Primal by Lora Leigh

Author:Lora Leigh [Leigh, Lora]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA), Inc.
Published: 2010-12-15T23:00:00+00:00

TWO

Sajia girded herself to approach the threshold of the occult shop. No other description of the effort fit as well.

It’d been like this from the very first visit she’d made with Corinne. Not just a sensitivity to magic, but a deep aversion to it.

Sweat ran down her back. And already her stomach roiled, leaving her fighting to suppress a violent spew of vomit, as if her soul would flee any way it could.

She smoothed slick palms over her pants and forced herself forward.

A step.

Two.

Her lungs constricted, as if squeezed by a giant fist to force the air out. She barely stifled a gasp. Another step and the Tassone mark was clearly visible, etched in the glass next to the door: a serpent with an apple in its mouth, the three segments of its S-shaped body impaled by an arrow that ran from a point behind the head to just before the tip of its tail.

Unlike in Oakland, the city across the bay, there were no bars covering the glass, no shutters of solid wood or steel to keep someone from breaking in during the day, or guard against the things that roamed the night. The Tassone symbol alone was enough protection.

Sajia resisted the urge to touch the knives she wore at her hips. Except in practice she’d never had to pull them since becoming bajaran. The recently carved symbols on her arm served as a deterrent to trouble.

She wondered if that would remain true when she crossed to Oakland. Unlike San Francisco, that city was controlled by humans, many of whom would gladly rid the world of anything touched by the supernatural.

Those humans with gifts were required to live in a certain area of town, outside of the one patrolled by guardsmen and police. Their houses were marked, identifying the nature of their talents.

Beyond the area set aside for them lay the red zone, a place where vice thrived and the lords who controlled it enforced their own set of laws. Brothels lined the streets, human as well as the ones housing shapeshifters not welcome in the lands controlled by the Were. Gambling clubs and opium dens were common, as were private gathering places where humans could indulge in whatever amused them.

Oakland was a port city. But even without the visiting sailors and merchants, there was plenty of business for the red zone. And that’s where Sajia feared she’d find Corinne. She couldn’t imagine one of the gifted sheltering a vampire scion, or one of the law-abiding.

Given the fisherman’s corpse, she didn’t think she’d find Corinne’s trail by going to the docks. Which left the occult shop as a starting point.

Forcing air into lungs that fought against expanding sent a spasm of pain through Sajia’s chest as she opened the door and stepped into the shop. It smelled of books and incense, scents she usually found pleasing, relaxing.

Not today. And never here.

She made her way to the counter. The man behind it looked up at her approach.

He was a stranger to her, gray-skinned and balding, cadaverous in appearance.

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