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  Outside, the sky was still dark, but I knew the sun would soon start edging over the horizon. I wanted to be out of town before dawn. That would give me at least a day's head-start. The Blooded only hunted at night.

  I couldn't wait any longer. A little extra money would be nice but I had more important things to worry about. Before I could gather up my bag and wave goodbye to Nancy, the bell above the door jingled again.

  West slunk into the restaurant, looking furtively around as if reassuring himself that it was safe to enter.

  "You aren't leaving, are you?" His voice sounded strained.

  "I was about to." I eyed his hands, which he worked together without seeming to notice the anxious movement. "You got something for me?"

  "I just need a few more minutes." He stuck his hands in the pockets but I could still see them clenched in the fabric of his coveralls.

  "I don't have a few minutes."

  He stepped in front of me. "Please. I want to help you."

  I debated for a long moment and glanced outside at the sky. Dawn would break at any moment. It was probably safe.

  "Fine," I snapped. "Five minutes."

  He nodded vigorously. "No problem. I got someone coming."

  West led us to the same booth he'd sat in earlier in the night. He took the seat facing the door, and I automatically slid into the booth opposite him without thinking about. It wasn’t the first mistake I’d made that night, but would be among the more catastrophic.

  "I’ve been thinking about it. Leaving does sound like a decent idea." He fingered a packet of Saltine crackers sitting in a bowl on the table. "I might head out, too."

  He was getting on my nerves. West had always been slow to get to the point, but this was ridiculous. “Good idea, but we need to hurry this up.”

  "I talked more with Rabbit after you left—" his voice lowered to a whisper. "About the Blooded."

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and the muscles of my back tensed. "Is that so?"

  "He gave me a name. Who they’re after."

  "And?" I cursed the breathy quality in my voice.

  "Well, part of a name—" West paused for dramatic effect. “Darkward.”

  Darkward.

  I pushed up from the table. West grabbed my arm, preventing my escape.

  We glared into each other's eyes.

  "Who are we waiting for, West?" I hissed.

  His mouth opened, but he wasn't looking at me. His eyes focused on a point over my shoulder and I heard the sound of clipped footsteps. It wasn't until that moment that I realized how completely I’d been betrayed.

  A voice like silk-wrapped iron spoke from behind me.

  “You’re waiting for me."

  Chapter Four

  Jinx

  Anyone who had never heard of the Darkwards, never needed a favor. There were other magical families, but the Darkwards had always been the strongest — and the deadliest.

  They had outfits from here to Timbuktu. In Italy, cousin Maloccio dealt exclusively in magical malfeasance and extortion. Tokyo was home to Great-Aunt Kimiko's paranormal yakuza. Even the family's L.A office traded in assassination, soul stealing and show business. If you needed something outside of the mundane and on the wrong side of legal, then you went to a Darkward for help. They were everywhere. And they were dangerous.

  Might makes right was the only family motto. The Darkwards took what they wanted — from humans, supernaturals and anyone else not powerful enough to stop them. In a world where the average human was happy believing in only what they saw every day, opportunities for exploitation were everywhere.

  You can have anything you want as long as no one can stop you from taking it.

  The last Darkward child was fated. Seventh child of parents both born to that mystical position themselves — seventh-born of the seventh-born, twice over. That poor kid was supposed to be the most powerful magical being that the world had seen since Morgan le Fay made the first demon deal for the powers that had been passed down through the great witch families ever since

  Just to be aggravating, the little twerp had the nerve to be born without magic. The embarrassment of it had been enough to cast a pall over the entire family for a generation. After all that hype, there was nothing to show for it. The youngest Darkward became the most pitiable creature in the entire supernatural world.

  And it just so happened that I was that pathetic little witch.

  I was born Juliette Darkward, Jinx to my friends, and the last-born child of Eddard and Colleta Darkward, two of the most powerful magic-workers in the known universe. They made no secret of the fact that I was their greatest disappointment and a practical stain on our great name. But no one has spoken my true name to me in almost a year.

  For a few years after my birth, I was the dirty family secret — a curse from the trickster gods to bring us down a peg or two. It didn't take long for everyone else to figure out that the newest Darkward, instead of being the great bastion of witch power to lead our people into the next century, was as powerless and useless as any human. My parents never quite lived down the embarrassment.

  They spent most of my life treating me like I was less than nothing. My father likely would have drowned me at birth if my mother had allowed it. She’d had a slightly softer spot for me, favoring benign neglect over outright hostility. My older siblings never let me forget that I wasn't like them. Childhood squabbles turned deadly when magic was involved. I only survived as long as I did because my mother had always put a stop to their fun before things got too bloody. She’d always been one for keeping up appearances.

  Plus, I never had anything that they wanted enough to kill me for it. Darkwards didn’t get their hands dirty unless there was profit in it.

  Most of my siblings specialized in third world countries. Military takeovers and the subverting of funds to line the pockets of dictators are everyday occurrences. My older brother, Titan, made a name for himself in the family by smuggling a hundred nuclear warheads from Russia into Cuba in less than an hour.

