Page 1

Chapter one

Rae was fucked.

Three Vampires had just watched her swipe a wallet from one of their friends, and she had absolutely no intentions of becoming their blood bag tonight. Or any other night, for that matter.

Rush was a shithole most nights of the week, but even more so on a Thursday.

Precisely why Rae usually tried to avoid it.

The music was awful, the clientele even worse, and the interior like something fresh out of a Somniator’s nightmare.

Which, Rae supposed, as she took in the black crystal chandeliers high above her, the floor-to-ceiling canvases of models emerging from pools of blood, and the glassy-eyed humans, it probably was.

Beggars can’t be choosers. Though in her case, Rae most certainly was not begging. Borrowing? Appropriating? Repurposing.

She bent over to adjust her boot, let the wallet fall discreetly to the floor, and fumbled with a lace that didn’t need adjusting.

She made sure the Vampires were getting a good look at her bare legs as she feigned surprise at her discovery and gasped a quiet, “ Oh!” just for added flair.

Rae scooped up the wallet, frowned with perfect innocence, and pretended to glance around the club for its owner.

“Excuse me,” she said as sweetly as possible to the suit two seats away from her. “I think you dropped this.” Too quiet for human ears, but she knew he’d heard her just fine with his superior Vampire hearing.

Suit’s eyes were on her cleavage as she handed the wallet back, despite the human hanging off his arm, but Rae didn’t wait for his response before she walked away.

She slid the wad of cash she’d slipped from him into the waistband of her silk shorts and picked out her next mark amongst the crowd.

Mostly Vampires and their doting humans filled the space, or in some cases, their slaves, though Rae hadn’t been able to identify any tonight.

Of the four remaining types of Vampire, it wasn’t the Somniators that concerned her most—the dream casters, the Vampires that could walk in people’s dreams and turn them into nightmares.

No, it was the Providents that had her most on edge, the ones that made stepping foot into Rush a risk to her safety every time she did it.

But that had never stopped Rae before.

She slid onto a stool at the bar, pulling her Personal Access Device from her bag and slipping the stolen cash inside at the same time in one practised movement.

Vampires moved around her; the three who’d eyeballed her with the wallet still watched her closely somewhere to her right.

Rae let them as she swiped through the contacts on her PAD, tapped her earpiece, and started a video call to her friend, Nimala.

A bright pink headscarf appeared on the screen a heartbeat later, Nim’s burnt orange spiral curls escaping the edges, and Rae’s bad mood immediately softened at the sight of her friend.

“Boss,” Nim said cheerfully, a broad smile creasing the spattering of freckles that dusted her rosy cheeks.

Rae rolled her eyes as she adjusted the bangles at her wrists. The little Witch loved to call her that.

“How’s the order coming along?” She raised a hand to the bartender—a human with bite marks on her neck—and pointed at the glasses of rikoli belonging to the nearest Vampire, holding up two fingers with a smile.

“Almost done, boss,” Nim said brightly through the earpiece, though she’d put the PAD down on a bench to jump straight back into her work.

“It’s only a matter of time before you smash your screen again.

” Rae raised an eyebrow, tilting her PAD to tap it against the bartender’s to pay.

Her bangles jingled softly against each other, the blue liquid rippling in the glasses in time with the music.

Goddess, she would rather be high than drink this swill the Vampires loved so dearly.

Nim glanced up at the camera from the piece of silver she was working on, her damaged amber eye haloing in the glow from the screen.

“Got a cover on it this time, boss,” she said with a wink, the halo that rendered her blind in that eye disappearing and reappearing again. “Thinking of joining you in a bit.”

Rae took a sip of her drink and gave a coy smile to a Vampire who hadn’t taken his eyes off of her since she sat down. It wasn’t him she was interested in, but his Lord who sat two seats over, nursing a glass of visk.

“We talked about this.” Rae wanted her friend far away tonight, and if she was being honest, though it was in another part of town, the workshop wasn’t far enough.

She’d gladly send Nim home to keep her safe if she could, but rather than raise the point again, Rae brought her glass to her lips and swallowed her unease with another mouthful of the delightful beverage.

