front of me. On the dead I was supposed to be avenging. They didn’t have
anyone else. I owed it to them. I needed to work the only lead I had. Sevda
and the strange fear that had fallen over her in the last days of her life. I
needed to go back to the vampire court.

Chapter 26

The weather had turned even colder, so I swung by my apartment to grab a
scarf. I’d ripped my old one leaping over a wire fence while chasing after
an escaped poodle. Don’t ask. Michelle had taken pity on me shivering at
the coven meeting and given me hers. It was a warm red knit with a white
zigzag pattern running along it. The wool was soft and silky, much nicer
than anything I owned.
I’d had enough of rattling around without answers. I was afraid time
had already run out for Michelle. The gaping void in the half world preyed
on me. I had to find out more. I knew Sevda had been tense for the last days
of her life. I needed to find out what it was that had spooked her so badly.
She had to have an office or a room, at the very least a desk at the vampire
court. Perhaps she had left something there that might lead me to her killer.
I didn’t trust that the vampires had released everything to the police;
centuries of secret keeping wasn’t an easy habit to break. But they would
give them to me or there would be hell to pay.
I arrived at the court in late afternoon, the tail end of the day. Vampires
would be up soon. I had spent much longer than I anticipated with Raven,
and in my rush to reach the court before sunset I’d forgotten to eat anything
again. Damn.
The doors to the court were wide open but I picked out discreet
security cameras in the corners. The vampires would be asleep but their
human employees would be monitoring the feed. I ignored them. Either
they had put me on the guest list or they hadn’t and I would soon be dealing
with unwelcome company.
I took the stairs two at a time, remembering the route up to the human
dormitories. The hallway was quiet, with the vampires asleep. I guess the
humans were either catching up on sleep themselves or taking care of their
own business outside the court. I walked to the first door and placed my
hand upon it, sending my mind into the half world. Instantly I got the strong

presence of a human within, a gentle rise and fall to the pulse that said she
was sleeping.
I moved on to the next room, empty but with the lingering imprint of
the man who lived there. The next room I recognized before touching it and
I felt Eve’s presence. She was sitting inside, alert and awake, studying
perhaps. I tiptoed away from her door, not wanting to deal with her, and
moved to the next, slowly making my way down the corridor. Just under
half were being used, but only a handful were occupied at the moment.
The next room I tapped, I felt the total lack of presence that was the
signature of whoever had killed Oliver and Sevda. I tried the door. It was
locked. I crouched down and pressed my eye to the keyhole. I could see the
room inside was pretty basic, like the others. A man’s jacket lay on the bed
and I could see a couple of books on the desk, one with the spine facing me.
Looked like textbooks. Oliver’s room?
I straightened, tapping my fingers against the door handle. I’d
forgotten my lock picks. I could come back and see if I could find a way in,
but Sevda’s room was the priority. I kept checking doors until they reached
the end of the corridor. Only one door left. I pressed my hand against it and
the door clicked open. I pushed it wide and looked around the room. It
looked a lot like Eve’s, only a mirror image since it was on the other side of
the corridor. But this room was empty. No flowers, no rug, no blanket. Even
the mattress was stripped from the bed. Just the wooden bed frame left, the
desk in the corner empty. Whoever had lived in this room, someone had
made very sure there was no trace of them anymore. I knew without trying
to look into the half world that this was it.
I walked into the center of the room. Even without using my magic it
felt empty, a void. A dark space in the middle of the bright world. If Sevda
had lived here, her presence was erased just like everywhere else. Only this
time the vampires had cleared out her physical possessions as well.
I ducked to look under the bed, searching between the slats. Nothing,
nothing at all. I looked around, tracing my eyes over the skirting, kicking it
to see if there were any loose panels. I tapped the floorboards with my feet.
Nothing creaked, nothing bent out of shape.
I went to the window, running my fingers over the frame, opening it
and tucking my hand underneath the sill to see if I could find anything
taped there. Nothing.

Finally, I went to the desk and pulled every drawer out completely,
placing them on the bed so I could look at the backs and the undersides. I
shoved my head into the cavity and tried to see if there was anything stuck
underneath. Nothing. I pulled the entire desk away from the wall. The space
between was full of dust and pencil shavings but nothing useful. Nothing
that could hint at why Sevda was so afraid.
Except of course for the fact that this place had been cleared out so
completely. I very much doubted Mrs. Sahin had been down here and
anyway, she wouldn’t have taken the mattress. No, this was the vampires.
For some reason, they had cleared Sevda’s room out top to bottom. But not
Oliver’s. That was telling. Sevda really had found something. Something
related to the vampires.
I sighed in frustration. I didn’t know what the fuck it was that was so
dangerous they had killed her over it. I frowned deeply, and why had they
decided to kill Oliver as well? A cover-up? But it had only served to bring
more attention to them. The opposite of what a cover-up should do.
It didn’t make any sense. I had all these different parts but nothing was
coming together. I walked over to Sevda’s window and stared out. The sun
was starting to set and its golden orange rays were reflected over the water.
A beautiful view, I thought. Had she looked at it one last time before going
to her death?
I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the cold windowpane. I
was tired and hungry and no closer to finding the truth.
Was I kidding myself thinking I could get justice for the dead? I hadn’t
been able to find justice for Violet. “Tiana?” I jerked back from the window
and turned around abruptly to see Eve at the door. Shit, I had forgotten to
close it properly. I straightened and tried to wipe the exhaustion from my
expression. “Eve,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
She frowned. “I was going to ask you the same question.”
I gestured to the room. “This is Sevda’s room, isn’t it?”
She blinked. “Yeah, I guess they cleared it out?”
“This doesn’t seem unusual to you?” I asked skeptically, pointing at
the bed.
“I don’t know,” she shrugged, “I mean, I guess?”
I sighed. She wasn’t going to be any help.
I went to move past her but she made a surprised inhale when I came
close. I looked at her inquiringly.

“No, it’s just that scarf…” She reached out hesitantly and pulled it free
from my jacket. “Yeah, I thought I recognized the pattern.”
“Recognized it? What, you have one just like it?”
“Oh no,” she said. “I mean, I wanted to, but Michelle didn’t tell me
where she got it from.”
Goosebumps broke out over my skin. “Michelle?” I said, turning to
face her and shoving her back until she was pressed against the doorjamb.
“How the fuck do you know Michelle?”

Chapter 27

“I didn’t know her,” Eve said, cringing back from me.
I knew I needed to tone down my anger but I was just too shocked.
What the hell had Michelle been doing here in the court? My fear for her
rose sharply.
“I didn’t know her, not really,” Eve said.
“That’s what you said about Oliver,” I snapped.
“I know. I mean it this time,” she said desperately. “Honestly, I only
saw her a couple of times. It was the scarf that I remembered.”
“Did she have a room here?” I asked, but I already knew the answer.
“No,” Eve said.
I hadn’t felt the void in any of the rooms except for Oliver and
Sevda’s.
Suddenly a ripple went through the air, a shivering magical sense
beneath my feet in the half world. I looked sharply out the window. The sun
had finally sunk below the water. Shit. I had wanted to get out of here
before sunset. Deep down in the basements, I could feel the vampires
waking up, my sense of them, muted while they slept, blooming into sharp
relief. And there in the center, Valerian, almost directly beneath my feet. I
felt him wake, felt him become aware of me and reach out through the half
world. I brutally cut off my sense of magic and forced myself back into the
real world, stepping away from Eve.
“You better not be lying to me, Eve. I’m sick of this.”
“I’m not,” she said. “I swear. I didn’t even know you knew Michelle. I
would have said if I’d known anything.”
“Was she with anyone, when you saw her? What was she doing here?”
Eve shook her head. “It was just a normal night. I think some people
were dancing and Michelle came in. I noticed the scarf because—”
“Who was there?”
“I didn’t keep track, the usual crowd.”

“Who was she dancing with?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Well fucking try harder.”
“I wasn’t paying attention. We weren’t friends.”
“Come on, Eve. Think. Was Valerian there?” I asked, dreading the
answer.
“No.” She frowned. “No, I don’t think so. He doesn’t really come to
the parties. They were always more Kyran’s thing.”
“Kyran,” I said grimly. “He was there?”
“Well, yes,” she said. “He’s almost always at the parties.”
“Perfect,” I bit out, and strode away from her. Maybe I would be
sticking around to meet the vampires after all.
Despite the fact that I had tried to erase every shred of memory I had
of this place it all came back to me as I descended into the lower rooms,
striding down familiar hallways until I reached the section of the court that
belonged exclusively to the vampires. No windows down here, no chance
for a stray beam of sunlight to catch them unawares while they slept.
I could sense the vampires all around me through the half world but
they kept their distance, not a single footfall breaking the silence around
me. Valerian? Or had Alexandra put a warning out? Whatever. I didn’t care.
I honed in on one of the presences, the vampire I wanted to speak to, and
knocked sharply on Kyran’s door. I could feel him inside, but he took his
time coming to answer.
“What do you want?” he growled, pulling the door open and glaring
down at me.
“Just to see your lovely face, Kyran,” I said, smiling sweetly.
He sneered. “Bullshit,” he said.
Perhaps he was still smarting from what Alexandra had done or from
the face-off with Valerian. Either way, for the first time, he didn’t go on
trading insults. “Just tell me what you want, Tiana.”
“What do you know about the dead humans,” I said, starting soft.
“I told you already,” he snapped. “I didn’t have anything to do with
them.”
“But you knew them, right?”
“No. Why would I know a human?” He sneered.
“You didn’t know them? Didn’t even meet the blood donors, huh?
What, you teetotal now?”

“I fucking saw them around the place, sure,” he growled. “But I don’t
socialize with humans.”
Liar, I thought. “So, you saw them around… like at one of your
parties?” I asked.
“They’re not my parties,” he snapped.
“But you do go to them.”
“Everyone goes to them.”
“Valerian doesn’t,” I said.
“Valerian has a stick up his ass,” Kyran snapped. “Are we done here?”
“Sure,” I said, slowly pulling the scarf out from where I’d tucked it
behind my back and looping it around my neck. I caught the way his eyes
very obviously fastened on it and the widening as he realized whose scarf it
was. Gotcha. He snatched his eyes back to mine and read the satisfaction in
them.
“You’re a liar, Kyran,” I said. “Are you a murderer too?”
He growled. “How am I a liar?”
“Because Oliver and Sevda weren’t the only blood donors you knew.
Michelle was one as well.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” he said, but this time he
wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Don’t bullshit me, Kyran. She was here. I know she was with you at
one of your parties.”
“So what?” he said. “We get new people coming in all the time.
Humans love spending a night with vampires.”
“Just the night?” I asked. “I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think it was
just a night.” I stepped closer to him. “Because she’s missing, Kyran.”
There was no surprise in his eyes. He already knew she was missing. What
the fuck had he done to her? “Where is she?” I growled. He glared at me,
his frown deepening into a black expression.
“I don’t fucking know, all right? Yes, I saw her at one of the parties.
Yes, I recognize the fucking scarf; she was always wearing it.” He broke off
abruptly.
“Always? You know ‘always’ implies more than once.”
“Once, twice, a couple of times. Whatever.” He shrugged but the
motion was tense. “I don’t know where she is and I didn’t do anything to
her or the other humans.”
“I don’t think I believe you, Kyran,” I said, staring up at him.

