Page 4

When Dorian pushed the scent-blocker into my hands, I hadn’t realized just how effective it would be.

Moving through the market, nobody turns to look at me. Nobody cares that I’m Ambersky, that I’m scented for my pack, likely even carrying Dorian’s scent on me from seeing him earlier. To them, I must be a total blank slate, a ghost among their ranks.

Dorian had described the dark market to us the last time he went. The first and only time he went.

As I push through the crowds of supernaturals, tall and short, all stinking of their own pungent scents, memories push through my head of what happened when Dorian came to this very market.

Seeing Kira, my sister, up for sale. Bringing her home, back to the Ambersky pack territory, despite the fact that he had rejected her years before, in front of everyone.

My eyes dart to the left and right as I walk through the market, but besides some questionable goods—slime in tubs, various rocks of various sizes, powders and little animals locked in tiny cages—nothing seems too bad.

Meaning there are no omegas chained up, being auctioned off on a stage in front of drooling bidders.

Hood up, head down, I wind my way through the stalls and people, looking for my first objective.

Deliver the head of Aidan Grayhide to some of Jerrod’s men, collect the sizeable payment for his death.

Our hope—Dorian’s strategy—is that Jerrod wouldn’t suspect any random shifter to have the resources necessary to craft a fake head like this.

To study Aidan and make it perfectly in his likeness, to magic in the rot and bodily fluids. While I may smell like nothing, due to the scent-blocker, the stained, heavy burlap sack at my side is drawing more than a few curious glances from the other shoppers.

I’d thought severed heads might be pretty common here—maybe not.

Finally, I reach my contact right next to a stand selling some sort of endangered fish, it looks like. He’s a large man, thick around the waist and neck, and scowls at me when he sees me.

“Grayhide?” he asks, nodding to the bag. He’s straight to the point, so I am, too. Dropping the sack, I kick at the head, unrolling it from the fabric and watching as it comes to a stop a single pace from the man’s feet.

The air around us goes still and silent, some people sucking in air through their teeth, veering away, leaving a wide path around me, this man, and the head on the ground between us.

“Gods be damned,” he finally says, shaking his head and reaching into his pocket. “Boss’ll be happy to see this one. Slippery fucker avoided us for years. How the hell did you get your hands on him?”

I shrug, “He walked right into it.”

After the money changes hands and he rolls the head back into the burlap, depositing it into the hands of the shifter next to him, I watch the four of them wander back into the crowd, heading west.

My next objective is clear—find the Llewelyn contact and trade the powder in my pocket for the Amanzite they have for us.

But there’s something tugging at me. Something about the gleaming look in that big guy’s eyes, something about the way they turned and started walking through the market with a purpose.

If Dorian was here, he would be right in my ear, telling me there’s a plan for a reason, that we can look into the cronies later.

Or, better yet, he might just be saying that guys like that are nobodies—alphas, sure, but with not an ounce of integrity.

The kind of guys who let their natural standing pull a lot of weight.

That they’re not worth the follow, that they’re probably just going to go jack off on the corner.

But my intuition—my wolf—is telling me that’s not right.

So, even hearing Dorian’s frustrated voice in the back of my head, I move, stalking them through the market, slipping around a crowd of crooning succubi, through a gaggle of witches.

Finally, after what must be another ten minutes, the man seems to find what he’s looking for.

I see her at the same moment her scent hits me on the wind. So contradictory to her personality, the scent is light and fresh, like the smell that hits you when you’ve just broken open an aloe leaf. Natural, clean.

Veva.

Without meaning to, my lips form her name, trace the shape of the vowel, my teeth coming to touch my lip twice. Veva.

Obviously, she’s older, but still she looks just the same.

More meat on her bones, a startling new roundness to her hips that makes my mouth water.

Veva is slight, barely over five feet tall, a round face with dimples that pop on either side of her mouth when she smiles, but the dimples are not around now.

Her deep brown hair is shorter, curling around her shoulders rather than running down her back, and she has bangs now, sweeping just over her brow. When I look at her, I can still feel how that hair slips through my fingers. How it feels when I wind it up in my fist.

