Once Bitten (Shadow Guild: The Rebel #1) - Linsey Hall Page 0,29

but a streak of conscience tugged at me. It was a rare and awkward feeling, quite frankly, but I heeded it. I definitely had a conscience; it was just well buried.

No one answered the door, and the space within was silent. My hearing was unnaturally good. No one was home. I turned and left, heading back toward my club. The bouncers waited at the front, still and silent. Both shifters had been in my employ for over a decade. Powerful and loyal, the best security was hired from the Shifters’ Guild. Their eyes were cold and dead, but they weren’t monsters.

Not like I was.

I passed them and stopped at Miranda’s desk. My second in command leaned forward expectantly, a half smile on her face. She looked unassuming in her heels and simple black dress, but she could kill someone with a scream. One of the advantages of having a banshee on staff.

“Tell the city spies to let me know when they spot Mac and her friend,” I said. “Immediately.”

Miranda nodded. “Yes, sir.”

I grinned, walking into the club.

If Carrow was in Guild City, she was mine.

Carrow

A couple hours later, after a catnap and a party makeover, Mac and I were dressed as fabulous postapocalyptic junkyard slum queens—colorful sequins and leather and platform boots. Eve’s employee had delivered the truth serum, and I wore the tiny vial on a chain around my neck.

“This isn’t my usual,” I said as we strode down the streets of Guild City, magic sparking all around us. “But I like it.”

“You look like a badass in your jeans and leather jacket,” Mac said. “But this is a fun change.”

“This whole thing is a fun change.” The night was alive around us, the old buildings gleaming with light and magic. The interiors of the shop windows seemed to come alive.

All of this was so much better than my lonely flat and the constant doubt of the only people I knew. I missed Cordelia a bit, but she’d never paid me any attention, anyway, so she certainly wasn’t missing me.

I turned my attention to the shops around me. This was what I was most interested in right now. My primary goal was to solve the murder, but I was going to have a small bit of fun while doing it. It was impossible not to stare at magic.

As we strode past a clothes shop, the outfits inside danced as if they were at a party we just had to join. Effective advertising, because it totally made me want a pair of really ugly jeans. They just looked like they were having such a good time.

The tea shop was giving the clothes shop a run for its money, though. The kettles in the window were shooting colorful steam into the air, and the teabags were leaping like trained mice. Next door, swords clanged in a mock battle, and daggers shot around the empty store.

“This is so much cooler than my regular life.” I could hear the wistfulness in my own voice.

“That bad, huh?”

I shrugged, dragging my eyes from a fishmonger’s shop that seemed to be filled entirely with water. An octopus swam in fancy patterns, drawing hearts with ink that it shot from its back end. “It’s fine. Just… normal.”

“And you’re not normal.”

“I guess not.”

Mac turned onto another street. Like all the rest, it was narrow and winding, with old buildings crowded together on either side. Most were in the Tudor style, made of white plaster and dark wood, with sharply slanted roofs and glittering mullioned windows. The shops here were quieter, but the stillness made it easier to hear the party in the distance.

“That’s the witches,” Mac said. “Their full moon masquerades are legendary.”

“It’s not the full moon, though.” I looked up at the huge, glowing orb. We were probably a couple days away from full.

“They get excited and host it early.” Mac shrugged. “Only about once a year do they manage the restraint to wait until the moon is full.”

I grinned, liking the witches already.

We turned at a bend in the street, and I could finally see all the way to the end. Colored lights exploded in the sky—like fireworks, just way too low to be safe. When we reached the end of the lane and I could get a better view across the square, I spotted a fantastic old tower that leaned slightly to the left.

Mac gestured to it. “Voila! The Witches’ Guild.”

“You’re telling me.” It was perfect.

I’d had no opinion about witches and their guilds before,