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The hand over my mouth smelled like expensive soap and blood.
Not my blood. At least, I hoped not.
I drove my elbow backward as hard as I could.
The guy behind me grunted. His grip loosened for half a second, which was all I needed. I twisted out of his hold, shoved through a wall of panicked bodies, and ran.
Somebody screamed when I clipped their shoulder.
Good. Scream louder. Make it somebody else's problem.
The ballroom had gone pitch-black except for the red EXIT signs over the doors. Rich people did not handle darkness well. They were tripping over gowns, knocking over champagne towers, yelling for security like security could put the lights back on by force of personality.
My left hand burned.
The ring sat on my finger, black metal wrapped tight around my skin. It looked too small now. Too dark. Like it had been dug out of a grave and polished with bad intentions.
I yanked at it as I ran.
Nothing.
“Come on,” I hissed. “Come the hell on.”
It didn’t move.
Instead, it pulsed.
Not hot. Not exactly.
Hungry.
That was a stupid thought. Rings weren’t hungry. Rings were metal. Metal didn’t bite people at charity auctions and drink their blood.
Except this one had.
Behind me, a man’s voice cut through the chaos.
“Quinn!”
I froze for one bad second.
Nobody at this event should know my name.
Then I remembered the delivery badge tucked inside my dress, the one I’d used to get through the service entrance. Fake name on the front. Real name on the back, because apparently I was an idiot who liked leaving breadcrumbs for murderers.
I ran harder.
I shoved through the kitchen doors and hit a wall of heat, steam, and angry cooks.
“What the—” somebody started.
“Gas leak!” I yelled.
There probably wasn’t one. But people believed gas leaks. They didn’t ask questions. They moved.
A line cook dropped a tray. Plates shattered. Two servers bolted toward the back exit. I followed them through stacks of clean linens, past a freezer unit, and out into the alley behind the hotel.
Cold air slapped me in the face.
The door slammed shut behind me.
For one second, I stood there with both hands on my knees, trying to breathe without sounding like I was dying.
The alley smelled like wet cardboard, old grease, and the dumpster’s personal war against humanity.
My phone buzzed in my bra.
I grabbed it with my good hand.
DEX: WHERE ARE YOU?
Then another message.
DEX: QUINN. NOW.
I typed back fast.
ME: Rear alley. Get van around.
The screen blinked.
DEX: You got it?
I looked at the ring.
Blood had dried in a thin dark line around my knuckle. The cut it made was already closing, but the skin underneath looked wrong. Pale. Tight.
ME: Yeah.
That was technically true.
The ring was on me.
Couldn’t say I had it under control. Couldn’t say I could sell it. Couldn’t say it hadn’t just taken a little sip from my finger like I was a juice box.
A trash can clanged somewhere deeper in the alley.
I looked up.
“Dex?”
No answer.
I started toward the street, heels slipping on wet pavement. I’d bought these shoes at a thrift store for twelve bucks because they made me look like I belonged around people who said things like summer in Capri.
They also made it impossible to run without breaking an ankle.
Great purchase, Quinn.
A shape moved near the dumpster.
I stopped.
There was a man on the ground.
At first I thought he was passed out. Maybe drunk. Maybe a guest who’d taken the blackout as an excuse to get weird behind the hotel.
Then he shifted, and his hand slid across the pavement.
Blood streaked under his palm.
A lot of blood.
My stomach turned over.
He was wearing a black suit. Not tuxedo black. Real black. The kind that looked expensive even covered in grime. His shirt was ripped open at the side, and something had torn through him under his ribs.
Not a knife wound.
Too wide.
Too deep.
His head lifted.
Gold eyes found mine.
The guy from the ballroom.
The one who had stared at my hand like I’d walked in holding a live grenade.
“Don’t,” he said.
His voice was rough now. Low. Like every word cost him.
I blinked at him. “Don’t what?”
“Come closer.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
He gave a short laugh that ended in a wet cough.
Blood hit the pavement.
