Chapter 1
Rain fell in relentless silver sheets overSeattle, turning the city into a blur of neon lights and shadows. The streets gleamed beneath the storm, reflecting crimson taillights, flickering signs, and the endless pulse of a city that never truly slept. Seattle was beautiful in the rain—if one ignored the blood.
The alley behind Pike Place Market smelled of saltwater, wet stone, and copper.
Detective Damien Cross stood at the center of the crime scene, unmoving as the storm soaked through the black wool of his coat. Rainwater clung to the dark strands of hair that fell across his forehead, but he paid it no mind. The cold didn’t touch him. Neither did the stench of death.
The human officers surrounding the alley kept their distance.
They always did.
Yellow crime scene tape snapped in the wind while camera flashes lit the narrow space in sharp bursts of white. Somewhere behind him, a rookie gagged.
“Jesus…” Officer Miller muttered, covering his mouth as he turned away. “What the hell did this?”
Damien ignored him.
His pale blue eyes fixed on the body.
She lay slumped against the brick wall as though someone had carelessly discarded her there. Her blonde hair was plastered to her face by the rain. Her throat had been torn open in a savage, brutal wound, and blood had run in dark rivers down her chest before being washed into the gutter.
But it wasn’t the wound that held Damien’s attention.
It was the symbols.
Carved into her skin in precise, deliberate lines, glowing faintly beneath the rainwater, were crimson runes.
Magic.
Damien crouched beside the body, his movements fluid and unnaturally graceful. He pulled on leather gloves and pressed two fingers lightly to the victim’s neck.
Cold.
Long dead.
He inhaled.
The scents layered themselves in his mind instantly.
Blood.
Fear.
Burned herbs.
And beneath it all…
ash.
Witch ash.
His jaw tightened.
“Detective.”
Captain Elena Reyes approached beneath a black umbrella, heels clicking against the pavement. Unlike the others, she never looked nervous around him. Perhaps because she had seen exactly what he was capable of.
Three months ago, Damien had torn a rogue vampire apart with his bare hands in the middle of a downtown nightclub.
Humans tended to remember things like that.
“What do we know?” Damien asked without looking up.
Elena tapped at her tablet. “Victim’s name is Harper Lane. Twenty-four. Graduate student.”
Damien rose to his full height.
He towered over nearly everyone in the alley.
“Where?”
Elena hesitated. “Seattle Arcane Institute.”
Damien’s eyes narrowed.
Of course.
He turned his gaze back to the body.
Harper Lane.
A student at the most powerful magical institution in the Pacific Northwest.
A girl with witch blood.
And now a corpse.
“She was found twenty minutes ago by a delivery driver,” Elena continued. Her voice lowered. “There’s more.”
Damien looked at her.
Elena swallowed.
“Her heart is missing.”
The words settled heavily between them.
Ritualistic.
Deliberate.
Ancient.
Damien stared at the glowing symbols again. He recognized fragments of the script—old magic, older than most witches alive today.
Forbidden.
A low growl rose in his throat before he silenced it.
“Call the Institute,” he said.
Elena frowned. “At two in the morning?”
Damien’s eyes flashed red.
“Now.”
—
Across the city, the Seattle Arcane Institute rose from the mist like a cathedral.
Its stone towers disappeared into the rain-heavy sky, and golden light glowed behind stained-glass windows etched with protective sigils. Ancient ivy crawled up the gray walls, and gargoyles watched from the rooftops with weathered, knowing faces.
Inside Lecture Hall Nine, Professor Akio Sato was very much not sleeping.
Books floated in slow circles around the room, their pages turning in invisible hands. Candles burned with blue flames atop desks. Golden symbols wrote themselves across the chalkboard in elegant loops and lines.
Akio stood barefoot in the center of a rune circle etched in silver chalk.
