Once Bitten (Shadow Guild: The Rebel #1) - Linsey Hall Page 0,3
“coincidence” would get me in real trouble, I hadn’t been able to ignore the possibility that I could help this poor man. That I could help Beatrix—at least by finding justice for her.
That symbol burned into both bodies meant that a serial killer was back, and I could find them.
I gave Corrigan my most serious expression. “I’ve helped you catch so many killers, you know I could never do this.”
Corrigan’s lips twisted with regret.
He’d been a temporary lecturer when I’d gone through training, and we’d kept in touch, even after I’d failed out for insubordination and unusual methodology—my term, not theirs. He believed in my strange talent, or at least, he wasn’t willing to look a gift horse in the mouth.
He was the only one, though.
I’d helped him catch killers, but no one else believed me, so they’d assumed I got my info the bad way. The way they could understand. The way that was going to lead to my arrest.
“I’m sorry, Carrow,” Corrigan said. “Maybe we can clear this up at the station.”
More figures appeared at the end of the alley. Backup. Dozens of people would swarm the scene now, getting to work like busy ants, trying to figure out what had happened and how to stop it from happening again.
And I would be taken to the station.
Then to jail.
Banks’s eyes gleamed with excitement. He’d finally won, and he knew it.
As the handcuffs snapped onto my wrists, my head spun.
Holy crap, this was really happening.
Corrigan couldn’t meet my eyes, but Banks had no trouble. He leaned in. “I’ve got you this time.”
“You have no idea what you’re doing, you idiot.”
His jaw clenched, and he looked like he wanted to hit me. He probably did.
My eyes moved around the rest of the scene. I recognized more than half the people—had even gone to training with some of them.
Suspicion flickered in their gazes as they looked at me, and my heart sank. Memories of all the cases I’d helped them solve flashed through my mind. So many.
And now I was in handcuffs.
2
The Devil
I tucked myself into the shadows, disappearing into the darkness as I watched the police shackle the woman who’d drawn me into her visions.
Something pulled inside me, hard and fierce.
Protect her.
I rubbed a hand over my chest, confused.
What the hell was this feeling?
I hadn’t felt anything like this—much of anything, really—since I’d been turned into a vampire nearly five hundred years ago.
And yet, this human made me want to protect her?
Why?
She was beautiful, yes. Pale eyes and skin, though the colors were so muted that it was impossible to determine shade. All colors were muted for turned vampires. Taste and smell, too. It all came with the curse of immortality, which felt more like being half dead.
But this woman made me feel alive.
She thought I’d committed this murder. I hadn’t, of course. I’d killed too many people in my dark past. I wasn’t above violence now—far from it. But I didn’t crush the skulls of random men in alleys. It was beneath me.
I’d been tracking a stolen dagger—one that I thought had been used on this man. Then she had arrived, then the cops. It was too many people for me. Too many humans.
An insane vision popped into my head—me, storming the scene and taking the woman from them.
It was ridiculous.
For one, it was too dangerous. Not for me, of course. I could have them on the ground in seconds without having to resort to a weapon. But that show of speed and strength would reveal what I was, and the human world must never know what walked among them.
It would be far better if I could get her to come to me. Kidnapping her was hardly a good second impression…especially considering that our first meeting had revolved around a dead body. And I didn’t have any interest in unwilling women, no matter how much I might want her.
I settled deeper into the shadows, watching her.
Carrow
I stood in the alley, my wrists shackled and my former colleagues staring at me. I’d completely bungled this. Hadn’t been careful enough. Hadn’t given myself enough time to search the body.
I should have waited to call the cops, but I’d hoped they’d get there in time to save the victim if I couldn’t.
Corrigan shifted, moving to speak closer to my ear. “I’ll do everything I can to help you, but…”
“I know. You told me to lie low.”
“I warned you, Carrow. I begged you to stay away.”