A Crown of Blood

Chapter 1

He was shirtless.

That was the first thing I noticed about him.

Next was the blood dripping down his chest.

Fake blood, I realized, from the mouth of the sexy vampire he ravished a few minutes earlier. Where she'd gone, neither he nor I knew. There were plenty of other characters to choose from in Club Wolfsbane. It was the place to be on Halloween in the city, after all.

Where this stranger held himself so confidently—as though the universe truly revolved around him—I needed complete and total anonymity. My life depended on it.

Flickering between the shadows, the man's silvery blue eyes glowed beneath the wolf mask covering the tops of his cheeks, and he searched for—

What, exactly?

And why was I so eager to find out?

"Get ready to turn this party up a notch, Manhattan!" the DJ shouted, ripping me from my thoughts, and the crowd roared with excitement, music crashing through the nightclub in primal, electrifying beats that matched my erratic heart.

Focus, Halina.

I tried. For a moment, lightheadedness overcame me—as though surfacing from a dream—blinking the haze in and out of my mind—and I turned back to the handsome stranger only to see that he was gone. Swallowed up by the crowd.

It was for the best, I told myself despite the disappointment.

Knocking back the entirety of my drink, I rolled my shoulders and focused on the task at hand. It was close to midnight; I had a job and a client who would not be pleased if I came back empty-handed again.

Matters of life and death always seemed to put people on edge.

Besides, I didn't come back to this stupid city just to lose everything all over again.

Gently turning my nose toward the ceiling, I filled my lungs with the humid air, and clutched my purse closer to my hip. Tucked in an inconspicuous pocket was the receiver of the tiny camera built into my necklace.

Maybe I should look into adding cameras to my earrings, too.

Wouldn't that be a delight?

Years of practice, and a little magical intervention, made dissolving into a crowd as natural as breathing. The moment I set foot onto the dance floor, the lights fluttered, and the music shifted into an ethereal, bass-heavy ballad that sent a thrill down my spine.

Focus. Blend in. Find what you're looking for.

As I scanned the crowd, a sharp whistle caught my attention. Its frequency was too high for human ears, and too distinct for wolves outside of the Caine pack to hear if they weren't already listening for it. Not that there were any in here. The club was more human than supernatural. A purposeful exclusion. If you weren't a Caine wolf, you could try to enter without permission. You'd just leave the club in a body bag.

Lucky for me, thanks to my hybrid genes and a fancy spell from a swamp witch, they didn't know I was part wolf, and I wanted it to stay that way.

I followed the Caines' signal through a gap in the crowd. Standing at the base of the stage, a smile curled across his full lips, was Francis de Luna, a young male who, like many other twenty-two-year-olds in the city, shared a desire for power and status. And just like many twenty-two-year-old males in the city, if you stroked his ego just enough, he'd tell you everything you wanted to know.

"Let's turn up in fucking New York City!"

Bodies shifted against bodies, hands caressed arms and waists, and mouths met with growing hunger as the lights pulsed from white to gold. As I moved through the crowd, the hairs on the back of my neck prickled and a stream of warm magic sizzled beneath my skin in warning.