Magic Hunter: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Vampire's Mage Series Book 1) by C.N. Crawford

hadn’t failed to notice Caine’s jaw drop when she’d stepped out of the room in the tiny black dress. Still, she felt exposed, and tugged the neckline up.
    “But you’ve got to stop fidgeting,” Aurora added. “You’re acting like a pedestrian.”
    Rosalind frowned. “A pedestrian?”
    “Ordinary people,” Aurora said. “Those without magic. Boring. Stuck on the ground. Like you with that stupid iron ring. I told you. Stop fidgeting.”
    “This isn’t how I normally dress. And there’s no room in this dress for my weapon belt.” Not to mention a bra.
    “Only pedestrians need weapons,” Caine said.
    She liked her weapons. But even without them, a Hunter had other tools. Josiah had taught her to scan her environment for anything that was usable as a weapon. Ingenuity was the one area where Hunters had the upper hand. Iron dust could defeat magic, and Hunters knew how to fight the old-fashioned way: fists, broken bottles, big blocks of wood—whatever they could find.
    In the cool sea air, goose bumps raised on her skin. Nothing stood on the wharf apart from a ramshackle, two-story house labelled Sail Loft . Weather-beaten and boarded with old wood, it must have been deserted for centuries.
    She hugged herself. “That’s where we’re going?”
    “Glamoured,” Caine said. “Unlike me.”
    Rosalind paused, touching his arm. “I’m supposed to act like a mage, and they’ll believe it?”
    Caine nodded. “As much as you can. They’ll know you’re human by your scent, but they won’t touch a mage. If they think you’re pedestrian, things will become unpleasant fast. And if they discover you’re a Hunter, you can expect an excruciating death.”
    “Fantastic,” she said.
    “That’s why you should take the ring off,” Aurora said. “What if a high demon comes in? Some of them could smell your Hunter blood even if you haven’t drunk ambrosia in a day. A bit of real magic would protect you.”
    Instinctively, Rosalind tightened her hand into a fist. The whole point of this was that she’d never again have to suffer the wild, burning rage of the witch’s soul, that uncontrolled animal mind that threatened to swallow her whole. “That is not a good idea.”
    “It’s true. She’s not ready for that yet,” Caine said. “We’ll just hope no high demons are there tonight.”
    Aurora arched an eyebrow. “You just want to hope? That’s your plan? We should’ve left her at home.”
    “We can’t leave her anywhere until I erase some of her memories,” Caine shot back. “She could still run to the Brotherhood with everything she knows, in the hopes of making a deal.”
    Rosalind scowled. She really hated that whole memory-erasing idea. “I’m not taking off the ring again until I can get this spirit out.”
    Caine looked her over, his gaze lingering on her skin. “It’s fine. With the tattoos, she can pass as a mage. As long as she can manage to refrain from lecturing everyone about morality for the next twenty minutes.”
    “We’ll just go in and ask about the sybil, right?” Rosalind asked.
    “No,” Caine said. “You don’t want to launch right into the sybil thing. It’s never good to let vampires know you’re desperate. It gives them power over you. We’ll blend in, get some food, act like normal shadow mages, and then casually ask Jorge about the sybil.”
    “Little problem,” Aurora said. “She doesn’t smell like a mage.”
    Caine arched an eyebrow. “Mages don’t have a smell.”
    “Yours is like fresh earth,” Aurora said. “A bit of peat and some sage. I think that part belongs to you. But the magic has its own scent. Anyone who’s conducted Angelic spells in the past several days smells like a lightning storm and singed air.”
    Rosalind furrowed her brow. “Are you telling me I need to smell like ozone?”
    Aurora shrugged. “If you don’t want the vampires to kill you, you need to smell like Caine. Or you need to take off the ring and do one little