Chapter 1
Kenya
Something slick and evil crawled over my skin, like a thousand tiny spiders slipping beneath my clothes, making me shudder in the damp night air.
It was menacing.
Angry.
Someone was watching, and they wanted something from me. Something I instinctively knew I wouldn’t give up willingly. I could feel their intentions all the way down to my bones.
My gums burned as my fangs shot down into my mouth, every muscle in my body tense, ready to strike. To kill if I had to.
Though I truly wished I wouldn’t have to.
Somehow, I kept a grip on my keys, even though my hand was shaking like crazy, pretending I was having trouble with the lock to the door of the club. Pushing my glasses up with one finger, I glanced discreetly to my left.
Bourbon Street was in full-on holiday mode; the balconies and street poles wrapped in Christmas lights, with sprigs of evergreens here and there to break it up. Even the usual stench that seeped through the ground wasn’t so bad, thanks to the cooler air.
It was Thursday night, and the crowd at The Purple Fang—our vampire-owned, male strip club where I tended bar and kept the books—had been sparse. Killian had decided to close it down early so he could go home to his Lizzy, and the rest of the coven could find their amusements elsewhere in The Quarter. I’d stayed behind alone so as not to impede on anyone’s fun. I was still trying to catch up on some reports that I’d missed when I was dying.
Yes, dying. Unheard of for a vampire, I know.
It’s a long story, but not really surprising if you knew me at all.
At first, I saw nothing unusual. A few groups of die-hards who didn’t want the party to end even though the street cleaners and trash trucks were starting to rumble through the streets, a homeless person, strippers making their way home or heading to a late-night party.
I twisted the keys in the lock and pulled them out, backing up a few steps as I dropped them into my bag with my laptop. Lifting my chin, I scented the air, searching for whatever it was that was making me so uneasy. I smelled alcohol, fresh vomit, body odor, trash, sewage, and the warm blood of the few humans still on the street. Keeping my expression impassive, I turned and started to walk away. Our residence was only a few blocks from here. I just needed to make it to the house. And hopefully, the guys would be home by now.
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t helpless. Far from it. But ever since my last brush with magic, I’ve been a little on the jumpy side, and the devilry I felt hovering in the air tonight felt way too familiar. It was unnerving to say the least.
Terrifying was more like it.
The hair lifted on the back of my bare neck before I could take more than a few steps, and I would swear to anyone who asked I felt hot breaths on my skin beneath my hairline. Spinning around, I flashed my fangs with a hiss…
But there was no one there.
I adjusted my glasses, checking again. Breathing hard, my eyes darted up and down the darkened street, my nerves on edge, and when my cell phone buzzed in the front pocket of my black slacks, I barely caught myself before I shrieked like a teenager in a bad horror movie.
I hated horror movies.
Especially ones with stupid teenage girls.
With a shaking hand, I tugged my phone out and answered the call, pushing up my glasses with my free hand as I glanced over my shoulder. My one complaint about becoming a vampire was that, strangely enough, it hadn’t corrected my vision. “Hello?”
“Get back inside the club and lock the doors. Right now,” the voice on the other end growled. “I’m on my way.”
“Alex?”
“Just do what I fucking say, Kenya.”
I opened my mouth to tell him…something smart and female empowered, but he’d already hung up. After a moment’s hesitation, I dug the keys back out of my bag and got my ass back inside. Someone, or something,was out there, and it did not want me to make it home. So, I swallowed my initial reaction to being ordered around and did what Alex told me to do.
Hehadhelped me once, after all. I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t do so again.
At least, I didn’t think I had any reason to believe that. He was a bit…intense.
If any humans had been paying attention, they would’ve seen a woman standing on the sidewalk looking scared and confused one second and gone the next. But I had no time to worry about that. Luckily, anyone still stumbling around Bourbon Street at this time of night either wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t remember. They would probably just blink rapidly a few times and tell their friends how good the Hurricanes at Pat O’Brien’s were.
