Hi!

I don't know if you noticed, but I have new covers! Special thanks to NoelleElizabth - thank you for making them, I absolutely love them :-) 

Now back to the story. It begins. Some things may be different than they seem. This book will be different. I hope you'll like it.

Lara

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Chapter 1

I made my way through the tunnel in silence. Shadows played hide and seek with the pale strip light above. The tubes flickered incessantly, a nervous tick the dark void of the tunnel couldn't seem to get rid of.

The draft was cold and wet, crawled over my skin like bony fingers scraping on soft wood. The never-ending chill. One of the many things I had to get used to in these past weeks. Awkward circumstances and oddities I had to accept one after the other. It felt like the more I got used to them, the farther away I got from who I once was.

I passed another rogue witch, acknowledging her grim smile with a casual shrug. Yeah, they did even that. Let me walk around alone and acknowledge my presence. That the Inri Brotherhood allowed more freedoms than the Lumenis during my stay in Italy? Pure, bloody irony.

I learned one or the other thing about the Inri Brotherhood, some of it the hard way. They were attentive and meticulous. Ruthless. And I was one of them now.

The rogues were careful, watching me, observing every step I made. I knew how Medici slipped under the Circle's radar so easily. They sealed off our various hiding places as soon as we got there, had dark spells and magical artifacts up their sleeves that cost a fortune on the black market.

The Inri Brotherhood was better organized than I thought, and their numbers were far greater than I suspected. Three dozen in this group alone. The three witches only knew how many more were out there. There could be a whole army of rogues, hiding somewhere in the city, and the Circle none the wiser.

They didn't keep me in chains, but there was no teleporting out for me. The hiding places were more tightly guarded than a Russian high-security prison. Besides, I guessed Medici trusted my own survival instincts.

Thanks to the flashy stunt he pulled in that street, there were about a dozen pedestrians that saw me leave with the Raven willingly.

He probably drew the attention of witches within a three mile radius. There was no way the Circle didn't know I went with the rogues. Raphael knew it, I knew it: Going to the Circle and Brown was out of the question. So why bother?

Aside from that, I might have been forced into this, but when it came down to it, the choice was still mine. I went with Medici that night, sealed our pact with a golden handshake that yanked me into a dark portal that had no emergency exits or safe routes. My decision. My bad.

The first two weeks with the rogues were a test, a mental assault course Medici set out to examine my motivations, find out if I was playing a double game. At some point in time he must have made up his mind. What followed were week number three and four.

I was not going to think about week three and four.

I shook my head, blocking the array of memories, moved on. I took yet another turn to the left. It was an old maintenance shaft, no longer used by a nameless company underneath one of the many faceless buildings we'd occupied.

Not that I really cared where exactly we were. There were enough spots in the city that had just the same ring to them. Old. Filthy. Abandoned. Places and niches, recesses and zero spaces no one noticed – they were reserved for those that didn't fit in: drunks, beggars, criminals. And other things that liked to hide in the dark. Other, more deadly things.

Like the rogues.

They thrived in these spots. Free and lawless, living on the edge. That was their life. Had always been. Another thing I had to learn. Nothing was for free. The edges of society were not as comfortable and appealing in real life as they were in my imagination. Freedom demanded a high price. I knew that now.

If there was an art to finding hiding places, the Raven had perfected it. What was another trip to the far end of the city? I'd seen more empty warehouses in the past four weeks than in my whole life altogether.

A shower sounded about just right. Bathrooms? Forget it. The last time I was in one was about three days ago – before we had to leave and resettle in a rush. My long brown hair was a tangled mess, my faded jeans, once light blue, were streaked with dirt and blood. Even if we had any, I wasn't getting close to a mirror if I could help it.

Our recent relocation to the sewer system kind of took the cake. I suspected it was for a special reason I wasn't yet aware of. I was determined to find out just what special reason it was.

I walked through the final passage, turning away from the stink of the main tunnel. It was a sharp turn to the left, then again to the right, and there he was. If anyone told me I'd be standing in front of the Raven talking shop a month ago, I'd have laughed into their faces.

My world had been shredded, left in ruins, only to be turned upside down. Things changed. Paradigms shifted. Again.

Raphael Medici was leaning against a make-shift table, maybe something that was once used in a conference room when this was still a construction site – who knew. He was studying a city-map, spread out in front of him like it was a complicated jigsaw puzzle he needed to put together.

