Page 1 of Donovan

CHAPTER ONE

DECLAN

THE PAST

The cemetery behind Guild Headquarters was silent, save for the occasional rustle of wind through brittle leaves and the distant hum of city traffic.

Most of the other hunters had left already, murmuring their fake condolences before leaving me to my thoughts.

I remained.

Hunkered down in front of their graves, I traced my fingers along the etched names of my parents. Joseph and Jane Dean. They were gone. Just like that.

I knew I should feel something. Grief, rage, the kind of burning hatred that would have me swearing vengeance on the vampire bastards who did this.

But there was nothing. A hollow space where the anger should be. An emptiness that felt bigger than me.

I clenched my jaw, my breath coming out in slow, measured exhales.

If I didn’t feel anything, did that mean I didn’t love them enough? Did it make me unworthy of being their son?

A sharp shuffle in the underbrush shattered the quiet. My body tensed, instincts flaring as I reached for the knife at my hip. Then?—

A yelp.

Not an animal. Not a monster.

I turned sharply, scanning the shadows beyond the graves. There shouldn’t be anything out here. Not on Guild grounds. No supernatural would dare attack here.

My pulse hammered as I tracked the sound to a gnarled old tree, its branches clawing at the sky. Beneath it, tangled in a cluster of thorny bushes, was a boy.

He was small, maybe eleven or twelve, with dark-gold hair and eyes that caught the dim moonlight in a way that made them seem impossibly blue.

Scratches marred his arms, some fresh, others faint and faded.

His clothes were dirt-streaked, his expression somewhere between sheepish and amused.

I knew him.

“Donovan,” I said slowly.

Recognition clicked into place. One of three brothers. Orphans. Their parents had been taken by a vampire a year ago.

I remembered standing in a crowd at their funeral, my parents on either side of me, saying things likeIt’s a tragedy and Poor kids.

I’d barely paid attention. I hadn’t thought much about it afterward.

And yet, here he was.

I narrowed my eyes. “What the hell are you doing?”

Donovan hesitated, shifting his weight before pulling himself free of the bush, wincing as a thorn snagged on his sleeve.

He brushed off a few stray leaves and straightened, like getting caught lurking in a graveyard was completely normal for him.

“Nothing,” he finally said.

“Nothing?” I echoed, skeptical.