Page 1 of Vampire's Vixen

CHAPTER ONE

The moon rose high over the clear night, on its way toward waxing. The forest around me was silent, with the faint sounds of dripping water off the tall timber. My breath formed a white mist in front of me and my nose dripped from the chill. I had almost worn earmuffs, but that would impede sound, and listening was imperative. I had to be alert in case anything out here crept up on me. I had to be ready.

Tall shadows around me loomed like denizens of the dark as I entered a small clearing. My heart racing, I forced myself to continue on. A twig snapped, startling me, and I jerked to my left, trying to see through the darkness. My eyes had already adjusted, but I wasn’t used to stumbling through the forest at midnight. I was getting a crash course, though—like being thrown in the deep end of the pool.

I tried to make out what, if anything, had been responsible for the twig snapping. I squinted, then forced myself to stop.

Close your eyes, feel the energy, reach out with your inner sight…

I spotted a nurse log lying across the forest floor, and so I decided to take a break. The moss that covered the trunk was damp, but it wasn’t soaked, so I gingerly situated myself on the velvety trunk and let out a long breath.

As I slowly closed my eyes, I reminded myself that I was warded heavily. That yes, while I was alone, there was someone waiting in the parking lot for me, and he was ready to come to help the moment I gave the word. I had my phone, but I’d turned it off to everybody but Reese, one of the Dark Moon Society’s guardians, as they were called.

After a moment, another twig broke and I slowly turned in the direction of the noise. There, under a fern! I could see movement, though it was low to the ground. Another moment and I yanked my feet up as a red fox streaked by. I barely caught sight of it before it vanished across the clearing into the undergrowth.

A tangle of fern, huckleberry, skunk cabbage, and brambles, the foliage spread through Shorestar Park like a blanket, covering the ground, along with the layers of detritus—years of compost built up from fir needles and vine maple leaves, mushrooms and moss. The trails were kept clear, but the forest itself was a wild child of nature, one of the shadowed places that belonged to the Fae and the woodland spirits and the creatures that lurked in the shadows.

I was out here to learn how to trust myself, to commune with the land around me. It was more intense than any lesson I’d been taught during my days at Midnight Manor Academy, but if I were to belong to the Dark Moon Society, I had to learn how to walk in the shadows and stand tall. Nightshade, the leader of the coven, had ordered me into the woods to “Find what you find,” and while Reese was standing ready in case I got into serious trouble, he wasn’t allowed to help me in any other way.

What am I supposed to find? I’d asked, but Nightshade refused to tell me. She just said that I’d know it when I saw it. And so here I was, creeping through the forest, cold and uncertain, looking for something that I’d only know if I was alert enough to recognize it.

After a while, I stood. Whatever I was looking for, I wouldn’t find here, sitting on a tree. I turned toward the depths of the park, which was well over six hundred acres of thick timber. With a deep breath, I started walking again, determined to finish the task.

Five…ten…fifteen…minutes later, I felt hopelessly lost. I had no clue which way I had turned, and now every step was difficult. The park was on a hillock, rising from the waters of Puget Sound, sloping upward toward the center of the island.

The grade was growing steeper, and I realized that I was in a ravine, heading uphill. I had a walking stick with me, but it was still difficult in the dark. I had only my senses to go on, and the faint light from the moon.

As I struggled, trying to step carefully so I didn’t sprain an ankle, I happened to glance to my left again. There, farther along the slope, was a glowing light.

I froze. What the hell? There weren’t any streetlights in Shorestar Park, none that I knew of. So what was it? Wondering if it were someone with a flashlight, I kept my gaze on it, but the light didn’t move or shift position. It was rock-steady.

“Maybe that’s what I’m supposed to find,” I whispered, more to keep myself company than anything else. I began to wade through the foliage in the direction from which it was shining. As I grew closer, the hairs on my arms stood tall, and a trickle of sweat chilled my forehead.

Whatever it was, my body responded to the energy. My stomach clenched, and my hand—holding the walking stick—began to shake. There was power here, a power so strong that I wanted to turn tail and run, but that was the last thing I could do. Not if I wanted to secure my place in the Dark Moon Society.

“Work through the fear,” I muttered. “Feel the fear and do it anyway. You can do this. Nightshade wouldn’t send you into danger…”

But that wasn’t true. She had and she would again—sending me to take on a psychic vampire had been dangerous. And yet I had done it. But this was for the gold. This was for a place in the Court Magika’s Order of the Moon, and I didn’t want to fail. My aunt had gone through this, and now it was my turn.

I cautiously navigated through the ferns and vines, grimacing as my hand brushed a stinging nettle leaf. Welts rose immediately, and I winced as the sting from the plant burned against my skin. Skirting the area where I thought there might be a full patch of it, I cleared the plants and came out into another small clearing.

And there was the glowing object.

I caught my breath. It was a tall rock, standing between two yew trees, and it glowed with a neon light. Sparkles came flying from it, and—as I approached—my inner alarm bells began to ring. Beyond the rock, faint lines of light stretched between the trees, crackling like miniature lightning bolts.

“What the hell?” My fear fading into curiosity, I stepped close to the rock. There was some sort of writing on it, but I couldn’t read what it said. Instead, I glanced beyond the rock at the yews. There, standing in the center of them, was a man.

He wore blue jeans and leather boots that must have had platforms a good twelve inches high. He was at least seven feet tall, maybe more, and his eyes shimmered, black except for the glowing white slits that reminded me of a cat’s eyes. His coat dragged against the ground, made of ragged patchwork, and his hair flowed over his shoulders, down his back. He wore a headdress fashioned like a giant crow, and feathers trailed down his back.

I caught my breath and stumbled back. I’d never seen him before, but I knew who he was. Nobody who ever lived in a shadow town forgot tales of the Crow Man, a messenger of the gods—the Morrígan in particular. But he paved the way for the gods to speak, acting as their liaison through the crows and ravens and birds of the world.

He was best known over in Whisper Hollow, but the Crow Man knew no limits as to where he could appear. I slowly knelt, cowed by the raw power standing in front of me, but waited for him to speak. I honestly didn’t know what to say.

“Welcome to my forests,” the Crow Man said, and his voice sang on the wind, low and sonorous, ricocheting around me. “Priestess of Aphrodite. Stand before me.”

I slowly rose, almost unable to breathe. His voice sent a jolt through me, down my spine like lightning. As he stepped toward me, the forest shivered with every step, letting out a sigh as though it mirrored his breathing.

He stared at me, his gaze piercing my soul, and I felt something stir that I didn’t know I had within me—passion and a hunger so deep that it made me ache. And yet…I knew that if I drank from his well, I would lose myself forever, lost in the spiral of his magic.

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