His black hair was tied loosely at the nape of his neck, though several strands had escaped and framed his face. Round glasses rested low on his nose. He wore a black turtleneck with the sleeves shoved to his elbows and dark slacks, making him look more like an overworked graduate student than one of the youngest professors in the Institute’s history.
He frowned at the ancient grimoire hovering in front of him.
“Why are you being difficult?” he muttered.
The book snapped shut.
Akio blinked.
“…Seriously?”
The book opened again.
Its pages flipped violently.
Akio crossed his arms.
“You’re doing this on purpose.”
The pages fluttered harder.
He sighed dramatically.
“I hate academia.”
“You’re here awfully late for someone who hates academia.”
Akio yelped.
The grimoire dropped to the floor with a loud thud.
Books crashed around the room.
Akio spun, one hand raised instinctively as blue fire ignited in his palm.
A man stood in the doorway.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Drenched in rain.
And devastatingly beautiful.
His black coat hung open, revealing a dark suit beneath. Rainwater dripped from his sleeves onto the marble floor. His face was sharp and severe, his mouth set in a grim line, and his pale eyes were cold enough to freeze the room.
Not human.
Akio slowly lowered his hand.
“Well,” he said, pressing a hand to his chest. “That was dramatic.”
The man’s gaze swept over the room.
The rune circle.
The candles.
The spellbooks.
Then Akio.
Barefoot.
Disheveled.
Annoyingly attractive.
“Professor Akio Sato?” the man asked.
Akio lifted an eyebrow.
“Depends. Are you here to arrest me?”
The man stepped closer.
His voice was low and smooth, like velvet wrapped around steel.
“Should I be?”
Akio smirked despite himself.
“You tell me, Detective.”
Recognition flashed in those icy eyes.
“Then you know who I am.”
Akio tilted his head.
“Detective Damien Cross,” he said. “Seattle PD, Supernatural Division.”
He let his gaze trail slowly over Damien’s frame.
“You’re hard to miss.”
For the briefest second, Damien’s mouth twitched.
Not quite a smile.
He reached into his coat and held out a photograph.
Akio took it.
And all the humor vanished from his face.
Harper Lane.
Her body.
The runes.
The blood.
His stomach dropped.
“Oh my God…”
“She was your student,” Damien said.
Akio stared at the image.
“She was in my Advanced Sigil class.”
Damien watched him carefully.
Shock.
Grief.
Confusion.
No deception.
Akio reached out to hand the photo back.
Their fingers brushed.
The world exploded.
Blue light burst from Akio’s hand.
Crimson energy surged from Damien’s.
The air cracked like lightning.
Candles shattered.
Windows trembled.
Books flew open all at once.
The rune circle beneath Akio ignited in blinding silver.
Akio gasped.
Damien moved instinctively.
He grabbed Akio around the waist and pulled him close just as the floor beneath them shook.
Power roared through the room.
Magic and blood.
Light and darkness.
Akio clutched Damien’s coat.
Damien’s arms tightened.
Their bodies collided chest to chest.
Akio looked up.
Damien looked down.
For one suspended heartbeat, the world disappeared.
Then—
The lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
A whisper slid through the silence.
“Found you.”
Akio froze.
Damien’s body tensed instantly.
His fangs dropped.
His eyes blazed crimson.
At the far end of the lecture hall stood a woman cloaked in black.
Her silver hair spilled over her shoulders like moonlight. Her skin was pale as bone. Her golden eyes glowed in the dark.
And she was smiling.
Akio’s breath caught.
“No…”
Selene Vale.
The Witch Queen.
Selene lifted one elegant hand.
Every window in the room shattered inward.
Damien threw Akio to the floor and covered him as glass rained down like knives.
Selene laughed.
A terrible, beautiful sound.
Then she vanished into smoke.
Silence fell.
Slowly, Damien lifted his head.
In the center of the room, resting atop the glowing rune circle…
was a human heart.
Still beating.
Akio stared.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
And carved into the flesh in glowing crimson script were three words:
HE BELONGS TO ME.
