by Jessica Gunn
Spark of Lightning
Storm Warden Chronicles: Book One
Jessica Gunn
Copyright © 2020 Jessica Gunn
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Covers by Christian
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is for my party,
who taught me how to laugh even while rolling low.
One's friends really are one's greatest strengths.
Thank you for being mine.
Contents
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
Strike of Magic
Venom in the Skin (Deadly Trades Series: Book One)
Also by Jessica Gunn
About the Author
About Spark of Lightning
A vampire, a werewolf, a fae, and me, a human, walk into a casino. Only one comes out winning the prize.
Lunar Royale Casino: Boston’s premiere hotspot for supernaturals. I’ve served drinks to Boston’s supernatural elite every night for years. But tonight, I will be the first server to join a poker game. You may be asking yourself why I’m taking this dangerous chance of stealing from the king of vampires, a bastard fae prince, and the matriarch of werewolves. Well, it’s because I need the money they’re playing for to leave the city and start over. ASAP.
There’s just one hitch in that plan: the final prize isn’t money, but rather a dragon’s egg. One with ancient magic that, as the game grows tense, calls to me from inside the scaled shell. A sense of destiny, of knowing, I can’t shake off.
That egg, and the dragon inside, are mine. And if I don’t win this game of poker and take the dragon for myself, I’ll lose my life and my one shot out of this city. And these supernaturals will have all they need to start a new war…
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Chapter 1
This was it. Do or die. Everything I’d done until now since becoming estranged from my family came down to tonight’s game of poker, and I was late.
You are truly a work of art, Vera. Not the kind you put on a pedestal, either, but the type you purposely hide away via estrangement for the past six years.
I hurried across the cobbled paths of Boston Commons as I took down my jet-black hair and tried to fluff it out a little. Months of planning had come down to tonight’s gamble and I was late.
Was there anything I could do right? Not according to my family. It wasn’t the arguments and screaming about throwing my life away that had persisted with me after becoming estranged. No, it had been the smaller moments, less noticed. All those A’s going unseen.
Out of nowhere a figure appeared in front of me and I couldn’t quite stop before slamming my shoulder into theirs. The solid muscle of the man’s shoulder tipped me off-balance—it was like impacting a brick wall at a sprint.
A plunking of stone on cobble echoed.
“No!” I scrambled to pick up my prized object.
Warm, strong hands clasped my forearms and steadied me. “Easy there. Sorry about that.” The sound of his voice was like cool air on a summer night, and he smelled like the last wisps of a campfire.
I watched as the golf-ball-sized stone that had been in my pocket slid across the path. Without bothering to get more than a glance at the man I’d collided into, I rushed to grab my fallen treasure. Small and round, this stone didn’t look even an iota as valuable as it really was.
Hugging it close to my body once more, I finally glanced up to the man. “It’s okay.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. Dark curls peeked out from beneath the top of his black hoodie, falling over tanned skin and bright gold and blue eyes. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
I shifted a little, my feet antsy. “Yeah. Thank you for asking. I’m just late for work.” I nodded toward the building on the other side of the Commons. Lunar Royale’s neon yellow sign rose above the tree-line.
The man tilted his head to the side, his eyebrows raising. “I just came from that casino. Interesting place.”
It was my turn to arch my eyebrows. I looked the man over. He didn’t appear to be a supernatural, and that was Lunar Royale’s main clientele. Then, a bit hidden under his sleeve, I spotted a few… scales? What?
Well, that certainly wasn’t natural. But gods was he attractive. The bronze-hued scales slipped over strong, hard-working hands. His face, though partially obscured by the hoodie, looked like that of a marble statue. Mythical, beautiful. Altogether untouchable. Until tonight, I would have thought those kinds of descriptions only belonged in fairytales. But ten years ago, fairytales had become true.
And so too had heroic-looking men like this. Supernaturals also seemed to come with supernatural beauty.
My cheeks flushed. “Yeah,” I replied absently as I scratched the side of my neck.
Men who looked like this tended to be vampires. Scales were new.
Seeing my gaze fall to his hand, the man slipped his sleeve down. “Glad you’re okay.” He gestured vaguely toward the stone in my hand, a curious look twisting his features. “I hope it didn’t break.”
“Nope.” I pocketed the stone. Some weird, overprotective feeling washed over me. Like it was almost my duty to keep this thing hidden. Given what it was supposed to be, I kind of understood. “All good. It’s okay, really.”
The man smiled. His relief was almost palpable.
Almost as though he knew what the stone was too.
My gaze fell to his scaled hands again. Something tugged on my chest. I wasn’t sure what it was, or even how to describe it, but the feeling was as real as the wind and the stars. Pulling and guiding my gaze continually to him. Almost like a tuneless siren’s song.