  And I would have stayed on the fringes of my family, barely surviving, forever. Until a year ago, when everything changed. The worst mistake of my life had just caught up with me.

  The look in West’s had changed from one of nervousness, to anticipation. When he regarded me now, it wasn’t with the furtiveness of a prey animal hiding from a predator. Instead, he looked like a hunter that was slowly approaching the deer it had wounded, prepared to make the killing blow. In that moment, I reminded myself that weasels are carnivores.

  I never really knew him at all.

  But all thoughts of West’s betrayal fled, when I heard that familiar voice behind me, one that I hoped never to hear again.

  “Juliette Darkward. I love the outfit, a uniform of servitude suits you. “

  "Darius." I turned to meet a face that I wished had stayed firmly in my bad memories, glaring at him even as fear that tripped through me. “I’d say I’m happy to see you but you know how much I hate to lie.”

  "It’s good you haven't lost your spirit." Darius Aquinas, second-in-command of the Blooded and headmaster of the Proving Ground, slipped off his long coat and slung it over the back of a chair that he pulled up to the booth. He sat in an elegant motion and crossed one leg over the other. His hair, the color of a shiny silver dollar, was cut short and contrasted sharply with eyes that were dark pits of black. "It was so disappointing when you ran."

  "I didn't run from you."

  "Such a nimble tongue." He tipped a plastic stand on its side that held an advertisement for holiday-themed lattes — gingerbread and spice. "I wonder what it would look like in a glass case."

  West made a noise in his throat and I cut my eyes to him. “You better hope Darius kills me before I get a chance at you.”

  “Now, now,” Darius chided. “Don’t blame West for your predicament. He was ordered to follow your movements and report back, nothing more. You didn’t really think we’d lost track of you, did you?
”

  For a moment, I was angrier at myself for missing the signs than I was at West for hiding his true nature from me. I regarded him with new eyes and I didn’t like what I saw. His back was straighter than I’d ever seen it, the expression of lazy cheer on his face was replaced with one of watchful malevolence. “You’re Blooded.”

  “In training,” West replied with a small smirk and even his voice was different, colder and full of some secret knowledge. “I’m in my last year at the Proving Grounds.”

  Which meant he was nearly one of them. Most students didn’t get to their last year there, either because they left or because something worse happened. It was where the most powerful supernatural creatures learned the extent of their abilities, even the ones who didn’t make the cut to graduate and become Blooded were still incredibly dangerous.

  “As one of our more promising students, West was given leave for this special assignment,” Darius murmured, the laughter in his voice not reaching the coldness in his eyes. “Now, enough chitchat. Shall we get down to business?”

  "This is a public place, Darius." I glanced over to the counter where Nancy was rolling silverware. She hadn't yet noticed Darius’s sudden appearance. Big Larry had already disappeared behind the grill. As I stared into his eyes, so dark they were fathomless, I felt only tired. "If you're going to kill me, then you’d better make it quick."

  That startled a laugh out of him. "I'm not here to kill you, kitten."

  My eyebrows rose, and I watched warily as West stood from the table to stand at Darius’s side, effectively trapping me in the booth. I couldn’t believe I ever considered fucking him and that I hadn’t seen what he was. But neither of them seemed interested in violence. At least not at that particular moment. "Why are you here, then?"

  “All in good time." He relaxed in the chair as if he had all the time in the world. "Life away from home has done little for your manners."

  I dropped gracelessly into the seat. Darius had always liked to play with his food and the last year didn’t seem to have changed him much. There was only one reason I could think of that would compel him to come looking for me and not kill me on sight. I dreaded what was coming next as they both stared me down.

  Darius wasn’t just some lowly enforcer. He was second-in-command of the Blooded, tasked with filling their ranks, and the one who ensured that victims of the Blooded got a little bit of psychological torture before they moved in for the kill.

  “Reunions are a balm to the soul," he said genially, his smile mocking. He picked up the tabletop advertisement again and slowly examined it. "I think I'll try the pumpkin spice latte. So festive. Would you like one?"

  I shook my head slowly as he rose and walked to the counter, feeling dazed. The world was tilted to the side and spinning crazily on its axis. Any moment I would fly off the planet and be lost to the universe.

  My fingers gripped the edge of the table as I fought the urge to run. West watched me with amused eyes as if he sensed the urge in me and found it hilarious. A weasel shifter simply wasn’t powerful enough to become one of the Blooded. If he was capable of hiding the extent of his power, then he was even more dangerous than I initially imagined.

  “How did you do it?” I asked, deciding I might as well assuage my curiosity if I only had a few more minutes of life left to live. “How did you make me think you were nobody?”

  His eyebrows raised, expression mocking. “You thought I was nobody, that’s not very nice.”

  “You know what I mean,” I snap, hating myself for still finding him attractive. The oil and grime that I now recognized was part of a disguise, just made me think of getting dirty. “You owe me an explanation.

  His glower turned dark. “I don’t owe you anything, witch.”

  “Fine,” I snapped, fighting the urge to throw something at him. This asshole had pretended to be my friend, made me think I’d finally found an ally in the dark, cruel world. But that was another rule I’d forgotten after being away so long, you couldn’t trust anyone but yourself. “Be a dick.”

