Marked (29 page)

“I won’t let you hurt her,” Dec shouted, though he knew full well no one was listening. He bowed his head and drew a deep breath through his nose. He needed to calm down and think straight. Before he got back to Galena, his priority was notifying Aislin there was another rogue. He needed to let Eli know, too. One of them would give Moros the news: the Lord of the Kere wasn’t in control of his creatures.
Again.
And only he could put this right.

Too restless to wait for a car or the cops, Dec decided to take a page from Cacy’s playbook and break the rules—by using his Scope as a means of transportation. Well, h
e’d
broken the rules before, too, like the night h
e’d
discovered Galena was the one his father had meant him to protect. H
e’d
sneaked into her apartment, just to make sure she was safe. And then h
e’d
been so ashamed of spying on her that h
e’d
left immediately. Although they were supposed to use their Scopes only to ferry souls, his Scope would take him wherever he most needed to go. He reached for it and pressed his thumb to the raven again, expecting it to open a portal to his apartment.

But when he pulled his Scope open, he gaped in surprise. Lab equipment lined the walls, and a slender transparent figure sat alone in front of the giant computer in the center of the room. Though she was just a shadow in the Veil, Dec could read the tremble in her shoulders and the defeated bow of her head. She was hurting. Scared. Her fingers were closed around her phone. She was waiting to hear from him.

Though he had no right and no good reason, though h
e’d
thought he had other, more important things to do, he stepped through the intra-Veil portal and stood in the in-between, only a few feet behind Galena. Immediately, two Kere appeared, their eyes glowing red and their claws extended, ready to rip him to shreds. Galena’s personal guards, handpicked by Moros himself. Dec held up his hands. But they had already stepped back; they had recognized him.

“Has something happened?” asked Nader. He had a stern face, olive skin, and long black hair pulled back into a ponytail. Dec knew him to be a fierce Ker who tended to kill with sudden bursts of violence.

“I think so,” said Dec. “One of Galena’s research volunteers was murdered. And I believe a Ker was involved. The dead soul said her attacker had red eyes, and no one came to collect the bounty.”

Nader tensed. “You think there’s another rogue.”

“Looks that way,” said Dec. “Stay vigilant.”

“We’re always vigilant,” said Tamasin. She had her dozens of ebony braids tied back at the base of her neck with a colorful scarf, but that was the only thing whimsical about her. Dec had worked with her only a few times, but on those occasions sh
e’d
killed with heart attacks or strokes. Quick. Trevor was like that, too. The guy worked all day as a paramedic so he could balance out the lives he took at night. Dec respected that in a Ker. He hated when they drew it out and savored the suffering.

“I’ll be updating your boss and mine as soon as I talk to Galena,” Dec said.

Tamasin nodded at Galena’s shadowy figure. “She seems fragile. Do you have to tell her?”

Dec had no idea. All he knew was that Galena was waiting. For
him
. Like his fingers were on autopilot, he flipped his Scope and opened a swirling window into the warm, messy real world. He pulled the edges of the Scope wide.

And found himself staring right into Galena’s green eyes.

Sarah Fine’s
Claimed
is available Spring 2015 from 47North.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

W
riting often starts out as a solitary pursuit, but in the case of this book, it was a shared effort all along. So first and foremost, I want to thank my agent, Kathleen Ortiz, for encouraging me to branch out and try my hand with this genre, for being such a great advocate and strategist every step of the way, and for finding the best possible home for this book.

Which brings me to the team at 47North: Thanks to David Pomerico for enthusiasm from the get-go, and to Jason Kirk for taking the wheel. To my copyeditor, Elizabeth Johnson, thanks so much for being meticulous
and
fun. And of course, unending gratitude goes to my developmental editor, Leslie “Lam” Miller, for being wise, for making me laugh while making me better, and for teaching me the difference between Scotch and Irish whiskey. Lady, I owe you a Jameson.

I want to thank my writing friends and beta readers, especially Brigid Kemmerer, Jaime Lawrence, and Justine Dell, who read early versions of the manuscript and provided both the encouragement to go on and the criticism I needed to make it better. I also want to thank Lydia Kang for sitting next to me on this roller coaster. Being an author is weird, and I know you’ll always understand.

Thanks to my colleagues, and especially Anne-Marie Bora for sharing my love of romance. Thanks to my parents for cheering me on. Mom, thanks for reading this with your critical romance
reader’s
eye, and Dad, thanks for not reading it, because that would probably be sort of weird. Gratitude goes to my husband for taking everything in stride. And to my kids, thank you for tolerating my spaciness and for finding me at least mildly interesting some of the time. I adore you guys.

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

PHOTO © REBECCA SKINNER

S
arah Fine is a clinical psychologist and the author of the Guards of the Shadowlands series (
Sanctum
,
Fractured
, and
Chaos
), as well as other young adult novels. She was born on the West Coast, raised in the Midwest, and is now firmly entrenched on the East Coast, where she lives with her husband and two children.