The music throbbed through every fiber of my body, making my blood pound. The urge to relax, to transform, and become one with the animal lurking just under the surface washed over me until my only desire was to satisfy the need it was becoming. My partner danced closer, the firm muscles of his chest and thighs rubbing against mine, our sweat mingling and tension rising as his hand slid along the edge of my skirt and snagged on the leather sheath of the knife strapped to my thigh.

“Oh, Gods! Get off me.” The trance broken by a sudden flash of reality, I pushed him away. 

“I’ve got to get some air.” Gabe, that was what his name was, Gabriel. I didn’t know him—he was a friend of Lena’s, one of my few human friends. Sometimes it was hard to maintain my identity as an ordinary human woman. Gram insisted that these alternate personalities were necessary to allow me to interact on Earth One more safely. Most of the time, I didn’t see why. 

My name’s Grace, Grace Evans. I’m a Nautica Prime World-Walker. Evans was the name I’d adopted after my father had been executed for crimes against humanity and most of the other sentient creatures inhabiting the Chain of Worlds. Evans had been the name my grandmother was known by before she met her destiny as a Nautica Prime. I wasn’t sure if she had ever chosen a new one. Just now, I was pretty much up to my teeth in my current mission, which was to track down who or what was stalking the young humans living in this area. Unfortunately, college-age humans tended to be very naïve and made easy prey. Not that I didn’t sympathize with their plight. It’s just that there were so many other things I would rather be doing.

I kept my own apartment near the local college. Lena, Candi, and Marci were the only three human females I’d managed to tolerate for any amount of time, but I needed them to cement my personality as a regular human college student. The independent living arrangements did give me a certain amount of space and privacy from them, but it was still challenging to keep them off me. I just didn’t get this incessant need for constant interaction and texting. What was with that? 

There was no way I would, or even could, keep those simpletons informed about my every move or thought. I had to smirk. I could just imagine their reaction if they knew that a typical day for me might include a battle with a rogue dragon or even one of the zombie outbreaks that kept occurring at random sites along the Chain. The Council had created a web, a virtual network of barriers meant to keep our hereditary enemy, the Destri, from crossing into our protected worlds, but that didn’t prevent the numerous incursions of native creatures from happening. Dealing with those was my job. Well, not just mine. 

I was a trained and active warrior, having been a full member of the Nautica Prime Guardians since I was fourteen. My grandmother’s Nautica genes allowed my younger brother Kai and I to shift or World-Walk. We also carried our father’s genetic ability to shapeshift. The appearance of this new off-world drug being called Black Venom by those in the know was reason enough for concern, but the added problem of the missing people was the final straw. 

The drug was deadly. A small dose sent the user on a roller-coaster ride of euphoria for what the addict felt was a lifetime before crashing to the depths of a hell only the user could imagine—and death. They were the lucky ones. Most of the remains we’d been able to access showed evidence of having been infected with parasites before their deaths. What appeared to be a common spider bite on the back of their necks had swollen with the larva growing for what we’d concluded was a maximum of ten days, when it would burst, releasing a swarm of tiny black widow spiders. Headquarters wanted to know who produced this drug and why they were infecting these young men. As a source of financial gain, it was short-lived. The only purpose of the kidnaping and murders seemed to be acquiring the young men as incubators. The evidence pointed to the women being killed for the sake of the human organs that were missing from the bodies that had been recovered. 

Despite warnings on the local news, the comparative innocence of the local college-age population continued to provide an easy and unending target. I might not enjoy the company of humans, but I seriously hated it when someone or thing made them their number-one target. 

Putting myself into the mix where I could track down the source was the only reason I’d agreed to participate in this version of dating. 

“Come on, Grace,” the girls begged when they caught up with me at lunch. “You never do anything fun.” Considering my current lack of leads, I reluctantly allowed them to drag me along on their Saturday night tramp from one sleazy nightclub to the next in the hopes of spotting some kind of activity.

So far, all I’d encountered was one fully infected young man who I did the favor of executing before burning the swarm of insects escaping from the broken sack on the back of his neck. I’d found one dealer of the drugs, but he appeared to be uninfected and unaware of the consequences. I’d smashed the half-dozen small vials he was carrying and left him unconscious behind the second nightclub when his interrogation had yielded nothing but irrational babbling.