DANICA

STOP THINKING ABOUT HIM. There’s no use. You’ll never see him again. Dani fidgeted in her chair and tried for the umpteenth time to get her vampire to agree that hunting down Tattoos was a terrible idea.

Especially now that she was without her bodyguard.

She dragged a hand through her ebony hair and watched her professor straighten her suit lapels before clicking to the next slide of her presentation. When the woman excitedly crossed the room, a soft lilac scent laced with blood blew in her direction.

Her vampire scented the air, then frowned. She smelled okay, but not nearly as delectable as him.

He’s not here, nor will he ever be, she reminded her. She hadn’t seen him since the airplane. And the likelihood of ever seeing him again without actively tracking him down was negligible. It was pointless to think about him or how good he smelled. The vampire inside her inwardly growled her disagreement. To her, there was no harm in hunting him down. He threatened them after all. Insulting a royal was a death sentence. One she’d gladly dole out herself as soon as she gathered her things and…

Stop it.

She snatched her hand back from the taupe faux-leather tote bag sitting beside her foot. They weren’t going, and that was that.

Thankfully, the phone in her pocket vibrated. At least that would distract her vampire from hunting down Tattoos when she should be in class. Jumping up quickly, she plucked the phone and glanced at the screen. Gustav.

Of all her siblings, he’d been the closest one to knowing the truth about her blood problem. He knew firsthand how bad her cravings were when she’d gone too long without blood.

Dani, are you okay?

No, seeing as I can’t get my mind off of… she typed furiously, but stalled before she hit send.

No, she couldn’t say that. Then, he’d ask too many questions and the truth would make him worry. So, she erased it and wrote instead:

Evan got to you, didn’t he?

He’s worried.

Evan needs to mind his own damn business.

I’m worried too.

Would you all stop fretting over me? I’m fine.

There’s nothing to be ashamed of.
We’ve all had problems with the bloodlust.

By the gods. She needed a distraction, not her conscience. The phone in her hands vibrated again with another message.

Dani, it’s best to talk about it.

She really, really didn’t want to go down this route. Inevitably, it would end with her spilling her guts.

Danica.

She looked around. A few of her fell classmates shifted and glanced her way. Clearly, the buzzing emanating from her hands was causing a mild disturbance.

Can’t, I’m in class.

Her phone settled, and she turned back to her professor. Three slides later, her phone rang. The front of the room paused, and the room hushed. She was the only one with her phone out and by the sound of the uptick in pulses around her, a few of her neighbors were getting miffed. Her phone buzzed again, the vibration from her phone became the loudest thing in the room.

“Sorry, I just…” she fiddled to turn the ringer off, but only made it louder. Her professor’s sharp gaze and disapproving frown careened from the front of the room.

Another call followed the first. Gustav was going to be the death of her.

“Sorry, I have to take this,” she half-mouthed, half-whispered, lifting from her seat and motioning to the phone tucked in her hands before zipping to the exit, staring at the screen.

Once the door closed behind her, she picked up the phone with a huff. “What part of: I’m in class, don’t you understand?”

Her brother matched her tone with one that was just as annoyed. “You’ve been avoiding Evan’s calls and you’ve missed your weekly status report. Forgive us for worrying.”

Oh, she’d forgotten about her report. She’d been too busy trying to wrangle in her vampire; it slipped her mind. Yet, her brother’s reaction was overkill.

“You all worry worse than our mother.” So, she had a little trouble with her cravings. She was sitting in a classroom full of humans and didn’t have any inclination to rip throats. That special honor was strictly reserved for when she met up with Tattoos again.

“I understand how terrible the cravings can get. Wait, are you talking to me in class? Can you do that?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m in the hall. Your messages were causing quite the distraction.”

“You should’ve put your phone on silent mode.”

Wish I would have thought of that, she thought sarcastically. “You could’ve just stop calling. I’m missing my favorite class for this.”

“Oh please! You’ve said it yourself: every class you have to take bores you to tears.”

