Page 26 of Property of Scar

Cali

I stand completely still on the walkway, the arena thundering below me, the crowd surging, the demon and the werewolf bleeding in a cage that doesn’t care who walks out of it, and I read the message twice.

And not because I didn’t understand it the first time.

But because I am making absolutely certain I understand what it means.

She reached out.

She tracked down my number and reached out, which was surprising enough on its own. But instead of a threat or a warning, she asked for a meeting.

That tells me more than the message itself ever could.

Didn’t take much digging after the bar to figure out who she was.

Calypso Kavari

Dhampir Hunter

Ghost across three states. Bodies behind her and almost no trail connecting them—the kind of woman who keeps moving long before people get too close.

And everything about her screams the same thing…

Self-contained, careful, and doesn’t trust easily.

Which means if Calypso’s contacting me now, whatever she found is ugly enough that even she knows she can’t handle it alone.

And the problem with that?

I’ve been digging into those ritual markings too.

I already know where that trail ends.

I know what’s coming.

‘Scar.’ Her voice cuts back through my head without warning, low and stripped bare in a way most people never are around me. No fear or posturing, just my name in her mouth while she stood in the middle of a room full of bodies looking at me like she’d already figured out exactly what kind of monster I am.

And underneath that memory, the other thing shifts again.

That pull.

That heat.

That dangerous little spark I’ve been refusing to touch since the second she crashed through my world and turned my attention inside out.

It stays there anyway.

I ignore it.

Then I shove the phone into my pocket and keep moving.

Below, the crowd detonates as another fight reaches its end, the sound rising in a wave that rattles the gantry beneath my feet.

I don’t look.

My mind is already focused on midnight at the bar with a vampire hunter.

I am in fucking trouble.