He growled and I saw his fingers clenched on the doorjamb but he
didn’t move to strike me. Interesting. Someone was holding his leash. “I
don’t give a shit what you believe,” he snapped. “You don’t matter. None of
this matters. No one is gonna find out who killed those humans. No one
cares.”
“I care,” I snapped.
He sneered. “And what are you going to do? You’re just some witch
chick Valerian dipped his dick into one time.”
Anger fizzed through my veins. “Careful, Kyran. You don’t want to
push me.”
He laughed bitterly. “You think it’s you I’m afraid of? Valerian put out
a warning. If anyone touches even a fucking hair on your head, he will gut
the vampire responsible. He’s gone completely overboard this time and the
queen is on the warpath about those dead humans. She was mad enough
when she found out about what Gloria did to you. I’m going to fucking
keep my head down. So you can get lost,” he said, stepping back, and
before I could shove my foot in the door, he had slammed it shut in my
face. I felt his presence receding rapidly away, flickering with vampiric
speed out across his rooms, through a back door, and away from me.
I hissed in frustration. He was hiding something, I knew it, but was he
hiding a murder? I didn’t like him and he’d never liked me. Was my dislike
for him affecting my judgment? Hell, you could say that about this entire
case. Still, it didn’t line up. I could see Kyran going crazy at a party, taking
things too far, drinking too much. He could have killed Oliver, but Sevda?
The room cleared out, the fear before her death? Why would Kyran do that?
What secret could she have found out about him? And then there was
Michelle. Was she dead? Could he have killed all of them the same way?
He didn’t seem out of control, rabid. He was a fucking pain in the ass, sure,
but he’d been holding back just then, not attacking me. Clearly he still had
control.
None of it made any sense. My thoughts kept tangling on what he had
said about Valerian. What was he doing staking a claim? Like he owned
me? I didn’t fucking want his protection. I turned around, distracted and
angry, and pulled up short at the sight of Queen Alexandra standing at the
end of the hallway. I sucked in a breath as she glided toward me. “I do hope
you are finding answers as well as sending my vampires running,” she said.
Her eyes flicked over me, the red scarf at my throat. She didn’t hesitate and

her expression didn’t change by a single flicker of an eyelash. Did she not
recognize it? Or was she just better at lying than Kyran?
I gathered my thoughts. “It’s not easy to investigate when you destroy
all the clues,” I said.
“Destroy?” She raised a delicate eyebrow.
“Sevda’s room. It’s stripped bare.”
“Yes, the police came and took everything that belonged to her.”
“Including the mattress?” I asked.
“Some kind of parasite,” she said, drawing her lips back from her
teeth. “Bedbugs I believe they are called. We didn’t want them to spread.
We had to take drastic measures.”
“Bedbugs,” I said flatly.
“Indeed, I have the invoice for the exterminators if you’d like to see
it?”
I shook my head. I was sure she really did have an invoice. She was
nothing if not meticulous. That didn’t change the fact that she was lying
through her fangs. She took another step closer to me and I was suddenly
very aware that we were the only two people in the hallway and that I could
feel the pressure of her vampire powers tickling at my throat and along the
skin of my forearms.
“You are so like your sister, in so many ways.” She raised a hand and
hovered it above my skin. I could feel the tension between us, the magic of
the dead rising off her and from me. I felt it ought to be visible in the air
between us, like smoke or steam. “You’re growing into your powers,” she
said.
I jerked back. “How do you know that?”
She smiled enigmatically. “I have lived for centuries, little witch. I
know many things. Did you know there was a time when a death witch held
a place of pride in a vampire court? I had once considered your sister for the
position.”
I stared at her. This was the first I was hearing of it. “What are you
saying?” I asked.
“I would like to offer that position to you.”
“No thanks,” I snapped.
“You should not be so quick to refuse,” she said. “Power such as yours
should not go to waste.”
“I’m not wasting it.”

“On your little cases.” She smiled. “You could continue doing that,
you know. A real office, perhaps an assistant. The resources to really make
a difference in the world.”
I stared at the glitter in her eyes. She didn’t care about making a
difference in the world; she was just telling me what she thought I wanted
to hear. Selling me on the idea, just another kind of vampire seduction. My
skin crawled. I had to get out of here. “Your employees aren’t doing so well
right now,” I snapped. “I think I’ll give it a pass, thanks.”
A flicker of darkness entered her gaze. “There will be no more
killings,” she said. “I have seen to it. Any vampire who steps out of line
will be punished.”
“Yeah, sure. I bet a slap on the wrist from you is really going to stop
them.”
“Slap on the wrist?” she repeated with a smile that was entirely frigid.
“Perhaps not.” She leaned forward. “But burning to death in the sunlight
should warn the others.” I jerked away from her.
“You’d kill a vampire over this?” I said, shocked.
“Of course,” she said. “I cannot have my vampires going around
murdering humans. As you said, the attention will only cause bad press.
And I will do whatever it takes to keep them in line,” she said and glided
past me, her fingers brushing against my shoulder for a bare second, the
touch so cold it chilled me right to the bone.

Chapter 28

I left the vampire court and went straight home, Alexandra’s weird job
offer lingering in my mind. Why had she sent Valerian to me in the first
place? If you thought about it, it didn’t really make any sense. She owned
the police. She had to, otherwise Violet’s death and my attack wouldn’t
have gone unnoticed. Had she burned all her bridges covering those two
incidents up? Detective Pierce had implied she was skating on thin ice. But
still, why bring me in? An outsider who hated vampires. I was motivated to
solve the case, sure, but the deeper I dug, the more I wondered if she
wanted this case solved at all.
I dragged my tired body up the stairs, then paused outside Michelle’s
door. I needed to find out where my friend was. She would have to forgive
me for the invasion of privacy. I picked up my lock picks from my
apartment. With them, it was a work of seconds to jimmy open her door.
Michelle’s apartment was slightly bigger than mine. She had an extra
bedroom that she had turned into an office, the walls lined with books.
Some of them copies of the same textbooks from the coven, other stuff that
I assumed was related to her graduate studies, spread out over her desk.
Printed pages and handwritten in a tightly written scrawl. I picked up a
piece of paper.
… Magic use in early sixteenth century Hanover was strictly regulated
by the Witch Consuls of the day. However, the authorities would turn a
blind eye toward common practices such as food preservation,
communication, and industrial spells…
I put it down. Riveting stuff, I thought wryly.
There was no folder neatly labeled with “top secret shit”, or
suspicious-looking muddy footprints in the middle of the floor.
Unfortunately, real-life was never so easy. Her laptop was missing. That
was unusual, but the charger was gone too; perhaps she had taken it with

her wherever she’d disappeared to. I still couldn’t bring myself to believe
she was dead. There had to be another reason for the void around her.
I left the office and poked my head into the bedroom. Nothing was out
of place. Her entire room was neat as a pin. Unnatural I would say, only,
thinking of her tidy desk in the coven office, I realized that was Michelle’s
natural state. The complete opposite of me. I checked under the bed for
suspicious shoeboxes full of secret notes, or maybe just sex toys, but I
found nothing. The drawers to the bedside table held just a couple of old
keys, tissues, sleep masks, and some all-natural sleeping pills. The
bathroom had no suspicious medication in the cupboard and the kitchen had
nothing but some food that was going bad in the fridge. My stomach
grumbled and I remembered I hadn’t eaten all day. I grabbed a Tupperware,
took out the stuff that still had some time on it, and threw the rest in the
trash bag, which I tied up and placed by the door to take with me. What?
There was no point letting the food go to waste.
Her living room didn’t serve half duty as an office like mine did. It had
a couch, much nicer than mine, and a little dining room table tucked against
the wall. More books in here but brighter covers, not so many textbooks,
and a flat-screen TV in one corner. Her plants were dying.
I turned around and went back into the office. Okay, so she hadn’t left
anything useful to tell me where to go, but she had taken her laptop with
her. Maybe that wasn’t the only electrical device she kept on her person.
Michelle, being Michelle, had a small filing cabinet in the corner, and
each file was neatly labeled. I pulled out the one marked ‘cell phone’. I
sorted through until I reached the letter she had received when she opened
her account, and bingo, she’d written her account passwords on the letter by
hand. Terrible security.
I shoved the cabinet drawer closed, picked up the Tupperware and the
trash bag, and went back to my place.
I grabbed a fork and began eating her leftovers cold while I tapped
away at my laptop. Most cell phone companies would offer you some kind
of tracking data for a lost phone if you had the right permissions turned on.
Michelle didn’t, but with her logins I was able to use some of the resources
I had as a PI to request the last ten days’ worth of GPS tracking. It would
take a while to compile the results.
I dragged my depressingly slim case folder toward me, rereading
everything I had on Sevda and Oliver, trying to work out how Michelle fit

into the picture. Frustrated, I worked on it deep into the night. I must have
fallen asleep at the desk because the next thing I knew, someone was
running their fingers softly through my hair. Halfway through sleep and
awake, I only registered the presence as familiar and I hummed softly,
enjoying the feeling.
Then my brain finally came online and I shot up fast enough that I
pulled something in my neck. “Fuck,” I said, bringing my hand to my
shoulder and squeezing the muscle. I carefully turned to the side. Valerian
was perched on the desk next to me, his hair tousled, points of color in his
cheeks, looking like he had in the dream. He’d fed before coming here.
“How long have you been here, creep?” I said, my voice croaky and
dry.
“You’re going to get a cramp sleeping on the desk like that,” he said,
not answering my question.
“I’ll give you a cramp,” I said. He didn’t even grace that poor response
with words, just raised an eyebrow at me. “Shut up,” I said.
I shoved away from the desk, feeling far too sleepy to deal with him.
“So now I’ve given you an invitation, you’re just going to feel free to turn
up whenever you like?” I asked over my shoulder, making a beeline for the
coffee machine.
“Pretty much,” he said, and I swore I could hear his fucking smirk in
his words.
I filled the coffee machine and turned back to him, leaning on the
counter.
He stretched out his legs in front of him, crossing them loosely at the
knee. I wasn’t sure how I’d gotten to this point, Valerian, solid and real, in
the middle of my apartment, muscled thighs and broad forearms crossed
over his chest. His eyes were dark as he took me in, much the same way I
was looking at him.
What did he see when he saw me, I wondered. Compared with the
other humans who hung around vampires I was nothing special. Sevda had
been a stunner, Oliver handsome in that fresh-faced and youthful way.
Michelle was far prettier than me. Even slippery little Eve was a looker.
And here I was. All attitude and bruises. And yet when Valerian looked at
me like that with that light in his eyes…
He unfolded from the desk and prowled toward me. My breath caught
in my chest and my muscles locked. I couldn’t deny the reaction I had to

