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SERAPHINE

J ackson doesn’t say anything when we step into the gray morning light. He just rubs a hand over his face, eyes scanning the empty lot like he’s waiting for something to jump out at us. I feel the same way.

Lira’s gone. I close the door behind me like it means something. Like closing it will keep what’s happening from bleeding out into the rest of the world.

It won’t.

“She was my friend,” I say finally, surprising even myself with the sound of my own voice.

Jackson glances over. “Yeah. I got that.”

“She had three brothers. Parents out in the coastlands. They’ll ask questions.”

“I’ll help with the answers,” he offers.

I look at him. Not sarcastic. Not smug. Just steady. That unsettles me more than any of his usual bullshit.

“We’ll call it in,” I say. “Separately. I don’t need PEACE crawling all over that scene before I scrub the residuals.”

“Fair,” he replies. “You sure they’ll believe it was a rogue hit?”

“No,” I mutter. “But they’ll pretend to if it keeps the paperwork short.”

We split without another word, heading to our separate vehicles. Mine’s a matte-black custom Jaguar with runes etched into the frame and a shadow tether built into the steering column. Jackson gets into his beat-up sedan like he’s climbing into an old argument.

I call in the crime scene to my contacts in PEACE. I give them enough to keep them busy, not enough to steer them toward me. It’s an art. Lying with just enough truth to blur the lines. I’ve had centuries of practice.

But the silence in the car after I hang up is suffocating.

Lira should’ve called me back. She should’ve lived.

I punch the steering wheel, just once. Hard.

Then I pull myself together.

There’s no time to grieve properly. Not when whoever did this is still out there. Not when they’re three steps ahead and moving like ghosts.

And Lira... she didn’t die screaming just so I could mope in a goddamn car.

I need intel. Fast. And not the kind PEACE feeds you through official channels, scrubbed clean and half-useless. I need whispers. Hints. The kind of rumors that slither through shadows and cling to the walls of places where no badge dares to go.

Which means going to Echolight .

It’s not a decision I make lightly. That club’s neutral ground only on paper. In reality, it’s a melting pot of danger—shifters, witches, old Fae, rogue vamps, even a few demonic debt-collectors if you know where to look. Most won’t talk to me. Some will try to kill me. But there’s one person in that den of beautifully-dressed hellions who might actually give me the answers I need: Dama.

If anyone’s heard what Lira was poking around in, it’ll be her.

So I drive.

And the whole way there, I can feel Jackson’s headlights behind me, trailing like a bad idea I can’t shake. I told him to stay out of it. Told him we’d regroup later. But of course he follows anyway.

Echolight is a supernatural sanctuary disguised as a high-end cocktail lounge tucked behind a bookstore that never seems to sell anything. Warded doors, veiled windows, sigils in the concrete outside worn nearly invisible.

The music is low and thudding, something electronic and primal. The air inside smells like too many kinds of magic colliding—fae perfume, vampire musk, the earthy tang of shifter pheromones. It makes the skin on my neck tighten.

Jackson trails me in the doorway, his gaze flicking around like he’s cataloguing every face, every escape route.

I stop and face him. “You wait out here.”

“What?”

“Jackson,” I say, voice low and sharp, “this place doesn’t like humans. Especially not ones with badges. They know the type. You scream cop.”

He smirks. “You scream liability, but here we are.”

“Cute. Stay here.”

I don’t wait for him to argue. I walk in, cutting through the haze and half-dark like I own it. Most of the patrons barely glance my way. The ones who do, nod. Respect or fear—it doesn’t matter. It keeps them quiet.

I find Dama near the back—a shifter with lion eyes and hands that can crush bone like twigs. She sits on a velvet couch draped in a half-circle of witches and one brooding vampire who smells like stale wine and trauma.

“Sera,” she says, standing.

“Dama,” I reply, letting her pull me into a brief embrace. Her arms are warm and solid. Familiar. “I need your ears.”

“You heard about Lira.”

It’s not a question.

I nod once, not surprised she heard about it so quickly. That’s why I came to her.

“We’re watching our own now,” she says. “Some are talking about pulling out of PEACE alliances.”

“That’s exactly what whoever’s doing this wants.”

“Then you better figure it out fast.”

We’re still talking when the room shifts.

I feel it first—like a ripple across the fabric of the club. A surge of heat, too directed to be accidental.

And then I see them.

Three figures moving too fast through the crowd. No scent. No auras. That’s not natural.

Ambush.

I throw my hand out, shadows shooting from my palm to shield Dama and the girls as the first assailant lunges toward me with a dagger crackling in white fire.

I catch it with a binding sigil mid-air, but a second blade slashes through my ward and digs into my side. I grunt, twisting, blood already hot down my ribs.

“Fuck—” I snarl, spinning into a sweep that knocks my attacker sideways.

And then, gunfire.

Loud. Direct. Controlled.

Three shots, clean. The figures drop like puppets with cut strings. One of them tries to lurch up again, and a fourth bullet finds its way between his eyes.

I whip around.

Jackson stands in the entrance, gun still raised, eyes hard as steel.

“You said stay outside,” he says, walking toward me. “But your definition of ‘safe’ sucks.”

Blood’s dripping from my arm now. My suit’s wrecked. My side’s a mess of burning flesh and torn fabric.

But I’m standing.

“Your timing is annoying,” I mutter.

“And yet, here you are—still breathing.”

I narrow my eyes. “Who told you to bring a gun?”

He shrugs. “Habit.”

Dama’s already tending to the wounded, shouting orders in a mix of Spanish and old shifter dialect. She glances over at me. “You okay?”

“Nothing that won’t heal.”

Jackson gives me a look. “That’s not a normal reaction to getting stabbed.”

“Neither is jumping in front of magical assassins for someone who told you to stay put.”

He levels his gaze at me. “Guess we’re both making shitty decisions today.”

The club is already clearing out. Whatever illusion it once had of being neutral ground is shattered now.

“You saved my life,” I say finally, not liking how the words taste in my mouth.

“Yeah,” he says. “Let’s try not to make it a habit.”

I laugh, sharp and bitter. “Deal.”

As we leave, the door seals behind us, the night pressing close. I’m bleeding, pissed off, and stuck with a human who keeps proving he’s harder to shake than I thought.

What’s worse is I hate that I’m happy he was with me tonight. Not necessarily for my sake, but Dama’s. And that sort of thing pisses me off.