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“There’s nothing light about this life, Loren,” he said, his face lined with the kind of regret she couldn’t even begin to fathom. “Don’t ever forget that.” The words were slightly bitter, the tone causing a tremor to dart up her spine.

“Well, I think you should still consider it. Okay?”

“Sure.” When he smiled, it was a cold thing. He flicked up the volume of the music, his empty gaze on the road. “I’ll consider it.”

Loren couldn’t stop replaying those words in her head for the rest of the ride. Even long after Travis had clearly forgotten all about their conversation, busying himself with mouthing the lyrics to the heavy metal song punching through the speakers, she still thought about it.

When you were born a Darkslayer, you died a Darkslayer. Did that mean Darien would always be one, too?

4

Maximus Reacher hated the smell of blood. He found his aversion to it kind of funny, considering he killed people for a living. And considering he was currently standing in the middle of a spacious industrial freezer in the basement of a nightclub in Oldtown, the corpses of two vampires bleeding dry at his feet.

As he lowered himself to a crouch in the puddle of blue-tinted blood, and began severing the target’s head from the body, he felt like laughing.

Had he finally lost his mind?

Where she was squatting before the other victim, Lace Rivera looked up at him in question. She unsheathed the knife strapped to her thigh, her curtain of white-blonde hair nearly draping in puddles of blood. Countless weapons were concealed in her black bodysuit, so many that she probably couldn’t run out of options to kill people even if she tried.

“What are you smiling about?” Lace’s breath fogged before her. She grabbed the vampire’s head by the hair and began cutting into the flesh of his throat. Blue blood swirled into the drain in the centre of the floor, gurgling as it trickled down.

“I was just thinking that I might’ve finally lost my last marble.”

Her ruby-painted lips parted with a smirk. “Honey, you lost that last marble a long time ago.”

“Thanks.”

She winked. “Don’t mention it.”

Max felt his cell phone buzz in the pocket of his brown leather jacket. He ignored it and kept cutting, flesh squishing beneath his blade. Blood bubbled up between his fingers and dripped to the cold floor. Mixed with the floral stench of vampire flesh, the metallic tang of it was nearly unbearable, especially in a confined space like this. With the freezer door shut tight, the distant thumping of music from the club one floor above could barely be heard in here.

They didn’t usually collect in freezers—in fact, this was a first—but it was their best option at Club Ethereal, the only place in the building where they were least likely to be caught. The kitchen was rarely used, and their only chef was usually smoking out back for most of his shift. No one ever ordered food here, not unless they wanted to puke up their guts so hard they’d wind up in emergency.

When his pocket buzzed again, he stopped and wiped the sweat off his brow with the clean skin of his wrist. He grabbed his phone out of his jacket with the hand that had less blood on it than the other.

The screen was full with messages from Darien. He unlocked it with face recognition and read the messages.

Team meeting, Darien had written.

The second one said, Is Lacey with you?

Approximately ten minutes later, another message had come through. Where are you?

And then, two minutes ago: Answer me, fucker.

Max took a clean end of his glove into his teeth and tugged it off. He placed it on his knee and started typing with one hand.

You know, he wrote, it helps if you actually plan these team meetings instead of springing them on us like this.

Barely two seconds passed before Darien’s reply came through with another loud buzz. Be at Hell’s Gate in one hour.

Max sighed. My hands are a little full.

Then bag whatever you’re carrying and get home. Damn, he was bossy when he wanted to be.

Max looked down at the partially severed vampire head. What a goddamn mess they’d made. He almost felt bad for whoever would have to clean it up. Whenever they collected, they usually disposed of all evidence themselves to avoid problems or delays, but tonight was an exception. Law enforcement had been chasing after these vampires for some time now. The two had carved quite a path of destruction through the city by feeding on unwilling humans and veneficae until the victims were nothing but husks. Needless to say, these two were criminals who wouldn’t be missed, least of all by cops and the MPU.

Alright, Max wrote back. He hated texting; his fingers were too big and clumsy for this tiny screen. Though he had to admit he’d improved since he’d started dating Dallas. The witch sent so many messages in a single day, he had trouble keeping up. See you soon, boss.