Extraits

The was one of the reasons I'd come to Spokane. Rain was a way of cleansing the earth. Of washing away the dirt and grime, and it remained me of new beginnings. Raim made me feel at peace, despite the fact that it seemed so opposing to my natural pyrokinetic abilities.

I smiled. There was a reason daggers were my weapon of choice. They were intimate. They required you to get up close and personal with your opponent. To see every nick and slice you issued. A sword required too much distance for my liking. No, I wanted to look into this bastard's eye as I carved his heart from his chest.

I wondered if he noticed my reaction to him. God, I hoped not. How humiliating would that be? I'd never felt so on edge before just by the presence of a man.

While I was grateful to Inarus for helping me, he was a stranger. That was strike one. He was also a psyker. Strike two. Therefore, due to reason one and reason two, I couldn't trust him. Strike three. You're out.

Being a pyrokinetic didn't get me inhuman strength or speed, but it did give me an accelerated healing ability and fire-power, of course.

I wasn't thrilled about working with a partner. I hadn't survived living alone on the streets for four years by trusting, or working well, with other people. And I wasn't about to start now. A partner required a certain level of trust that I just wasn't willing to put in just anyone.

Vampires, shifters, mages, witches, and many more creatures from our nightmares had popped out of nowhere, deciding they were ready to integrate themselves into every day - or night - society.

Chapter 1

All I saw was blood. Blood soaked my hands and coated the walls. It stained the concrete flooring of the abandoned warehouse and dripped from fixtures that hung from the ceiling, trickling like a slow rain. My vision blurred as anguish filled me. How could I have been too late?

I stared down at the lifeless body of a child. A boy. Kneeling in a pool of congealing blood, I ran my fingers through his chestnut hair, ignoring the now-cool moisture seeping into the denim of my pants. His face was unrecognizable. Gone was the child with the dimpled cheek and brilliant blue eyes. Left behind was a mass of flesh and bone—a ruined body drained of its life force at such a young age.

Reality snapped like an elastic band, bringing me back to the present as I sat at my desk in Sanborn Place. Ripped from the haunted memories of finding Daniel’s body.

The world was a cruel place. It was a fact of life and even though I knew it was true, I still had a hard time coming to terms with the atrocities people committed. The cruelties that for some god-forsaken reason, people thought were okay. Staring down at the wallet-sized photo now crumpled in my hands, I was greeted by a crown of chestnut hair, bright blue eyes, a heart-shaped face, and a brilliant smile; a single dimple on his left cheek. The face of an innocent seven-year-old boy, cut down like he was little more than a calf brought to slaughter. I found myself struggling to link the image of this smiling boy to that of the ruined body I’d found less than forty-eight hours ago.

Inside, a small part of me burned. My blood heated and a turbulent rage rolled through me, one I had to fight to contain.

“Ari, you’ve got to stop staring at the kid. He’s gone. Let it go,” I heard Mike say.

I couldn’t let it go. I didn’t understand how he could either. I looked up from the photograph and stared Mike straight in the eyes. He cringed but held my gaze.

“He was seven-years-old, Mike,” I said through clenched teeth. “Seven!”

I shook my head, the poor kid had barely lived, barely tasted what the world had to offer. I take that back, he’d tasted too much of what the world could give and it had cost him.

Ever since the Awakening six years ago when all things that went bump in the night decided to come out of the woodwork and play, safety had been tenuous at best and kids like this, like seven-year-old Daniel Blackmore, were suffering the price.

Vampires, shifters, mages, witches and many more creatures from our nightmares, had seemingly popped out of nowhere, deciding they were ready to integrate themselves into everyday, or night, society.

Daniel had been abducted by a rogue vampire. I’d found his mangled body, broken and discarded as if he were nothing more than a piece of trash and I was going to find the bastard that had killed him and make him pay.

“Ari, I know what you’re thinking and the answer is no.”

I looked Mike up and down. He was an older man in his late forties with a streak of silver in his otherwise midnight colored hair. The wrinkles around his eyes would lead you to believe he smiled a lot but I knew better. Those lines were from his ever-present frown. Dressed in black slacks and a grey button up shirt, his mid-section strained against the buttons looking like they could pop off at any moment, likely taking someone’s eye out in the process.

“I wasn’t asking for your permission,” I told him, my gaze going back to the photo.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass if you were asking. I’m telling you, Ari, let it go! You can’t help him anymore. All you’ll end up doing is getting yourself hurt or worse, killed for your trouble.”

That was the problem with people who had lived through the Awakening. Their only concern was self-preservation. Nothing else mattered. Well, screw that because this little boy, he mattered. His life mattered and he deserved justice. I had scrubbed my hands after finding his broken body but couldn’t scrub the stain his death left on my soul.

I stood up from my desk and grabbed my keys and daggers. I sheathed the twin blades on either side of my waist, grabbed my leather jacket, and made a beeline for the door. Mike crossed the room to intercept me, arms folded over his chest blocking my way.

“Move,” I bit out.

“No.”

“I can move you.”

“You can, but you won’t.”

I ground my teeth together. He was being ridiculous. This entire situation was ridiculous.

“Mike, this isn’t some game. A little boy died. He died! Does that even matter to you? I couldn’t live with myself if I let this one go.”

“What’s your plan, Ari, you going to just storm into the Coven and force them to tell you who did it? They won’t tell you. They protect their own and you’re one person against an entire Coven of bloodthirsty vampires. Even the kid’s parents know it’s a lost cause. They’ve dropped the case and are focusing on burying their kid. They’re coming to terms with his death. It’s over.”

I’d been hired by Jessica Blackmore, Daniel’s mother, a little over two weeks ago to find her son who’d gone missing one afternoon. He had been walking home from a friend’s, only five houses down from his own, but never made it to the front door. She’d thought it safe enough to allow him the small bit of independence but with paranormals about, it was never truly safe.

Mike knows I’m different. He knows I have pyrokinetic abilities and he knows I can take care of myself. This wasn’t reason talking, this was him being overprotective. Feeling the temperature in the room begin to rise I forced myself to inhale and exhale slowly. Trying to calm down and keep my pyrokinesis locked up tight. It wouldn’t help the situation to start a fire. All it would do is prove to Mike that I wasn’t in control and right now I was in no mood for a lecture.