Magic Thief (The New York Shade Book 1) Read online

  Magic Thief

  The New York Shade - Book One

  D.N. Hoxa

  Contents

  Also by D.N. Hoxa

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Also by D.N. Hoxa

  Copyright © 2020 by D.N. Hoxa

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of

  America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or

  artwork herein is prohibited. This is a work of fiction. Names,

  characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s

  imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely

  coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  Also by D.N. Hoxa

  The Marked Series (Completed)

  Blood and Fire

  Deadly Secrets

  Death Marked

  Winter Wayne Series (Completed)

  Bone Witch

  Bone Coven

  Bone Magic

  Bone Spell

  Bone Prison

  Bone Fairy

  Scarlet Jones Series (Completed)

  Storm Witch

  Storm Power

  Storm Legacy

  Storm Secrets

  Storm Vengeance

  Storm Dragon

  Victoria Brigham Series (Completed)

  Wolf Witch

  Wolf Uncovered

  Wolf Unleashed

  Wolf’s Rise

  The Curse of the Allfather (Ongoing)

  Wicked Gods

  Wicked Magic

  Starlight Series (Completed)

  Assassin

  Villain

  Sinner

  Savior

  Morta Fox Series (Completed)

  Heartbeat

  Reclaimed

  Unchanged

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  Chapter One

  Welcome to the New York Shade!

  The beer is cold, the food is warm, and death is just another state of being.

  The mural took over the entire wall of the building at the entrance to a part of Manhattan you won’t find on any maps. The wards slid off me, recognizing my blood, and the Shade greeted me. Buildings of all shapes and sizes stretched as far as the eye could see, which wasn’t saying much because of the massive trees that lined the streets. The rich green of their huge leaves never seemed to fade away, even in the dead of winter. My magic connected with the Shade, and I sent it a very specific image of the place I was looking for, hoping it would give me a shortcut. Pink posters were floating in the air even though there was no wind, and one of them wrapped around my left shoulder, demanding to be read.

  Scheduled Maintenance Day

  Potential dates: 05/06/20 through 05/09/20

  I crumpled the piece of paper and threw it away. As if anybody could ever guess when the Shade would clean itself. Yeah, it was dirty—people weren’t exactly careful here any more than they were anywhere, but the streets did look filthier than usual now that I looked. It made sense that the annual maintenance day was near. Heavy rains and bouts of strong wind, even tornados, took over the streets, chasing away garbage, cleansing the dirt and the dust off buildings, making everything look brand new again, because the Shade didn’t like dirt, or too much noise. It didn’t like polluted air, either. That’s why there were no cars in here, and firearms were useless.

  The entire neighborhood was locked in wards so tightly even a mosquito with a belly full of human blood wouldn’t be able to cross the invisible barriers that shielded it from the rest of the City. We stood right across the island from Hell’s Kitchen, and the Shade was believed to be roughly half in size. It was just a guesstimate because nobody could measure it properly.

  I turned the corner and reached Valent Street, the most crowded part of the neighborhood. I sent a mental thank you to the streets for the shortcut. The Shade could always be persuaded to save you time if you had enough magic and were persistent with the image of your destination in mind.

  You can find all kinds of supernaturals in the Shade. The usual—like witches and wizards, sorcerers, werewolves, ghouls, the occasional vampire, even a fae if you were lucky. But there were plenty of unusual creatures here, too—and one of them was just a tiny fur ball. He was about seven inches tall if you didn’t count the tail, which was bigger than the rest of his body.

  And he was late.

  Where the hell was he? I didn’t want to miss Hester again and her shift ended at midnight. Only about an hour left. He knew he needed to be with me at all times when I was in the Shade, and I was already in front of the building of Hellbeast Affairs.

  Just as I thought that, something touched my sneaker and ran up my jeans with incredible speed.

  “You’re late,” I muttered as the little red squirrel stopped on my left shoulder and squeaked. His name was Kit and he had no concept of personal space, the little fucker, but I still loved him to death. He was my familiar, after all.

  I was going to turn around and get in the building, but Kit had different plans. He scratched my cheek and squeaked loudly, which he only did when he wanted my attention on something. Narrowing my brows, I turned to the street again.

  “What?” I asked, as if expecting an answer.

  I didn’t—but I saw what he meant right away. Impossible not to, especially when I saw the face of the woman across the street, staring right at me.

  She was a bit shorter than me, with big eyes made of molten silver. Her white hair made her look like a ghost against the darkness, and it didn’t look like it was made of hair at all. It looked like a thin piece of satin hanging over her head, falling all the way to her hips, interrupted only by her pointy ears peeking out for everyone to see. She was breathtaking.

