City In Embers (Collector, #1)

by Stacey Marie Brown

It was a dart gun, filled with a high dose of chloroform. The real gun loaded with special fae-designed ammo was attached to my left side and was only used in emergency cases.

Great. A snake shape-shifter.

Daniel didn’t seem to feel the same. From the beginning he shut down any advances I made. He stressed our age difference or commented on my youthful twenty-two years. He could discourage me till he was eighty, but it was too late. I was already in love with him.

we were given a test in my psychology class. To the teacher and most students, it looked like a quiz on social behaviors and mannerisms. Pictures were flashed on the screen, and we were asked to describe what we saw. I learned later the government was testing us for “the sight” and to see if we were sensitive to the paranormal—humans who could see through the veils of glamour fae put around themselves to blend in.

Fae was the general term for them, like calling all of us human. There are different races and species under the fae umbrella: shape-shifters, fairies, demons, incubus, leprechauns, gnomes, sprites, and the list goes on and on.

Dr. Rapava, the director of DMG, had made a discovery fifteen years earlier showing the value of fae cells in helping humans. Our testing had advanced finding a cure for things like cancer and birth defects. Imagine someday no child would die from cancer or suffer from a birth defect.

Lexie wasn’t my real sister. She was a fellow foster kid, but the closest thing I could ever imagine to having a sibling.

“Weakness has nothing to do with it. It doesn’t make you vulnerable to admit you had no control of a situation. What makes you powerless is putting the blame on yourself and easing it off the culprit. To take on what he did and make it your own.” His voice stayed deep and soothing. He remained matter of fact, but the words struck me deeply. “And you are one of the toughest humans I ever met. You are anything but weak.”