A sigh from her friend. “You get all the fun.” Nim held up her work, a simple cuff, examining it for any blemishes under the bright lights of the workshop.

Most people assumed they spelled the jewellery after fabricating it, like any human down at one of the markets might.

But it was the making it, the process that was where the magic was strongest, one that only a Witch would know precisely how to enchant in the creation of each piece.

“I’ll polish tomorrow, deal?” Rae offered, inspecting the cuff out of habit. She knew it was Nim’s least favourite task.

“Deal.” The Witch put the perfect silver specimen in the tub beside her before pulling another from the work pile, casting a not-so-subtle side-eye at the camera. “Reed said someone else went missing last night.”

Reed was Nim’s latest infatuation, a Fae male she’d met in the Eastern Quarter. She’d dropped a box of saw blades in the middle of the street and he’d helped her collect every last one. Hands brushing, eyelashes fluttering, and all that nonsense Nim loved to get swept away in.

“I heard.”

“Feels like everyone knows someone who’s gone.

” Wasn’t that the truth. And it had left a lingering tremor of dread amongst the humans, fear spreading through every night; relief palpable come daylight when the Vampires remained behind closed doors.

“You still think it’s our bloodsucking friends?

” Nim asked, and Rae didn’t miss the hint of apprehension in her friend’s tone, pulling her overprotective and unhinged thoughts to the surface all over again.

A group of humans joined the three Vampires from earlier, and the bloodsuckers, as Nim had called them, lost interest in Rae. “That’s what I’m hoping to find out.”

“I’m an outstanding detective, you know. I’d be an exceptional asset to any faction. Maybe Aera will take me…”

Rae narrowed her eyes. “I do know, Nim; that’s specifically why I want you to stay out of it.

” Because you’re too good to get mixed up in all of this, Rae wanted to tell her.

Too important. And because her sweet friend was oblivious to how dangerously she was mixed up in it already.

“Stay out of trouble,” she added with a grin before ending the call.

The screen had barely gone black before a Vampire slid onto the stool beside her.

Not a Provident, she knew from the absence of pressure against her mental shields, and though he wasn’t her preferred mark, he would do for the time being.

She angled her body towards him, picked up her drink, and gestured at the second as shimmering blue eyes met her own.

“You have good taste for a human,” the Vampire said smoothly, pulling the glass of rikoli towards him.

Goddess save her. The triple Goddess: Maiden, Mother, and Crone, because Rae needed all the help she could get with this one.

It was the same every night. Every Vampire was just as predictable as the last, regarding humans as if they were simply the bottom of the food chain.

For Vampires, that held a modicum of truth, but it was the way they treated humans like nothing that made Rae’s skin crawl; the way they used them, manipulated them, and then threw them away when they were bored.

Even though it was humans who brought technology to Demesia and humans who elevated the city to capital status all those years ago.

Rae held his gaze through her lashes as she took a sip of her drink.

He was what most humans might consider handsome—strong cheekbones and sharp features matched with his disarming blue eyes.

The subtle points to his ears—a feature all Vampires shared—were each pierced with tiny loops from lobe to tip.

He was a Gerentis if she had to guess, though she’d been caught out too many times to put money on it.

“Dance with me?” she asked, draining her glass and slipping off the stool, angling her body just enough to brush her breasts against the Vampire’s torso as she did so. It was all too easy.

She didn’t glance back as she stepped out into the crowd, snaking past writhing bodies and Vampires getting their fill of humans in the middle of the dance floor for all to see. Arms raised above her head, Rae swayed to the music, eyes closed until she felt his warmth.

“You smell good,” she murmured, turning to look at him over her shoulder as they danced.

Every Vampire she’d ever met had an over-inflated ego.

She had no doubt this one would be the same.

He merely hummed his agreement, and Rae resisted the urge to pull her dagger from her boot and poke a few holes into him for good measure.

Patience , she told herself. At least the music was half decent tonight, and for once, she found herself letting the beat wash over her, let it block out the lights flickering over the sweat-slicked bodies dancing around them.