  She was also an elf.

  Those were rare. So rare that I’d only ever seen one of them in my four years in the New York Shade.

  Any doubt I had that she and her friend were looking at me disappeared when they started walking toward me. I held my breath and waited, wary, but also very curious.

  “Sinea Montero?” the elf said with a perfect American accent. Her voice was melodic and full of rough edges at the same time. She looked young, but you could never tell age with immortal beings.

  Her friend, though, was definitely not elven. He was over six feet tall, with wide shoulders and bulging muscles that he’d tried to hide with a denim jacket over his white shirt. And the way he looked at me…a werewolf, if my instincts were correct.

  Kit tightened the grip of his tail around the back of my neck.

  “Who’s asking?”

  “We’re with the Guild and we need to ask you some questions,” the elf said, almost angry that I’d had the audaci
ty to ask.

  If anybody knew who I really was, they’d know that this was a version of my worst nightmare come to life. I had no business with the Sacri Guild other than killing hellbeasts and delivering them to their offices. The Guild didn’t need to ask me questions—unless they knew something they weren’t supposed to know. And they didn’t—I’d kept my secret safe since I was a kid, and I never slipped.

  So who were these people? Because they did not look like Guild officers. No uniforms, no weapons that I could see, which could only mean one thing—they were hiding them.

  “Questions about what?” Kit squeaked, pulling at my earlobe. Though he was small, his little fingers were tipped with razor sharp claws and it didn’t feel nice against my skin. “Knock it off,” I told him and leaned my head to the side.

  “About Sonny Montero,” the elf said, and she smiled, as if she knew she already had me.

  I raised my brows. “What about Sonny?”

  My baby brother was barely eighteen years old. He was a quiet kid and he never really got into any trouble. Which was another reason why I felt like these two were full of shit.

  “We’ll be the ones asking the questions,” the elf said. “Please follow us, Ms. Montero.” And she actually stepped back like she believed that I was going to follow her, just like that.

  We were already in front of a Guild building. Hellbeast Affairs was a division of it. The building next door, where she was pointing, was the Guild’s Protection Unit, and they had their hands full all the time. People were always looking for trouble—just not me.

  Taking in a deep breath, I said, “No.” The elf froze mid-step and slowly turned her head toward me, a look of disbelief in her silver eyes.

  “No?” she asked and smiled, as if she was expecting me to be joking. I wasn’t.

  “No. Unless you want to tell me who you really are, this conversation is already over.” I turned around to the doors of Hellbeast Affairs, heart in my throat. I wasn’t joking, but I was bluffing. If Sonny was in trouble, I needed to know about it.

  A hand with skin so fair I could see green veins underneath it, pressed against the door before I pulled it open. The smile had slipped from the elf’s face. Her silver eyes squinted at me, and I was pretty sure she had some not-so-nice words to say about me in her head. She showed me her teeth, but it definitely wasn’t a smile. Her pointy canines looked sharp enough to cut through my skin, though they weren’t exactly fangs because they weren’t meant to drink someone dry. They were merely meant to tear through flesh. Slowly, I put my free hand over the handle of one of my daggers, safely tucked in its sheath around my hips. Those were made to kill hellbeasts, as the hellbeast head in the bag in my other hand testified, but I was pretty sure they could decapitate elves, too.

  But I didn’t get to find out because her friend finally spoke.

  “Ms. Montero, my name is Emanuel, and this is Moira. If you could follow us to the Protection Unit, we won’t take up much of your time.”

  His voice was softer than I’d imagined, but it felt forced. Like he was trying really hard not to freak me out. Too late.

  Emanuel, if that was even his real name, put a hand over Moira’s shoulder and pulled her back. He raised his hand, and it took all of me not to jump back. Kit squeaked in alarm, but it was only a wallet he was showing us. An army green, leather wallet with a Guild ID showing through the mesh. He’d put his finger over his age, species and magic level, and I could only see his name—Emanuel Onti, but I recognized the grey ID. It was standard issue for Guild officers. I’ll be damned.

  Since when did the Sacri Guild work with elves—and vice-versa? Elves liked to stick to their own world, Gaena, fighting a thousand-year-old war with the fae over land. They were warriors, trained to fight since they learned how to walk, and though elves didn’t have magic of their own, they were resistant to it, especially to fae magic. So why would this woman be here in the first place?

  Curiosity burned me, but in the end, it didn't matter. Whoever these people were, they hadn’t lied. Which meant my brother had really done something he wasn’t supposed to do.