True, it did.

“Now,” Gustav’s voice turned soft. “How are your cravings?”

How was she supposed to say they were out of control? She didn’t.

“Managed. I’m drinking lots of fluids often. Keeping myself desensitized. The usual.”

“The synth blood helps.”

Easy for him to say. He wasn’t mind-fucked by someone who left his vampire in tatters. Tattoos had done something irrevocable to her. Her thirst had reached a breaking point. Not even double rations that included synth blood curbed her cravings. She was satiated, but a deeper thirst still made the back of her throat dry. She only wanted him.

“I know. Now stop worrying. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Gustav pressed, and for a second, she wondered if he could use his truth-seeking ability over the phone. Sure, when they were face to face, he could tell instantly if she was lying. She could practically hear the accusation in his tone. He’d always suspected there was something more to her cravings, but he never pressed her to make her tell him the entire truth. A long pause drew out on the other end, keeping her on edge. Her gut said he didn’t believe her, but instead, he sighed. “Fine. You know you can always tell me anything.”

“Of course, now that that’s settled. I need to return to class.”

“Before you do, I really need your status report. Mine’s terrible and I can’t give the King bad news.”

The change of subject loosened the tension that’d been squeezing at her shoulders. She’d been fretting that she’d fail at her mission, but with Gustav not faring much better, she was almost relieved.

“Well, I tried the hospital, and that bombed,” Dani tapped her foot aimlessly and shrugged her tote bag over her shoulder. “But my roommate got me an internship at the blood donation center. She knows a guy who’ll be able to hook me up.”

“You told someone?”

“Do I look like a fool to you? Julius is the dumb one, remember? It’s only Kellz.”

“The mage? Dani. How many times must we say this? Never make a deal with a mage.”

“First of all, she’s not a mage. Not really. She’s a non-magical born to mage parents. So, I think there’s a loophole there. And second, she’s cool. I asked her for help to get blood. She knows I’m a vamp, so she set me up. No questions asked. I’m sure the large sum donation I promised my ‘father’ would give to the center also helped.”

“For the all gods.”

“It’s pretty genius, right? Now, I’m Rockland’s newest intern.”

“Please tell me you worked with more discretion than that.”

“What? Big donors throw money at things all the time.”

“They do, but governments watch people who are spending in large sums. Our discretion in this world means not being noticed. Not to mention, dear sister, not all problems are solved by throwing money it at.”

“Welp, I think we’ve discovered why your part of our status report is terrible.”

Gustav groaned through a sigh. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Get me a route. If all goes as expected, I’m going to have blood in hand within the week and I’m going to need you to deliver.” That way she could hightail it out of Clide City as fast as the wind before she tracked down Tattoos and finish what they started on the plane.

“I’m working on it. Alliances at the portals are… complicated.”

“Sounds dangerous. If you need extra protection, I have a guard you can use. Asher has nothing to do. He’s getting restless from the boredom of standing outside my classes.” Her gaze skirted down the hall. It was all she could do to convince Asher to stay at the car while she was in class, although sometimes she suspected he came and stood outside anyway, though he didn’t seem to be there now.

“That’s not my decision.”

“I know,” she rolled her eyes. “It’s Damian’s. But if you put in a good word, he’ll let Asher transfer. He listens to you.”

“Negative. He stays at your side.”

“Why? That’s not fair! You don’t have one.”

“Pretending that Garrick doesn’t exist to fit your narrative doesn’t make your statement true. We all have them now after Julius’s little rendezvous with the shifters.”

“I hate Julius.”

“It’s the King’s doing, really. If anything, you should hate him.”

“And risk treason? Please. I’m young, not stupid. It wouldn’t surprise me if he sent me a text right now telling me to come in for questioning.”

“You dramatize too much, but he does seem to know a great deal. It’s uncanny.”

Ha! Wasn’t that the truth. Damian had always called it a natural instinct. But there was something very unnatural about the way her oldest brother always seemed to maneuver the universe into getting the things he wanted. Much like a certain someone she’d been trying to forget since she deboarded her flight.