him, but our history was too painful to simply be swept aside.
He rested his broad palms on the countertop and looked down at me.
“Why did you do it?” I asked. “I was hurting, I was angry with you for not
telling me about my sister. I was stupid. I got drunk. I was off my game. I
shouldn’t have gone to that party. But why…” I broke off, then forced
myself to continue. “Why did you take advantage of me? Why did you bite
me and drain me and then leave me to die?” It didn’t make any sense. My
eyes were filling up with tears, the sight of him blurry. “If you hated me you
could have just let me go. If you hate me so much, why are you even here?”
I realized his muscles were all tense, locked as if he were fighting
against invisible bonds. “There’s so much you don’t know. Nothing is as it
seems, Tiana.”
I shivered as he repeated the words my sister had said to me in the
dream. I wanted to believe there was some reason for what he had done,
something that could explain it. He leaned forward over the countertop and
the air around us charged just as it had every time we were close. I wanted,
I wanted so much. I had spent so long denying myself. Every lead in this
case had turned to frustration. Everything else in my life was wrong, I was
behind on rent, constantly running myself to exhaustion. Could this one
thing go right? Could I just take what was offered without worrying about
the consequences? Without entangling my heart a second time? I wanted
this, I needed this. And I couldn’t hold back any longer.
I arched up and met his lips in a kiss.
Sensation flooded my senses, his lips firm and hard on mine. His hand
came up to cradle the back of my head, as he took control of the kiss,
pulling me close, and all around us the world felt like it was on fire. His
chest was pressed to mine, the friction of his front against my breasts
drawing my skin tight, nipples hard. Desire looped out between us and
flooded my insides. I was hot, gasping into his open mouth, our kiss slick,
his lips unforgiving, the kiss an onslaught, eroding my walls, eroding my
control. Fuck, I canted my hips, knocking them into the counter, and
clenched my core tight. I felt needy, desperate, resonating with want.
The half world rose, unbidden, and I saw it shining through closed
eyes. Light edging our bodies just like last time, I felt it in my blood with
every beat of my living heart and his cold one. Death magic rising off my
skin and his.

This was something new, something I had never experienced before.
We had never called power through our kiss. And yet it was undeniable. I
felt the blood in my veins resonate with his. It felt good, it felt wonderful
and I never wanted it to end. Glorious, incandescent, perfect, a shining,
glowing… ringing?
That same jarring, pickaxe noise broke its way into my mind just like
before and I tore myself away from Valerian’s kiss, still dazed with desire.
It took me a minute to realize the noise was my cell phone yet again. I
stumbled away from Valerian, over to my desk and stared at the caller ID.
Detective Pierce, again? For fuck’s sake. I raised the phone to my ear,
staring across the room at Valerian. His eyes were stained dark with lust,
and I felt a shiver right through my bones.
“The fuck is it, Detective? You’ve got fucking awful timing.”
There was silence on the end of the line and I had a shiver of
premonition that chilled the lust in my veins and sent a lead weight through
my stomach.
“The woman you wanted me to track down, Michelle DuPont?”
“No,” I said, not wanting to hear it.
“I’m so sorry, Tiana, we found her body.”

Chapter 29

The cops had blocked off the road with police cars. The sirens were off but
the walls of the buildings around were painted in blue and red from the
lights. They had strung police tape across the mouth of the alleyway; the
tape flapping slightly in the wind. A slow drizzle had started on the way
here and I could feel raindrops trickling down my hair and under the collar
of my jacket.
I had a patchy memory of my phone falling from nerveless fingers to
my desk. Valerian had managed to get a garbled explanation from me and
bundled me into his car. He’d driven me straight here, flashes of the street
outside, streetlamps, people moving around the city, oblivious to what had
happened. I felt numb inside, as cold as the rain falling all around us. I
couldn’t believe she was dead.
The mouth of the alleyway was suddenly closer, though I had no
memory of crossing the street toward it. One of the police officers
recognized me and raised the tape. I ducked underneath it and stepped into
the darkness. The void was all around me, heavier here, fresher, like a hole
that had just been torn in the fabric of reality.
The police were walking back and forth through the tatters of the half
world as it tried to knit itself together around its wound. How could they not
notice it? I walked closer, every step a struggle. I wanted to run, get away
from this place. Not just from the pervasive sense of wrongness. I didn’t
want to see Michelle’s body. I didn’t want it to be real.
In the corner of the alleyway were two metal trash cans, bags of trash
piled up around them, one of them ripped open by scavengers and the trash
spilled out onto the dirty tarmac. At first, I didn’t see her, and then the
shape on the ground resolved into a foot, the shoe kicked off and lying on
its side just next to it. I followed her foot up the line of her leg, half covered
by trash. Her elbow, her shoulder, dark hair covering her face.

The world reeled to the side and I almost collapsed, hitting the wall,
the rough brickwork scraping the arm of my jacket, catching at the tear that
was already there.
She was dead. It was real. I’d failed her. I pressed my eyes shut but
that only made the sense of wrongness worse, the half world around me
flexing as if it were calling for my help. The sense of wrongness hadn’t
been as clear and sharp with Sevda or Oliver, perhaps because their deaths
were old and the half world had found the time to fix itself. Whatever was
killing these people, it had serious magic, magic powerful enough to tear a
hole right through the worlds.
“Shit, Tiana.” I dragged open my eyes and saw Detective Pierce in
front of me, her face drawn in concern. For a moment I lost my grip on
time. The alleyway, the darkness, the dirt, it was bringing it all back. I was
lost in my memories, weak and drained of blood, staring up at her face.
Hold on, just hold on.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said. “I shouldn’t have called you. Get
the report tomorrow, okay? You don’t have to be here for this.”
I nodded shakily. Normally I would fight her, insist on working the
case, but this was too much, too close. She reached for my arm and I leaned
on her heavily as I exited the alleyway. “I should have done something,” I
said.
“This isn’t on you. You couldn’t have known,” she said.
I shook my head. “But I did know. I felt the void, I told you. It’s worse
here. Whoever is doing this,” I said hoarsely, “they tore the half world right
open to do it.” I could see she didn’t understand what I was talking about.
“Whatever they are doing, it’s twisted, its wrong, you understand? Not just
the deaths. There’s something evil in it.” Evil was right. The taint of
darkness hung all over the alleyway. I stumbled another step away. I’d told
Raven magic itself wasn’t evil, it was just power. Well all that power had
been channelled into something sick, something perverted. I needed to get
away from it.
“How did you get here,” she asked. “Let me call you a cab.”
“No,” I said, “it’s fine.” I forced myself to let go of her and scanned
the darkness. There was Valerian, standing half cloaked in shadows beyond
the police cars. He should be the last person I wanted to see with the
memories coming thick and fast, and yet the sight of his tall form in the
darkness was exactly what I needed.

“It’s okay,” I said, not looking away from him. “I’ve got a ride.”
“Detective Pierce,” someone called from behind her.
She swore under her breath.
“You go,” I said. “You’re needed. I’ll be all right.” I wasn’t sure how
convincing I was.
“Detective.” The shout came a second time from behind her and she
finally turned and went back to the scene.
I made my way toward Valerian, walking right up to him. Not stopping
until my head hit his chest. He folded his arms around me in a complete
embrace, shutting out the outside world. For the first time I felt my magic
ease, mingling with his. The familiar magic of the dead smooth and
comforting. I breathed in deep, inhaling his smoky scent. This was what I
needed. Was it wrong to be taking comfort from Valerian when my dead
friend was lying right there behind me? Some vampire was out there killing
people, and here I was cozying up with one of their kind.
I didn’t know how to explain it. I needed it. I needed him. He was the
only thing that was keeping me from falling off the deep end and into the
void. I tilted my head up to look at him. “Do you feel it?” I whispered. “Do
you feel the hole in the world?”
His eyes widened in shock. Shit, I sounded delirious. “Do you feel it?”
I said, insistent. “Back there.” He turned to look at the alleyway, narrowing
his eyes.
“I feel.” He hesitated. “There is a darkness there,” he said after a
moment.
I closed my eyes. I wasn’t imagining it. I wasn’t crazy. I pressed my
forehead to his firm chest. There really was something wrong.
“Take me away from here,” I whispered to him.
“Come,” he said, and drew me back to the car. Sinking into the plush
leather interior, it felt like home.
We sped through the city, not going back to central district but east. At
first, I thought he was taking me to the vampire court but we kept going
past it, out of Seattle toward Bellevue. We drove silently through the streets
as the buildings around us turned to glass and chrome, towering over our
heads. The city was awake, the night full of energy, but I could feel the
wound in the half world lingering in my mind. I glanced in the rear-view
mirror as if I could somehow see the torn edges hanging over the city, but
of course there was nothing, just cars, a black sedan and behind us and a

taxi, its lights momentarily blinding me. I closed my eyes and rested my
head against the window.
We took a ramp into an underground garage under a tall, shining
apartment building. Valerian parked smoothly and turned off the engine,
turning toward me. “Do you want to talk?” he asked. I shook my head. “All
right.” He climbed out and I followed slowly enough that he had pulled my
door open before I could.
A flicker of emotion pierced my grief. “I’m not some princess who
needs doors opened for her,” I snapped.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, taking a step back.
“Good.” I glared at him, but my glare soon faded away. I just didn’t
have the energy to sustain it. I closed the door behind me and followed him
toward the elevator. I disinterestedly watched him tap in the code for the
penthouse then turned, my eyes running sightlessly over the cars in the
garage: shiny Porsches and BMWs. The beam of headlights flashed across
the walls and over Valerian’s back. I caught sight of a black car driving in
down the ramp. Then the elevator dinged and the doors slid open. “Come
on,” Valerian said. “Let’s get you inside.” His broad palm was warm on my
back, the feeling so distracting it scattered my thoughts.

