I pushed my way through the crowd, ready to get this the hell over with.

As I neared him, a new figure climbed into the ring. He was tall and broad. The curves and planes of his muscles glinted under the light, so perfect that he could have been carved by the gods themselves. When he turned to me, I caught sight of his face. Beautiful. Brutal. Harsh angles and full lips, piercing dark eyes. A poet’s face and the body of a warrior.

The sight of him knocked me in the gut.

Lachlan MacGregor.

My head went light.

Oh, God, I’d been a sucker to agree to meet here.

The whole point of paying off the blackmailer was to avoid the eye of Lachlan MacGregor, the Alpha of the entire pack. My fated mate.

The one I’d run from as a teenager.

I’d barely known him then, but the memory of his words still cut.

When I’d been fifteen, our most respected seer had prophesied that I would be his mate, and that the bond would somehow kill me because I was an abomination. She wasn’t wrong about the abomination thing. I had no beast inside me, the way the others did. The Alpha’s mate was meant to be a pure wolf, and I couldn’t even shift.

I’d known then that I needed to run. If I stayed, my best-case scenario was being forced into matehood with the guy who had been so cruel to me. The worst case, as ordained by our most powerful seer? My death.

So yeah, I’d run.

Lachlan’s gaze landed on me, and heat flushed through my body, followed by fear. A connection tightened the air between us, something I hadn’t felt in years.

Before I could tell if recognition flashed on his face, four other figures climbed into the ring, each with their knuckles taped. He turned to face his opponents.

Four against one.

I wasn’t surprised. He’d been a kid when I’d seen him last—eighteen to my fifteen—but even then, he’d been strong.

Didn’t matter. Only one thing was important here: pay up, get gone.

I turned and pushed my way to Danny. The sound of the fight broke out, but I didn’t look.

Danny spotted me a half second later, his eyes flashing. He looked twitchy as hell, more so than usual, and clutched a tumbler of whisky in his hands.

“About time.” He thrust the glass toward me. “Here, hold this. I need a smoke.”

“You can’t smoke here.” I took the glass because he looked like he might drop it and watched as he dug around in his pockets.

“Don’t care.”

“Do it after I’m gone. I don’t want attention.” I shoved the glass back at him, and he took it, scowling.

“Fine.” He swigged back a deep sip.

I unbuttoned the pocket of my jacket and reached in for the envelope of cash. Danny’s eyes widened, and I frowned. Suddenly, he grimaced, his face twisting, then collapsed and landed on me like a sack of rocks. I went down hard, trapped underneath him.

“Danny!” I hissed, pushing at his shoulders as I tried to get him off me. “What’s wrong?”

“The bastard got—” He drew a gurgling breath, then went still.

So still.

Cold rushed over me, dousing me in ice.

Danny was dead, and I was trapped.

2

Eve

 

For one brief, blissful second, my mind went totally blank with shock.

Then the reality of my situation hit me.

I was flat on my back in Pandemonium with a dead shifter on top of me. Terror gave me the strength to push him off me, but it was too late.

A ring of shifters stared down at us, a dozen faces creased in surprise. Their surprise turned to horror as they caught sight of Danny’s face. Pale green foam spilled from his lips.

“Poison!” A woman pointed at Danny, her eyes wide. “He’s been poisoned!”

Oh, no.

Dread uncurled in my stomach.

“Doesn’t she run that potion shop in town?” another voice whispered. “I swear I recognize her. Her hair is always a crazy color.”

I scrambled to my feet, heart thundering in my ears. I had to get out of here.

The shifters closed ranks, tightening the circle that surrounded me. I was an outsider, and they were a pack.

“You poisoned him.” A bulky man pointed his finger at me. “You killed him, you evil witch.”

“Fae,” the man next to him said. “Pretty sure she’s fae. I’ve seen her with wings. Sparkly things. And look at those ears.”

I wasn’t fae. That was just my cover, a disguise that I’d created with the help of potions. It was incredibly difficult magic—impossible, almost. But I couldn’t tell them that.

“I didn’t hurt him!” I gestured down at Danny. “I didn’t do anything to him. We were just talking, and then he collapsed.”

“He gave you his glass,” a pretty woman said. She was pale and slight, with keen eyes and an intelligent face. “I saw him. You slipped something in it.”

Panicked, I looked for an escape through the crowd. There was none. I’d come here with backup plans and some potion bombs that could help me out in a pinch—a freezing potion, a forgetfulness potion. But I’d never considered that the entire pack would turn against me.

I backed up, trying to get away from the ones staring at me. Hands pushed me from behind, and I stumbled, going to my knees.

My heart leapt into my throat, fear icing down my spine. Would they tear me apart right here? No. shifter law could be brutal, but that was over the top.

“What’s going on?” a man bellowed over the crowd.

Him.

I knew it without looking. His voice had enough power to shake my bones, and I scrambled to my feet, turning toward it.

The Alpha.

My head spun.

Lachlan stood at the edge of the ring, his four opponents collapsed behind him. He stared at us, his presence so commanding that I felt it shake me to my core.

I drew in a shuddery breath, unable to look away.

“She killed Danny!” a man to my left shouted.

The Alpha frowned, and the people behind me moved, revealing the body. His brow lowered, his gaze turning thunderous.

“I didn’t.” My words were too quiet, but he could surely tell what I’d said.

He nodded at someone behind me, and ice shot through me.

A moment later, strong hands gripped my arms. I thrashed, trying to break free, but the grip tightened, and pain flashed. Tears popped to my eyes, but I forced them back.

“Take her to the tower.” The Alpha’s voice wasn’t loud, but it vibrated with such authority that it sent a chill through me.

The tower.

Oh, crap. I’d never get out of there.

Guild City had nearly a dozen magical guilds—one for each supernatural species—and those guilds each had a tower. If I went into the shifters’ tower, it was over for me.

But hell—I was surrounded by dozens of shifters, including the Alpha. There was no way I was getting out of here, either.

So I let them drag me through the crowd, my mind spinning with escape plans. I didn’t know what was about to happen, but I had a dozen schemes thought up, some too wild to even be possible. But I’d always been good with ideas. That would get me out of this.

I clung to the thought. Panic and fear would get me nowhere. I needed to stay calm. Alert.