The roar of the crowd in Haven's Rest Arena felt different than Steel Heart. Hungrier somehow. Jez rolled her shoulders, feeling the leather armor stretch across her back as she sized up her opponent – a mountain of muscle named Garman whose entire fighting strategy consisted of hitting things until they stopped moving. Simple, effective, but predictable. Still, the man had arms larger than other men's thighs and a sledgehammer to match.

  What wasn't predictable was the way her own senses had sharpened since entering the city three days ago. Every heartbeat in the crowd thundered in her ears. Every drop of sweat carried distinct scents. Every movement seemed almost comically slow.

  "Ladies and gentlemen of Haven's Rest!" The announcer's voice boomed across the arena. "Our challenger from Steel Heart, the Restrained Rage, the Night Hunter herself – Jezebelle Ainsworth!"

  The crowd's response was tepid at best. She was a realtive unknown here, despite her new reputation in Steel Heart. In Haven’s Rest she was ?just? the Night Hunter. Capable, good, at times defeatable.

  "Good," she whispered to herself.

  Across the sand, Garman cracked his knuckles. Three previous fighters had faced him tonight. All three were currently being tended by healers, and he still looked as if he just entered the Arena.

  "For those placing last-minute wagers," the announcer continued, "House odds stand at seven-to-one against our challenger!"

  Jez smiled. She'd placed a substantial bet on herself through an intermediary. That would fund her, and her search for Fain nicely.

  The bell rang. Garman charged like an enraged bull.

  Time seemed to slow as that strange new awareness took over. She could see the muscles tensing in his right arm before he even began his swing. Could hear the slight catch in his breath that telegraphed his intention. Could smell the sweat, the leather, the blood from his earlier fights.

  Blood.

  Something shifted inside her. A hunger so intense it was almost painful.

  Garman's fist swung through empty air as Jez stepped aside with unnatural grace. Her counterattack was automatic – a precise strike to his exposed kidney followed by a sweeping kick that should have staggered him.

  Instead, Garman went flying across the arena to crash into the wooden barrier.

  The crowd went silent.

  Fuck, that was too much, Jez thought, suddenly frightened. No one should be able to launch a man his size with one kick.

  Garman staggered to his feet, confusion written across his grizzly face. Then rage. He charged again with a roar that allowed the blood in his mouth to spatter a line behind him.

  This time Jez held back, fighting on pure defensive instinct, letting him tire himself out. Every blow he threw met empty air. Every lumbering attack gave her openings she deliberately didn't take.

  "Stop dancing and fight!" someone shouted from the crowd.

  I might kill him, she realized. The thought should have been horrifying. Instead, it sent a thrill through her that was almost... pleasurable. Stay calm, Ainsworth. Hold your instincts. Stay professional.

  When Garman finally overextended on a desperate haymaker, Jez struck with carefully controlled force. One hit to the sternum. Another to the knee. A measured throw that sent him sprawling but not flying, which in itself was a strange result of a man the size of a bear fighting a woman that reached the bottom half of his chest.

  The crowd went silent, anticipating.

  He didn't get up.

  The crowd's stunned silence erupted into cheers as the bell rang. "Victory to the challenger!" the announcer shouted. "The Night Hunter claims her first Haven's Rest triumph!"

  Jez raised her fist, accepting their adulation while trying to ignore the hunger gnawing at her insides. A hunger that had nothing to do with food.

  ---

  "You fight like you're afraid of something," Madame Frost said, sliding a mug of dark ale across the table. "And it’s not your opponents.?

  The underground fighting circuit's organizer had approached Jez after her third victory of the night. Unlike most in Haven's Rest's fighting world, Madame Frost was exactly what her name suggested – cold, precise, and potentially lethal if mishandled.

  "Just trying not to kill anyone on my first night," Jez replied, trying for humor. "Makes a bad impression."

  Frost's ice-blue eyes studied her with uncomfortable intensity. "There are other arenas for those with... special talents. More private venues. Better paying."

  "I'm not interested in killing."

  "Who said anything about killing? I'm talking about exhibitions for discerning audiences. Those who appreciate unique fighters." Frost's hand moved to cover Jez's for just a moment. Her skin was unnaturally cold.

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  Jez pulled her hand away. "I'm just passing through. Looking for someone."

  "Everyone in Haven's Rest is looking for someone." Frost smiled, revealing teeth that seemed just slightly too sharp. "Sometimes they're looking for themselves."

  "His name is Fain. Wiry build, keeps a journal, dies a lot."

  Something flickered in Frost's eyes. Recognition, perhaps. Or calculation.

  "Information costs, Hunter. More than coin."

  "Name your price."

  "Three fights in my private arena. No holds barred. Against opponents of my choosing."

  The hunger stirred inside Jez. The prospect of fighting without restraint was disturbingly appealing.

  "When?"

  "Tomorrow night. After the public matches."

  Jez drained her ale. "Fine. Now, about Fain?"

  "He's been seen in the Undercity. The parts where even the guards don't go." Frost's smile turned predatory. "Particularly around the old temple district. What's your interest in him?"

  "Professional curiosity."

  "He's not a monster, you know. At least, not the kind you usually hunt.?

  "How do you know what I hunt?"

  Frost stood, smoothing her immaculate white dress. "Haven's Rest survives on information, Hunter. I make it my business to know who enters my city. Besides, you reek of Hunter." She nodded toward Jez's untouched plate of food. "You should eat something. You look hungry."

  After Frost left, Jez pushed the food away. It held no appeal. Nothing did except the thought of the fight tomorrow night, where she wouldn't have to hold back.