Chapter 30

I ended up curled on the couch in his embrace, looking out through the
windows, the rain still falling and blurring the view. I’d forgotten how well
we fit together. I felt his lips gently brush a kiss on the top of my head.
This couldn’t last. I knew I would have to get up eventually. I would
have to make some kind of decision about Valerian and what I was doing
with him. I needed to contact Detective Pierce and get the information from
the crime scene. From Michelle’s crime scene. My thoughts smeared like
rain on glass. I couldn’t deal with any of it right now.
“I can feel you thinking,” Val said, his voice a low rumble.
“I’m cursed,” I said. “I lose everyone. I lost Violet, I lost you, I lost
Michelle.”
“That’s not true,” he said. “You didn’t lose me.”
I turned my head up to look at him. “I never had you to begin with, did
I?” And I pushed free from his embrace, standing up.
He reached out, his hand encircling my wrist. “Tiana.”
I tugged my hand away. “What?” I said. “Which is it? You can’t have
both. Either you don’t care about me or you do. It’s not that fucking hard.”
The anger burned away a little of the grief I was feeling. It didn’t make
me feel better exactly but maybe a little more alive. I looked around myself.
“God, what am I doing? I need to get out of here.”
He stood and faced me. “Stay.”
“What if I don’t fucking want to?” I snapped. “Are you going to make
me?”
Adrenaline fizzed down my veins and I felt alive again. I wanted to
fight. I needed it, but he just stared back at me, implacably calm and
completely fucking expressionless. I hated it, I hated that calm. I wanted to
break it right off his face. I swung at him. He caught my fist in the air, his
broad palm completely covering my hand. “You don’t want to do this.”

“What do you know?” I said, voice shaky. “What do you know about
what I want?”
“You’ve just lost your friend.”
“I fucking know,” I shouted. “You think I’ve fucking forgotten?”
I launched myself at him again, striking with my other hand, desperate
to reach him, to feel my blows connect, to feel something, anything. He
shoved me away, hard enough that I stumbled. “I’m not doing this,” he said
and turned away. Pure rage ran through me. I grabbed the nearest thing at
hand, a lamp from the side table, and flung it at his head. He spun and
caught it, his eyes flashing. “Don’t push me, Tiana.”
“Fuck you,” I said, finally remembering my knife. I’d stuck it into my
jeans on autopilot before leaving the apartment and when I reached down
there it was. I pulled it out, dropping my weight low.
Valerian growled. “You’re playing with fire.”
“That’s the only way I play,” I said, just as low, and I sprung toward
him. This time my anger and grief channeled deep and low, ready to hurt.
My first strike was a feint, too low, then I pivoted, twisted, and drove
my knife up to his ribs. His hands clenched around my grip at the last
moment. I bore up against him but even all my strength was barely enough
to move him an inch.
“Stop now,” he said, but his eyes were glittering, waking to the
violence between us. He was enjoying this. This was new. We’d never
fought, not like this. This wasn’t tainted by past memories. I was right here.
Present. In the moment.
I snarled wordlessly and twisted again, falling back, then bringing my
knee up sharp and hard. He grunted, his expression spasming in pain as my
knee connected between his legs. I grinned, pulling my knife out of his grip
and swinging higher, for his throat.
His thick forearm blocked me, but before I could try again he was on
me, spinning me round, throwing me down on the couch. I bounced off the
cushions and vaulted toward the back but he grabbed my legs, dragged me
down, kicking.
The side of his palm, flat and hard, struck my wrist and the knife went
flying. “No,” I shouted, kicking out and catching him on the jaw. He
grabbed me by the waist and spun me down onto the ground. I expected to
land hard but he cushioned my fall. The bastard was playing with me, I

realized as we rolled, turning until I was underneath and he was on top.
“Fight me, damn you,” I said, slapping at the cage of his arms.
“No,” he said, staring down at me. His body was pressed close to
mine, his arms on either side.
I was surrounded by him, and suddenly I was very aware of the heat
rising from his body. The scent of him, sweat and musk. My breath was
coming fast, exertion speeding my heartbeat and the pull in my muscles
settling into a low ache. I felt alive, truly alive. This was what I needed.
He pushed himself off me, pulling back up onto the couch. I lay there
for a moment, panting against the floor. Was I insane? Was I really doing
this? I thought of the way his body felt above me. The way it made me feel.
The memory of the alleyway lingered on the edges of my thoughts. The
fight had driven it out, just for a moment. I needed that. Needed something
to ground me in my body and help me escape my twisting, curling thoughts.
And if he wouldn’t fight me…
I pushed myself up and stared at him, sprawled out on the couch. The
fight had brought blood to his cheeks, to his lips, his dark blond hair falling
in a curl over his forehead.
“I don’t want to think about the crime scene,” I said. “I don’t want to
feel like this anymore.”
“What do you want me to do about it?” he asked, looking up at me
with dark eyes.
“Distract me,” I said, deep with meaning. And I moved slowly,
crawling across the ground and up onto his lap.
He stared into my eyes. From this position, I was looking down at him.
“Are you sure? Seems unhealthy.”
“I need to feel something, you understand?” I couldn’t explain it. The
way my limbs were filling with a manic kind of energy. Anything to keep
the grayness of grief from weighing me down. It was wild and unstoppable,
a desperate need to prove that I was alive, that I wasn’t dead as well. I
needed his touch to erase the cloying grief that lay over me.
Valerian’s eyes were mirrors, reflecting my own expression back at me
from the depths of dark blue. “Why do you care whether or not it’s right?
Why do you care whether or not it’s healthy?” I rolled my hips against him
and was viciously gratified to feel him harden between my legs. “You can’t
tell me you don’t want me.”

He growled and his hands were suddenly clamped on my waist. “Don’t
toy with me, Tiana.”
“I’m not,” I said. “You want this. I want this. So, what’s the problem?”
“I thought you hated me,” he said, staring up at me with those deep
blue eyes.
I bent down over him, my hair falling about my face, my lips inches
from his. “I do,” I whispered, and I was so full of grief and adrenaline I
couldn’t have told you if I was lying or telling the truth. I didn’t give him a
chance to reply. I just leaned down and pressed my lips to his.

Chapter 31

I poured myself into the kiss as if I could find all my answers there. For a
handful of seconds he was still underneath me, like a statue carved from
marble, and then he came alive all at once under my hands. Surging up, his
hands sliding up my back and bunching my shirt around my bra. His
fingertips gliding over my skin, making me shudder into the kiss.
He pulled me close to him so I could feel every inch of his hard length
against my core, heat pooling between my legs. I moaned into his mouth
and arched so the entire front of my body was pressed against his. He broke
the kiss, swore under his breath, and leaned back to catch my eyes.
My lips felt bruised, my eyes wild with lust. This was exactly what I
needed, a chance to let go of all the thoughts running through my mind.
Wipe them clean with pure sensation. “Tiana,” he growled, his hands
tightening on my body. “It’s been so long.”
His tongue flicked out between his fangs to lick his lips and for the
first time I felt barely a shiver of fear at the sight of them. I was too lost to
sensation to even care. I leaned forward and captured his mouth again but
this time he took control of the kiss in seconds, no longer exploring but
violent. A desperate clash of tongues and lips and teeth that left me gasping,
more turned on than I had been in years. I had forgotten what it was like
between us.
He curled his hands around my waist, then surged up and around so
that I spun through the air and down onto the couch cushions, his entire
body arching over me. So fucking massive. I was overwhelmed by him all
over again. His body a cage around me, trapping me in his embrace.
I ran my hands up his body, pulling at his shirt, twisting it up and over
his head. The chain around his neck tangled, then hung free. A golden
filament, and at the end a three-pointed valerian leaf. I had bought that for
him. I’d found it in the same tiny boutique where I had bought my sister her
violet necklace. “You’re still wearing it,” I whispered.

He looked down, then back up at me, his deep blue eyes as fathomless
as the ocean. Why was he wearing it? It didn’t make any sense. If he didn’t
really care, if this was just about sex to him, then why on earth was he still
wearing a necklace that I had given him four years ago?
He kissed my questions away, kissed my thoughts away, and I forced
myself to let it go. I didn’t want to think, didn’t want to agonize over the
questions in my mind. I just wanted to give in to the sensations rushing
through my body.
His hard lips on mine were sinful, intoxicating, heat rising between us.
I needed more, more touch, more skin. I arched up into him, my hands
seeking the waistband of his pants. He turned his head laid kisses at the
corner of my mouth, along my jaw. His kisses overwhelmed my barriers
and built the curling hum of desire within my bones to new heights. I
squirmed underneath him, dizzy with lust, raw with needed. The press of
his erection against the juncture of my legs was too much of a tease. I was
slick with desire. I needed him inside me.
“Help me get these off,” I said as I struggled with my pants.
Obligingly, he ran his hands down my side, making me shiver, before
pulling my pants loose. I kicked them off somewhere behind the couch.
Then he pulled my top off and unhooked my bra in one deft move, flinging
them off somewhere above my head. “God,” he said, his voice rough and
humming with arousal. “You don’t know how you look.” He rose up for a
moment and stared down at me. I couldn’t hide my body’s reaction to his
heavy-lidded gaze, my nipples pebbling, my muscles pulling taut. The way
he looked at me, like he was drinking me in. I felt vulnerable, turned on and
trembling with desire. His palms were hot on my sides, striking over my
skin like he couldn’t bear to let go.
I couldn’t stop touching him either, reaching out and tracing the lines
of his muscles, trailing my fingers over his shoulders, down his chest. His
hair was tousled, not thanks to the wind for once but thanks to me. His lips
were a bruised red from our kisses. I wanted to lick and bite and mark him
up like I was an artist and he was my canvas, but the look in his eyes, I
couldn’t bear it a moment longer. It was too much. I arched up against him
and kissed him deeply, pulling back to meet his eyes. “I want you inside
me.”
“As my lady desires,” he said, and rolled his hips against mine, his
hard length coming teasingly close to my entrance.

