What the fuck?
I rip up the sleeve of my jacket. My breath catches. The skin is blank—smooth, empty flesh where the glamour rune should be. A cold void opens in my gut, as if I’ve lost a limb.
What in the actual fuck?
Where did my glamour rune go?
I tear up my other sleeve, heart hammering against my ribs. They’re all there—the intricate black lines mapping years of pain and dedication. Each one earned, each one a part of me. They’re etched into my very soul. They don’t just disappear. The violation of it makes my stomach clench.
Shit. Without the ability to glamour and conceal myself, I’ll have to do things the old-fashioned way.
My distraction was only for a second, but it’s enough for Stark to disappear out of sight.
Right as my fingers are about to activate the mark on my right hip for extra speed, I pause, lifting my black shirt to make sure it’s still there.
Fuck. How can I trust my other marks? My own skin? A cold sweat breaks out on my neck. I need to contact the Guild, find out if anyone’s ever heard of this. If a rune can just… vanish.
But later. I have shit to do tonight.
When I touch the arrow-shaped mark on my hip and the familiar feeling spreads to my limbs, I sigh in relief.
I use a little extraoomphto find Stark, but stop in my tracks when I round the corner and see him bend down to grab something from the ground.
Something mewls.
I blink.
The leech king of the city is holding a kitten.
What the hell is this leech's game? First the brunette rattles his composure, and now he’s cradling a stray.
Predators don’t get sentimental; they get unpredictable. And an unpredictable vampire is a dangerous one.
My brain immediately decides this is somehow less concerning than my own damned fixation on the woman.
Which is bullshit.
I don’t think about women unless I’m actively fucking them.
I especially don’t think about women who keep wandering into vampire territory with the survival instincts of a concussed squirrel.
And yet.
Lavender eyes.
Freckles.
A mouth that seems permanently seconds away from saying something reckless.
Fuck.
This isn’t the time. Getting distracted is how hunters end up dead.
I don’t have time to ponder, however, because before I can blink I’m slammed into the brick wall so hard my breath rushes out in a grunt.
Instinct takes over. I use the residual speed from the rune to roll with the impact, coming up in a defensive crouch to face him.
I reach down to grab a dagger from my thigh sheath but a deep, dark voice stops me.
