He dipped his head. A look of reverence chased the evil glint from his eyes. “Yes, angels. They’ve been watching over your soul for a millennium. It’s finally time for you to accept your heritage.”
His words mirrored those spoken in her dreams. “Which is?”
“You’re one of us. The strongest of all.”
“You’re a little monster, Harley.” Her mom’s voice echoed in Harley’s head. “But you need to be a good girl. Can you do that for me? Be a good girl?”
Her stomach dropped. She shook her head. “No. I’m not one of you.”
“Yes, you are.” He held his hand out to her. “Come here, and I’ll help you unleash the power you hold.”
She glanced from where blood dripped from his pointed nails to his face. She couldn’t be like him. He was…
“You’re a fairy.” That was who her ghost man had warned about in those brief seconds he’d kissed her—the Unseelie Fairy Court. Her ghost hero hunted them and kept the world free of their tainted influence.
“I’m not a fairy. You are. And soon”—he swept his lust-hazed, hungry gaze over her—“you’ll be mine.”
“No.” She didn’t want to be a fairy. They were evil, corrupted…
Bad.
“You need to be a good. Can you do that?”
Her mother’s words morphed into screams that demanded retribution. Harley couldn’t deliver the revenge her family deserved. She had to be good… She had to remain a Seelie, a good fairy. That was what her mom had meant. There was only one thing left to do.
She pivoted on her heel and ran, leaving everything behind.
Chapter Two
Present Day
Harley tugged her hood up against the chilly October wind and pressed her frame into the slight indentation made by the recessed metal door. Chin tucked, she scanned the narrow road between her apartment building and the bar next to it. The flickering bulb a few feet from where she stood cast a strobe effect over the darkened alley. The chaotic aspect of it appealed to her darker nature. The fact bothered her, yet she couldn’t deny it, not when the taint she carried flared in response to it.
She ignored the urge to embrace the bad side of her persona and continued her inspection. Caution and awareness had kept her alive in the face of a lifetime of danger. She refused to take chances. Lives depended on it—hers and those around her.
The Dumpster and the discarded stack of cardboard next to it looked no different than they had before she’d made her hurried trek to the corner drugstore. The curtains in the windows above her remained drawn. Music blared from the tenants on the third floor, and the lovers on the second level still argued about who should do the dishes. Harley cocked her head and listened for other clues, drawing on her nonhuman side to feed her details.
Rats skittered along the ground and around the overflowing, rancid garbage. The small animals didn’t bother her nor did the cockroaches that infested the shithole building she called home. What did were the monsters she knew walked among the humans, feeding off their fear, pain, and deaths. Those were the ones who caused her to wake up screaming in terror and kept her constantly on guard. They searched for her. Always, no matter where she went. She could fuel them. Make them unstoppable.
Over her dead body. She clenched her jaw.
A shadow loomed at the mouth of the alleyway. Harley held her breath and tightened her grip on the six-inch blade she held against her thigh. A heartbeat passed before a rattly cough reached her ears along with the drag of her elderly neighbor’s cane over the macadam. A smaller shape joined the looming one inching its way across the entrance. Both shadows danced in the light flickering over the ground, distorting their images until they reflected the hunched shape of a sluagh, the foot soldiers of the fairies.
Not real. It’s not real. Just my fears haunting me.
The words helped alleviate the trembling in her body. Still, she waited for the man and his poodle to continue on their nightly path before easing away from the hidey-hole she’d occupied.
Forty-five minutes, that was all she’d been gone. She normally didn’t wander outside at night as there was more of a chance to stumble over a redcap, a human who’d sold his soul to the Unseelie Court for immortality and power, but Bea’s pain medicine had run out. Harley hated to make her wheelchair-bound neighbor wait until the store opened on Monday.
Besides, Harley hadn’t lived here long enough for the fairies’ creatures to pick up on her trail. The iron in the buildings helped mask her presence, and in the morning, she was skipping town. At least, that was the reasoning she was clinging too. She couldn’t wait to get out of here.
Her older brother, Ian, was getting married. He’d begged her to come home and share in his happiness. The idea of going back to the house where the rest of their family died chilled her. For Ian, she’d do it. He was all she had left. Besides, she had a promise to keep. Two promises, actually. She wanted to fulfill them before it was too late, and she stopped caring about promises.
One more sweep of the area, and she darted toward the front of her building. She hopped the couple of steps, reached for the door, and froze with her hand on the tarnished knob. The dark taint living inside her pulsed with life. The flare announced the presence of her kind, a warning system she’d come to rely on.
She glanced over her shoulder. The black eyes of a redcap stared back at her. Good-looking and tall with a linebacker’s build, Raul could’ve passed for any number of twentysomethings wandering the town, but he wasn’t merely an attractive guy. He was the stuff of nightmares.
Then again, so was she. She shrugged off the thought and focused on Raul, looking for a weakness to exploit and