He pinned me down with his bulk but instead of entering me like I
yearned for him to do, he slipped his hand between my legs, quick clever
fingers teasing open my swollen lips and darting inside, gently, slowly
building a sweet burn in my core until I was jerking my hips against his
hand, movements uncoordinated, ready and wet for him, hazy with desire.
Desperate for something harder, thicker, faster. Hot, so hot, I was burning
up. It had been so long, so fucking long, and no one played my body like he
did. He knew every inch of me, every twist and flick to make me lose
myself. I didn’t stand a chance. I flexed my hips, unable to get any real
leverage. He had me completely pinned and at his mercy. “For fuck’s sake,
Valerian,” I growled, gripping his shoulders tight. “Stop being such a
fucking tease.” He laughed low and rough and I both loved and hated the
sound. “I know you get off on this shit,” I said, “but if you don’t get me off
right fucking now, I’m going to—” I broke off as his fingers thrust deep
inside me, a delightful twist at the end of every stroke that rubbed against
that centre of pleasure deep inside me.
Still gasping, my breath escaped into his mouth as he captured mine in
a kiss, lifting his lips and raising slick fingers to trail against my bottom lip
before thrusting them inside my mouth. I sucked his fingers into my mouth,
tasting myself, feverish with desire. I caught his eyes and held them, curling
my tongue around the pads of his fingers. He wanted to play dirty? Two
could play at that game. I looked up at him from under my eyelashes and
hollowed my cheeks, sucking on his fingers and at the same time arching
against the couch cushions so that my breasts pressed against his chest.
He literally shuddered around me, his eyes so black with lust they were
almost all pupil. “Fuck, Tiana, you, you’re so… you don’t know what you
do to me,” he said, breaking off into a curse.
I pulled my lips from his fingers, arching my head back. I had a
moment to realize I was baring my neck to a vampire. His eyes dark, his
fangs white against his lips. I gasped as he bent his head to me, but he
didn’t bite, just pressed a kiss to the choker that was still tied around my
neck, so close to the scar he had left on my skin four years ago. The
memory caught, shattered, and fell apart under the onslaught of his lips. He
nipped and licked his way across from the underside of my jaw down my
throat and across my collarbone, erasing, just for tonight, the memory of
what had gone before. But I was done with kisses, done with foreplay. I
needed him inside me.

I hooked my legs around his torso and flexed so that our bodies were
flush and he could feel how hot and wet I was for him. “Stop playing
around, Valerian,” I whispered. “Get inside me.” I finished with a quick
flick of my tongue to the curve of his ear.
Finally, finally, he did as I urged, holding me tight and pushing into
me. I exhaled roughly, all the air leaving my lungs at once. The stretch was
indescribable. I spread my legs wider, welcoming him in. Feeling invaded
in all the best ways, tilting my hips toward him, wanting more.
My grip on his shoulders was tight and a good thing too, because he
didn’t give me a moment to catch my breath, but started to ride me hard.
My body shuddered with every thrust as he drove me deeper into the couch
cushions. His hands roamed over my body until I was drowning in
sensation, like all my insides had turn molten.
I raked my nails down his back as he invaded my senses and assaulted
my every nerve. He filled me up until I overflowed with pleasure, until I
had no choice but to surrender to the feelings scattering and fracturing
through my body. Rough stubble against my cheek, the tightening curl of
arousal, the smooth glide of his hand over my body, the blunt pressure of
his cock inside me, all of it joining and building, higher and higher, until
finally it burst over me like an explosion. Blinding and heady. I could
barely breathe, I was delirious with pleasure. I felt dangerous, untamed and
feral as I shook through aftershock upon aftershock. I felt Valerian pulse
deep inside me, hot and powerful, and he clutched me close, his body
racked with shudders as his orgasm met mine.
The connection between us seemed not just in the air, but in our
bodies, our bones, our flesh, our blood. Reflecting our desire back like
facets of a diamond, over and over again until I was strung out, raw and
spent. Until I didn’t think I could ever move again. I lay in his arms and
sank into the heavy embrace of total exhaustion. My mind finally was still.
I don’t know how long we lay there, worn out by lovemaking, bodies
entwined. The rest of the night came to me in pieces. At some point we left
the couch. I remembered the warm patter of water droplets from the shower,
the thick softness of a towel, and cool, crisp sheets underneath me. I must
have slept because when I opened my eyes, I was lying in his bed alone.
All around me was a vast expanse of clean sheets. The room was a
solid black, of course, no vampire apartment would be complete without
blackout curtains, but when I stumbled over to the windows and pulled the

blinds aside, I found I’d slept right through the day. The fading sunset
reflected off the mirrored windows of the high-rises around me.
I’d left my clothes somewhere in the other room, so I pushed open the
door to Valerian’s walk-in closet and pulled out one of his shirts. The soft
fabric slid onto my body with the same smooth glide as his touch last night,
my sensitized skin lighting up and his scent curling all around me. I flashed
back to last night, to that glorious, faceted orgasm, and my body clenched in
an aftershock.
Fuck.
I stepped back into the bedroom. I could feel my vast, shivering grief
hovering over me, just waiting for its chance to crush me entirely. If
sleeping with Valerian was what I needed to do to keep it at bay, then I
would keep doing it until it stopped working. It was just sex. I wasn’t going
to let my heart get involved. I wasn’t going to trust him like I had before. A
tiny voice in the back of my mind whispered that it was too late, that I was
already falling. I ignored the voice, slammed the door on it inside my head
and walked out into the main room.
Valerian was sitting at the dining table, a laptop open in front of him. It
took me a moment to realize it was mine.

Chapter 32

“Hey,” I said. “That’s my laptop.”
“Your security isn’t for shit,” Valerian said, smirking at me. I felt it go
right through my body stealing my breath, and it took me a moment to
reply. His eyes had gone dark, and I forced myself not to react, strode over
to him and plucked the machine out of his hands.
“What are you even looking at?” I said, staring at the screen instead of
his face.
“Case files,” he said after a moment. “In case you’d forgotten, you’re
supposed to be sharing everything with me.”
“Your queen hired me,” I said, my eyes flicking to him, then away
quickly, he was still staring with that same intensity. “You’re just an
overpaid bodyguard,” I said flippantly.
He growled, grabbing my hand and turning it over so he could drop a
kiss on my palm. I shivered at having his mouth so close to my pulse, he
dropped a kiss on my wrist, a quick lick of his tongue on the fluttering pulse
there. I swallowed thickly. Heat was rising all over my body, a twisting
pulse deep between my legs. Too much, too quick. I tugged my hand back. I
needed to keep a clear head. He didn’t say anything, just relaxed his grip
and let me pull my hand away. His dark eyes watching me, seeing too
much.
“I don’t have anything anyway,” I said, turning back to the laptop and
trying to roll the tension from my shoulders. “No new leads—” I broke off
at the sight of a flashing email icon and clicked on it. “Wait a minute,” I
said, leaning forward. The information from Michelle’s phone had been
compiled.
Valerian stood and braced one hand on the chair behind me, the other
on the table, bracketing me in. I was hyper-aware of his presence. It was
even worse than before. If I’d thought sleeping with him would get the
unruly attraction to him out of my system, I was wrong. It had done the

opposite, dialed everything up a hundred percent, and it was a struggle to
focus on the screen.
“Here.” I pulled up the map. “This was everywhere she went in the last
week. That’s her apartment, next to mine. There’s the coven,” I said,
pointing at the community center. “University district, that makes sense.”
There were a bunch of different spots there. I was guessing they would
correspond to lecture halls, her office, the cafeteria. “But this,” I said.
“What’s this?” There was another point on the map. Not that far from where
we were. Another apartment building perhaps? But Michelle definitely
wasn’t earning enough to be able to afford an apartment round here.
I glanced over my shoulder at Valerian. “Do you recognize it?”
“No,” he said, “but we should check it out.” I straightened and took
one step to the door before remembering I wasn’t wearing any clothes
except for Valerian’s shirt. I glanced around. “Over there,” he said, lazily
pointing, an unmistakably smug look in his eyes. I blushed wildly, hating
the way my treacherous body warmed at his expression. I tried to hold onto
my dignity as I rummaged around the couch for my jeans, pulling them on
and tucking his shirt into my waistband. “No bra?” he asked and I shivered
at the rough satisfaction in his voice.
I straightened and crossed the ground between us until he was a hair’s
breadth away, reaching across the table toward him until I was so close I
could see his pupils dilate. Then I grabbed my jacket from the corner chair,
tugging it over my shoulders and zipping it up tight to my collar. “Down
boy,” I said, feeling like I was balancing on a knife blade. “We’ve got a job
to do,” I stepped away from him.
The basement parking lot looked exactly the same as last night. The
same strip lighting, the same shiny cars. I slid into the seat, pulling my
laptop open in front of me and looking down at the screen to direct
Valerian. “Turn right out of here,” I said as we drove past a parked red
BMW and a black sedan tucked in the corner next to the ramp.
The address was about six blocks away, heading north. It was a matter
of minutes to reach it. The night was fresh and new as Valerian pulled up
outside, and we were just wondering how to get in when I suddenly caught
sight of a very familiar face stepping into the entranceway. “Shit,” I said,
“look, is that—”
Valerian followed my gaze. “Kyran,” he growled. I shoved my door
open and crossed the road quickly, sprinting between the cars. “Hey,” I

shouted. Kyran turned, his eyes widening, and he made to run off, but
Valerian was suddenly behind him, blocking his exit.
“Fuck,” he swore.
I strode up to him. “Fuck is right,” I said. “What the hell do you think
you’re doing here?”
“It’s not what it looks like,” he said.
“Not what it looks like?” I said, raising my eyebrows. “Because it
looks pretty fucking bad to me. You’re standing in the same place that
Michelle visited ten times before she died.”
He rocked back as if struck by an invisible blow. “Dead?” he asked
and his voice cracked. “Michelle is dead?”
I pulled up short, totally blindsided by his reaction. “Yeah,” I said
grimly. “Dead.”
“No,” he said. “No, no, not dead, not Michelle. She can’t be.”
He sounded desperate as hell. He sounded heartbroken. I looked over
his shoulder and caught my own confusion reflected back in Valerian’s
eyes. Kyran had brought his hands to his face, but now he dropped them,
stared at me with empty eyes. “You’re wrong, you have to be wrong,” he
growled, and took an angry step toward me. Before he could take another,
Valerian was on him. Shoving him into the wall and holding him there, a
thick forearm across his throat.
“No, no!” Kyran shouted, but he was uncoordinated, unable to throw
Valerian off. His eyes were glassy. I took a step toward them both, glancing
around us. Our little stand-off was starting to gather a crowd. This wasn’t
how I’d expected this to go down. “So, you did know her?” I asked him
when I was close enough.
“Know her?” Kyran said bitterly, finally slumping in Valerian’s grip. “I
love her,” he said finally. I stared at him, speechless with shock.
“We should take this inside,” Valerian said, and I finally tore my eyes
from Kyran.
“Yeah, okay.” I pushed the door open to the lobby. “Come on,”
Valerian gripped Kyran by the elbow implacably and shoved him forward in
front of us. “Which floor,” I said when we reached the elevator.
“Seven,” he said in a dull voice.
He looked broken. It was creeping me out. I’d never seen him like this
before, like he’s given up. “Dead,” he kept whispering. “She can’t be.” I
didn’t like it.

