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Chapter 1

Christian

I’ve followed her to three different clubs now, one after the other, always the same attempt. The woman leans in to the bouncer as he checks her ID, his eyes dancing over her slender body. A dimple kisses her cheek in answer. Her smile is a perfect shine of purity. Innocence. Temptation.

I look away, staring out into the shadows briefly before my attention demands to see her once more. The black dress she wears isn’t tight or short or revealing like the other girls waiting in line. It’s thin and hugs the curve of her breasts as well as the roundness of her ass before flowing out into a sweet sway of fabric around her creamy thighs. It leaves little to the imagination but somehow still looks classy despite the hellhole she stands in.

The deep drag of my cigarette is useless but it calms me all the same as I inhale the smoke slowly. It clears the distorted mess in my mind.

Slightly.

I focus my senses to better listen in on them from several yards away. Among the blare of horns and noise of the city, he tells her there’s a ten-dollar cover charge.

She and I both know she doesn’t have ten dollars. So why do we keep doing this, Pretty Pet? Why make me follow you from one shitty club to the next? Do you like being rejected? Do you need a drink that badly? Do you really want to see how little patience I have before I fucking snap this man’s neck and lead you inside myself?

Her hand touches lightly to the man’s broad chest, and the way her big eyes look up at him through thick lashes tells me the club’s charge doesn’t stand a fucking chance.

He shakes his head this way and that . . . and then unclips the chain and waves her tight ass inside.

Even I smile at her achievement.

I scuff out the cigarette with a quick drag of my shoe over the cracking sidewalk and roll my shoulders.

The bouncer motions to the next group of girls in line, but I make my move quickly before she’s swallowed up and lost inside the sea of undulating bodies. Magic bursts through my veins as I pull from it. A chaotic energy swarms my mind as well as my sight. Cold wind flits through my hair, and then, I’m standing in front of the man.

“Get in line, asshole,” he grunts at me.

The soft giggle from the group of girls slowly trickles away as they look up at me, their lips going slack. Their eyes get that empty, doll-like look before I fix my attention back on the man in front of me.

I pull a mortal hundred-dollar bill from my pocket and hold it up to the bouncer’s face. A curl of his lips is all that he gets out before I focus my intent on him. My gaze locks with his glare, and the will of his own mind slowly becomes as vacant as his eyes. Glassy orbs look back at me now.

“Invite me in, asshole,” I ask nicely. Calmly. The politeness is so forced it presses painfully against the back of my teeth.

“Come in,” he says so quietly the words barely crawl over his lips. The man’s big bald head nods emptily, and with a clatter of chains, I’m invited in.

“Thank you,” I whisper flatly, my hand pressing the mortal money against his chest before letting it float slowly to the ground as I pass.

Music vibrates through my entire body the moment I step inside. It’s like a pulse in my veins, and that alone makes me feel uncomfortable in this dark, musky place.

“Where did you go, Pretty Pet?” My sight lights up the shadows, clearing the haze of darkness but still not spotting the one face I’m searching for.

“Hey, handsome.” A woman with a sloshing cup in her hand staggers closer to me, her free hand coming up fast between her chest and mine.

My grip snatches around her feeble wrist before her fingers ever get a chance to walk up the span of my white button up. A whimper of pain hums from behind glossy lips at my hold on her. I look down at her wide eyes. Her wrist is still in my grasp, and I have to consciously release her. Instead of breaking off her limb for attempting to touch me, I smile with concentrated effort, give the stupid girl a wink, and walk away.

“Fuck, he was hot,” I hear her whisper to someone else.

But I’m too busy wiping the scent of her off of my right hand while I sweep through the throng of bodies. Glinting red hair catches my eye. I follow after the girl for only a few steps before seeing her face and finding only disappointment.

Where is she?

A man stumbles hard, and I have to sidestep his dirty, outreached hand that fumbles to cling on to me for support. He hits the floor face-first. He doesn’t get up. 