  I looked behind me at the building once more. Here I was, thinking I was having one of the good nights. I’d receive the message about the hellbeast and had gone out to kill it. The head was in my tote bag and now I couldn’t even deliver it in time to Hester.

  I released a long breath. “Lead the way.”

  The elf gave me a proud smile and turned around without a second thought. She really didn’t feel threatened by me, not in the least. And I liked it that way.

  Kit kept scratching at my earlobe, demanding my attention.

  “We have no choice,” I said under my breath. Sacri sorcerers like me were the only supernatural species who had familiars. They were tied to their sorcerers by magic and the bond was unbreakable. They couldn’t stay away from one another farther than a mile, if that, and if one died, so did the other. They also communicated with their thoughts—but not us. We were a special pair, Kit and me. Just as long as nobody knew about it, we were perfectly okay with him squeaking to get his point across and me speaking.

  The hellbeast head in my bag was starting to smell really badly. It took them about an hour to decompose and go back to where they came from, and it looked like mine was already in the process. If it disappeared before I got my confirmation slip, I was going to be really pissed off.

  But as I followed the elf and the werewolf, I had the feeling that the hellbeast head was about to become the least of my worries.

  Chapter Two

  “I’ll ask you again, where is your brother?” the man said, his brown eyes squinting at me. I’d taken a peak at his essence earlier, and my instincts had been right. He was a werewolf—and a powerful one at that.

  I sighed.

  Ten minutes ago, they’d brought me through the doors of the Protection Unit into the first office they’d found—a large room with ten computer desks, but only three people had been in it. They’d literally thrown two of them out but left a woman in there with us. “As witness,” the elf had said. The woman now tried her damned best to pretend to be focused on the screen of her computer while her hands shook.

  For the past ten minutes, they’d been questioning me, which pretty much entailed them yelling in my face and me telling them that I didn’t know. Kit sat on my lap, listening intently.

  “I don’t know!” I pushed the words through gritted teeth. “He was with me almost an hour ago, then he went to meet some human friends. I don’t know where he’s going or where he will be.”

  I told them about Sonny going out with friends in hopes to turn them off. Out could be anywhere, and Manhattan was a big city.

  I prided myself on being a damn good liar, but these people didn’t seem to believe me—especially the elf. She looked like she was about to murder me any second now. Or at least try. Instead, with her strange, silver eyes on me, she pulled out a phone and put it to her ear without ever looking at it.

  “She’s not talking,” she said, then put the phone in her pocket again in one swift movement.

  “You could be out there looking for him right now,” I said to the werewolf, sitting across from me. He seemed the more reasonable of the two. “Better yet, you could tell me why you’re looking for my brother in the first place.”

  I’d asked them this four times now. They hadn’t been willing to share so far.

  The werewolf growled, pulling his hands into fists. Was he going to attack me? Right here in a Guild building? He wouldn’t dare, would he?

  Nobody messed with the Sacri Guild. It existed for two reasons: to protect the humans, both from supernaturals and from other deadly creatures who sometimes wandered onto earth by mistake—like hellbeasts, and to keep law and order among supernaturals. They wouldn’t allow people, even their own officers to attack civilians for no reason at all.

  Yet somehow, I didn’t think that rule applied to this particular situation. Maybe it was the way that woman—a Gu
ild employee—didn’t dare to even look at them.

  “Tell me why you’re looking for him,” I insisted. He could growl all he wanted—he didn’t scare me.

  Releasing a long breath, he shook his head. “In just a moment, Ms. Montero.” He stood up to go stand by the pissed off elf.

  “What did he—” My voice was cut off by the door opening.

  A man stepped inside and I forgot how to breathe.

  About six foot one, with wide shoulders, muscular arms hidden away under his black shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Pale, flawless skin, hair so dark it looked completely black, and eyes made of the night sky. A very vibrant night sky.

  I didn’t need my magic to tell me what he was. The sight of him was a dead giveaway—pun intended. This man was a vampire.

  And unfortunately for me, I thought I knew which vampire he was, even though I’d never seen him before.

  I let go of a shaky breath as Kit climbed over my shoulder with a weak squeak, as uncomfortable as I was.

  The vampire stepped into the office, closed the door with his foot, and put his hands in the pockets of his dark jeans. He looked at the elf and the werewolf, ignored the Guild worker completely, and then his eyes met mine.

  My heart skipped a long beat. To call him handsome would be an insult. He was impossibly beautiful the way a lion is breathtaking—right until he opened his jaw and ripped your throat out. His presence was so imposing, filling the room with a kind of coldness that Mother Nature could never replicate. He was still—too still, his muscular chest never moving because he didn’t breathe. He didn’t need air to survive. Just blood.