Kyran led us to a classy apartment. If I hadn’t just come from
Valerian’s penthouse, I might have been more impressed. “Talk,” I said as
Valerian dumped Kyran on the couch.
Kyran dropped his head into his hands. “What’s there to say?” he spat.
“She’s dead. None of it matters anymore.”
“What? What doesn’t matter?”
“Our plans,” he said, raising his head, his eyes were shiny with tears.
“We were going to escape together,” he said. “Get away from this place,
from the court, from Alexandra, from all of it.”
“Wait, slow down.” I raised my hand. “You and Michelle?” I said,
unable to believe it. “You and Michelle were together?”
“Yes,” he spat. “What, you think you and Valerian are the only
vampire-witch pair to ever exist? I loved her, damn it, but Alexandra
wouldn’t let me go near her.”
Valerian jerked as if electrified. I frowned at him, distracted. His
expression was blank, almost masklike, a strange glitter in his eyes. “What
did Michelle find out?” he asked. I frowned. Find out? What was he talking
about? What had made him twitch like that, what had Kyran said that
shocked him?
Kyran didn’t seem to understand what he was asking either. “I don’t
know. Nothing,” he said. “All I wanted was to get her away from the court.
Away from everything. I wanted to protect her.”
“Protect her from what? You’re the only danger here. You’re the one
who’s been draining and killing these people.” I was pushing him, but even
as I said it I knew I didn’t believe it. His grief was real. He was breaking
apart right in front of me. Kyran hadn’t killed anyone.
“No,” he snarled. “I didn’t touch them, all right? I know you think I’m
some kind of monster, but you’re wrong. With Michelle it was different.
She changed me. We were together, we were forever.”
“Don’t bullshit me,” I snapped. “Forever doesn’t exist. There’s no
magical fucking bond of love between vampires. You psychos aren’t even
capable of love.” But for the first time I wasn’t so sure. Kyran wasn’t
behaving like I expected him to behave. His grief seems genuine, real and
raw.
He was openly crying now, tears trailing down his cheeks. “I loved
her,” he ground out. “And Alexandra forbid me to go near her. Forbid me to

touch her, to be with her. I couldn’t take it. We were going to escape
together; we were going to run away.”
“She wouldn’t have done that. She wouldn’t have left everything
behind,” I said, but I remembered the message she had left on my phone.
How frantic she had been to speak to me. Was that what she had wanted to
tell me? That she was leaving? Had she been afraid to mention it before
because she knew what had happened between me and the vampires? Had
she wanted to say goodbye
“Why would Alexandra forbid you to be with her, humans are all over
the court, what’s so bad about you and Michelle?”
“You don’t understand,” Kyran growled. “She wants to keep us here,
control us. A mundane is one thing, but a withc? Alexandra and magic—”
he choked off.
“What about Alexandra and magic?” I asked, fear sliding through my
spine. I remembered the strange proposition Alexandra had made me. The
strange way she had talked about my magic and my sister’s.
“She would never have let me take her. You don’t realize how
powerful she is. Look at what she did to Gloria just for touching you.”
“Gloria?” I frowned. What the hell did Gloria have to do with
anything? I looked across at Valerian but his expression was that smooth
blank mask, no help at all.
“She was punished,” Kyran said. “Alexandra tortured her in front of
the entire court. She barely had enough blood in her body to crawl.”
My breath caught. I hadn’t seen Gloria when I went to court the second
time. I hadn’t looked for her. I hadn’t realized I needed to. Could Alexandra
really have tortured her almost to the point of death? If you drained a
vampire of blood, they would dry up and shrivel into something that was
barely even alive, a kind of half death that could linger for years until they
were desperate to be released into death or madness.
I was getting off track. I needed to focus. I looked back at Kyran. He
had sunk back down onto the couch and was quietly sobbing. All I felt
when I stared at him was pity. He had really loved her, and now she was
gone and he had nothing. I looked over at Valerian and jerked my head to
the door. There was nothing for us here.
We closed the door on the sound of Kyran’s tears and walked silently
back to the car. “I’ve never seen Kyran express any emotion other than
asshole,” I said. “I didn’t think he was capable of love, or grief.”

“I understand it,” Valerian said, resting one hand on the hood of the
car. “Michelle was his human.”
I looked up at him sharply, pulled out of my thoughts. “His human?
Excuse me? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Tiana, don’t overreact,” he said.
“Overreact?” I snapped. “How is that overreacting? Tell me. Explain it
to me. How was she his human? He owned her? Is that what you’re getting
at?”
“You know how things can be in the court, the old traditions.”
“So, what am I?” I snapped, talking over him. “Am I your human? Do
you think because we spent one fucking night together that you own me
now?”
“I would never presume to—”
“Good,” I said loudly, pushing away from the car. I stared at Valerian.
If I died would he be emptied out and hollow like Kyran was? I couldn’t see
it. I couldn’t imagine it, particularly not while he was wearing that cold and
empty expression on his face. Was it a mask? Or was there truly nothing
else under there? Had last night just been a way to release tension? Was that
how he thought of humans? How he thought of me? A possession, a
plaything to be used and discarded? I still didn’t know. I’d thought I could
take my feelings out of the equation, but I was wrong. I didn’t want that
from him, just sex. I wanted something more. I wanted someone who cared
for me, I wanted him to feel something, and I didn’t know if he ever would.
Being with him like this. Questioning every moment, searching for some
truth I might never find. I couldn’t stand it. It would break me.
“You’re not coming back with me,” he said, reading the expression on
my face.
“No,” I said, shaking my head and taking another step back onto the
sidewalk. “I need to be alone. My friend died and I spent the night with
you. I’m repeating the same mistakes. I can’t do that again; I can’t be hurt
again. I have to start making better choices.” I walked a couple steps away,
then turned back. “Gloria,” I said, “is she still at the vampire court?”
“Yes,” Valerian said.
“Will you do something for me?” He nodded slowly. “Find her,” I said.
“I thought there was no love lost between you and Gloria.”
“There isn’t,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean I want the bitch to die.
Find her and make sure she’s not dead, all right?”

He stared at me. “Very well.”
I turned away. It would have to do. I was exhausted, hollowed out. Part
of me wanted to fall right back into his arms, lose myself in him just like I
had last night. I walked away from him, waiting to hear his voice, hoping
he’d tell me to come back, but he never did.

Chapter 33

I was on the bus, halfway back to my apartment, gripping one of the
hanging straps and trying not to zone out. I’d had a full day’s sleep in
Valerian’s bed, but maybe because my body clock was all screwed up with
these half nights and half days, I was still feeling kind of dazed.
Or maybe it wasn’t exhaustion at all; maybe it was the events of the
past night catching up with me. Michelle was gone. Left dead in an
alleyway with the rats and the trash. It wasn’t right. She deserved so much
more than the tragic end she had met.
And then there was Valerian. What had happened last night. What I
had done. I needed to get some distance from him. I needed to start making
better choices. My mind kept flashing back to last night, not just the sex, the
fight before that, the way he’d played with me, not even using half his
strength. His smirk, his dark eyes, the glint of the amulet I had given him
around his neck. Why had he kept it? If he felt nothing for me, why keep a
trinket like that? He was filthy rich. He could buy a thousand pieces just
like it, only made of solid gold, not cheaply plated. It didn’t line up with
what he had told me at all. And the way he had touched me, so tenderly,
like I was precious, like he was memorizing every moment with me, as if he
would never get another chance. I sighed, exhausted. I felt wrung out and
empty.
The bus pulled to a stop and the doors slid open, people moving past
me, shoving up, laden with bags and briefcases. The after-work rush hour
still tailing off into the night. I stared sightlessly between bodies, avoiding
eye contact as any city dweller would do, when I realized someone was
staring at me. Someone I knew. Michelle. Her outline wavering and gray.
“Oh my God,” I exclaimed loudly. The businessman beside me jerked and
stared at me in confusion, blocking my view of Michelle for a second.
When he stepped back, she was gone.

“You all right, miss?” he asked, frowning, edging away from me even
as he asked. Clearly, he was afraid crazy was catching.
I stared at him. What should I say? I just saw the ghost of my dead
friend? Yeah, that wasn’t going to go down well. “You… you stepped on
my toe,” I said after a moment. He looked down at my tough black boots.
“Right,” he said, his frown deepening, and he edged a little further
away.
I tried to shuffle past him and get a better look at the back of the bus
but the crowd was too thick. I leaned round but I couldn’t see her. Had I
imagined it? Had I fallen asleep standing up for a split second and slipped
into a dream? No. She had been there, clear as anything, staring straight at
me.
The bus drove around a corner, throwing me against the businessman. I
pulled myself upright, muttering apologies as the bus slid into the next stop.
She was gone as if she had never been there. I must have been imagining it.
I raised my hand to scrub at my forehead, turning away from the back of the
bus toward the windows. When I lowered my hand she was there again,
standing on the sidewalk, pale and silvery, the edges of her body fading to
gray. The bus began to pull away and I shouted, “Wait.” And lunged for the
closing doors. After a second that seemed to take an age, the doors slid back
open and I stumbled out, the sound of the bus engine fading behind me as it
pulled away from the sidewalk. I couldn’t see Michelle anywhere.
I spun around, searching and saw a sudden flash of her to my right. I
sprinted after it, descending into the half world as I went. Everything
around me went shivery and vague. Normally I stood still when I entered
the half world. Not everything showed up, and it was easy to walk straight
into a table or a chair that had no magical counterpart. It was easier to move
through the half world as a spirit, a kind of out-of-body experience. But I
couldn’t do that while sprinting down the street. I had to try and keep both
the half world and the real present in my mind so I didn’t accidentally run
out into traffic.
I didn’t understand how Michelle could be here. How her spirit could
reach me when I hadn’t felt any hint of her in the alleyway, the opposite in
fact. It had felt like she had been scrubbed out completely. I tried to send
tendrils forward to reach her, but there was a sudden loud honking of a car
horn and I jumped back into the real world, realizing I had accidentally

strayed off the curb. “Fucking crazy,” the driver shouted at me as he
zoomed past. I flipped him off, but my distraction had cost me Michelle.
She had to be here somewhere. I reached out, centering myself this
time and sending my awareness out faster and stronger than before. The
half world around me seemed to pulse with the sudden burst of energy.
Nothing, nothing, and then there, at the very edge of my awareness, a kind
of flickering gauzy fabric. Something that twisted the normal weft and
weave of the veil between the half world and the real. Something aching
and strange that set my teeth jangling in my head. It didn’t feel like any
spirit or ghost I had ever come across before. I snapped open my eyes,
looking in the same direction in the real world and there she was, standing
across the street from me. I closed my eyes again, focusing on the half
world, and she disappeared, just that scratchy, raw, twisted feeling. It didn’t
make sense. How could I see her in the real but not in the half? Had her
death affected her spirit somehow? Twisted it? Trapped it? I didn’t know if
such a thing was possible but it was the only explanation I could think of.
The fact that no vampire bite could do anything of the kind just added to my
confusion.
She was speaking, but I couldn’t hear her, too far away, cars zooming
back and forth between us on the street. Across the river of cars, she
pointed. I followed the line of her finger up, up, up to a glittering apartment
building. And at the top, a penthouse, the one I had left only hours earlier.
Valerian’s apartment.

