Jace should’ve known better than to stop for a drink at a local bar.
Grace Harbor wasn’t his town. Normally a Baltimore earth fada wouldn’t be welcome this close to Rock Run river fada territory. But he’d been visiting the quartz mine his clan was excavating just north of Grace Harbor, and when a couple of Rock Run men had invited Jace and the other miners out for a beer, he’d figured why not? It wasn’t like he had anyone to go home to.
It was Thursday night and the bar was crowded. Some of the men he was with had hit on the humans, but Jace made it a practice to stay far away from humans—especially females. He’d had a couple of beers, watched a few innings of the baseball game playing soundlessly on the TV behind the bar, and called it a night.
Outside, the air was still warm from the June sun. Jace headed around back to the parking lot where he’d left his motorcycle.
The night fae was waiting in the narrow opening between the bar and the building next door. The only warning Jace had was the fae’s sharp scent—metal and decay. The tall, pale man emerged from the shadows, humming with a dark excitement. Night fae liked to toy with you. A scared, panicky victim was catnip to a creature who fed on negative energy.
A split-second later invisible tentacles slid over Jace’s skin, seeking to entwine him in a net composed of all his darkest moments: fear…death…loss…betrayal…
Jace growled. He instinctively drew on his quartz’s energy, fighting back with everything he had. A silent, deadly battle commenced. Time passed—five minutes, ten minutes—Jace wasn’t sure.
But he was losing. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His quartz’s song grew fainter. He couldn’t hold out much longer.
The night fae showed a set of sharp white teeth. The shadows shifted. He darted forward and slashed a knife across Jace’s belly.
It was like taking a red-hot poker in the gut. Jace grunted and doubled over.
The night fae stabbed him again, this time just below his navel. The knife dug deep.
But the SOB had made a fatal mistake. He’d let himself get within reach of a man whose animal was a jaguar.
Jace’s claws shot out. He struck at the night fae, ripping out his throat in a single, savage blow. The man gurgled and staggered back into a brick wall. He slid to the ground and slumped to the side, dead.
Jace sucked in a breath. He crouched on the blacktop, a hand to his belly. The pain was excruciating. The bastard had stabbed him with an iron knife, poison to both fada and fae, although iron didn’t affect a fada like a pureblood fae. Unfortunately, the blade had nicked a small artery, sending the poison directly into Jace’s bloodstream.
His vision hazed over. He set his jaw and hauled himself to his feet. For a few seconds, everything went black. He swayed on his feet and looked down at the leather-wrapped hilt sticking from his abdomen.
Get it…out.
Gritting his teeth, he grabbed the hilt with both hands and jerked the knife out.
From far away, he heard himself groan. The iron blade hurt even worse coming out than it had going in. He let it drop to the ground and used the last energy in his quartz to heal the nicked artery. The spurting blood slowed to a trickle.
He glanced around. The parking lot was blurry. He shook his head and forced himself to focus.
The night fae was sprawled at his feet, his blood seeping onto the asphalt. Jace could still see the fae’s mocking smile as he thrust the knife into Jace’s belly.
The man wasn’t smiling now.
Thunder grumbled in the distance. Jace’s skin prickled. The parking lot appeared empty, but he sensed another night fae nearby. Maybe two.
And there was no fucking way he could ride a motorcycle.
Taking a bandana from his pocket, he pressed it to the wound in his abdomen and hurried around the corner of the nearest building. The movement sent a dizzying jolt of pain through him.
He leaned against a loading dock, breath sawing in and out, closing his fingers around his quartz and drawing what energy he could from the vibrating crystals. The stone warmed in his hand. Given time, it would refill with energy, but time was something he didn’t have.
From the parking lot, he heard two men speaking in hushed tones. His heart rate ratcheted up. He couldn’t tell if they were night fae, but his skin was still tingling, so he forced himself to move.
He limped around a chain-link fence and zigzagged through the town, trying to throw off any trackers. He was fading fast when he slipped between two buildings and ended up on a dark, quiet street. At some point, he’d lost the blood-soaked bandana, but maybe that was a good thing—if he was being tracked, it would draw the tracker’s attention and hopefully, grant Jace a little more time.
He’d left Grace Harbor’s small business district. He stared at the long row of attached Formstone houses, mind working.
He couldn’t run much further. He had to go to ground.
Two doors down, a plump gray-haired human sat on a concrete stoop, cigarette in hand. She glanced at him and did a double take.
His lips peeled back to show his canines. He snarled lowly, his cat rising at the sign of a threat.
“Easy now.” The female came to her feet and backed up. “Tim?” she called through the screen door. “You there?”
Jace didn’t wait to meet Tim. He set off at an awkward, lurching pace down the sidewalk. Thunder crashed and he scented the rain close behind. That was good—it would wash away the blood, hide his scent.
There was a break about halfway down the row of houses. He darted into it and found himself on a narrow asphalt path leading to an alley behind the houses.
He was almost back where he’d started, the bar a hundred yards to his left. He cursed and headed the opposite way. He was staggering now, the single streetlight hurting his eyes. A few doors from the end of the alley, his legs gave out.
Hide. Dark. Den.
But his den was thirty-some miles south in Baltimore. He crawled into the nearest backyard, instinctively seeking a shadowed corner, and collapsed against the concrete steps.
The iron in his blood burned like a thousand fire ants crawling through his vein. He took a few short, ragged breaths and tested his quartz. The tiny crystals were nearly depleted. Instead of humming their customary song, they were barely vibrating. Too weak for him to draw on the quartz’s energy to heal himself. Too weak even to signal for help.
If the iron didn’t kill him outright, the night fae would find him.
Jace leaned his forehead against the steps and prepared to die.