Shadow and the Witch (Morozov Family #2)

Prologue

The Historian

“Welcome, gentlemen,” the Curator said, his voice echoing around the large space.

He was smiling with an arrogance that made me uncomfortable.

You’d think, after being to a few of these auctions, I’d get used to the way they made my skin crawl.

Then again, if I ever got used to them, I think I’d ask someone to do something about it.

Witnessing these were always a horror show, and I still couldn’t believe they went on, but here we were.

About to watch this asshole auction off a child.

My stomach rolled, but I tamped it down. I couldn’t show any kind of disgust if I wanted a chance to save him.

“You’re about to witness something truly remarkable,” the Curator said as he walked over to a set of plush red velvet curtains. It looked like an old opera house. Fitting, I supposed, since this man was putting on a show.

“Just get on with it,” someone croaked from the front. There were about thirty people in here, all ridiculously wealthy and all from the darkest parts of the criminal underworld.

I was the exception.

Apart from the wealthy bit. I had money, and I was determined to win this auction. Another life saved to balance out a debt of my own making.

The Curator was a showman, I’d give him that.

He was decked out in his finest suit; his salt and pepper hair was neatly styled, and his face was freshly shaved.

He’d turned up to impress. “I’m getting there, don’t worry.

There isn’t much I can say other than this boy is rare.

At the age of twenty-five, he’ll be one of the most powerful creatures to walk the earth, and you, my fine gentlemen, could have the chance to possess that power for yourself. ”

My brow drew down in confusion. I’d never heard of a creature like this.

The Curator started to open the curtains, and the air crackled with tension and excitement. People buzzed and whispered in their seats, heads and necks arching and bending, trying to peer beyond the curtain.

“Gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to a future Shadow Witch.”

There were lots of ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’, and some frantic whispers as people stared at the boy suspended from the ceiling behind the thick glass.

To the right of the window was a large electrical panel with an intercom.

A Shadow Witch? There hadn’t been one of those in centuries. None that I’d heard of, and I’d been around a while.

“Interesting, don’t you think?” the man next to me murmured. I couldn’t quite tell what he was, but his power was old. Ancient.

I turned to look at him and found him staring down at me with a knowing amusement in his green eyes. “How so?”

“Not heard of a Shadow Witch living in centuries, and yet this fool has one in his capture. Where did the boy come from? He can’t have just appeared. And not maturing until twenty-five? That doesn’t sound right to me. This man is up to something and seems to be playing a long game.”

Annoyingly, I’d been thinking the same thing.

“And you, vampire, have you heard of one being alive in the last—” he leaned down to sniff me—“six centuries?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. I did not like this man. He knew too much with too much ease. “No.”

The stranger chuckled and held out his hand. “I’m the King.”

“The Historian,” I replied stiffly as I shook his hand. A jolt of something unpleasant zapped up my arm as our skin touched, and it took everything in me not to jerk my hand away. We all had code names down here, and I wasn’t surprised this man had decided to go with something a tad egotistical.

“Oh, I know,” he said with another chuckle. As if I amused him. Asshole. “What do you think of this get-up?”

I looked back at the boy again and held back my grimace.

He was suspended by his arms from two large metal poles.

Laid out in a circle beneath him were approximately ten copper coils, each about two feet long.

Attached to the end were long metal wires that led to an object that looked like an oversized lantern.

My teeth ground together and I felt my fangs itching to lengthen as I fought the urge to rescue the boy. I was here for a purpose. I had spent too long cultivating the persona of the Historian just to lose it now because I was impulsive.

But damn, the boy looked dead. No, not dead.

He looked tortured.

I thought I’d seen everything, but this was a whole new level of depravity.

The Curator took centre stage again now that he’d given us the chance to see the boy.

“My esteemed guests, what you may not know about a Shadow Witch, even one who hasn’t matured yet, is that you can siphon their power for yourselves.

Now, upon entering the viewing room, you should all have received a pair of dark glasses. If you could put these on and—”

“Are there any limitations?” the King asked, cutting across the Curator’s speech.

“What?” The Curator blinked slowly, a little dazed by someone interrupting his flow.

“Are there limitations to the boy? Is it just one siphon per day, or can you do it multiple times?” The King asked, his hands casually tucked into his trouser pockets and his posture far too comfortable for my taste.

The Curator smiled wide and his eyes brightened with madness. “You can siphon him more than once, but you need to walk a fine line between life and death because you can only siphon him when his magic thinks he’s dying or going beyond the veil.”

The King cocked his head to one side. “Why?”

“Magic doesn’t exist beyond the veil,” the Curator said simply. “He cannot take it with him when he travels to that plane, and he does not have an established vessel or tether to keep his magic safe. Without that, his magic can be captured, stored, and used for whatever you like.”

“Very well,” the King said with an inclination of his head. “Please continue.”

The Curator scoffed at the King’s arrogance but moved on swiftly. “As I was saying, you should all have received some glasses upon entering the viewing room. If you could all put these on, I will begin the demonstration.”

“This all feels a bit theatrical,” the King muttered next to me as he slipped on the dark round glasses.

I hummed in agreement and put on my own glasses. My stomach churned uncomfortably as the Curator pressed a couple of buttons on the intercom.

The boy’s head lifted from where he was suspended in the chains. “Father?”

This boy was his son?!

“Father?” the boy said again, his voice raw and pained.

“Ah, Wilder, you’re awake,” the Curator said in the same soothing, smarmy voice. “We’re going to put on a show.”

I couldn’t believe this. The man was auctioning off his own kin for money?

“Well, this just got a lot more interesting,” the King whispered in my ear.

“Let the show begin,” the Curator said as he gripped a large switch.

“Father! No! Please, no!” the boy screamed, and my fingers sank into the meat of my thighs.

I wanted to put an end to this right now.

I could, but then I’d be fighting fuck knows what kind of supernatural creatures, and there was a high possibility that I wouldn’t even make it out alive with the boy.

I was in this for the long game, which meant I had to grin and bear it.

The Curator flipped the large switch, and the boy screamed in agony. Lightning filled the room behind the glass. Bright shades of purple and violet, lavender and lilac, and all the while the boy screamed and screamed.

Until he didn’t.

Then all I could hear was the pop and crackle of his magic caught in the oversized lantern and the silent whisper of greed as the auction began.