Okay. Nope.
Nope, nope, nope.
I backed up.
“Good luck with… all that,” I said, waving vaguely at the giant hole in his side. “Call an ambulance.”
His jaw tightened.
“No hospital.”
“Yeah, I’m not really taking medical advice from the guy leaking all over a dumpster.”
I turned toward the street.
His hand shot out and caught my wrist.
I gasped.
He moved too fast. One second he was half-dead on the pavement. The next, his fingers were wrapped around my arm.
Cold fingers.
Strong fingers.
The ring jumped against my skin.
His eyes went wider.
“Where did you get that?” he demanded.
“Let go of me.”
“Answer me.”
“Not a chance.”
His grip tightened.
Pain flashed up my arm.
I kicked him in the bad side.
He made a sound that was not human enough for me to enjoy it.
His hand dropped away.
I stumbled back, heart hammering, and dug into my clutch for the little folding knife I kept taped under the lining.
The blade snapped open.
It was tiny. Cheap. The kind of knife that looked more useful opening packages than saving your life.
Still, I pointed it at him.
“Touch me again,” I said, “and I’ll make your night worse.”
He stared at the knife.
Then at me.
Then at the ring.
“You don’t know what you’re wearing.”
“Correct. It was in a glass box with a six-figure insurance tag. I figured that was enough information.”
“That ring belongs to my family.”
“Then your family has terrible security.”
His mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. More like his face had forgotten how smiles worked.
A sharp crack came from the hotel roof.
The stranger’s head turned.
Every part of him went still.
Not relaxed. The opposite.
Like a dog hearing the food bag open three rooms away.
“Run,” he said.
I laughed once. “Oh, now you want me to run?”
“Quinn.”
The way he said my name made my skin crawl.
I tightened my grip on the knife. “Who are you?”
“Not safe here.”
“Who. Are. You?”
Another sound came from above us.
A scrape. Slow. Deliberate.
Something landed on the fire escape behind him.
Metal groaned.
The stranger looked at me again, and whatever fake calm he’d been holding onto was gone.
“Please,” he said.
That got my attention.
Men like him didn’t say please. Not with that suit. Not with those eyes. Not when they could grab a woman’s wrist like it was nothing.
“Get in the van,” he said. “Tell your driver to go.”
“You know about Dex?”
His expression said enough.
My throat went dry.
The fire escape creaked again.
I risked a look up.
A man stood on the lower platform. Tall. Broad shoulders. Dark clothes. I couldn’t see his face under the shadow of the stairs.
But I could see his teeth.
They were too long.
He smiled down at me.
“There you are,” he said.
His voice had been the one in the ballroom.
The one that said my name.
The ring clenched around my finger.
I screamed.
The guy on the ground moved.
Not fast.
Impossible fast.
He slammed into me, knocking me sideways just as the man from the fire escape dropped down.
Claws ripped through the space where my throat had been.
Actual claws.
Four black nails, curved and shiny under the security light.
I hit the pavement hard. My knife flew out of my hand.
The stranger in the black suit landed on top of me, one arm braced over my head.
His blood dripped onto my bare shoulder.
“Get off,” I wheezed.
“Stay down.”
“Get. Off.”
The thing in front of us laughed.
“Still playing human, Kade?”
Kade.
Okay. Name acquired. Not helpful.
The injured man—Kade—pushed himself up. His body shook with the effort. Blood soaked the side of his shirt and ran down his hand.
The clawed man tilted his head.
Then he looked at my ring.
“Oh.”
That one little word sounded almost happy.
“Oh, that is interesting.”
“Back away from her,” Kade said.
The other man’s smile widened. “You don’t have the right to give orders anymore.”
“Try me.”
“Gladly.”
He lunged.
Kade met him halfway.
I scrambled backward on my hands and heels, dress torn at the knee, hair falling out of the stupid fancy twist I’d spent twenty minutes making in Dex’s van.
The two men hit the brick wall hard enough to crack something.
