CHAPTER 2 #4
As she rounded another corner, her pulse quickened. She glanced around the dark street, trying to walk faster. She should never have taken the shortcut, should have stayed to the main roads or taken the train, despite the risk of surveillance cameras.
Desperately, she glanced out the corner of one eye as she turned at a burned out streetlamp, hoping to have put some distance between her and the man she was now sure was following her.
But no, the shadowy figure was still there. In fact, she was almost sure he’d increased his speed to keep pace with her.
Dani’s heart pounded. She couldn’t make out much in the dark, only a shadowed form. Definitely male. There was no way to know if he was human, vampire or shifter. Yanking off her gloves, she stuffed them into the pocket of Evan’s coat.
The small amount of power she could yield wasn’t combat magic.
Not by a long stretch. She had the weak ability to obscure memories.
At most, she could erase the last five minutes of a person’s conscious thoughts.
That had always been enough to put her targets into a temporary daze when she and Evan worked together in the streets.
No one got hurt. But if her attacker overpowered her, immobilized her hands—
The footsteps were pounding behind her now and Dani realized that they had reached a section of the street where the lights were mostly burned out.
She began to run. Her eyes streamed with tears from the cold as she raced for the end of the alley, which she knew led to a busier road.
Her foot skidded on the ice and she couldn’t help the tiny shriek that escaped as she almost went flying. The sidewalks weren’t salted back here, not in back alleys that were mainly used for trash pickup and deliveries.
Barely managing to keep upright, she staggered on. From behind her came a quiet curse. He’d hit the same black ice.
It was a vampire. She was sure of it now. They always rasped certain consonants just slightly when their fangs snapped down in preparation to feed.
That meant this one was thirsty. The more powerful vampires could shift into smoke and reappear across a room, perfectly formed. But surely if this one could, he would have been upon her by now?
No, she had to keep going, had to make it to the end of the street.
Dani had just rounded the corner, the mouth of the alley finally in sight, when her foot slipped. She went down hard, her handbag flying across the ice. The icy cobblestones rushed up to meet her, knocking the breath from her lungs.
Chest heaving, Dani forced herself to get up.
Behind her, came the sound of low breathing.
The vampire was close. Terror turned her legs to jelly.
She tensed, readying to turn and try to make contact with whatever skin she could find in the hopes her magic would have time to take effect before he drained her, when an unearthly scream tore from the vampire’s throat.
Dani scrambled away. In the dark, it was impossible to see anything, but there was no mistaking the sounds of a fight taking place.
Lungs burning from the exertion and the cold, she staggered towards the end of the alley.
She wasn’t going to make it, wouldn’t get there—
Tears streamed down her cheeks, freezing in the bitter cold. She kept running, unable to stop herself from checking over her shoulder every few steps, certain she would be next, that this time, there would be no escape.
The alley was so dark that she didn’t see the body of the vampire until she practically tripped over it.
Dani stifled a scream, then immediately covered her mouth to keep from gagging at the smell of the blood.
But that wasn’t what alarmed her the most.
No, it was the gleaming silver blade protruding from the dead vampire’s throat.
Dani stared at the knife, hands shaking.
It made no sense. A human fighting off a vampire would have created far more of a struggle, and they never would have left something as valuable as a silver dagger behind.
Silver was toxic to wolf shifters, which was why it was a metal commonly used in vampire weaponry.
In the unlikely event her savior had been a shifter, they would never have allowed her to go free, not when young women of breeding age were being captured off the streets at night.
A second vampire might have killed the first, hoping to drain her himself, but then… why allow her to escape?
She scanned the street, but other than her and the dead vampire, the alley was now deserted.
No, it made no sense at all.
Heart pounding, Dani removed her scarf and wrapped it around the hilt of the dagger. If she didn’t take it, someone else would, and weapons were hard to come by, carefully regulated and restricted unless you were conscripted and sent to fight at the front against the wolves.
By the time she got home, her hands were shaking and she wanted nothing more than to curl up in front of the fire with a cup of hot tea and get warm. But one look at Evan’s expression and Ava’s tear-streaked face when she stepped inside told her something was terribly wrong.
“What happened?” Quickly, she bolted the door.
“I finished my homework,” Ava began, voice wobbly. “I was across the hall at Kayra’s showing her the latest ballet videos I found. We were practicing and my foot slipped.”
Ava loved dancing in all forms, from the ice dancing they watched in media clips, to the ballet Nadine taught her during her sporadic visits.
“Are you okay?” Toeing off her wet boots at the door, Dani hurried to her sister’s side. “Did you sprain your ankle?”
“Maybe a little.” Ava swiped at her damp cheeks. “Everything was okay. I felt so good. We were practicing pirouettes and dancing to the Nutcracker. And then, it was like my foot collapsed out from under me.”
Realizing she was still clutching her bag and the scarf containing the bloody knife, Dani set them down and went to the sink to wash her hands.
Cinder padded over to sniff the scarf, no doubt smelling the enticing scent of blood.
“Keep her away from there,” Dani said sharply.
Evan frowned but scooped up the cat. “What’s going on?”
Ignoring the question, she turned her attention to Ava. “Have you noticed any weakness or had any difficulty walking the past two days, or did it just start tonight?”
“I don’t know.” Ava blew out a breath. “It’s been so cold, you know? My toes feel like they go numb at the start of winter every year and I can’t feel them properly again until spring.”
“Sure.” Her sister had always been cold-natured. They both were.
“You said the burning pain is back though?” Evan said, putting the cat down and scraping a hand through her hair. She threw a worried look Dani’s way.
“It’s more like tingling, maybe? My feet feel kind of numb, if I’m being honest.” Seeing their expressions, Ava sighed. “Don’t freak out. It’s just the cold. I’ve probably been practicing too much.”
“We should be keeping the room warmer,” Dani said, refusing to look at the stack of trash and broken crates in the corner that they fed to the fire.
They had to get more heating oil somehow, but how, when it was always something else, rent coming due, food they had to find, and always the search for Ava’s insulin?
Food was another area that was a constant struggle.
The diet Ava was supposed to be following that would keep her blood sugar from spiking and cratering throughout the day required careful balance, a certain number of carbohydrates, proteins, fats and vegetables, all the right nutrients in certain amounts.
Like most families who’d lost two parents, their meals consisted of whatever she and Evan could manage to trade for on a good day, a loaf of bread, vegetables and meat trimmings they could turn into a stew if they were lucky.
And now her sister was experiencing the extremity pain and loss of sensation the healers had warned them could happen if her diabetes wasn’t strictly controlled.
“What’s this?” Evan said sharply, holding up the knife. “Please tell me you didn’t—"