Instead, something shifted in the dark between two large bins.
A thrill of awareness prickled her skin as her eyes latched onto the spot, and the predatory focus of her Empyreal narrowed on the gloom.
Nicole gazed deeper, her defences on high. It wasn’t Kyan, so what—
The door behind her opened again with a blast of jazz and a rush of perfume.
‘You all right, love?’ a woman asked, sashaying out and lighting what looked to be a herbal cigarette, white smoke coiling up and turning momentarily red.
Nicole blinked. She’d never been approached by another supernatural before. She suddenly felt like an imposter, imploring her eyes not to skate over the woman’s neck, where her skin shimmered slightly.
‘Yeah, just a slight headache,’ she managed.
‘Ah, that rocca’s strong. Don’t have too much more.’ The woman winked, then headed down the left alley.
Nicole recalled Kyan’s instructions for their plan, and headed for the right-hand alley. She was a few steps down it, anticipation and a bite of nerves chasing her, her heels clicking on the glistening asphalt, when she heard the skitter of movement back across from the door.
Nicole stilled and turned as a smudge of a form headed after the woman with the cigarette.
The warm breeze drifted back towards her.
Hunt, her Empyreal ordered. Nicole’s ears muffled, her focus narrowing.
Now.
Something flashed over her eyes. A vision of someone screaming, a sear of intense pain. And a scent: dark and drugging that made her shudder as her vision cleared.
Some part of her brain was telling her toavoid the creature. Linger here for a little while, and then decide to head home, meeting the others at the rendezvous after the ‘hunt’.
But she couldn’t turn herself around if she wanted to.
This was what she was made for.
It’s practice, she tried to tell herself as she turned to follow and every predatory and confident thing inside herawakened. Practice at transforming and still being able to walk around afterwards. To move and run and fight. That would only be useful. Only make her better at protecting the others. She felt a quick tap of excitement, like she was dancing on a cliff’s edge of relief and was desperate for the free-fall.
Stalking through the night, she shifted her weight so her heels didn’t make as much noise.
Her prey seemed familiar with the dark.
They looked like a human man, with a dark jacket and dark hair, but they didn’t sense her following, and neither did the woman who was just about to break out into a busier street.
Nicole’s power strained beneath her skin. It wantedout,it felt almost annoyed and … sulky. But around her, the night shimmered in strange ways, like objects and barriers were suddenly more 3D, jumping into her vision in a way that made her jerk backwards, while her body pulled her forward.
Beyond, she knew someone else was hunting her. Felt him following, far enough away that if she turned she wouldn’t see him.
But he was there.
Another image seared her, her body still stalking even if her mind was elsewhere, like she was sleepwalking: her prey’s hand smothering someone’s mouth.
A woman’s wide eyes behind it.
The taste of sweat and fear and blood.
Confusion cut through the vision.
The hand he smothered people with wasn’t just a hand. It wasdrainingthem. And in the vision, Nicole was standing right over his shoulder, close enough to notice the other scent.
One that turned her blood into fire.
