Hell's Rayne (Book 1)

Prologue

 I don't run, you need to understand this. I don't run! I've never needed to.                                                          

A bounty hunter I may be, but I dealt in secrets, aliases. They didn't run because they never saw me. I was just the girl at the supermarket, the waitress, the bartender; I wasn't important until it was too late. By the time they really saw me they would see their own demise resting in my fingertips, and there would be nowhere left to run to. So I didn't run.

But the grand plan has its flaws.

 We were bred for a purpose, me and others all the same. Demonic spawn born to a human mother; an expendable vessel to share her blood, nurture our growth and expire once her purpose had been served. Hell would be our home, demons our only 'family'.

 Human blood gave us shape and form, the ability to pass in the world above so we could do our jobs – to keep the fine balance of good and evil in world from tipping too far in one direction and throwing all of life into chaos. Without one the other could not exist, and neither must be able to reign superior. It was all a very delicate art.

 A demonic upbringing would shape our natures, nurture us to be ruthless, dispassionate, cold. We must feel nothing for the souls we would sacrifice for their evil deeds, or corrupt for their goodness.

 But human morality does not sit in silence. The taint of it in our blood gives fight, and the more time spent in human company feeds it strength. Our existence is no seamless hybrid. But I felt the full brunt of an internal war with myself more than others, and I know that neither side of me can be left standing tall in victory.