  And the thought of finding Fain.

  ---

  The Undercity of Haven's Rest existed beneath the carefully maintained streets above. What had once been ground level in the ancient city was now a labyrinth of forgotten temples, abandoned homes, and shadowy commerce that the city's respectable citizens pretended didn't exist. Once, Haven's Rest had been a site for pilgrimages, turned a trading center after the great fire.

  Jez moved through it like a ghost, her night vision now sharp enough to navigate without a torch. Another change she was trying not to think about too hard.

  Following Frost's information, she headed toward the temple district. The buildings here still held vestiges of their former glory – columns carved with faded gods, altars long bereft of offerings, stone eyes that seemed to follow movement. Scorch marks and dirt hid what once had been monuments to deities long forgotten.

  The scent hit her first. Blood. Fresh and familiar. Not so fresh, when she thought about it. Like wine that had been open just a day or two too long.

  She found Fain in the ruins of what might have been a temple to some forgotten death deity. He lay sprawled across a broken altar, blood pooling beneath him from what looked like a sword wound through his chest. A journal lay open beside him, pages fluttering in the faint breeze from the street grates above.

  "Not again," Fain muttered, amazingly still conscious despite his mortal wound. "This is getting repetitive."

  Jez stepped from the shadows. "You should be dead."

  "I am. Temporarily." His eyes focused on her with difficulty. "Do I know you? You seem... familiar."

  "We met in Steel Heart. Three times. You consistently failed to remember me. You told me you were heading here."

  "Ah. Memory issues. Side effect of dying repeatedly." He coughed, blood speckling his lips. "Could you... make a note in my journal? Page sixteen has space. Just... where you found me, how I died, the date. It helps me keep track."

  Despite everything, Jez found herself picking up the journal. The pages were filled with meticulous notes in different handwritings – all presumably Fain's, written after different deaths. Death by hanging. Death by poison. Death by "excessive enthusiasm from arena fans."

  "You really do die a lot," she said, surprised. Definitely not a Shapeshifter.

  "Occupational hazard of being unkillable." He coughed again. "I'll be back in a few hours. New body, same problems, less memory. Thanks for the notes."

  "Wait, you can't just–"

  But his eyes had already glazed over, the last breath leaving his body with a soft sigh.

  Jez stood over his corpse, hunger gnawing at her insides, confusion clouding her thoughts. This wasn't a shapeshifter. This wasn't some monster preying on the innocent. This was something else entirely.

  She'd tracked him across half the continent, certain he was some kind of threat. But watching him die so matter-of-factly, hearing him talk about coming back as if describing the weather – it challenged a lot of her established views on monster and man.

  ?What are you?? Her voice echoed in the hollow room as she flipped through the journal for some clues on what he was doing.

  The hunger surged suddenly, her gaze fixed on the blood pooling around his body. Fresh. Warm. Inviting.

  Before she realized what she was doing, Jez found herself kneeling beside him, fingers dipping into the crimson pool. The smell was intoxicating.

  What am I doing? The thought crashed through her haze of hunger. She stumbled backward, horror replacing hunger.

  "No," she whispered. "No, no, no. Fucking no.?

  She fled the temple, Fain's journal clutched in her hand, the truth she'd been avoiding now impossible to deny. The changes in her body. The sensitivity to sunlight. The unnatural strength. The hunger for blood.

  She wasn't hunting a monster.

  She was becoming one.

  ---

  Madame Frost was waiting when Jez staggered into the abandoned bathhouse that served as her headquarters.

  "You saw him die," Frost said. Not a question.

  "What is he?" Jez demanded, throwing Fain's journal onto the marble table between them.

  "What are you?" Frost countered. "You came to my city hunting monsters, only to find yourself changing into something... else." She gestured to a mirror on the wall. "Look at yourself, Hunter."

  Jez turned reluctantly. Her reflection showed what she'd been avoiding – eyes with a reddish tint that caught the light unnaturally, skin too pale, features somehow sharper than before. When she grimaced, her canines seemed just slightly too long.

  "Vampire," she whispered, distaste filling her mouth.

  "Not quite. Not yet." Frost moved beside her, her own reflection noticeably dimmer in the mirror. "You're in transition. That hunt where everything changed – you were bitten but not fully turned. Rare, but it happens."

  "How do I stop it?"

  "You don't. You either complete the transition or..." Frost drew a finger across her throat.

  "There must be another way."

  "Perhaps. Haven's Rest holds many secrets." Frost picked up Fain's journal. "Just as your friend here does. He's something unique – bound to death but unable to stay dead. A perfect opposite to what you're becoming."

  "I tracked him because I thought he was a threat."

  "Oh, he is. Just not in the way you imagined." Frost's smile was cold. "While he can’t die, people around him often does."

  "What?"

  "That's what my three fights will buy you. Information worth dying for – or in Fain's case, worth dying repeatedly for."

  Jez stared at her warped reflection, at the creature she was becoming, and made her decision.

  "When?"

  "Tomorrow night. Come hungry." Frost's smile widened, revealing teeth definitely too sharp to be human. "You'll need your strength."

  As Frost glided away, Jez remained before the mirror, watching the stranger she was becoming. The hunter becoming prey to her own nature. The monster-slayer becoming what she once hunted.

  Now what? Taking the advice of the most obvious vampire spawn within thousand miles?

  Tomorrow she would fight without restraint. Tomorrow she would learn the truth about Fain, and herself.

  Tomorrow she would either master this hunger or surrender to it completely.

  Either way, the Night Hunter would never be the same again.