Umbra (ePub)

He'd cornered Merc at the back of the alley, her eyes going wide, first brown, then blue, then hazel. He could hear stray dogs fighting in the distance. One yelped, making the dirty little girl jump right out of her skin. Dropping to one knee, as if he were proposing, he'd fingered her hair-blond... red... gray... black-fascinated by the kaleidoscope effect of the changes that sped up along with her breath.

In the Fringes, where the undesirables of human society co-exist with changelings and fey, no one has time or energy to worry about the weirdness happening around them. Weirdness like me.

My adopted parents found me wandering the Po-Town streets-a seven-year-old shapeshifter who couldn't control her changes. Lost and unable to remember where I came from, I didn't recall my parents or what I originally looked like. Now, fifteen years after my rescue, I'm in high demand as a thief, spy, and champion of the changeling community against a mafia boss selling out his own people. I've made it my personal crusade to take him down along with the vampires he's working with, preferably without dying.

One night during a job, Dúl-a tall, dark, and irritating fey-makes me an offer that can change everything. The amount of money on the line could get me out of the Fringe for good. It could get my boyfriend, Paris, away from the drugs that are driving a growing wedge between us.

All I have to do is retrieve a stolen enchanted dagger, save a fey VIP who hates my guts, and avoid getting seduced into the fey courts I swore to never become a part of.

Two out of three isn't bad. Right?