Was he planning to move again? I cringed inwardly. Complaining wasn't part of my stealth attack plan, but the restless relocating from one hiding spot to the next was grating on my nerves.

He didn't look up until I was standing right in front of the table, though I was pretty sure he noticed me before. Someone like Medici didn't survive without being observant and alert to imminent dangers. No one had survived being a rogue as long as Medici. At least no one I knew of.

"Are we moving again?" The statement didn't come out as flippant as I wanted it to. I sounded resigned even to my ears.

He looked up, stared at me for a long moment. Raphael Medici had the clearest brown eyes I'd ever seen. It was there in his bone structure, the fine lines and angles in his face: Medici was handsome, or had been, once. Maybe years ago, when his name hadn't meant mayhem and destruction.

The salt and pepper hair or his long history of notorious crimes – they weren't the only things that betrayed his age. It was the slight shadow that flickered behind his eyes then and again. The vacant, cold look that crept in randomly and made me wonder who or what he was going to kill next.

He didn't smile, or answer for that matter. He redirected his eyes to the map, and for a small moment I thought he wasn't going to acknowledge my presence.

"Maybe, maybe not," he said slowly.

Talking in riddles. The never ending sequence of conundrums was worse than an outright physical threat. I was familiar with it, as much as with other things pertaining to the dark witches' way of living. I'd been with the rogues for four weeks. Long enough to learn secrets no Circle witch should know. Long enough to know things some witches would kill for.

Not long enough to escape.

Medici straightened, pushing himself up from the table to face me.

"You can pretend all you want. It's no use. I've been watching you, Anna Johnson. Not even once. You didn't use your own element once. You've been very careful. But I've seen you. You've been watching us practicing. I saw the look in your eyes."

A flash of something. A ripple in my core.

Too late. He saw it on my face.

He laughed softly. "I've seen too many witches go dark to not notice the tell-tale signs." The laughter stopped as abruptly as it started. "You're afraid, when there's no reason to be. Face what's real. Accept who you've become. You will practice dark magic, and you'll like it. I want the rest of the world to believe what the Circle already knows. That you're one of us now."

"What if you're wrong?" I said, dreading the answer. "What if I try and can't use my own element anymore?"

"That's why we will put it to the test. Tonight. I believe, we've waited long enough. It's time for you to come out," he said.

The words knifed into me, stirred a bitter scent in my system that reeked of fear, and something else – a dark emotion I'd been afraid to name, but tasted like anticipation. I fisted my hands.

I took a deep breath, hesitating. "What if the Circle-"

"Remember what I told you, Anna Johnson. The streets have more eyes and ears than you believe. Enough that the Circle knows. They were there. They saw how you left, with us. To them you're rogue now. Once Circle members see you, walking and alive in this city, you're fair game. You were, even before you joined us, you just didn't know."

You just didn't know.

He was talking in riddles again. In Medici's world all that was Circle was two-faced and duplicitous. The Circle believed I was one of the rogues, and they were determined to get their hands on me. At least that's what Medici wanted me to believe.

The only question was, did the Raven lie to me about this one? Telling truths from lies was getting harder, the longer I stayed with the rogues.

"I know that," I forced the words out, tasted truth on my lips.

I went with the rogues willingly. It was a grave choice and I still wasn't sure it was the right one, but I was not going to let it go to waste.

"Fill me in on the situation," I said. "Give me enough to handle whatever we have to do tonight. Don't send me into this blindly."

He stared at me with an appreciative look, the kind of look you'd give someone you thought worth recognizing.

The Raven's skin looked pale and dirty under the fluorescent light. He turned abruptly, lacing his hands behind his back. It was one of the many quirks I observed over the last weeks.

The peculiarities didn't end there. Medici was the only one in the compound without a jacket. Had years and years of hiding in places like these made him resistant to the cold? Or was it simply that he didn't feel it anymore?

"There've been riots ever since the press got wind of Warrens' death. Hate groups have been trying to get the public's attention with new attacks on vamps. The city's running crazy with small crimes – the police and the Circle have got their hands full." His hands flexed.

"That leaves more room for us. We need to prepare and gear up. If we want to win this war, we need the right timing and the right strategy. We need to seize this opportunity. If we make a move now, no one's going to notice if it's us or a bunch of angry humans, until it's too late."

"What about Alexander?" I said. "Don't you think he'll-"

"The head vampire has bigger problems."

"Why?"I swallowed, growing very still. "Did something happen?"