Page 72 of She is the Darke

Copyright © 2016 by T. S. Joyce

Copyright © 2016, T. S. Joyce

First electronic publication: July 2016

T. S. Joyce

www.tsjoyce.com

All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

Published in the United States of America.

Chapter One

“All units, automobile accident, ninety-two and Quail Ridge.” The voice over the intercom called over the alarm.

“About time,” Aric Teague muttered as he threw his crappy poker hand down on the table and jogged after the other two firefighters on shift tonight.

Chief Lang was already in the turn-out room handing out gear. Aric readied in a daze, his muscle memory remembering everything he needed to without much mental attention. His head was somewhere else. It was already on the automobile accident on ninety-second and Quail Ridge.

Dressed in the heavy gear, he bolted for the passenger’s side of the fire engine. He pulled himself up, only to be yanked back down. “You’re the new guy on the truck,vamp,” John ground out. “Get in the back.”

Vamp. Aric barely had resisted the urge to crawl into the asshole’s mind and make him piss himself when John shoved him roughly toward where Nick was climbing in the back of the truck.

He missed Asheville.

With a low hiss in his throat, Aric climbed in the back and ignored Nick’s dirty look and muttered curses. As Chief hit the gas and turned onto West Court Avenue, Aric busied himself making sure his radio was working and his gear was fastened. John bitched on and on about why Chief had approved a supernatural for the house.

“Because we have to consider all applications, John.”

“So it’s fair that he gets to only work night shifts, while we have to work twenty-four-hour shifts away from our families?”

“He might have a family, too, and supes work different than us.” Chief Lang was being overly patient. Aric’s last fire chiefwould’ve told John to get over it and quit whining already. Aric got it, though. He was new to the house, and he’d shaken up a routine they had all been used to.

“And when he gets hungry during a call? When he sees the blood and goes on a killing spree? He probably eats little babies—”

“Enough!” Aric yelled, fury blasting through his veins. “I’m fine on calls. I’ve worked this job for a decade and have never tasted a drop of any of the victims. Go do your fucking research online and keep your pissing and moaning to yourself. And no, I don’t have a family. I have a coven under me. Tread lightly with how you talk to me.”

“You’re a king?” Chief asked carefully over the blaring of the sirens. “You should’ve told me that on your application.”

“What difference does it make?” Aric added darkly as he watched the small town of Winterset blur by the window. “You and I both know you had to hire me.”

And it was true. Twenty-five years ago, shifters came out to the public and fought for their rights. Vampires came out soon after. Supes, as the humans liked to call them, had to be considered for the same jobs as humans now. Aric got through the door of the Winterset Fire Department based onwhathe was. Now he had to prove he was an asset to this truck by showing his crewwhohe was.

God, he missed his old life. He missed the Bryson City Fire Department and the guys he had worked with there. He missed the way his coven used to be before he had to force his people to flee the wrath of the Bloodrunner Crew.

As long as he lived, he would never put his coven in danger from another crew of shifters again. He winced as he rubbed his forearm, still sore from his last encounter with Harper Keller, the Bloodrunner Dragon. She’d shoved his arm in the sunlight and threatened to wage war on all vampires. Crazy fire-breatherprobably would’ve done it too. He should’ve killed her and claimed all her territory.

Instead he was in fucking Nowheresville, Iowa with a pissed-off coven under him and an acute hatred for these ball-busting idiots on the truck.

A police cruiser was already on the scene up ahead, and Aric muttered a curse when he got his first glance at the wreckage. The older model, black SUV had careened off into a deep ditch and was on its side. Beyond, there was only darkness, which meant the car was being propped up by something he couldn’t see from here. It must’ve rolled because the driver’s side door was caved in and a mess of metal.

“Jaws of life…” John was saying into the radio, but Aric was already bolting from the truck. The smoke billowing from the engine said they didn’t have that much time.

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