When I knew her, she was always wearing simple dresses. But now, she wears a pair of black jeans that hug her form, a black leather jacket zipped up to her neck. An outfit made for the dark market, the shine of the material catching the flickers of the torch beside her.

She lowers her gaze, reaches into her pocket, pulls something out and hands it to the man. Veva is alone at this market, and the thought of that makes me want to march right in there, pick her up, and take her home with me.

Except, for obvious reasons, she’d probably spit in my face.

Hot shame is just starting to creep up my neck when I watch the man grab her hand, holding it there for a second too long, and I step forward, ready to break his fucking jaw for daring to even look at her wrong.

Then, suddenly, he releases her, stepping back, and Veva has an almost… smug expression. As though that’s exactly what she expected.

But everything changes in an instant.

It’s so unexpected, it takes my mind a second to process.

Beside her, a little girl flashes into existence. Nothing there in one moment, and a small body there the next, like the world had glitched and forgotten to load her in.

I blink, trying to focus, but there’s a hazy quality to the air around her, almost like it shimmers with magic. She’s talking, saying something, but I can’t make it out.

Through the haze, I made out several details that make my heart tighten.

Red-gold hair, straight nose, freckles over her cheeks. Everything about the little girl is familiar to me, almost as though I’m looking at myself. Looking at Kira, when she was that age.

Two words rock through me, strong enough to knock me right off my feet: my daughter .

Veva moves faster than I’ve ever seen in my life, grabbing the torch to her left and swinging it, knocking the meaty man across the face. One of them shouts, pointing at the little girl. Another tries to move, but Veva has already dropped down, drawing her blade across his ankle.

Time seems to slow as I watch the blood spurt, the milky white tendons popping free of the skin, bouncing out like loose springs from an old mattress.

I’m moving before I realize I’ve made the decision to.

Veva might hate me. And, at this moment, she’s fighting them in a display of skills I never knew she had. But there’s no way she can take all four of them, and there’s no way she can protect that little girl, on top of it.

I can’t shift—it will break the scent blocker—so instead, I hurl myself at the meaty man, grabbing him just as he starts to swing at Veva.

It glances off of her, and she drops to the ground.

My chest tightens, every nerve in my body screaming for me to go to her , but my training kicks in.

If I want to save her, I need to focus on him.

With a mighty bop , I slam my forehead into his face, exploding his nose into a crush of red. That, coupled with the nasty burn on his left cheek, must be enough to finally make him pass out, because he crumples to the ground, knees buckling into the mud.

When I turn, I find the man with the sliced-through tendons still down, crying and trying to slide away, one hand wrapped around his ankle, like he might be able to hold everything in place if he moves slowly enough.

Ten paces away is the man still clutching Aidan’s fake severed head, and five paces from me is the final man, still looking like he might have some fight in his eyes.

Moving quickly, I sweep his legs out from under him, grab his head, and twist, listening for the bone-shuddering crack that tells me he’s dead.

Just as I’d hoped, the final guy—the head-holder—turns and runs as fast as he can, considering the cargo he’s hauling. Good. That’s at least one of my objectives that I haven’t failed.

A small crowd has formed, but one look from me makes them shy away, inching back into the market, returning to their own tasks.

Here, there’s no ambulance to call, no help from the alpha, no forces to help keep the peace.

Onlookers are only interested for the sake of their own entertainment, or to see what they can gain.

When I turn back around, the little girl is bent over Veva, her tears already spattering down onto Veva’s black leather jacket.

I step forward, thinking the little girl might run away when she sees me.

Instead, she tips her head up to mine, meeting my gaze.

Though she’s crying, there’s a set of determination in her eyes.

It reminds me so much of Veva that it’s like I’ve been sent back in time, seeing her as both a little girl, and the woman unconscious on the ground.

Something snaps into place. A knowing. A line from me to this girl, clear as day. It feels so seismic that I think the entire world should adjust to accommodate this new knowledge, that she should understand it, too.

But she’s only thinking about Veva.

“Please,” the little girl says, looking pale, like she might pass out any moment, too. “ Please , help my mom.”