Chapter 34

I stared up at the building. Michelle’s ghost was long gone. Why had she
led me back here? It didn’t make any sense. I walked into the lobby and
pressed the button for the penthouse, stepping into the elevator. I pulled out
my phone, intending to dial Valerian, then I hesitated. Should I call him?
What exactly was going on here? I needed to get to the bottom of this and I
just didn’t know if I could trust him.
I put my phone away, uneasiness twisting my insides. I stared at the
keypad. Shit, the code. I cast my mind back to when Valerian had punched
it in the night before; the memory bloomed across my eyes. I tapped
quickly and the elevator doors closed. It was amazing what your mind could
file away under even the most traumatic circumstances. The numbers on the
elevator flicked higher and higher until we reached the penthouse floor. The
doors slid open smoothly and I walked in. The apartment was as we had left
it, our clothes strewn around the place.
For a second I felt a shiver, a kind of echo of a presence, but when I
closed my eyes to reach into the half world there was nothing there.
Michelle? Or was I simply imagining it?
Valerian was nowhere to be seen. He must’ve done as I asked and gone
to the court to find Gloria. I wasn’t sure how long he would be.
Michelle’s ghost must have led me here for a reason. I tentatively
walked into the apartment. It felt different without Valerian here.
Dangerous, like I was trespassing. The uneasy feeling that had twisted
through my guts clenched tight. I didn’t like this. Something was wrong.
I had been so awash with grief, and later desperate lust, that I hadn’t
really taken in the apartment. There was a long shining chrome kitchen
along one side of the open plan living area. The couch and dining table in
the middle and a sunken seating area to the right-hand side. Beyond that the
door to the bedroom where I had woken up.

I turned in the other direction and went to the first door, pushing it
open. A massive glass desk occupied a corner of the room, tall bookcases
filled with foreign language texts and leather-bound tomes, the leather so
aged their titles were incomprehensible. I exited the room silently and
opened the next, a gym room filled with pristine equipment. I wondered if
Valerian ever even used it.
The third was a guest room. The bed was neatly made; I didn’t think it
had been used recently. A corner table to my right holding an empty vase.
Nothing else. I almost closed the door when I noticed a second door leading
off it, a bathroom? I don’t know what it was that made me walk toward it. I
wasn’t sure what I was expecting to find. It certainly wasn’t a pile of
bloodied clothes in the middle of the tiled floor.
I stared down at the pile of clothes, vertigo clutching my mind, feeling
like I was standing on the edge of a precipice. A black bra, underwear, the
torn up remains of what once had been a white shirt, tiny red bows printed
on the cuffs. I recognized it. It was Michelle’s.
I hit the ground, my knees cracking hard against the tile, but I barely
even felt the pain. How? How could this be here? How could there be a pile
of Michelle’s bloodied possessions in Valerian’s apartment? There was no
way he could have missed this. A vampire’s sense of smell, like all of their
senses, was dialed up to eleven. This couldn’t have been here without him
knowing.
The world tilted crazily. Had it been here the whole time we were
fucking? I scanned the clothes again, half-unseeing. A man’s sweater, far
too small for Valerian, with the same logo that had graced half of the
clothes in Oliver’s closet. Next to that was a beautifully hand-embroidered
scarf, the red and black pattern the exact same as the coverlet on Sevda’s
bed.
My lungs were frozen, I couldn’t breathe. I was choking, gasping. I
forced myself up to my feet and stumbled out of the room, the door wide
open. Stumbling away until the backs of my knees struck the bed and I
collapsed onto it.
“No, no,” I was whispering, shaking my head from side to side. It
couldn’t be. It couldn’t be Valerian.
I heard the elevator doors chime and I shot to my feet. He couldn’t find
me here. I couldn’t let him know what I’d seen. I didn’t know what I was
going to do, what I was going to say to him. I was reeling with what I had

just found. Where could I go? There was only one way out of the
apartment. I stumbled into the corner table, the vase on the top tilting. I
reached to grab it, too late, and it crashed to the ground.
“Police, come out with your hands up.”
Wait, police? I raised shaking hands and shouted out, “I’m unarmed.”
“Tiana?”
“Detective Pierce?”
“Stand down, guys, stand down.” Then closer to me “I’m coming in.”
Detective Pierce walked into the room. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m…” I hesitated. “What are you doing here?”
She stared at me. “We received a tip that someone was holding a
woman hostage in here. They said they heard screams.”
“Screams?”
“Are you okay? Is he here with you?”
I shook my head, realizing there were tear tracks on my cheeks. I
didn’t know when I had started crying. “It’s not that; he’s not here. It’s just,
I found—”
She took another step into the room, far enough to see the open door
and the pile of bloodied clothes on the floor. Her eyes widened and blood
drained from her face. “Holy shit.”
I sobbed. “It’s Michelle’s,” I said. “I recognize the shirt. And the rest,
Oliver’s and Sevda’s. I think there are things from all three victims in
there.” My words tripped over each other. I stumbled backward, sunk down
onto the bed.
“Okay, okay,” she said, raising her radio to her mouth. “Seal off the
building,” she barked into it. “This entire area is a crime scene.” She turned
to me. “You know where he is?”
“Valerian? He is at the court I think.” I swallowed and forced myself to
focus. “I sent him to the court to check on one of the vampires. I don’t
know when he’s coming back, if he’s even coming back. I don’t understand
how any of this could be here.”
“Did you touch anything?”
I shook my head “No, I walked in a couple places, that’s all. I didn’t
move anything.”
“Good,” she said. “All right, I want you to come with me into the other
room and give me a statement. We are going to find him, okay? We’ll keep
you safe. He’s not going to get you again.”

Get me again? Fuck, was that what this was? Had he missed his
chance to kill me the first time and everything else that had come since was
just his way of drawing me back into his web, just waiting until he could
drain me dry just like he did the others?
It didn’t make any sense. He’d had ample opportunity ever since I
gave him the invitation to my apartment. Hell, before that if he had really
been watching me all this time. But the evidence. How else could this have
gotten into his apartment? His elevator had a code that only I had seen and
there was no fucking way he could have missed the blood-soaked clothes
being here.
I forced myself up from the bed onto my feet. “Yeah, okay,” I said,
taking one last look at the bathroom. Something glinted, looped around the
handle of the tap in the sink. I hadn’t been able to see it from where I had
been crouched on the floor. My lungs froze. I turned toward the bathroom,
taking a trembling step toward it.
“Tiana? What are you doing?”
I ignored Detective Pierce, moving closer as if in a dream, no, in a
nightmare. The air around me seemed to solidify and time slowed. I knew
what I was going to see even before I got close enough to peer down into
the sink. The gold chain trailing down, and at the end, bright gold against
the white enamel, was a delicate amulet shaped like a violet. The exact
same necklace I had last seen around my sister’s neck three weeks before
she died.
No,” I whispered, all my breath escaping me in a rough exhale.
The reason I had never been able to find Violet’s killer was because he
had been right there all along, guiding my every move, covering his tracks
with seduction. And I had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. I had
suspected Gloria, I had suspected Kyran, I had suspected any number of
vampires at the court, even the queen herself. But not once had I realized
the true culprit. Valerian. Valerian had killed Michelle, killed Oliver, killed
Sevda. Valerian had killed my sister.
My phone rang, shrill and loud, and I jumped a foot in the air,
knocking into Detective Pierce as I spun. “Whoa, steady,” she said.
I scrambled for the phone. Valerian’s name flashed up on the caller ID.
“Fuck.” I stared at Detective Pierce.
“You need to answer it. You can’t risk tipping him off.”

“Okay, okay.” I took a deep breath and tapped the speaker icon,
holding the phone with a trembling hand.
“Tiana?” Valerian said. “I have seen to Gloria. Where are you? I
thought you would be in your apartment.”
“No, I’m not… I’m not in my apartment,” I said.
“I do not like this,” he said. “I can feel something… the connection.
There is something wrong.” Something wrong. I choked. Yeah, something
was definitely wrong. The man I was starting to fall for all over again was a
murderer. “I fear we were followed. There was a black car—” He broke off.
“No matter; it is no doubt paranoia. You do not get to be a centuries-old
vampire without it.” He laughed softly, but for the first time his laugh left
me cold. A centuries-old killer, he meant. “Tell me where you are,” he said.
“I’m coming to you.”
I had a moment, a second where I could have warned him away. I
could have told him to run. I didn’t. I had sworn to get justice for the dead,
no matter what the cost. I told him to come to me.

Chapter 35

By the time Valerian arrived I had passed through shock and straight into
anger. The elevator doors chimed and I was standing in front. The police
ready on either side.
I didn’t know what to expect. Would he come out fighting? Would he
go for me? He did none of these things. Instead, he looked at me from
within the elevator itself and I knew he already knew everything. “He’ll
come quietly,” I said after a heavy pause. He walked out slowly, looking
only at me, and stopped just inside the apartment.
The police flocked around him, Detective Pierce stepping forward.
“Valerian, you are under arrest for the murder of Oliver Carpenter, Sevda
Sahin, Michelle DuPont, and Violet Waters.” At the last name, his eyes
flared with emotion.
“I found it,” I choked out. “I found her necklace.”
“Don’t,” Detective Pierce said, turning her back to him and resting a
hand on my shoulder, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Valerian.
“Why?” I whispered, knowing his vampire hearing would pick it up.
“Why did you have it? Why did you have her necklace?”
“She gave it to me,” he said. The first words he’d said since he got
here.
“Gave it to you?”
“She gave it to me for safekeeping,” he said.
I shook my head. “That doesn’t make any sense. You told me you
barely knew her. Was that a lie too?” I said, frustrated, my mind buzzing so
loud with white noise I could barely think. “You took it from her after you
killed her.” I stepped forward, shoving past Detective Pierce. She rushed
after me, blocked, and stood bodily between us.
“Don’t go near him. You’re not thinking straight.” I pushed against her
enough that she had to brace herself to keep me back. “Tiana, snap out of
it,” she said right in my face.