The man nodded, seemingly oblivious to the rightness of this moment. “Well, have a good night.” Then he turned and began walking away like nothing had happened at all.
“You… too.”
Weirdo. And what a weird moment.
My mind skipped, replaying the scene over and over again like some dumb romantic comedy.
A sharp staccato sound filled the air. My phone’s event alarm.
Crap! I was late for work. Really late now.
Hurrying along, I exited Boston Commons and entered the casino. Halley, my 5’5” drill sergeant-on-a-bad-day boss, caught my arm on my way inside the VIP lounge. She didn’t speak a single word—she didn’t need to. Her strained and slightly wrinkled blue eyes were enough to tell me she was happy I’d made it here okay but also disappointed in my tardiness. I didn’t hate this look. In some ways, Halley had become an older sister to me in the months I’d worked here.
Lunar Royale wasn’t your average casino, and my highly-awaited night wasn’t about to feature a normal game of poker. Not at the Lunar Royale Cas
ino, home of games of chance catered solely to the supernaturals of Boston—the city that had remained strong enough to rise from the ashes of a meteor strike on D.C. and build itself anew after the supernatural invasion and following war.
But that was all ancient history ten years old. What mattered tonight was me applying everything I had learned and finally, finally, earning enough money to ensure me a way out of this city safely. Too many miles of ungoverned supernaturals stood between Boston and other populated areas, the remnants of human civilization after the fallout of the meteor strike and Supernatural War.
Being cast aside. Stealing from my family on my way out. Working nightshifts for years serving endless drinks to vampires and werewolves and fae. Watching some of my coworkers be murdered for a snack… all roads led here. Tonight, Boston’s elite supernaturals would enter a game of chance for more than their normal pleasantries and territorial disputes. I knew that because there was less security around than normal. That meant fewer eyes, fewer witnesses. Both to the game, the supernaturals’ conversation, and to whatever the prize was.
And that meant the final pot was something more valuable than money and information and magic.
My fingers itched. I shifted my stance in an effort to focus on something other than how badly I wanted to be dealt into the game about to unfold before me. The movement set off my antsy feet and I found myself moving again.
Cassie, one of the other risk-loving waitresses, leaned over. “Stop being weird, Vera. Haven’t you seen who’s here tonight?” Her high-pitched, nasally voice carried on the air around us.
I nodded in a tight motion, trying not to wince. “Yeah.” Not only did I know who was here, but I also knew they’d all probably heard her ask that question, given their supernaturally strong hearing. And now they all knew I was acting weird.
I closed my eyes for a moment and forced a long inhale that I held for a few seconds before breathing out. Calm down, Vera. I was ever aware that at the very least, the vampire king could hear my heartbeat if he tried. And right now, it wouldn’t be racing from solely attraction to his mythical beauty. The kind of perfection vampires used to their advantage in seducing new victims each night.
Even potential victims like me, who knew of the power he held in his pearly-white fangs. Kristian was tall, standing at almost six feet, with paled skin, tousled brown hair, and eastern European looks. And although he wasn’t the most physically built vampire I had ever seen walk these halls, Kristian didn’t need muscle to exude power. He was simply power incarnate.
Quickly, I tossed my long, black hair back over one shoulder. Normally, that would be a terrible idea for a female in the presence of a vampire. But at Lunar Royale, it was simply another tactic we were trained to lure out tips for us and distracted tells for the other players.
Kristian Kane, said vampire king of the Night Court of New England, turned his head to me. His eyes narrowed, a dark red slimming to slits like a predator homing in on a kill. No doubt he was. Racing pulse, barred neck. I was all but begging for it with my verdant green perfected “please bite me” gaze.
Sometimes I wondered if this job was worth it. But more often than not, the unbridled fear at being caught in a predator’s crosshairs like this was just enough to make me feel something for once. And fear was powerful enough to get me through until the next shift.
You see, it wasn’t a death wish I had working here. The rush of fear was a nice pick-me-up, but there was a singular purpose to this madness. The goal? Earn enough money to get a new identity, a new life, and leave Boston to go live it. And maybe even feel something besides empty again, save for sparse time periods of said unbridled fear. Having the world turned on its head ten years ago, leaving my family, trying to sort out who I was in this new world of supernaturals… it had all left me scarred and afraid that connections to people would only be severed by the universe or bad luck all the same.
So here, I worked and pretended it was a death-wish to avoid the truth.
That said, plenty of waitresses had died doing this job. Many at Kristian’s or another vampire’s hands.
I gulped as Kristian’s gaze lingered, roaming over my body in a most invasive way. Like he could see right through my clothes.