And then among a thousand distractions, I hear her. Her laughter is a low seductive sound that vibrates under the music, calling to my ears, and I turn slowly until I spot her. She leans against the bar, her head tilted toward a man with short, buzzed hair and metal that glints across his eyebrow, nose, and lower lip when the neon lights sway their way.

They take a few steps away from the busy bar area, and his hand slides around her waist as he passes her something between his two fingers.

A cherry-red ember lights up when she puts it between her lips. She inhales. Her lashes flutter. Her breasts press against the thin material of the dress before her full red lips purse, and she exhales oh so slowly.

He leans into her once more, and I realize I have to move. Now.

I quickly step over the man still sleeping quietly on the dirty club floor. With a casual stride, I walk toward her. I never take my eyes off of her. And finally, she looks up. Shining, green eyes like jewels meant for royalty meet mine and lock.

The man still whispers in her ear, but the smile on her lips is a ghost of amusement. He touches her, he talks to her, he wants her . . . while she watches me.

I pass the two of them, our gazes still locked with a magnetic feeling that pulls deep inside of me even. There’s a thing called heartstrings: a feeling of hearts pulling to be near one another. It’s a bullshit mortal idea of what love is supposed to be. But that’s what it feels like between us right now. It physically hurts to pass her by like I might never set eyes on her again. My smile isn’t forced this time. It pulls at the corner of my lips, and I want badly to finally speak to the girl I’ve followed around this city all night.

I find a spot at the bar instead.

I hate to do it, but I look away from her. I feel her lost pang of disappointment when I do. It sinks into me in a strange way that only confirms that she is who I think she is.

The bartender goes to pass me for a group of young girls at the end of the bar, but as soon as he meets my eyes, he stops dead in front of me.

“Uh—” he stutters, his body not even his own at the moment.

“Whiskey.” I nod to him, and he rushes to fill a glass.

I smell her long before I see her. It’s a warming scent that fills my chest. I close my eyes slowly to take it in. Like fresh honey and a warm Sunday afternoon.

My eyes open, and she’s standing there in front of me.

She’s smaller than I realized. Delicate. Breakable.

She doesn’t paw at me like the other woman did. She stands with wide eyes and hesitation. She isn’t uncertain or unconfident. It’s something else. It’s her body telling her she shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be falling into the predator’s trap.

And yet, here we are: the predator and the prey.

She seems to fight with herself. She wants my attention, but she knows she shouldn’t. They all know they shouldn’t.

Run away, little Pet. While you still have a chance.

“Dance with me.” She doesn’t say it like a request. It’s a command.

And fuck if I don’t follow her right out into the middle of that disgusting throng of people.

“Sir, your drink,” the bartender says.

“What the fuck?” the man who previously had her says.

But she isn’t his. She isn’t mine either.

Both of us fucking know it. But she turns, and her back arches against my chest. Her ass presses against my hips. And my hands slide down her body to the perfect curve of full, lush thighs.

For a single moment, what I came here to do isn’t even on my mind. There’s an energy between us the second we touch. It washes out the dirty feel of the club. It washes away everyone and everything that isn’t this intoxicating girl.

She turns slowly, and I don’t even flinch when her warm fingers slip around the back of my neck. The feel of her soft curves pressing against me has too many sensations buzzing through me.

Who is this girl, really?

She pulls back slightly and lifts her hand. Smoke rolls across her lips like dark magic that I know too well. Thunderous bass shakes through my chest, the room filling with pulsing music and possibilities. Hooded, green eyes look up at me with lust and curiosity shining in the neon lights.

She’s as gorgeous as they said she’d be.

But there’s something more inside her. Something heady and captivating. She looks fragile and human, but something inside her lures me closer . . . something very much . . . not human.

The space between the girl and me becomes less and less. It disappears entirely when she leans into my chest and lifts the joint to my lips. Heat flares to life, sparking where her warm fingers brush along my cold throat. In her sharp features, there’s a fearlessness that I can’t look away from. She’s enchanting. Mesmerizing.

Fear is a dangerous emotion. A lack of it is even more deadly. And sometimes, the absence of fear, is the result of a lifetime filled with too much of it. Your senses dull in the face of danger…

Has she felt too much fear in her lifetime to realize she’s currently in the hands of a killer?