I wasn’t listening. I didn’t care. All I could see was Valerian. His dark
eyes were pitiless, like bottomless holes.
Why?” I whispered. “Tell me why you did it.”
His expression changed, and for the first time I saw pity in his gaze. I
hated it. I didn’t want his pity. I wanted the truth.
“Nothing is what it seems. Tiana, you are making a mistake.”
Disgust washed through me. How dare he use those words, the words
Violet had said in the dream. How could I have let him touch me? My
sister’s killer. I spat in his face and finally stepped back. “The only mistake
I made,” I said in a voice made hollow with pain, “was ever trusting you.”
I turned away and didn’t look at him as the police escorted him out of
his apartment and out of my life forever.
I must have given my statement at some point, my prints taken to
eliminate them from the evidence found in the apartment, but I didn’t
remember any of it. It was all a haze. The only thing that got me through it
was Detective Pierce’s reassuring hand on my shoulder.
She eventually drove me back to my apartment. I stopped and
suddenly came back to myself. “The key,” she was saying. “Do you have
the key?”
“Yeah.” I glanced around. I was in my hallway, staring at my own
front door. “Yes,” I said slowly, “I have the key.” I scrambled about for it
and unlocked the door, pushing it open and stepping into the familiar space.
As I crossed the doorway, I remembered giving Valerian the invite, and for
a second I was filled with fear. Could he come after me? Escape police
custody?
“Where is he now?” I asked Detective Pierce.
“Valerian? We handed him over to the court to be held until the trial.
We don’t have the resources to keep a vampire under lock and key, but the
queen does.”
“Good,” I whispered. I thought of Gloria, of the torture that Kyran had
told me she endured. I didn’t care. Valerian deserved torture; he deserved
every second of it. He wouldn’t be escaping Alexandra’s custody.
“I’ll be leaving a couple of uniforms downstairs anyway,” Detective
Pierce said.
“You don’t need to,” I said. Detective Pierce’s thoughts had clearly
tracked my own, although she didn’t know Valerian had entry into my
apartment.

“Yeah, I don’t need to but I’m doing it anyway,” she said wryly. “It
will make me feel better, all right?”
“All right,” I said, and I dredged up something that might have been a
smile, might have been a grimace.
“Is there someone I can call? Someone who can stay with you?”
I thought of Jazz, but I didn’t want to drag her out here. She pulled
enough shifts at the hospital that messing with her precious sleep always
made me feel guilty.
“I’m just going to sleep,” I said. Maybe cry out the entire water
content of my body first. But nobody needed to see me doing that.
“You should call someone,” Detective Pierce said. “How about Dr.
Allister? He knows you.”
I didn’t want to call him, I didn’t want to call anyone, but I could see
Detective Pierce wasn’t going to leave unless I did. “Okay,” I said. “All
right, I’ll call Rufus, I promise.” She stared at me. “Are you going to stand
there until I do it?”
“You better believe it.”
I sighed deeply and pulled out my phone, dialing his number,
explaining in the simplest terms what had happened.
“He’s coming,” I told Detective Pierce. “You happy?”
“Ecstatic,” Detective Pierce said flatly, and then she did something I
didn’t expect. She stepped forward and hugged me tightly. “You’ll get
through this, Tiana,” she whispered into my hair. “You’re one of the
strongest people I know.” She leaned back. “I have to get back to the crime
scene. I’ll check in on you later.” And then she was gone.
I intended to get in the shower, to change my clothes, to climb into
bed, but instead I just sat down on the couch and stared into the distance for
I don’t know how long until the knocking from the door finally roused me
from my daze and I opened it to find Rufus standing there.
“Tiana,” he said. “I’m so sorry.” And he stepped forward, pulling me
into my second hug in so many hours. I was stiff in his embrace. I didn’t
know how to take the comfort he was offering. I felt dead inside.
“Here,” he said, offering me a travel mug. “I brought you some of the
disgusting herbal tea that you hate.” I laughed softly. I had always given
him shit for drinking that when I was staying with him.
He herded me back into my apartment and sent me into my room to
change into my pajamas, and was busying himself with something on the

stove when I came out again minutes or hours later, I didn’t know. Time
was moving strangely. He swapped out my empty mug of herbal tea—when
had I drunk that?—with a glass of water and sat me down on the couch,
sitting down next to me.
“We don’t have to talk about any of it,” he said. “It’s over now, it’s
done.”
It didn’t feel over. It didn’t feel done. “I just don’t know how I could
have been so stupid,” I said. “I don’t know how I could have trusted him
after what he did to me.”
“Vampires are evil, Tiana,” Rufus said. “They prey on your goodwill,
twist everything to fit their desires. They take and they take and they don’t
care who gets hurt.”
“It just didn’t make sense,” I said. “How could he have been doing this
the whole time? Why would he have helped me?”
“It was all part of the trick,” Rufus said. “It’s all a game to them.
Maybe he liked leading you through the case even as he covered his own
tracks.”
But that was just it. He hadn’t led me through the case. He’d left me to
do my own investigating. He could have sent me off on the wrong direction.
Could have withheld evidence. Alexandra had clearly trusted him to give
me everything but she had never checked. He could have lied to me even
more than he already had.
But there was the evidence. The bloody clothes right in his apartment.
Could they have got there without his knowing somehow? But then he
would have smelled the blood. He would have known. And there was the
problem of the elevator. How could anyone have broken in without the
code? There had to be cameras. Cameras all over a penthouse like that.
They would have picked someone up. The cops would have seen
something.
I remembered that uneasy feeling I’d had when I stepped into his
apartment the second time, that whisper against my senses. I felt an echo of
it now, disappearing like smoke between my fingers. No, surely that had
just been nerves or the residual echo of Michelle’s ghost. Not that
Michelle’s ghost made any sense either. Sevda and Oliver had been so
completely erased how could Michelle have stuck around? And why
couldn’t I sense her in the half world?

None of it made any sense. There were too many lies, too many
secrets. What had Sevda been investigating? Why had Valerian acted so
strange when we were interviewing Kyran? Why had Michelle gone to the
court in the first place?
“I should have protected you better,” Rufus said.
“Protected me? What are you talking about?”
“When he was here in your apartment that time. I should have warned
you how evil vampires could be, that you couldn’t trust a single thing he
did.”
I remembered that night, before Rufus had arrived. Valerian, Raven,
and I. Making pancakes and enjoying each other’s company. Had he been
planning to kill me right then? Had he come fresh from Michelle’s death? I
didn’t know? I couldn’t fit Valerian, the cold-blooded killer, and Valerian,
who had touched me so gently, together in my mind.
But then that had always been my problem. I had never been able to
make those two Valerians fit. The one I had known and loved for a year
before he left me bleeding out on the street.
The Valerian that had hurt me could do this, the psychopath that I had
seen rip through his opponent in a fight. The other Valerian? The gentle one
with love in his eyes. Maybe he didn’t exist. Maybe he was just the mask.

Chapter 36

Rufus made the couch up as a bed for himself and sent me into my
bedroom to sleep.
I lay on the covers and stared up at the ceiling. At some point my mind
must have quieted enough to let me sleep because the first thing I knew was
that I was dreaming.
I was standing in the middle of my apartment and Gloria was in front
of me. “This is your place?” she said, looking around with a disgusted
expression.
“What are you doing here, Gloria? I don’t want to dream about you.”
Was I dreaming? My thoughts were slow.
“Yes, you’re dreaming. I had no other way to reach you, believe me, I
don’t want to be anywhere near your head.”
Reach me? What was she talking about? Oh wait, I was dreaming, she
wasn’t real.
“Of course I’m real. You idiot.”
Had I said that aloud?
“No,” she snapped. “This is a mindscape; don’t you know anything?”
She snapped her fingers in front of my face and the sound echoed weirdly.
I jerked backward. “Stop it,” I said.
“You stop it. Focus,” she said.
“I am focusing. You were insulting my apartment, and I was about to
tell you to fuck off.”
“You need to listen to me,” Gloria said. “I can’t stay here long; I’m
using all my magic to reach you.”
“Your magic?”
“Vampire magic.” She spoke slowly, as if I were stupid. “Death magic,
you know? Because you’re a death witch and everything? Fucking hell, I
don’t know what Valerian sees in you.
“Don’t mention his name,” I growled.

“Oh, give it a rest,” she snapped. “Look, you’re a death witch. I’m
dead. We can communicate through the half world. How do you not know
this?”
How did I not know it? How on earth could I know it? I’d never been
taught anything about my powers. Everything I knew was stuff that Violet
and I had managed to scrounge together.
“Yeah, well. Maybe you should have been asking the vampires. After
all, we are the ones with centuries of knowledge and death magic is kind of
important to us, you know?”
“No,” I snapped. I didn’t know, I didn’t want to know. Was that what
Alexandra had been talking about? A death witch at the vampire court?
Could that be why Violet had gone to the vampires in the first place? The
connection I’d always wondered at. The first step that had sent her down
the path to her death.
“Will you shut up,” she said, clenching her hands into fists.
“I’m not saying anything,” I said.
“No, you’re thinking it, which is just as bad. I told you, I’m here about
Valerian.”
“What about Valerian?” I snapped.
“He’s going to die,” she said flatly, “and you’re the only one who can
save him.”
I stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
“He’s going to die,” she said, coming a step closer, her voice rising.
“Do something!” she said and shoved me hard in the chest. Hard enough
that I snapped back into wakefulness.
I gasped, winded, my throat closing on empty air, finally dragging in a
breath, my lungs scraped raw.
I rolled over on my bed and up until I was kneeling on the mattress. He
was going to die? I didn’t understand. He was with the police. No, wait. I
shivered, ice flowing down my veins. The police didn’t have him;
Alexandra did. Alexandra, who had tortured Gloria almost to the point of
death just for clawing at my arm. Alexandra who had sworn to execute
whoever was responsible for the murders. Valerian was going to burn.
I shot up out of bed. Panic fluttering around my ribs. I couldn’t let
Valerian die. I reached the door, then ground to a halt, hand frozen on the
doorknob. What was I doing running to Valerian’s rescue? He’d betrayed
me. He’d killed people. He was a murderer. I hunched my shoulders. I let

go of the handle, my fingers felt stiff. I could let it happen. I glanced at the
window. Dawn wasn’t far away. I could let Alexandra put him to death for
his crimes. Vampire law for a vampire killer.
My heart felt like a lead weight in my chest. Could I really let it
happen? Could I really let him die like that? My fingers inched for the door.
I would never be able to speak to him. Never be able to ask him why. Never
get the answers to my questions. My thoughts began to speed up again, light
blooming behind my eyes. My questions. All the questions. There was so
much that didn’t fit, so much I needed to know. I stared grimly at the door.
He needed to tell me exactly what had happened with my sister, with
Michelle and the others. The hole their deaths left in the half world, that
twisting, painful void. I needed to know how they had died. Why they had
died.
No, I decided, my fingers gripping the door tightly. Valerian couldn’t
die. I wasn’t finished with him. This wasn’t over.

✽✽✽

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