  He seemed to consider something for a moment, then surprised me by answering. “Demon Dust suppresses powers. I assumed everyone knew that.”

  “Not everyone, apparently,” I replied, sounding disgusted even to myself. That would have been really good information to have a few days ago. “I’ve never touched the stuff. I had no idea that was a side effect.”

  West doesn’t bother to keep the derision off his face. “There is an entire library at the Proving Grounds, full of the things you don’t know.”

  I glared at him and it was hard to fight the flash of hurt. If my life had gone how it was supposed to, I be attending the Proving Grounds myself. Every single one of my siblings had received an invitation, and I suspected at least one of them was a full member of the Blooded even though I couldn’t be positive. There was no higher honor in our world than that. Even people who graduated without being chosen for the Blooded ranks had doors opened for them that would otherwise be closed. I’d spent my entire life having it explained to me precisely what I was missing out on. “Well, it’s too bad that I never had the chance to attend your precious academy of assholes.”

  The gaze he leveled on me was frankly assessing, but not precisely unfriendly. It was as if he were searching for answers, trying to see what lay beneath my skin. “Perhaps you’ll get your chance.”

  His words sent a chill down my spine, and not just because I was still considering taking my luck by sprinting for the door. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  But he didn’t answer immediately, watching me like I was a bug under a microscope he planned to slowly pick apart. I had to remind myself that this was not the West who spent the last six months hanging around and acting as my connection. That guy had been a lie. This man was only a few steps away from becoming a full member of the Blooded, which made him incredibly dangerous.

  “You’re already losing control, aren’t you?” His murmured words were only loud enough for me to hear, gaze assessing when it landed on me. His light blue eyes were hard as chips of ice. “With every passing day, you get closer and closer to going completely feral.”

  My skin lit up as his gaze tracked over me, each place his eyes touched burned with invisible fire. The dark magic inside of me made me crave things that would have terrified my younger self, the one that had yearned for magic with no conception of what it would bring. It took everything I had to remind myself that I hated him, and my belly still clenched in a spasm of longing as I forced myself to look away. “You don’t know anything about it.”

  But West wasn’t done, staring me down like he could see through all of my defenses to the very core. And maybe he could. He had spent the last six months pretending to be my friend. “I know that someone with as much power as you have shouldn’t be untrained. No matter how much you like to pretend you can just not use it instead of learning control, eventually the magic will compel you to let it loose. I’ve already seen it.”

  He and I both knew that he was talking about what happened with Jenny right here in the restaurant. The magic had become an extension of my will and I hadn’t been in control of it, at least not consciously. I wanted her to choke, so she did. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “We’ll have to see about that.”

  “Whatever.” The word was flippant, even as I roiled with unease. They were here for something and it wouldn’t be anything good. That they hadn’t tried to kill me yet was no comfort. “Tell me how many forms you take besides the weasel you like so much, and then we can talk about me.”

  His smile was brief, but full of dark promise. “That mouth is going to get you in trouble.”

  Deciding to ignore him, I deliberately turned away even though I could feel his steely gaze on me like a physical sensation

  Darius had his back to us as he spoke to Nancy, laying on the charm like he always did. He was attractive in a terrible sort of way, like a carnivorous flower luring unwitting
insects with its pretty displays. He’d keep that same charming smile on his face if he decided to slice Nancy into pieces and it wouldn’t falter even as he listened to her screams.

  Darius liked causing pain. He’d always been at his happiest with some instrument of torture in his hand and a screaming victim at his mercy.

  And he wasn’t even who I feared the most.

  The path to the door was clear. I could run. I could jump on my bike and ride until it ran out of gas. It would take a while for them to track me down.

  But I abandoned the thought before it had a chance to fully form and not just because West was watching me like a guard dog. It might be days or even weeks, but eventually Darius would find me again. And he’d only make it worse for me if I made him waste his time hunting me down. I had to bide my time, wait for the right moment to make a move, even if I had no idea what that move might be.

  Darius returned and slid back into his seat. He took a small sip of the cup in his hand and sighed. "Humans truly do understand the simple pleasures." He gave me a dark smile. "But you know all about that, don’t you?”

  I ignored the creeping heat along my skin, reminding myself that he was trying to bait me. “Why are you here, Darius?"

  He regarded me as a cruel smile twisted his hawkish features. We were so close that I could smell cinnamon and nutmeg from the drink on his breath. "Do you enjoy this? Running from city to city—praying to the gods that you stay one step ahead of us?"

  "What do you want?" I whispered the question.

  "A trade." He reached across the table and rubbed a strand of my hair between his fingers and I resisted the urge to pull away. "A favor now, for a favor later."

  I shifted away from him. He held onto the hair strand long enough that I felt a painful twinge in my scalp before he let go. Asshole. "What are you offering?”

  "Everything.” He paused for dramatic affect and held his arms wide like a magician revealing his greatest trick. “I can give you your life back."

  Anything he offered me would be a Faustian bargain. I knew that and yet I couldn’t help the twinge of curiosity. “How?"