Page 1

Chapter 1

My New Job Description

When Zoe and I were kids, Mama had convinced Dad to buy some chickens so we could sell fresh eggs. After a year or so, Mama decided she ought to add a rooster to the mix and try raising some chicks as well.

The rooster hated me, and I didn’t like it much either, especially when it chased me through the yard and into the stables, fluffing its feathers, squawking like crazy, and stabbing its sharp beak at me the whole way.

“He’s just protecting his ladies,” Dad said with a chuckle when I brought it up over breakfast. “Show him who’s boss.”

So that morning, I set out with a pounding heart to stand my ground. The rooster didn’t get the memo. He attacked with gusto, and when he went to snap at my finger, I freaked out. The next thing I knew, both of my gifts took over and I ordered him to “Jump off a roof!” with my mind-bending while moving him up to the top of the house with telekinesis.

Thank the gods roosters can sort of fly. He did well enough to slow himself down anyway. After that, he wouldn’t come near me, and I felt terrible. My folks got rid of the chickens altogether a few weeks later when Mama said they weren’t laying well anymore.

That was also the day she and Dad sat me down for the talk. I had to be careful and hide my abilities from others because they wouldn’t understand. They’d use me as an experiment, like those Dad worked on in his lab. Mama said not to worry about the rooster incident because she’d done damage control. I never asked what that meant. But from then on, Dad took me to the lab with him whenever he could, and that’s when I started on the road toward science.

It wasn’t but a few years later that I watched my father murdered then turned by vampires.

Little did I know, all these years later I’d be working for SHADE, the Supernatural Handling Agency Department of Equity, in a crime lab of my own, examining the body of a murder victim and awaiting a meeting with a doctor slated to study my special abilities.

I’d hidden them well for years, but when my lab was attacked by vampires and one sank his teeth into my assistant’s neck, my rage had me send a weapon at him with my mind, once again without thinking, and knocked over the first domino that landed me here.

Working for a vampire I’d somehow become not only unbelievably attracted to but also cared about enough to save his undead ass. And who currently stared down at the poor young shifter on the table with an unreadable expression while I fought back the urge to vomit.

“I’m not sure what more I’m going to find,” I said, setting aside the tools I’d been using to poke and prod at the body. The shiny metal was as coated in blood as my gloved fingers. The body was fresh, and Julian had done well keeping his blood lust from showing, aside from the dark veins that momentarily appeared on his neck while I suited up with goggles and spread a magical salve on the edges of the table that would prevent the smell from penetrating outside of the immediate area surrounding the poor woman.

“Cause of death?” Julian asked, tilting his head as though looking at the carnage from a different angle might provide insights.

“The same as everyone assumed,” I snapped. “Her throat was ripped out.”

Julian frowned. “By what, Charlotte?”

I swallowed back the bile that threatened again as I glanced at the torn skin. “Teeth. Sharp teeth. It could have been a shifter, a vampire, or any other supe that has that trait.”

Julian’s spine went rigid, something I was quite used to already. His deep indigo eyes flashed red for a moment. “Most vampires would not be so…indelicate.”

“They might have if they wanted to shift the blame,” I pointed out, and though he frowned, he accepted the statement as fact.

“Can you,” Julian hesitated, “see anything?”

I’d been trying not to, but chances were if I touched her with my bare hand and concentrated, I could get a flash of something with my psychic abilities. It appeared that, despite my early trauma, I’d have to get accustomed to dealing with carnage.

Tugging off my glove, I pulled a Julian and frowned with displeasure. Then I bit the inside of my cheek and touched the least bloodied part of the poor thing, her ankle.

Gladys, the front admin, blinked at me with mismatched eyes and a frown that had dug trenches alongside her mouth. “Your appointment was ten minutes ago. The rest of us came in early for you. Doctor Orpheus is upstairs waiting.”

I hurried into the elevator and the doors slid shut. It whirred into motion without a command or button to push as it took me toward my appointment. Excitement mixed with nerves in my stomach, and I set a hand over it protectively. Then the whole thing jerked, and I stumbled slightly, waiting for the doors to part. They didn’t.

A rattling from above drew my attention, and I looked up to see a vent pop out and a dark shape drop down toward me. I opened my mouth to scream—

I gripped the cold metal of the table and blinked my way back to reality to find myself bent so close to the woman’s halfway decapitated head that I tripped trying to back away.

Julian caught me, having super-speeded to my side of the room. I righted myself, trying to shake off the intense fear she’d felt just before the attack. Part of me wished I could smell the comforting scent of bergamot and spice that surrounded Julian despite the magic salve, but his arms would do.

“At least it was fast,” I said, looking up at him. “She was here for a doctor’s appointment. Personnel had come in early for her. I think…I think she was pregnant.”

Julian and I both turned toward the body on the table, and I swallowed.

“Speaking of doctors,” I said, reluctantly moving out of Julian’s grip. “Shouldn’t Orpheus be doing the autopsy?”