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Chapter 1
Ivy
Arriving at the crime scene, I took in the gathering crowd and sighed loudly.Late again. Someone had died and there was nothing I could do. If only I had been here earlier. I shook my head in agitation. I hated that I’d been too late. Vampires were savage—ruthless by nature in a way that other supernaturals were not. The victim would be someone random, someone mindlessly wandering alone in a city of predators not knowing to fear the shadows. Here one minute—bled dry another, leaving only a shell for the family to mourn.
I found a parking spot, grabbed my handy wooden stake and tucked it inside my jacket pocket. I stalked around the crowd that had gathered, the yellow police tape holding them back as they tried to get a look at the dead body. I often wondered why people liked to gawk at such heinous crimes. But it was a known fact that whenever there was a tragedy, there would be a large gathering of people to stare. This tragedy was a young brunette female with ashen-colored skin. Her eyes were opened in horror as she lay sprawled on the ground. The air stunk of fear and rotten eggs.Vampire, I thought with a snarl. The trees offered the privacy needed to drain her blood only three short blocks from the University.
She never had a chance,I thought, but humans never did. They weren’t built to stand up to the strength and speed of vampires. The sight of one alone would freeze them in horror, unable to react on instinct. It was a good thing humans didn’t know of all the supernatural beings that went bump in the night or they would never leave their house after dark.
Pressing against the yellow police tape, my eyes immediately found her delicate neck and the twin puncture wounds. I sniffed the air but only smelled fear and the stench of death. With my wolf’s laser-sharp focus, I slowly scanned the area looking for anything, oranyone, out of place—someone who seemed a little too focused on the scene. But there was no sign of the vampire, or anyone lingering to witness the vamp’s handiwork. I’d been too late.Again.
It had been a long, frustrating evening chasing a dead-end lead when I decided to call it quits. How was this guy always one step ahead of me? As one of the elite members of The Agency, I never had this much trouble hitting my mark. And by that, I mean hunting down and killing the serial killer bastard. I was the best, at least in my opinion. And The Agency always assigned me the most complex cases, so they must think so too. But this vampire constantly stayed one step ahead of me, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear it was an inside job. Or maybe an inside traitor tipping the vamp off. Whatever the reason, I needed a drink and a way to release the magic thrumming beneath my skin. The stress headache was already building, and if I didn’t find an outlet, it would be a painful sleepless night.
Life would have been so much easier if I had been born 100% shifter, but that wasn’t the case. I was definitely a wolf, but shifters, in general, didn’t harness magic. They only used it to change back and forth from human to animal. I was somethingmore. The question was,morewhat? Besides a freak of nature that needed to be put down. Not my opinion, but according to my guardian, it belonged to the supernatural community in general.
Pulling into the parking lot of a local pub one town over from where I lived, I grabbed the cell from the passenger’s seat and called Kelly, my best friend and sometimes partner. If I needed help, she was the one person I could always count on, even though she was merely human.
Dialing the number, I rubbed my forehead while waiting for her to answer.
“How did it go?” Kelly asked in a rush.
“You need to work on the hello part,” I said, grinning as I shut off the engine—only a faint light from the neon sign cut across the driver’s side window.
“Sorry, but I’ve been holding my breath, hoping you caught the bastard.”
“Yeah, me too. But it’s like I’m chasing a ghost.” I said, frustrated as hell.
For the last six weeks, I’d been hunting a vampiresuspected(and I use that word loosely) of murdering three lone shifters, a fey, and a witch. That didn’t count the mounting dead humans. Every time I arrived, the vampire had fled the scene, leaving only the bloodless body behind. The fact that I couldn’t catch him pissed me off. Power hummed beneath my skin, and I needed something to take the edge off. Hence, the pub and hopefully some sexy as hell wolf. No mere human would do tonight.
“Don’t worry, Ivy, you’ll catch the bastard. You always do.”
“I know, but it’s frustrating. I need to stake Fang before he kills someone else.”
Staking vampires was how The Agency dealt with that particular species problem. There were no jail cells for vampires. They could easily mesmerize and persuade a guard to let them loose. Was it fair since shifters could be contained? No. But fairness went out the window when crimes were involved. It also depended on the type of offense committed. The Agency reserved the right to let alphas and master vampires deal with their own, but not in this case. Crimes had been committed against other species, and death would be the only justice Fang would receive. Yeah, that’s what he called himself.Fang. Could he be a little more cliché?
“You’ll get him soon,” continued Kelly, “you always do.”
“Thanks.” Running a hand through my dark auburn and silver trusses, I sighed. “Hey, I’m going into….” I peered up at the neon sign, “a place called the Black Tavern for something to drink. I’m not far, maybe forty-five minutes away in Providence. Why don’t you drive over and join me?”
“Wait! Isn’t that a shifter bar?”
“I know. I know this is a very stupid idea. But I won’t be here long enough to do any damage.”
“Wow, it must be bad for you to risk yourself like that.”
“Yeah, it is. But even if anyone suspects that I’m different, what are they going to do? I’ll be gone before they figure out who I am. And who knows, maybe there will be some humans in the bar. What do you say? Want to join me?”
“Sorry, I can’t. I need to study for a test tomorrow morning. Maybe next time.”
Almost finished with her criminal justice degree, Kelly wanted to open her own bounty hunting business. She would deal with humans, whereas I mostly perused supernatural’s. You know—vampires, werewolves, witches, fey, elves, anything that uses magic or goes bump in the night.
Growing up in foster care, I never fit in anywhere, and believe me, I tried. But it didn’t take long before humans knew something was different about me. Maybe it was my predatory nature, the way I watched and studied everyone around me. Janie Page, the middle school diva, once told me I gave off a creepy serial killer vibe before warning everyone to stay away from the psycho. That’s all it took for me to be the outcast of middle school. Nobody would dare go against the popular bully unless they wanted to be ostracized themselves.
After the awful year in middle school, I finally landed in the home of a puma shifter. Caroline had recently lost her mate and reluctantly took me in when I was twelve years old. The way she told it, a good friend took pity on me and asked her for this favor—begged really. It started out as a strained relationship between the two of us. After she put me in my place a couple of times—shifter style—we respected each other and our invisible boundaries. Caroline never coddled me. In fact, she only taught me the fighting skills needed to survive in the shifter world. Finally, when I turned eighteen, she gladly let me walk away.
I wandered the streets of Providence, trying to stretch the money Caroline had gifted me with. I slept in alleys, stole food from markets, and then one day I ran into Kelly. Eventually, I moved to the Neutral area and applied for a job at The Agency, which resided in Brighten City.
“Right, okay. I’ll be home at some point.” I eyed the pub as my fingers drummed the steering wheel. This looked like a quaint little town in the middle of nowhere. Why anyone wanted to attend college here befuddled me. At least they had a bar because I needed a stiff drink to take the edge off and hopefully find someone to ease this energy humming beneath my skin. It needed an outlet. A good-looking, dominant outlet that could fuck me long enough to tire me out.
