ChapterOne
Rave venues were not my scene. Aside from being far too old for them—at thirty-eight, I was a good ten years or more older than anyone else here—they were far too crowded for my liking. The music I could handle, even with its deep emphasis on heavy bass notes and faster tempos. The strobe lights were annoying but didn’t really bother me much beyond that. The problem lay with the energy—the undiluted vitality—emanating from all the people filling this vast but crowded old warehouse.
It woke the darkness in me and made her hunger.
I rubbed my arms in a vague effort to erase the chill that skipped across my skin despite the sweaty heat filling the room. I’d long ago learned to control that darkness, but sometimes, in situations like this, where the heat of life glowed so fiercely around me, temptation rose.
“Hey,” a warm, feminine voice said into my ear. “You okay? Because you’re making like a statue right now and it’s beginning to catch attention.”
I started lightly and tapped the earpiece to reply. “Yeah. Sorry, Ginny. Got sidetracked.”
“By that delicious-looking man gyrating not three feet in front of you? I don’t blame you.”
I snorted softly and moved around said gyrating man, who gave me a sweet if somewhat vacant smile. His pupils, I couldn’t help but notice, were huge, and I doubted the cause was the lack of lighting in the area.
“Aside from the fact said deliciousness is almost half my age—and yours, may I point out—he appears to have taken a happy pill or two.”
“I think that could be said about a lot of the kids here, but I feel it necessary to point out there is absolutely nothing wrong with admiring a fine piece of ass as long as it’s of legal age.”
“Andyouwould be the first to get offended if a man said anything like that about you.”
Her laughter ran down the line. “No, I’d be the first to be offended if they touched said ass without permission. Admiration is perfectly fine, because hey, my ass is a thing of beauty. Monica is twenty feet ahead to your right.”
I rose on my toes in a vain attempt to see the woman we were meant to be protecting, but even with heels on, at five feet three, I was shorter than most here. But then, we Kang witches—or, at least, we females—tended to be on the smaller side.
I continued on, doing my best to push through the crowd without actually touching anyone. With the heat of life so fierce in this place, touch was... well, dangerous.
My inner darkness wasn’t vampiric, but damn if it didn’t feel like it sometimes.
“What’s she doing right now?”
“Dancing with her bridesmaids.”
“We run a background check on them?”
“You didn’t read the file?”
“Didn’t have time. Besides, you’re the brains of this outfit.”
She snorted. “That excuse is getting rather old, my friend.”
I squeezed past a couple who were all but having sex on the dance floor and, just for an instant, the fierce wave of their wanton desire washed over me. I half-raised a hand, then realized what I was doing and dug my nails into my palms instead.
“It might have been better if you’d taken the tracking role this time,” I growled, pushing on. “At least your height would have given you an advantage I don’t have.”
“And leave you in charge of the electronics? After last time? Dear god, woman, are you insane?”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. While the earwigs were of a low enough voltage to cause me no problems, I was a grave danger to almost any other sort of electronics. Merely being in their presence could sometimes result in them shorting out, despite the heavy layering of magical shielding I used to mute the force of my inner energy. It was a problem no one else in my family had, not even my son.
But then, I wasn’t exactly like the rest of my family.
While there were three lines of royal witches—the other two being the Marlowes and the Ashworths—we Kangs were often considered the poor relations, thanks to a talent that dealt with living energy more than actual magic, though most of us could perform what our royal counterparts would consider “minor” spells when necessary. It was the reason so many Kangs went into the law enforcement arena, working either as contractors for hire or as investigators for the High Witch Council or the Black Lantern Society. I had brothers in both areas—Samuel, who was three years older than me, was the chief investigator for the High Council, and Michael, who was almost fifty-five and not only the overall second-in-command of the Black Lantern Society, but head of the night division.
I’d joined the Society some four years ago and hadn’t really progressed through the ranks as fast as some had expected—having two high-flying brothers had placed some rather outrageous expectations on my shoulders—but I was perfectly okay with where I was. Aside from the fact that being rank-and-file meant few would ever have a good reason to dive deeper into my abilities or my past, I’d never officially finished high school or done any sort of skill training that would have allowed me to move into a more specialized area. I did have a nose for trouble and the ability to see the darker energies within people, and both made investigations the perfect job for me.
Of course, that same nose for trouble had ruled out becoming a High Council investigator with Samuel. The Council expected rules to be followed. The Black Lantern Society often skirted the law and legalities in its quest for justice, and that was more my style.
Notthat there’d be any law skirting in our current operation. It was a simple protection detail—something the Society rarely did, and a task we were only doing now as a favor for one of Sophie Ashworth’s friends. She was the Society’s matriarch, and a woman who’d steered the daytime ship for nigh on eighty years.