Not the wall.
Bones, probably.
I grabbed for my knife.
My fingers closed around it just as Kade got thrown across the alley.
He smashed into a stack of milk crates. Plastic exploded everywhere.
The clawed man stalked toward him.
Kade tried to stand.
Couldn’t.
The other man lifted one hand, claws out.
“You should’ve stayed gone,” he said.
My phone buzzed again.
DEX: VAN AT CORNER. QUINN ANSWER ME.
I stared at the message.
Then at the street.
Thirty feet. Maybe less.
I could run.
I should run.
I didn’t know Kade. He was dangerous. He knew my name. He knew Dex existed. He had probably been part of whatever nightmare was happening upstairs.
And the other guy had claws.
Not fake claws.
Not party-store claws.
The kind attached to a hand that wanted to open somebody up.
Kade looked at me.
“Go,” he said.
The clawed man followed his gaze.
His eyes landed on me.
I made my decision.
Mostly because I was scared. Partly because I was angry. And maybe because the guy with the claws had smiled when he saw me, and I really hated being smiled at like that.
I ran at him.
“Hey, asshole!”
He turned.
I stabbed him in the thigh.
The knife went in easier than I expected.
He roared.
Not yelled.
Roared.
The sound punched through my ribs.
His hand came down toward my face.
Kade caught his wrist.
For a second, all three of us were locked there. Me with both hands on the knife. Kade gripping the creature’s arm. The creature staring at me with murder all over his face.
Then Kade’s blood ran down his wrist.
A hot drop hit the ring.
Everything stopped.
The ring opened.
Not physically. It didn’t split apart or grow teeth.
But I felt it.
A pull.
A violent little suck under my skin.
Kade jerked like he’d been shocked.
His blood disappeared into the black metal.
The ring flashed red.
My heart skipped.
Then it slammed back into my chest.
Once.
Twice.
A third beat hit so hard my vision blurred.
Kade gasped at the exact same time.
I knew because I felt it in my own ribs.
His heartbeat.
Not heard. Felt.
It crashed through me, wild and huge and wrong. My pulse answered it. Faster. Harder. Like my body had suddenly remembered somebody else’s rhythm.
The clawed man stumbled back, staring at our hands.
“No,” he whispered.
Kade looked at me.
His gold eyes had gone bright enough to light the alley.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I didn’t—”
The ring burned.
Pain shot up my arm and straight into my chest.
I dropped the knife and screamed.
Kade grabbed me before I hit the ground.
His hands were shaking.
“Breathe,” he said.
“Don’t tell me to breathe!”
“Quinn, breathe.”
“I can feel your heart!”
His face went blank.
For half a second, he looked almost scared.
Then the clawed man swore and backed away.
“Vera will hear about this,” he said.
Kade’s eyes snapped toward him. “Don’t.”
“Oh, she’ll be thrilled.” He grinned, blood running down his leg around my cheap little knife. “The dead girl’s daughter found it.”
My breath caught.
“What did you say?”
The creature’s grin turned meaner.
Then he sprang up the wall.
Not climbed.
Sprang.
His claws hit brick, then metal, then the fire escape. Two seconds later, he was gone over the roofline.
The alley went quiet.
Too quiet.
Kade sagged against me.
He was heavy. Hot now. His blood soaked through the front of my dress.
“Hey,” I said, grabbing his shoulders. “Hey, don’t do that. Don’t pass out on me.”
His head rolled toward my neck.
“Dex is coming,” I told him. “You’re getting in the van, then you’re explaining every single creepy thing that just happened.”
He didn’t answer.
“Kade.”
His eyes fluttered.
Gold, unfocused, half gone.
Then he grabbed my wrist again.
This time his fingers barely had strength behind them.
He stared at the ring.
At the blood on it.
And in a broken voice, he said, “Mara?”
My whole body locked up.
Nobody had called my mother that in years.
Kade’s eyes found mine.
“Mara Harper,” he whispered. “You’re alive?”