Page 2 of Bite Marks & Broken Hearts

I wiped blood from my split lip with my sleeve. “Peachy.”

“That coat is going to need a good wash again.” Priya stepped around them both, adjusting her oversized purple scarf. “Are you hurt?”

My ribs ached, but they could wait. “The girl first.”

We approached the altar together, forming a small circle around the body. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen. Dark hair fanned out like a halo against the stone.

Her white shirt was torn, jagged edges revealing frost patterns spiralling across her chest in intricate whorls, spreading outward from her heart.

“Identical markings to the other victims,” Kit said.

I sighed. We’d now exceeded ten bodies, but were little closer to discovering what malicious entity was behind this gruesome operation: seeding dark magic inside a victim, harvesting it once it had been cultivated.

I traced the air above the frost patterns, feeling the residual cold emanate from them. “The cambion said something cryptic about old powers stirring… but nothing actually useful.” Ignoring the protest from my ribs, I straightened. The slow speed at which the injury was healing was a stark reminder that I needed to feed. I’d have to drink the rest of my meager supply of blood when I returned to the hotel.

“Priya, document everything. Kit, coordinate with Felix for cleanup. Rory—”

“Yeah?”

“Try not to touch anything.”

“That wasonetime—”

“Three times,” Kit corrected. “Last month alone.”

I tuned out their bickering, my gaze returning to the dead teenager. The frost patterns on her chest caught the moonlight, throwing strange shadows across her pale skin.

Another body. Another failure. And somewhere in London, evil was already choosing its next prey.

2

Flynn

There was a guy eye-fucking me from across the street, and he wasn’t even pretending to be subtle about it.

Lounging against the brick wall of Wilde Card’s smoking garden, he was all sharp angles and dark leather, watching me like a starved wolf tracking a wounded deer. The brutal October wind whipped between the buildings, carrying the thrum of music each time the bar door swung open, but he didn’t seem bothered by the cold.

Conversely, I stood shivering in my new jumper. I’d purchased it with my first paycheck—gorgeously soft, a crocheted criss-cross of tawny wool with holes in, revealing a pattern of my bare, pale skin. Extremely risqué, for me.

But tonight was about change, about transforming from someone who tiptoed around his own town, afraid to be seen, to someone whowantedto be seen.

I checked my phone again. 21:47. No new messages from Emma.Perfect.Seventeen minutes late and counting, leaving me to hover alone on this shadowy corner. The neon signs above the bar painted everything in alternating splashes of pink and blue, including the growing queue of people waiting to get inside.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard. Should I message her again? No. Three texts in fifteen minutes was already edging into desperate territory.

My phone vibrated with an incoming call. Not Emma, but Tom. My stomach twisted into familiar knots—guilt, anger, longing—all the feelings I’d been running from. I jabbed the reject button before I couldchange my mind, shoving the phone deep into my pocket as if I could bury the past along with it.

I glanced up. Mystery man hadn’t moved, but his head was tilted now, a slight smile playing at the corners of his mouth. The pink light caught the sharp line of his jaw, the leather jacket stretched across broad shoulders. A silver chain glinted at his throat. What did he want from me?

This was exactly why I’d wanted Emma here. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing.

Earlier, we got talking at the end of our shift at the bakery, and I let slip that I’d lived in London for three weeks without a single night out. She’d flicked her dirty drying towel at my head and begged me to come to her favourite gay bar that evening. Of course, I jumped at the chance—anything was better than another night alone in my shoebox room, hiding from my weird new housemates. To have finally made a “friend,” even if it was the loosest definition of one.

And the chance to potentially hook up with some random guy. Randomhotguy. Random hotniceguy. Hopefully.

21:48. Still nothing. Was Emma coming? She didn’t seem the type to bail without warning…

The top of my phone burst into life with an incoming message, and my heart lifted.

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