With a deep inhale, the terrible flavor of the drug stings my lungs.

Humans are strange, strange creatures.

They think sex and drugs are ways of feeling more alive.

They’re not.

They’re ways of forgetting. Detaching. If only for a little while. Mortal drugs only last minutes in my body, but I’ll take that short time of numbness every chance I get.

The sparking energy between us makes that numbness nonexistent though.

I’m drawn to her. I have her in my hands. And I want more.

My lips press to hers before I ever exhale. Curling smoke slips out between our tongues. She tastes as reckless as she looks: like vodka and honey. I get lost in that intoxicating deliciousness. Her fingers press harder to my jaw, black painted nails stinging into my flesh as she deepens the kiss in a way most human women never do. They don’t take what they want. They don’t realize they can have more.

This forsaken woman takes from me. And I fucking dive into her.

And I almost—almost—feel bad for what I have to do to the beautiful redhead.

I can feel bad all I want, but it doesn’t change the deal my father made with the Thorn King.

A deal’s a deal. And fae never let you back out of a deal.

My fingers push through that thick, soft hair, and when I pull her head roughly to the side, she lets me with the sound of a breathy moan. In my life, women give themselves up like this all the time. But there’s always a little bit of fear that’s edging on their excitement.

That logical fear doesn’t exist in this woman.

A part of her knows what I am. And a part of her doesn’t seem to care if she lives or dies.

She offers the slender length of her pale neck up to my lips, and I can’t help but hold her wild gaze as I go in to taste her even deeper.

Sparkling emerald eyes never close as my lips press to the curve of her neck. She trembles with a heavy breath. Her pulse thrashes in rhythm with the bass. Something deep inside her, something animalistic, something primal, it knows what I am.

Even if she doesn’t.

Inky shadows flicker across my pale flesh. Hidden dark magic beneath my façade of perfection itches to crawl out. My fangs slide down and sink into smooth flesh as the crowded club dances on. The most delectable blood bursts across my tongue, and the heavy, pounding music continues. Everyone around us continues. Their drinking, kissing, dancing carry on.

While little by little, the beautifully reckless redhead goes slack in my arms.

The softest words slip from her lips beneath the blanket of chaotic music. Even I barely hear it. I almost wish I hadn’t.

“He’s going to kill me.”

I hold her against my chest, hugging her to me in a way that I both love and hate. Because she wasn’t talking about me. She didn’t say you’re going to kill me. She said he . . .

He who?

“Hey, buddy!” A tall man with thin, scratchy tattoo lines inking his arms taps my shoulder.

My attention lingers where his dirty index finger touched my suit jacket. Three specks dust the sleek black material now. His scent taints the cloth.

When I pull my gaze away from the jacket that will now have to be burned, I find myself eye to . . . single eye with him. A bandana is wrapped around his head, covering his right eye, and this raggedy man is looking more and more like someone I deeply wish hadn’t touched me.

“Can I help you . . . buddy?” I add his endearment to the end, but it feels foul in my mouth. Too quirky. Disgusting. I hate it.

“Yeah. That’s my fucking girl passed out in your arms.” He points to the girl he so quickly claimed, but he hasn’t swung at me or even attempted to lift a hand to get her back.

“You’re weak,” I tell him.

“Excuse me?”

There’s a smell beneath this girl’s fingernails. A scent I noticed the moment I touched her.

It’s his scent. A smell of sweat and blood and fear. She fears him . . .

Why?

A flash of ideas rattles my tired mind, and all of them end in this man’s bloodshed. But it doesn’t have to be on the sticky floor of this fine establishment.

“I said you’re right.” I lift her small weight, and it pains me to pass her limp body to this sordid man.

He grips her harshly by the shoulders, her body curving unnaturally against him as he glares me down with his one good eye.

With a shake of his head, he drags her out of the club. Dozens of people dance and thrash into the unconscious girl being dragged out of the dingy little club.

And it’s like she doesn’t exist at all. No one sees the girl that most certainly is not okay.

No one . . . except for me.

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