Wicked Deal (Shadow Guild: The Rebel 2)

She’d brought me back to life. Her blood, specifically. I’d drunk the blood of thousands over the years. First, in a frenzy. When I’d been made nearly five hundred years ago, I’d fallen into the blood lust that plagued all turned vampires.

Unlike most of them, I’d survived, keeping to the shadows so the vampire hunters wouldn’t find me.

But I’d never drunk blood like hers. It had returned the sharp senses the turning had stolen. Back then, I’d retained my excellent hearing, but the rest…gone. I’d had new skills to compensate, but I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed seeing the full spectrum of color in the world. Smelling and tasting and feeling.

There was something special about her—about her blood—that had done this to me. The Oracle had said she would thaw me, but I’d dismissed her.

Now, I didn’t know what to believe.

I stepped up onto the pavement in front of the Fae shop, trying to force Carrow from my thoughts. The owner was out sweeping the step, and he moved away from me, pressing himself against the wall.

I nodded at him and continued walking.

I reached the corner and looked back at Eve’s shop. Pathetic, perhaps, but I couldn’t help it.

Two figures stepped out, both wearing the signature red and black of the Council of Guilds. Penelope and Garreth, shifters who worked on the payroll.

I’d only been gone a few minutes, and already they were coming out?

A smaller figure stepped out behind them, her brilliant gold hair shining in the light. I still couldn't believe how beautiful she was, now that I could see her fully.

The unexpected glint of gold at her wrists caught my eyes.

Magicuffs.

Protectiveness surged inside me, followed by rage.

How dare they cuff her?

I stepped toward them, a blood lust rising in my veins that I hadn’t felt in hundreds of years, but the sight of her in danger…

At the last moment, I pulled myself back.

No. That wasn’t the way to handle the situation.

I shoved the beast back in its cage. I’d learned over the years that the best way to power was through cunning first, strength second.

But fates, it was hard to remember that when my only desire was to kill the shifters who’d cuffed her.

Carefully, I drew in a deep breath.

I would find out what was going on and remedy it.

I would protect her.

The urge was strange, but undeniable. I embraced it.

Carrow

I’d left my friends behind in Eve’s shop, telling them to stay put. Mac had resisted, but when she’d finally nodded, I’d caught a gleam in her eye. It was the same gleam she’d had when she’d let me go into the Devil’s club alone—she’d said I’d need someone on the outside to break me out.

My heart hammered as I followed the guards, and I hoped I wouldn’t need Mac’s help. This had to be a formality, right?

All the same, I couldn’t help but notice the nerve-racking similarity between this and my life a week ago, when I’d been cuffed by the human police while standing over a freshly murdered body.

I was spending way too much time in handcuffs lately.

The shifters were silent as they led me down the narrow, cobbled streets of Guild City. Tudor-style buildings rose two and three stories tall on either side, their dark wooden beams and white plaster walls like something out of a movie. There were parts of human London that had buildings like these, but none that had so many of them.