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The dark market takes place on the new moon, every month, without fail. You might think the organizers of an event would wait for the full moon—for that bright, shining light to help people make their way easily through the crowd, to weave through the stalls.

But it’s not that kind of market. If it was, it would be held during the day.

Any other pack would come and shut the whole thing down, not wanting to draw in the types of people—the types of supernaturals —who come around.

The Grayhides are another story. After coming under the leadership of the Blacklock family, anything goes. It’s part of the reason why I was able to find refuge in the camp on the outskirts of Badlands—and also part of the reason why the turnover in this area is startlingly high.

Every night, we see shifters—mostly omegas—leaving as quickly and quietly as they can.

Willow told me about the entire affair, the pack’s fall from grace.

It started with a Blacklock killing the entire Grayhide family, even women and children, to get power.

Then, his son—Jerrod Blacklock—killed him, carrying on the family tradition.

Sarina grips my sleeve tightly, though she’s been to more than one of these dark markets.

It’s one thing to leave her in our shed unsupervised while I have coffee with Willow; it’s another to come to the market and leave her at camp alone at night. It feels counterintuitive, but I’m certain she’s safer with me at the dark market than alone at home.

While I don’t pay for a stall here, there is a section I occupy—far west, nearly on the outskirts of the market. That’s where my customers will look for me.

Sarina and I move through the crowd, heads down, to get to that spot. Though Sarina doesn’t, necessarily, need to put her head down—I’ve casted over her extensively. Enough that to any other person at this market, I’m walking through the space alone.

Neither of us speak as we make our way past pixies and fairies, travelers high from the dust, already stumbling about.

Some of the patrons at this market come for minutes, get the thing they need, leave.

Others wander about, looking for every species’ method of intoxication, getting more and more inebriated through the night. Each is dangerous in his own way.

“I believe you have something for me.”

Just as Sarina and I reach our spot, I turn and come face-to-face with one of Jerrod Blacklock’s men. I can tell from his scent—he’s practically doused in that of the alpha—and from he fact that he looks corruptible. Mean.

He’s tall and thick around the neck, with a buzz cut and the kind of mouth that seems not to have any lips at all—merely a line that opens when he speaks.

Behind him are three others, all smelling the same, all looking around meanly, their teeth bared, wolfish.

The one in the very back holds a stained burlap sack in both hands, his face slightly green.

I look away, trying to ignore the size, shape, and weight of the thing, trying to ignore my instincts.

Because my instincts are telling me there’s a head in that bag, and I want nothing to do with that.

“Yes, sir,” I bow my head under the weight of his stare—my body does so without my thinking, even with all the spells I’ve concocted to lessen the hierarchy’s hold on me.

Alpha leaders compel all; alphas compel betas and omegas.

I’ve never met an omega who doesn’t wish they were born as something different.

Quickly, I rifle through my bags, finding the stones they asked for. A sparkling green and red gem imbued with stifling magic. Nothing too complicated, even if it did take a significant amount of energy from me to make it as strong as they asked for.

Slowly, carefully, I pull the stone from the pouch and flash it to him so he can see it’s what they asked for. Then, I drop it back into the velvety pouch and hand it to him.

When he reaches for it, he makes sure to slide his meaty palm against my hand. I keep my eyes fixed on his shoes, my face set. Sarina stands completely still beside me, her scent-blocking spell working overtime to cover the fear.

Other customers will come and go all night, and she’ll relax, sitting down and reading by the light of the flickering torches around us. But now, with these men here, she seems as aware as I am that something could go wrong at any second.

“And here’s what we owe you.” When he speaks, his rank, moist breath fans out over my face, and I hold my breath to keep from grimacing.

He reaches out, unfurls my hand, tucks the coins inside, then wraps it up again.

Then, still holding my fist, he says, “If you’re looking for a bit more, I’ve got a different kind of job you can do. ”

“No, thank you.” I keep my voice level, flat, hope the myriad of spells floating around me will help to disinterest him.