Or right through me to my intentions.
My heartbeat—what a traitor it was—sped up like a drumline under the vampire king’s cool gaze, which lit my skin on fire. Then he did something I didn’t expect.
Kristian tilted his head and blinked. A slow smile twisted his lips.
Was I… amusing somehow?
Well, I supposed this entire scenario was amusing if one thought about it long enough. Amusing and stupid.
“Kristian, please leave the help alone and gaze at your cards instead,” Milani said, her words and tone smooth. Not a single tell on her graceful face or in her vigilant eyes. The werewolf matriarch didn’t have many despite their clan being known for violence and strict laws. Her halter-top emerald dress hugged her form and revealed intricate tattoos down the length of both of her arms.
Kristian let his crimson gaze roam over me once more, smiling as though he knew something I didn’t, and then turned to his companions. “My apologies, Matriarch.”
I knew he didn’t actually care. I’d watched Kristian slight her enough times at the poker table to know his words, like hers, were only pleasantries. Vampires and werewolves, just like in all the bedtime stories, were destined to never get along. Always at war, always at odds, both for prey and for lordship over the night.
Milani folded her hands, sparing a glance at her top-shelf Tiffany watch. If I were dumb enough to try stealing it, I’d make a pretty thirty-thousand-dollar penny off of it.
Sometimes I regretted not stealing my mother’s own Tiffany watches instead of a stone the size of a golf ball. Granted, when I’d had that stone priced at a pawn shop, the owner had said it was, in fact, priceless. Invaluable. But if he had a guess, it would be worth more if it was fully charged with magic. As it was, the stone probably wouldn’t work with so little magical energy in it right now.
“If you’re hungry and it will impact the game, eat now,” Milani said, a light European accent in her words. Not thick enough for me to have ever figured out the origin. It made me wonder if the accent was actually fake—another distraction tactic.
Speaking of, I deftly adjusted the top of my blouse. Next to me, Cassie tossed her hair back behind her shoulders too.
I did hate this. The purposeful marketing of our bodies. With any luck, tonight would be the last time my fair skin would be on display for the night’s scariest predators.
“Yeah, don’t want you to get hangry.” Keir, a visiting fae, laughed. The sound of it carried around the room like bells or faint singing. Fae’s voices always did when they were happy. I supposed this added to the whole “fae can’t lie” stereotype because when they faked laughter, the bells and faint singing didn’t accompany it. His white-blond hair pin straight and cut short, his angled face as though cut from stone, his thin, wiry frame—all of him screamed fae despite being half-human. An aura of light seemed to shimmer around him like a mirage.
It was strange—abnormal in the way the scaled guy from earlier tonight had been. As focused as I was on this game here and now, I couldn’t shake the siren’s song feeling I’d had in front of him.
Who was he?
“Shut it, half-breed,” Treya Donovan said. She tossed a hand in an impatient gesture my way. Treya had only ever made eye contact with me once, and it had been a look filled with shock followed up sharply by disgust.
If the co-CEO of my parents’ financial firm knew I worked here at the Lunar Royale, it was safe to assume my parents did too. And as such, Treya wanted nothing to do with me anymore. Which was fine by me. Treya had never been anything but cold and distant to both me and my sisters since the day her firm had merged with my parents’ after the meteor strike ten years ago.
She had, of course, eventually warmed up to my eldest sister. Rach
el would one day be working with Treya or Treya’s heir after all.
Ugh. I’d never wanted anything to do with the family business and its sketchy clientele and clandestine meetings. Not to mention the questionable money trails no one thought I knew about. In fact, my dismissal of it had eventually led to the series of events that had led to my ousting from the family. Ditching business classes for photography had led to me getting kicked out of college, which had led to me being unable to find a job. And since I’d had zero interest in Varrone-Donovan Financial, my parents had cut me off. One big argument later, and I was packing my bags.
That was six years ago. I hadn’t spoken to my family or rich “friends” since, even when I’d tried. I was below them. A failure and a deserter.
I’d never quite bothered to connect to anyone or anything since. Why risk that pain again?
Keir leaned forward and jabbed a finger in the air toward Treya. The singing and bells had stopped. “Call me half-breed again and I’ll show you exactly why humans ended up at the bottom of the food chain.”
The air in the room grew thick enough to punch. No one spoke for a moment that stretched into many seconds.
Keir then laughed, heartily and loud. “Gods, you all are way too serious. Come to the fae weave some time and I can teach you all how to have fun.”
“No, thank you,” Treya said. Of course she wouldn’t indulge. Given how well she got along with my parents, I was convinced Treya didn’t have a fun bone in her body.
