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Chapter Two
Luciana
I feel very secret-spy getting to fly in Erik’s private jet, which is now pretty much at the Raven Society’s disposal whenever needed. Erik is a dragon shifter and owns his own private security company. He’s the one who imprisoned Darkness a couple weeks ago, after the Night Guild threatened a witch named Astrid. While originally a society of witches, the Raven Society is now inclusive of any supernatural being, and the inner circle focuses on stamping out evil around the globe… the Night Guild of course being top of our list.
As I settle into my seat at the back of the plane, surrounded by about a half dozen of Erik’s bodyguards-for-hire, my mind turns over everything that happened in the last couple of months. My entire life had changed just like that.
One second I’d been living in Costa Rica, working at a resort and living about the most carefree life one could imagine. The next I’d been abducted, turned into a witch-demon hybrid, and placed in a secret subterranean lab to be used as a blood bank for the Night Guild, hybrid blood being wildly valuable on the black market.
Tamsin and my best friend Ven saved me, then Tamsin took me back to our ancestral home in Scotland to work on a cure, all while trying to dodge the Guild. I, of course, don’t remember those parts… I’d been in a coma, my mind trapped in Hell. Flames, terrifying demons, the whole bit. Tamsin suppressed my demon side and brought me back to the land of the living just in time for a battle with Darkness and her brother Light. They’d escaped and gone after Astrid, a witch none of us had ever met before. Enter Erik, who volunteered as her bodyguard.
Which is another reason why I have to go on this mission and do my part to take down the Night Guild. Erik and Astrid entrusted me to watch over Astrid’s daughter Lilli while they tracked down an ancient dagger needed to perform a spell to stop Darkness. But I’d failed them. Darkness and Light came for Lilli, and I’d been powerless to stop them.
My dreams each night are dominated by my memories of Hell, interspersed with the moment they took Lilli from me. The look of terror on the seven-year-old’s face, the shrill sound of her screams. Erik and Astrid rescued her, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive myself.
I won’t back down until the Night Guild is burned to the ground, every last one of those motherfuckers.
One of the dragon shifters shakes me from my dark thoughts. “Mind if I sit here?” She points to the seat next to me.
They’re big bucket seats, not right on top of each other like commercial planes. I’m going to get spoiled. “Sure thing.” I make a gesture to indicate she can slide in.
Tamsin had wanted to come over on this flight, but Blake convinced her to stay behind a bit longer. I need a few days to get my intel. The demon summit is supposed to span several days, and I’m arriving a couple days early to get infiltrated before things heat up. And hopefully, if I do my job properly, to get close to Sebastian so I’ll be able to listen in on some of the meetings.
I’ve worked in acting off and on for years, but like many, never made my big Hollywood break. Which means I pay the bills in other ways. I’ve worked about every job in the hospitality industry: waitress, concierge, sommelier, and briefly even as a massage therapist at a spa. Now all of that experience is my golden ticket to working at Sebastian’s winery.
Though I’ve been studying him and his businesses for weeks, especially Inferni Paradisi, I pull out the notebook I’d created (AKA my Sebastian Black stalking file) and start to flip through it. I’ve memorized the details of every wine that’s made there currently, as well as the older vintages that are no longer in production. Ages, varietals, tasting notes, everything. The only opening I’d been able to find was for a waitress at the winery’s restaurant, so that’s what I’m interviewing for in a few hours. But I’m hoping once I get there I can wiggle my way into a concierge role, or ideally as one of the staff working the summit itself. Though, Sebastian is likely to only have his most trusted staff on that assignment.
I’ll have to prove myself invaluable in a very short period of time.
“You’re Luciana, right?” the shifter next to me asks.
She smiles over at me. She’s blonde, like I am, but her hair is cut in a short pixie and platinum, unlike my long ash-blonde curls. Her eyes are an astonishing shade of blue.
“Yeah.” I offer my own smile.
“Maggie,” she says. “It’s nice to meet the person who’s going to take down the Night Guild once and for all.”
My cheeks go pink. “Well, that’s the goal. I haven’t exactly done anything like this before. I’m not a cool bodyguard like you guys.”
She shrugs. “You’ll do fine. I heard you used to be an actress?”
I nod and laugh. “Yeah. Cliché, I know.”
“Eh, you followed your passion. That’s a great thing.” She leans toward me and points at the pages I have open in my notebook. Pages with about a dozen pics of Sebastian I’d found on social media. “That’s him, hmm? Sebastian Black—I’ve heard he’s quite the lady’s man. You’d better watch out for that one. He’s a handsome devil, that’s for sure.”
I snort. “Devil being the key word. Besides, I prefer women most of the time. Haven’t dated a man in years. He can be as charming as he wants, it won’t get him far.”
“Oh, yeah?” Maggie shoots me a smile. “Wish I could be a fly on the wall to see that.”
“Well, you’ll get to see the best part—when we finally take them down. You guys can bust in and save the day. Cart them all off to those special magical prisons that Erik found.”
He’d trapped Darkness in one of them—old magical cells created by the Norse gods and goddesses themselves to hold incredibly powerful beings. We plan to utilize them for the demons, too. And apparently Ven and Rowan and Astrid have created enchanted cuffs and chains that suppress a demon’s power so we can transport them. I’m letting them focus on all those details—I’ve got enough on my plate.
We chat a little more about the mission. Maggie and her shifter teammates are going to be staying near the winery, on call in case there’s an emergency and I need to be extracted. We’ve all decided that using any sort of comm device—whether electronic or magical—is too risky. So, we created a system of coded text messages I’ll send to provide updates. Messages that can’t be interpreted if anyone comes across my phone.
Eventually I go back to flipping through my book, but I get drowsy before too long, and the next thing I know I’m waking up in California after a several-hour-long nap. We’ve landed at a small private airport near Sonoma. I grab my bag and get into a black sedan that’s waiting to take me to the apartment I’ll be staying in near the winery. The shifters are all staying somewhere else just to be on the safe side. From here on out, I’m on my own.
I unpack quickly at the apartment, then shower and change into a form-fitting black pencil skirt and a chic seafoam-green blouse. It’s a bit on the low-cut side, but nothing too scandalous. Classy but alluring. I may not be into men, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to play them. And from what I’ve heard of Sebastian, he’ll eat it right up. A spray of French perfume, a pair of chandelier earrings, and three-inch black heels complete the look. I leave my hair down and pull my curls around over one shoulder.
