Once Bitten (Shadow Guild: The Rebel 1)

Every freaking time, I’d failed. Even the most important time.

Bitterness twisted my heart. Just once, I wanted to save someone. To help. I’d tried to save Beatrix, but I’d been too late. I’d found her dead in an alley, just like this. She’d been killed the same way. Tears pricked my eyes at the memory of my failure. Sometimes I saw the future, but when it came to death, I only saw the present. Or the past.

I should go. Run. If I were caught standing over the body, it would be the end of me. The cops had found me at the scene of Beatrix’s death, too. They would think I was the killer. You could only get caught at the scene of a crime so many times before logic pointed to you, and I was getting up there. Especially when you knew things about the death that they didn’t.

But I couldn’t go. My feet refused to move.

This poor man had had his face bashed in. I’d been too late to save him, but I could find justice for him. Maybe even stop the killer from getting someone else.

It was that thought that always drove me, no matter the consequences.

I ran my gaze over the man, spotting a tiny burn mark at the base of his throat. It was shaped like a spiral.

I blinked at it, a roaring sound beginning in my ears.

That same burn mark had been found on Beatrix’s body.

Holy crap—her killer was back.

Heart racing, I pressed my fingertips to the pale skin of the man’s hand. My gift—or curse, depending on my mood—worked when I touched something. I wasn’t crazy enough to think it was magic, but I had no idea what it was. I’d never met anyone else like me.

Please work.

I needed to see something useful here.

As soon as I touched the man’s rapidly cooling skin, a vision flashed in my mind’s eye. I couldn’t choose what I saw through physical contact with something—or someone—but in cases like this, I always prayed for a look at the killer.

My breathing heaved as I tried to process the images flickering in my mind.

A tall man with broad shoulders, standing impossibly still in front of the victim. He was cast in shadow, only his icy gray eyes gleaming in the night. A million things seemed to flash in his eyes, and my head began to buzz. I felt like I was staring into the future and the past, unable to decipher any of it but knowing that there was something important there.

I dragged my attention away from his eyes. I was being a freaking weirdo.

The rest of him gave me the impression of stone—like this man had been hewn from granite. Tall and broad shouldered, everything about him screamed strength. He was as powerful and immovable as a mountain, and a shiver of fear raced over me.

But there was something about him that drew me toward him. Something so visceral that it tugged at me. A connection. Heat.

My heart sped up, and my skin warmed.

He was a killer.

Why did I feel this…this pull toward him?

Like knowledge. Like connection. Like two stars spinning through space about to collide with each other.

No.

There was every chance he was the killer.

I couldn’t see a weapon in his hand—no bat or crowbar or anything for bashing—but he’d

been here at the time of the man’s death. Otherwise, I wouldn’t see him now. He shifted slightly so that light slashed across his face, revealing a sharp cheekbone and strong jaw. His lips were full—the only soft thing about him that I could see. A flash of white teeth gleamed in the darkness, two of them longer than the others. Pointed.

Fangs.

I stumbled back, my hand breaking contact with the body.

Fangs?