Ugh, she needed to turn her mind elsewhere. She glanced at the door to Seminar Room C2.

“Is that a good enough update? I have to get back to class.”

“It’ll do. Stay safe.”

“Don’t worry, Asher will make me! Make sure you have my route ready.”

“Will do.”

She hung up in time for a beep to ring overhead, signaling the end of class. A few seconds later, her phone vibrated with a message from Kelly, completely overriding her worry over Gustav.

Ready to rot your guts at Taco Nacho?

Yes! She burst with excitement. Now that was a sure-fire way to keep her thoughts away from Tattoos. She could drown herself in enough grease to put her in a food coma until tomorrow. She texted back.

I don’t know why you hate them so much. Taco Nacho is amazing!!!

You must have a strong stomach. I’ll be on the quad.

Dani bounced on her toes as she headed to the east quad. Kelly may not have thought Tach Nacho was a prize to be won, but she sure did. One that was well deserved after not only making headway on her mission but also abstaining from hunting down Tattoos all week. It seemed like a fair reward to her. If she couldn’t get blood from Tattoos, she was going to stuff her face full of taco guac and loaded nachos.

In the middle of the quad, Kelly waited outside the admissions building where she did her work study. As usual, her roommate dressed in the brightest colors imaginable.

Even on a gloomy day, Kelly would dress in bubblegum pink with purple hair. Yet there was always a super chic way she pulled it off that seemed on par with the human fashion magazines. Today, Kelly dressed in fire engine red overalls with cut-off shorts and a wig to match. When Kelly spotted her, her face brightened.

“Hey gumdrop,” she squeezed her into a tight hug before striding toward the parking lot. “Oh, I hope you don’t mind, I borrowed this.”

Dani looked down at the red purse she’d pilfered from her closet and shrugged. “No, I don’t mind. Just don’t leave your stuff in there again. I could’ve got busted on my flight…”

“I’m so sorry! I meant to take it out, I just use it to study. It’s like caffein.”

“Caffein or not, it’s not allowed in his city.”

Kelly stopped dead, eyes bursting from her skull, ready to plummet to the sidewalk. “W-What did you say?”

“By the gods, I don’t know why I said that.” But she knew why. Tattoos still had control of her somehow.

“Dani,” she took a shaky breath. “What did you just say?”

“Nothing, I just said I heard it wasn’t allowed.”

“In his city,” she finished. “You said his city.”

“Uh… yeah. I guess I did, but—”

“Who told you to say that?”

She hadn’t told anyone about her run-in with Tattoos. Seeing that she was doing everything she could to avoid hunting him down for his blood, there was no reason for her to. But the sheer terror that was on Kelly’s face told her that maybe she should have.

“Just some guy I met on the plane. He was freaky as hell, but…”

“What was his name?” Kelly paled and the organ inside of her own chest thumped painfully hard. With so much blood inside her, it beat as if someone was bouncing a basketball inside her ribcage.

“I didn’t get his name.”

“What did he look like? Was he tall, shit ton of tattoos?”

Coal lodged in the back of her throat, but she tried to keep her voice cavalier. “Yes, do you know him?”

Kelly squeaked in horror, but instead of answering right away, she pulled out her phone and rifled through her pictures to show her one. “Is this who you saw?”

She shoved the phone in her face. On display, a picture of Kelly and the three girls who lived down the hall smiled brightly at the camera outside Mickey’s, the nightclub they usually frequented. The harsh camera flash washed out their usually youthful skin, but Kelly wasn’t talking about them. Her bright red acrylic nail tapped on the screen, pointing to a man who’d been crossing the street.

Technically, he’d been in the blurry background, but from the tattoos and the way he stood, eyes cold and staring at some target out of the range of the camera lens, it was most definitely him. But seeing the petrified look on Kelly’s face made her falter.

“The picture is dark.”

