An hour later

Author

The safehouse had no mirrors. She had removed them months ago. Not out of vanity. Out of disgust.

Aria sat on the concrete floor, back to the wall, knees drawn up. The dossier lay open beside her. She wasn't reading it. She was looking at her hands. Pale in the dim light. Long fingers. Calloused knuckles. The hands of a killer who had learned to hold blades before she learned to hold anything else.

She turned them over. Studied the veins. The faint blue lines that carried blood she had spent her life trying to outrun.

Half demon.

She had never said it aloud. Not in...