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Prologue

Being psychic should have meant I’d learned to trust my intuition, but in my defense, I’d been pre-occupied with excitement about the promising results I’d gotten overnight from the lab. So when I stopped at my usual coffee kiosk to grab an extra-large double caramel latte and a blueberry scone for Lydia, I ignored the itchy feeling of someone watching and practically skipped the rest of the way to work.

“Good morning, Dr. Devaux,” my one employee said as I slipped inside the old house doubling as my laboratory.

Lydia’s eyes dropped to the bag holding her scone and I grinned. She refused to call me Char because she knew it bugged me for her to be so formal, so I magnanimously ignored it. Nothing was going to get me down. Not when my life’s work could be ready for actual testing on real live—or unalive, as the case may be—subjects.

“Good morning, Lydia. Fuel for the day. You ready?” I handed her the bag as she stood to greet me, her white lab coat hanging askew over her faux leather pants and crop top. I didn’t have a dress code. In fact, I thought her goth look was adorable, but the coat was part of the general protection I insisted on. She’d been ready and waiting as always, and we entered the actual lab area.

“I take it you saw the results too?” she asked, dark eyes shining in the blackened circle of eyeliner she wore. “I may or may not have squeaked when I read the numbers. This could be it!”

I bounced a little, waggling my eyebrows. She was only a few years younger than me, and I was barely finished with my Ph.D., but she felt like a kid. She was my Watson, my Renfield, my Robin. And despite our aesthetic differences, she shared my belief that science and magic were siblings and not opposites.

She waved me to the basement door, made of heavy iron as a fae deterrent, and pressed a hand to the smooth black pad beside it. It beeped and flashed green in response before popping the door open for us. The wards I’d paid to have installed fell with a whoosh as well.

We hurried down the steps, and I relaxed the instant I hit the bottom. This was home. This was my happy place, surrounded by the whirring of machinery, the almost medicinal scent of cleanser, and the safety and security of shiny metal and flashing lights.

A psychic born from a family of witches, I found technology and science as fascinating as regular humans found magic and spells. I’d inherited that from my father, and he was the reason I did what I did. The moment he’d left—exactly eighteen years, seven months, and four days ago—I’d devoted my life to the search for a cure.

If it had been available to him, he’d still be with us. He wouldn’t have left for our own safety. And he could have continued his work with genetic cloning that he’d loved so much.

Gulping some caffeine, I strode immediately to the glass enclosure holding the two physical samples of GDK5, the newest iteration of what would be the biggest discovery since the permanent portal spell that let us slip from place to place across the globe. Maybe this was bigger. Just imagining a world without vampires and werewolves sent my heart racing. Well, unless someone actually wanted to be one. I silently laughed at the thought.

Hell, I’d give up the psychic thing if I could. It surfaced at the most inconvenient times. And I didn’t love having the abilities. I’d been taught long ago by my parents not to let anyone know the true extent, lest I end up in a glass enclosure like my syringe and test tube—the obvious difference being that GDK5 was an inanimate substance and not a person.

I tucked the stray auburn strand that always slid from my ponytail back behind my ear and tugged on my goggles and gloves.

“The results are undeniable.” Across the room, Lydia squealed then clicked at her keyboard as she continued. “The simulations all show the elimination or suppression of the infected genes.”

Magical infections bonded to genes, so my goal was to find a way to pry them off and reset the DNA to its natural state. This was the fifth version of my vaccine, and maybe the one I’d been waiting for.

My professors had laughed at me—the ones aware of supes that I could actually talk to. They’d all shaken their heads and told me my career was too promising to waste. It was like a rehearsed speech and had gotten to the point that I’d mouthed the words with them when they looked away. I just bided my time until graduation and kept my own lab secret and safe. We’d see who laughed when I was done.

“What’s the next step, Boss?” Lydia asked.

“I’m going to run a few more simulations just to see what it would do for shifters. The ones who were infected, not born,” I clarified. “Then we write a proposal for SHADE to get approval for testing.”

SHADE was the unfortunately named Supernatural Handling Agency Equity Division and the closest thing supes had a governing body. And they were shady, but at least they existed. A couple hundred years ago, things had been a bigger mess. Bureaucracy was bureaucracy, but it created some protection, I supposed.

“I can’t wait to test it!” Lydia said. Her enthusiasm made me grin.

Right before she screamed.

I spun to find my assistant—my friend—lifted off the ground, Doc Martin’s scrabbling for purchase as a large man held her clasped before him, muscled arm pressed against her diaphragm, squeezing the air from her lungs as her screams turned to hoarse gasps for air.

His skin glowed softly beneath the lab’s lights, a sickly tinge to the otherwise dark hue. Even without fangs extended an inch from Lydia’s neck, I’d known he was a vampire by the lack of aura around him. Dead didn’t have auras.

But it wasn’t just him intruding on my sacred space. He had a friend, slightly shorter and just as muscled with pure white hair that stood out at all angles. And that friend smiled at me, fangs also extended.

I knew that look. It said, I’m going to play with my food. And I was the food. My heart rate sped up as I pushed back the flashes of the attack I’d witnessed at the age of nine. Fangs glinting like silver. Blood running so fast and thick it looked like shadow instead of red. The coppery smell in the air.

“What do you want?” I asked, glancing back and forth between them. If they’d only wanted a meal, they wouldn’t be hesitating. I squeezed the edge of the counter to prevent myself from shaking and to stay in the here and now.

White Hair laughed, mimicking my words as he took a few steps closer. I tensed, glancing at Lydia, who’d gone quiet as tears streamed down her face, smearing her black makeup. The asshole who held her darted his tongue out and licked the skin of her throat.

“What. Do. You. Want.” I repeated, voice stronger than I expected.

That stopped White Hair’s progression. He narrowed his eyes at me and hissed. I swallowed but remained as impassive as possible.