Chapter One
There’s a weeper in Rowan’s.
The music is drowned out by screaming and the creature’s strange, dry sobs. As the three of us listen to the chaos happening just down the hallway, I reach for my sword before I remember it isn’t there… or that I don’t really know how to use it. My skin feels damp, having gone hot to cold in a matter of seconds since Noah left. Distantly, I notice the human he fed on has passed out again.
Nina hovers near the door, peeking through the heavy curtain. To my shame, I realize I’ve retreated so my back is nearly pressed against the wall. “Get ready to run,” she calls over her shoulder to me, keeping her voice low.
I swallow and force myself to draw close to them again. In the other room, someone lets out a shout full of terror and pain. “We aren’t going to fight?” I ask quietly, wondering if I look as pale as I feel.
Holding onto the curtain with a white-knuckled grip, Nina spares me a glance long enough to snap, “Do you want to fight that weeper?”
Fear and hunger feel like a whetstone against my mind as I open my mouth to respond.
“We’re out of our depth here,” Drew says before I can utter a word. His tone is more serious than I’ve ever heard it. I dart a glance toward him, and my annoyance fades when my gaze lands on his face, noticing how his lips are pressed into a tight line instead of his easygoing grin.
From this vantage point, I have a clear view through the curtain and down the hall. I can’t help but look toward the bar where the overhead lights have been turned on—the space is filled with a mess of bodies, everyone trying to push through to the exit.
My pulse moves faster than the rest of me can keep up with, making my chest rise and fall with almost violent movements. “We’re just going to let those people fend for themselves?” I ask.
Nina lets out an anxious, impatient breath. “One, we have no weapons. Two, Sylvia and Noah are still here, and bounty hunters have jurisdiction. Believe me, they’ve got this.”
“There’s a back door, right?” Drew asks his sister.
She gives him a terse nod. “Rowan doesn’t want anyone to know about it, though. He almost tore my head off when he caught me in the back alley with a guy one time.”
In the next breath, Drew grabs my hand and tugs me along until I start walking on my own. The curtains part around us like the dark, heavy cloak my father so often wears.
The instant I step into the hallway, though, I jerk to a halt. Sounds bounce off the walls, more painful than when I first entered this place, but I barely hear them now. The smell of blood makes my fangs slide down from my gums. The delicious, sweet, metallic scent taunts me and makes my stomach churn at the same time. A thousand images race through me. Burying my face into some faceless human’s throat. Tearing through skin, all that annoying skin, only to find that delicious vein, the rushing river, the source of life itself…
Drew finally notices I’ve stopped moving. He says something. My name, probably. When I stay silent, standing there with clenched fists, my eyes glued to the bloodshed happening just a few yards away, I hear his footsteps. “Charlie, we have to…” Drew’s voice trails off.
Something about how he goes quiet yanks me from the blood haze. I turn to Drew, on the verge of apologizing, but his gaze drops to my fangs. Horrified, I slap my hand over my mouth.
Just as I try to apologize a second time, someone else is bitten. I don’t need to hear the man’s bellow of agony—I can smell it, sense the blood splatter, flying through the air with no one to claim or enjoy it. Such a waste, the monster pouts.
“I’m sorry,” I say finally, the words muffled. My stomach sinks as I realize what I’m about to do. “The blood… there’s so much blood. This isn’t my fault, Drew. Please don’t hate me.”
His brows tug together. Before I know what’s happening, before he can try to stop me, my legs are moving, carrying me toward the chaos. I vaguely pick up Nina’s voice as she growls, “Son of a bitch. We don’t have time for this!”
The monster inside of me doesn’t care. She’s clawing her way to the surface as I run into the bar, my gums throbbing, fangs bared.
The smell of blood is so overpowering now that I can’t even sense any others. People run in every direction, some drunk, some blinded by terror. Most are both. As I stand there, a spiky-haired shapeshifter collides with me, stumbling to the side, and I snarl at him before my eyes zero in on the deep gash across his face. Blood covers his cheek and jaw, dripping down his throat and staining the white T-shirt he’s wearing.
Like the animal I am, I grab the shapeshifter and drag him back, seeking a calm corner where I can feed. There’s no worry of him shifting—it’s a time-consuming process that involves breaking bones and ripping skin.
Yards away, Noah is preoccupied directing everyone through the narrow door without any of them getting crushed… and making sure anyone who may be infected doesn’t leave. Even from my cursory glance, I can see it in Noah’s eyes—the cold calculation. Meanwhile, Sylvia is on the other side of the room, trying to draw the weeper away, probably to get a clear killing shot. If she were to harm any of the slaves here, it could mean a lawsuit from their owners.
All of this goes through my mind in two seconds, then I return my attention to the struggling shapeshifter in my grasp. He’s so weak—I’m a Lavender and he can’t even break free. Better you kill him quickly than leave him to a weeper, the monster coos at me. She’s right. Of course she is. I’d be doing him a kindness…
Holding both of his wrists in one hand, I pull the shapeshifter toward me without a second thought, my gaze on that pulsing vein at his throat. The gash hasn’t stopped bleeding, either, and a red stain seeps into the collar of his shirt now.
“You’re not a monster!”
The words are like a feather along the edge of my subconscious. My heartbeat pounds in my ears as I turn toward the human—Drew, his name is Drew—shouting at me.
He’s walking this way, keeping to the wall, his hands spread in front of him as if to make himself seem less threatening. Not that a human could be much of a threat. My grip tightens on the shapeshifter, and he lets out a whimper as we both feel his bones grinding together.
To his credit, Drew doesn’t move his gaze from my face. “You’re not Charlotte Travesty anymore,” he says, lowering his voice as he draws closer. Closer. “You’re Charlie. I know you don’t want to hurt him. You care about things. About us.”
The monster doesn’t care. No, she wants me to drain this victim dry.
Unable to resist the call of the blood, much like the song of a water nymph, I bend down and inhale the skin along the curve of my captive’s throat. The movement brings back the memory of my father’s feeding lesson, and as my eyes close, I see him in the darkness. Doing the same thing to one of his victims.
“When you’re feeding, there’s a moment you’ll have to listen for,” he tells me, sitting down on the settee, where a feeder awaits him.
She’s beautiful—more beautiful than my own mother. She sits in a slant of moonlight that makes her golden hair look silver. Her long legs are crossed, which makes her black dress rise off the floor and reveal perfectly sculpted calves.