Annalise Gordon,
You and a friend are invited to a party tonight at Hellhound.
10pm.
You know where it is.
My heart sped up. Hellhound.
Not only did I know where it was, but I had just spent weeks listening to the rumors that had begun spreading about the infamous bar in Hell’s Kitchen. It was exclusive before the rumors—seeing as how it was invitation only—but apparently, people had started going missing.
Getting an invite to Hellhound was nearly impossible, but there were always the stupid fucks who just couldn’t take no for an answer and tried to trick the system, replicating the invitation online and printing it themselves.
Those are the people who never made it out.
The rumors began about a month ago, my customers at the diner bringing all the gossip as they ate pancakes and guzzled down milkshakes.
I looked down, flipping the card over to see that it was blank. Just the same color as the front, with no lettering or a logo. I fell back into my pillows and released a heavy breath, blowing my hair from my face.
What had I gotten myself into? Quint obviously left the card, and I was helpless against the urge to see what they wanted. They knew I wouldn’t be able to resist the invite.
Fucking bastards.
I’d go because I was curious but also because I knew they had answers. About me, about Bestia, and I wanted to know what they meant by the things they said the night before.
I guess I was spending the night of my twenty-first birthday at Hellhound.
It was late afternoon as I paced in the living room of our penthouse, walking back and forth in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the New York City skyline.
“Okay, I know I agreed to this last night and everything, but I’m not so sure this is a good idea anymore,” I said to Lanier, who sat stoic in the huge white love seat, facing the window. His black hair a mess, shoulders slumped. I couldn’t see those green eyes of his, but I bet that if I could, they would show the same amount of struggle I felt.
“It’s our only choice, Q.” His voice was rough and full of torment.
“We are sending her to the fucking wolves! As soon as she walks in, the whole place will catch her scent and know what she is. Hell, our job is to protect her from a situation like this, not throw her in the pool to fucking drown.” I didn’t like the worry in my voice. I would normally welcome a situation like this.
A hot-as-fuck baby-badass in a room full of Demons? Hell yeah. Let the madness begin. But I hadn’t been able to escape her face since I first laid eyes on her last night. She was everywhere. Those bright as hell purple eyes haunted me.
She hit me right in my sore spot. The lonely one. The one I kept so well hidden not even my brothers knew it existed.
I tried to make jokes with the guys after she left, but I knew Lanier saw something was off with me. I was affected by her. I still didn’t fully understand why, but after last night in her room, I was beginning to get it.
I had felt a twisted sort of pull when I was there, and I hadn’t been able to shake it ever since. I could still smell her—cinnamon and strawberries. Spicy and bitter with a hint of sweet red sin.
It didn’t help that Lanier seemed to lose all his fucking cool when it came to her. Cabe and I took our cues from him because he rarely ever lost control. It was the one thing I always envied about him. He could turn off his mania, while I was forced to eat mine for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But when it came to her, he was unbalanced—it certainly didn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy.
And Cabe? Well, he was a whole different kind of fucked. He already knew her. Those goddamn visions he’d been having have haunted him for years.
He used to talk about the little girl with bluish black hair, and we all laughed at him, calling him a psychic pussy. But now? Now I found myself envious that he knew her first. He’d be able to gain her trust, hear her secrets. If any of us would, it would be him.
“Do we have any other choice, brother? Do you see another way to get in the same room with her before midnight?” Lanier asked with a bite of frustration.
No, of course not. But I wasn’t going to say that.
“We could just show up at her apartment or some shit. Super stalk her while she walks around the city and corner her in an alley again? That was hot as hell. Plus, I’m a genius with a rope. Tie that little bitch up and drag her fine ass back here.” I knew it wouldn’t work, but it was always fun to rile up my best friend.
As soon as I mentioned the rope and called her ass fine, he went red with rage. I could feel the chair beneath him vibrating all the way across the room where I stood.
I snickered. “I’m kidding, you pussy. She’d have our asses on the ground, and we’d be the ones tied up in less than a minute. I have no doubt about that.”
Sighing hard, he said, “We’ll just have to watch her carefully. Let her get into some trouble first. If one of the Demons tries to touch her, she will most definitely put on a show.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, no doubt thinking about the danger we would be putting her in. It wasn’t something to take lightly. He knew I was aware of that, but I wasn’t sure what to do with my worry. It was a new feeling, an emotion that I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt before.
“She doesn’t have her wings. She isn’t fully Transitioned. We have no idea what will happen tonight, so one of us will have to be around her at all times,” I supplied, plopping myself down onto our C-shaped black leather sofa and staring up at the ceiling. I threw my hand in the air for effect. “I volunteer as tribute!”
He huffed a small laugh. “Of course you do.”
It was silent for a few minutes, both of us lost in thought.
Even if nothing physically happened tonight, all of Hellhound would know that she had yet to Transition, and her scent alone would make her a target as fresh meat. Not to mention whatever my father wanted her safe from could be in the bar tonight. We had no idea who or what was after her, we just knew that he wanted her protected.
“I can feel the gears turning in that tiny brain of yours from all the way over here, Quint.” Lanier’s voice was raw. Not something I was used to. “You’re worried about her.”
Fuck. I was. “Yes.”
Of course Lanier saw it. He never missed anything. That was one of the many reasons we became friends and then eventually claimed each other as brothers.
Sure, I was 276 years older than him, but before we met, I’d spent all those years alone. As a Warlock, we didn’t age once we hit twenty-one—just like the Nephilim but much lonelier if you never found anyone you liked enough to spend eternity with. I was different than the other Warlocks; I didn’t like what I was, and it made me an outcast. But they also didn’t carry demons around with them just because of who their father was.
I was damned from the beginning. I stood out.
I wandered around Earth, playing various games with the Humans as I fed from their negative emotions. I didn’t like that I was forced to feed off their sins, their mistakes, so I tried to befriend a few of them over the years, but I was a scary motherfucker, so it never worked.
My eyes showed a little too much of my crazy, a few too many of my demons.
I drank and messed around with other outcast Warlocks but generally spent my time wallowing alone in my boredom until fifteen years ago when my father decided that my stay Topside was permanent. It took longer than I cared to admit before I wandered into a broken-down basketball court in the darker part of New York City and found Lanier and Cabe playing a game of one on one.