I’m not stupid—I know that, objectively, I’m a beautiful woman.

Men have been “interested” in me for years.

But the spells help to dampen it, either changing their perception of me, or kicking in to change their minds.

Like always, it works—I watch him blink, his brow furrow, and he pulls his hand back from mine, shaking his head and glancing at his buddies, as though confused about why he even said that. His expression shifts to a goofy smile, as though he’s trying to convince them it was just a joke.

“Yeah, right,” he laughs, then turns on his heel to go.

I’ve barely let out a sigh of relief when the unthinkable happens.

Sarina, next to me, starts to speak.

The moment she opens her mouth, the moment her lips form the first vowel, my mind has already devolved into a panicked, loose nononono that I can barely think around.

I turn to her, to see what could possibly compel her to do something as stupid as speaking while at the dark market, and find that she’s not looking at me at all. Her eyes are closed, her face tipped up to the clouds, her lips moving fast, like she’s reading from one of her favorite books.

“…Adelphus pulls ahead, despite all the odds, taking the race by fifteen full seconds!”

“Adelphus?” the meaty man says, turning and looking in Sarina’s direction, and when his eyes widen, I know her protective spells have broken. He can see her.

Something emanates from her—some sort of energy, a force field rivaling the power I emit when casting. And it’s shattered every protection I’ve laid, the entire web of cover I’ve carefully and lovingly weaved around her.

“She talking about the race?” the second guy asks, face crumpled in confusion. “That race with Adelphus don’t happen for another month.”

The men take a step toward her, and something inside me snaps.

Maybe I still could have talked my way out of the situation. Perhaps I could have grabbed Sarina, said she wasn’t right in the head, and dragged her back to camp without anything happening.

But then they might have just followed us back to camp. Once, a fugitive running from Blacklock came to hide among us, and the devastation was complete. They set fire to tents, killed indiscriminately until they found him. Not one of us turned him in—he tried to run and they caught him.

So, even though I technically have options, it certainly doesn’t feel like I do.

I turn, grabbing a torch from its mount on the wall beside me and swinging it at the meaty man, catching him astride the face with it.

I’m smaller than them. Weaker than them. But what I do have is the element of surprise. I lunge forward, slipping a dagger from the inside of my sleeve and catching the other man across the back of the leg, severing his tendon so he falls instantly to his knees, screaming.

Sarina is still going, her body stock still, rigid as she continues, “Second place goes to Glanmore, third to Rylan—”

The third man hollers, pointing at her, “A psychic!”

My heart has already skipped into overdrive, but this call has moved the skirmish from this tight circle to the whole of the market, people to our left and right turning to look at us, interest flashing in their eyes.

Up until this point, I hadn’t been sure. Willow said there was news, whispers coming through that Jerrod was searching for psychics. For a long time—certainly when I was young, and my grandmother had her visions—people dismissed psychics as erratic, unreliable. If they even believed them.

But now, things have changed enough that soon there might be an entire market after my daughter, seeking the reward for delivering a psychic to Jerrod’s doorsteps.

I’ve never met the man, but there’s not a chance in hell I’m letting my omega daughter within fifty paces of him.

My body is practically vibrating with the need to protect her.

I’m spinning around, searching for the final remaining opponent, when something cracks over my face, hard.

As I reel back from the blow, I look up to see the meaty man, embers still burning in his cheek, puss and blood oozing down from the wound, glaring furiously at me.

“You bitch ,” he says, stalking toward me. His one remaining friend steps toward Sarina, and the cord inside me pulls taut.

I will die defending her. Lunging away from the meaty man and toward my daughter, I call to her, trying to break her out of her premonition trance, trying to get her to have the presence to run away, turn, move on her own.

But she doesn’t move. Instead, someone else comes flying in from the side, and the last thing I see before the meaty man strikes me again is a nauseatingly familiar shock of red-gold hair.