Chapter 1

Chapter One

October 2048 — Somewhere in the Orclind

It was a bad idea to take the job. Atticus felt it in his bones the moment he stepped out of the car and into the deserted parking lot.

Mr. Junger said it was a nothing job for someone like him. He agreed. He'd been trained and served under the command of his adopted father, Harlan Bounds, since he was a scrawny preteen picking pockets for synth money. He'd been forged into a weapon, a hunter, and an assassin whenever necessary. This kind of job was so far below his pay grade, it was basically charity.

"It's just a transport gig," Junger had assured him. " Nothing illegal, but something precious. I need a good, honorable man to bring it to me. Someone who won't stab me in the back the first chance he gets."

Atticus would never go so far as to say he was good or honorable, but he was raised to be a man of his word, and he didn't fuck around on clients. That was the quickest way to get a bolt through the brain, and he liked his brain how it was. Mostly.

He wouldn't have said he trusted Junger, who was little more than a friend of an acquaintance, but he also wouldn't have taken the job if he thought there was anything unusual about it. Hubert Junger was a businessman who owned a small chain of synth manufacturing plants in the Sacramento area. He was a vampire, just as Atticus was, and kept his nose clean with the law. Sure, he was a bit of a blow-hard, and he'd definitely fallen into that vampiric trap of obsession over his legacy, but he had money and a job that would get Atticus away from home for a while. That was exactly what he was after.

There was nothing wrong with home. He liked it a lot, actually, but he'd been restless lately. Short-tempered and anti-social. So much so that Harlan took him aside and asked him if he needed a break from working security detail on the estate.

The memory burned. Atticus imagined shame felt a bit like acid reflux, though he'd never actually experienced it.

He didn't need a break from work. He loved keeping his people safe. But that didn't mean he was satisfied with his life. Not completely. He didn't want to keep coming home to an empty house every morning. He was tired of staring at his ceiling, wondering if he should be more grateful for the gifts he'd been given and why he felt like such an outsider, a voyeur looking in on other people's happiness.

His sister was safe, even if she'd run to live as far from them as she could get. Harlan was blissed out every damn minute of the night thanks to his anchor, Zia. Atticus himself had a full belly and a roof over his head. What was there to long for?

Something of his own. His own reason to come home every morning. His own life to be proud of. His own family, maybe, or something else that could make him feel like he wasn't just coasting through life, waiting for the next shoe to drop.

So no, he didn't need a vacation, but he didn't want Harlan to feel like he needed to apologize for his growing family and shifting priorities, so he agreed to some time off. A quick, safe job would get his head on straight.

There was no outward sign that this job wouldn't fit the bill. There was no sign of anything at all. The gas station was brightly lit but deserted. The blacktop was cracked and stained with puddles of oil. Old paper signs nearly covered the windows of the building.

There were no other cars.

A cold crawling feeling started up the back of his neck as he surveyed the darkness around the station. The glow barely made a dent in the yawning blackness of the desert stretching all around them. He stood at the very edge of an island of light. The closest town was a forty-five minute drive back the way he came, and the nearest city was hours and hours away.

Atticus adjusted the strap of his backpack over his shoulders, then checked the gun holstered at his side. And the one at his right ankle. And then the knife strapped to his thigh.

It made no sense for anything to be up, not when Junger had passed his background check with only a few unsavory notes in the margins, but vampires were wily, spiteful, and often didn't even know what they were going to do until they did it. Atticus learned very early on to trust no one but family.

The low rumble of an engine broke the silence. He half-turned toward the road that connected to the other side of the lot. Twin dots of light that began as pinpricks in the far distance gradually got bigger.

The muscles of Atticus's neck tensed, but his arms remained loose. Ready.

A frigid wind whipped off the hard-packed desert soil and sent the hem of his long coat fluttering. Bits of grit sprayed his cheeks as he watched the vehicle gradually resolve against the velvet blackness of the night.

Junger said he'd be driving a van, and he was apparently true to his word. It was one of those fancy miniature RVs that pulled into the lot, its headlights turned down low. Hitched to the back was some sort of sleek trailer about half the size of the van.

The RV pulled up next to Atticus's borrowed car. The engine cut. For just a moment, there were no other sounds but the howl of the wind and his own breathing.

Then the door opened.

A pale, upper-middle aged woman hopped out of the driver's seat and didn't bother shutting the door. Her face was a little gaunt, her eyes restless as they assessed Atticus, then his car, then the lot, before doing the circuit all over again. One fang worried her chapped bottom lip.

"Well?"

Atticus glanced at the trailer again. There was nothing distinct about it. Nothing outwardly strange, except for the units attached to the front and top. Maybe it was refrigerated?

It wasn't his place to speculate, though, so he grunted the codeword Junger had given him. "Stitches."

The woman nodded. Smoothing her palms down the front of her jeans, she started walking toward the car. "Good. Okay. Safe trip."

"Wait." Atticus caught her arm before the woman could scuttle into the car and haul ass out of there. "How do I know the cargo is in there? You got a key or something to that trailer?"

The woman gave him a narrow-eyed look and lifted her lip to show her fangs. "It's in there. And your biometrics were keyed into the lock in case of an emergency. You're not supposed to look, though. Your boss was very clear about that."

Your boss. Atticus had to work hard to keep the tendons in his neck from popping out.

Junger wasn't his boss. He was nobody. Atticus had one boss, one man in the whole world he respected above all others, and that was Harlan fucking Bounds. To imply he answered to anyone else was galling.

Taking this job was a mistake. That cold crawling feeling sharpened, spread down from his neck to his whole spine.

This wasn't supposed to be an illegal job, just under the table transport. He'd left crime behind when he, his sister Adriana, and Harlan escaped the vampire syndicate several years prior. Adriana had never, ever been part of it, but he and Harlan were once the two most sought after assassins on the continent, as long as you didn't count Shade, a jack-of-all-trades madman.

They'd given that life up — happily, more or less — for safety and security in the Elvish Protectorate, leaving United Washington and its vampiric underbelly behind.

But the way the other vampire was looking at him now, the trailer, the gut feeling swirling inside Atticus… It was all too familiar. Too close to all those jobs he'd done to survive before Harlan saved his ass.

But what could he do? He'd already given his word, and something about getting back in that car, leaving the trailer behind, made his stomach clench.

Atticus let the woman go with a grunt. "If something's wrong, then it's your ass who's gonna pay the price. Got it?"

"Good luck," the woman dared to sneer, but she wasn't brave enough to stick around. Bony shoulders hunched around her ears, she hustled off toward the car. Atticus watched her practically throw herself into the driver's seat. The tires screeched as she pulled onto the road. The scent of burnt rubber lingered for a moment before the wind blew it away.

Running his claws through his windswept hair, Atticus let out a sigh. "Well, fuck."