Page 1 of Poison Sun

Amber

I stare at the place where Morgan disappeared into flames, her warnings echoing in my mind.

Stay away from the Shadow Lord.

They will come for you now. Drawn to your magic like moths to a flame.

I’m going to find a way to help you. But I can’t stay here to do it.

And then, gone in a flash of fire.

There’s also the Shadow Lord. Because the hungry way he looked at me is burned into my mind. The smirk he gave me before leaving the gates of the Fairmont chills me to the bone—the promise that he’s not done with me yet.

He won’t be done with me until he’s dead. I feel it deep in my soul.

And the Shadow Lord isn’t my only problem. There’s Lucas, who’s determined to get me to join his clan of downtown vampires. And there’s Viktor, my trainer and Damien’s best friend, who turned on us by joining Lucas’s clan and leaving me to die in front of an oncoming train.

I can still feel the potion I drank swirling inside me, melding with my magic.

It’s part of me now.

At least, it’s part of me until Morgan figures out how to get it out of me.

She has to figure out how to get it out of me.

Otherwise, I’ll be a beacon for shadow souls forever.

I can’t live like that. I won’t live like that. I refuse.

Somehow pulling myself back into focus, I turn to Damien. He’s also staring at the place where Morgan disappeared, and his blue eyes are so far off that I have no idea what’s going on in his mind.

The bond between us is closed, so I don’t know what’s going on in his heart, either.

“You knew,” I say, jolting him back into focus.

“I knew what?” His voice is distant, as if he’s here with me, but not.

“You knew about Morgan’s ability. That she can see the future.”

“It wasn’t my secret to tell,” he says, although he’s still far off, looking at me like he doesn’t know me. “It was Morgan’s, and it’s a secret she keeps highly guarded. However, she did tell you, before she left. She trusted you with something that could get her killed. And now, she’s going out there—wherever ‘there’ is—to try to save your life.”

He gazes out the window, to where the Shadow Lord was lurking behind the gate, and I can almost see the storm of emotions crashing over him.

“You’re angry with me,” I say.

A statement—not a question.

His eyes lock onto mine, and they’re like ice. Cold, hard, and unforgiving.

“You drank the potion,” he finally says. “You didn’t think before you acted, and now, you’re going to be hunted more than you already were. You didn’t stop to think about the potential consequences of your actions, and you put yourself in unnecessary danger.”

His words are so sharp that they cut through my heart like a knife.

But I gather myself together and meet his gaze head-on, not willing to let him push me down.

“I had to,” I say, desperate for him to understand. “The vial was cracking. I couldn’t let it go to waste. Not after everything we went through to get it.”

The Labyrinth in the subway. Working together to complete every challenge the dark realm threw at us. And then, finally, defeating the Minotaur.

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