“Look again. I need you to be very sure,” Kelly demanded, her voice becoming wafer thin. She expanded the background, distorting him into blurry pixels, and pointed at him again.

A storm of nerve ants marched into her heart.

“Maybe.”

“Shit!” She shrank the picture and shoved the phone in her pocket with enough force to pop a few stitches of her overalls. “This is not good.”

“Why? Who is he?”

“That’s Sebastian Wade.”

Was that supposed to mean something? At her confused face, Kelly explained. “Sebastian Wade rules Clide City.”

“What do you mean, rules? Like a king?” She’d seen her fair share of royals and Sebastian Wade was not like any king she’d ever seen.

“You mean you don’t know?” Kelly stepped back. Her usual bubbly personality broke apart. She rubbed her forehead, causing her wig to go off center, then dragged her hands down the side of her face. “Of course, you don’t. You’re new in town. Jeezyy-weezy, this is bad. Sebastian Wade is the ruler of all supernaturals of Clide City. Nothing happens in this city without his knowledge or say so. And I mean everyone, Dani. He’s even feared by your kind. Nothing good happens to anyone who crosses him.”

Dani swallowed hard, and tried not to let the frantic look on her friend’s face infuse into her. “I’m sure he’s not that bad.”

Kelly stopped abruptly and pulled her off the sidewalk onto the grass under a tree and hushed her voice.

“Not all mages are rainbows and sunshine. Some are dangerous and Sebastian Wade is the worst kind. He is the stuff of nightmares. Just saying his name aloud is practically a death sentence.”

“Seriously?”

Kelly let out a slow impatient breath, then pulled her closer. “The last person who crossed him was knifed to death. The official report said it was self-inflicted, but no one stabs themselves twenty-seven times. Mages know better. That was his handiwork. Everyone who crosses him ends up the same. Dead by a thousand literal cuts.”

Dani shook her head several times in disbelief, thinking of the tattooed god who’d sat across from her on the plane. Sure, his image wasn’t for the faint of heart, but she figured that was a cover—a front—his way to deter people from seeing that he was really a big teddy bear.

“This is bad,” Kelly said.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m sure this has already been forgotten.”

“Danica.” The sound of her full name on her friend’s lips made her vampire bones stiff. Kelly never ever called her by her full name. Hell, she’d barely called her by her nickname—always preferring to call her and everyone else gumdrop or some variation. “If he saw my shit in your bag, you’ve crossed him.”

“Well, that’s hardly fair.”

“Life’s not fair,” she grabbed both her arms to look her dead in the eye. “Did you talk to each other? What am I saying? Of course, you did.”

She wouldn’t have exactly called it talking, but close enough.

“What did he say?” Kelly released her and stress paced. “No, start from the beginning. How did he even know my stuff was in there?”

“I accidentally knocked over my purse and it fell out of my bag when he… and I met.” She stopped short of saying, “when he controlled me.”

“Did you tell him about me?” Kelly looked to be seven seconds away from passing out. It would probably be best not to put her over the edge.

“No,” she lied. “I told him it belonged to my roommate. I never said your name.”

Relief loosened Kelly’s white-knuckled fists from gripping her arms, but it made her guts twist out of guilt. “Thank you foremages. Then what happened?”

“He asked me if I bought it from someone.” At Kelly’s frantic look, she quickly added, “But I said I didn’t.”

“Anything else? Did you tell him where we lived?”

“No,” she bit her bottom lip, unable to completely lie to her. “I did tell him where I went to school.”

Any relief Kelly had, evaporated. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

“Maybe it’s nothing,” she offered, trying to calm her down. Kelly whipped around with intense eyes.

“Sebastian Wade is not nothing. He saw you with a drug he doesn’t allow in his city, and he knows where you go to school.”

“So?”

“So?!” Kelly sighed, staring at her feet before her gaze raked up to her, leveling her with a hard, panic-filled stare. “I’m going to be frank. This is not good Dani. If he knows where you are, that means he’s coming for you, and nothing will stop him.”

CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 5