Chapter One
DAY ONE: AROUND MIDNIGHT
Talons.
The paranormal hot spot where the fanged, furry, and spell slingers went to blow off steam.
Raven tapped her leather-clad fingertips on the steering wheel, waiting for her friends to emerge from the club’s steel door. They were thirty minutes late and counting.
The prospect of going inside, risk being in public around other paranormals, twisted a small thread of excitement through her. That was if she ignored the dip in her stomach that threatened to bring supper back up for a revisit. Doing the best to disregard her swinging emotions, she assessed the building.
The non-descript warehouse appeared innocent enough. There were no lines, no bouncers. Nothing overtly threatening that would explain the way her mind screamed that going after her friends to pry out their asses was a very bad idea.
Another minute ticked by, and she blew out a breath, unable to ignore the dangerous lure of curiosity.
She got out of the car and cautiously approached the club. The building was crouched in the shadows as if it’d pounce and squish her like a bug the moment she dared to enter. Like it knew she didn’t belong. She eased closer to the entrance and pried open the heavy metal doors with a little shove of electricity from her gift. The industrial sized magnets that sealed the door ensured only the right kind of people were admitted.
As precautions went, it wasn’t bad. No humans, or what the shifter community called ‘normals’, were admitted without someone vouching for them. Prejudiced? Maybe. But it guaranteed that whatever happened inside would be handled by their own laws. The club was neutral territory for paranormals. No one dared pick a fight on the property. It could get you killed.
A long, shadowy hallway greeted her. The air rumbled with music, the pounding rhythm slapping her in the face. Heat blasted along her body, brushing the chill from her skin but did nothing to warm the cold lump in her stomach. There was no décor in the confining space except for one prominent word clawed into the heavy wooden panels.
Talons.
Raven lifted her hand, noting how her fingers sank in the deep grooves. Whoever created it had to be huge. Another frisson of doubt curled about her, but she quickly shoved it away before it could take root. She could hold her own against these people.
But not without a cost, her mind whispered. She ignored that, too.
Her next case was due to begin all too soon. Humans oversimplified the paranormal world, wedging all things supernatural into their too narrow viewpoint. Too bad it didn’t work that way. That’s why they hired her when they needed something done. She lived on the fringes of both cultures, and knew enough to get things done, but not enough to be a threat.
Despite the protest she gave her friends when they first invited her to the club, a little R&R sounded perfect. Too bad this place felt more like work and less like rest and relaxation.
Her friends had assured her that she’d find a suitable lover here if she dared to take a chance. Not an easy objective when her very touch could kill if she didn’t keep on constant guard.
And who better to choose from than a pack of paranormals? They weren’t immortal, but they could take a lot of abuse and survive. Although inflicting pain, even accidentally, didn’t spawn any romantic interest for her, she couldn’t turn tail for the seductive reason that all she had to do was choose someone inside to find the key to learn control over her own gift.
During sex, shifters were vulnerable, their beasts close to the surface. They had to exert tremendous control to keep from shifting.
If she could learn how they did it, she knew she could fix her own control issues. Unfortunately, that meant firsthand experience. Physical contact. Her heart thumped hard, imagining what it would be like to finally allow herself to touch someone without the fear that she’d kill them.
None of this would matter if her damn gift didn’t morph every time she got close to mastering it. If she didn’t get a handle on it soon, it wouldn’t be much longer before her secret became exposed to the paranormal world. Then she would be hunted in earnest. A conduit was too valuable, too dangerous to all sides to be left unclaimed.
If tonight’s plan didn’t work, the very short list of possible cures would grow even shorter. At least in this experiment, the byproduct wasn’t a bad exchange. Rumors said shifters were intense and generous lovers.
She took a deep breath to calm the shimmering power that rose at her initial unease. The energy that hovered over her slowly settled and soaked back into her skin, wrapping her in a warm blanket as if to offer comfort. She lifted her chin to the nondescript door at the end of the hallway, ready to face the beasts in their den.