Chapter One
Dorian Redthorne stepped out of the limousine onto Central Park West and buttoned his suit jacket, cursing his father from here to hell.
The wretched cunt couldn’t have chosen a less convenient time to die.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Redthorne.” His driver, who’d remained silent behind the privacy window the entire two-hour trip, shut the car door and lowered his head. “For your… For the loss.”
The loss.
Dorian glanced at his watch. Ash clung to his jacket sleeve, a stark smudge against the fine black wool. He stared at it, unblinking, figuring he ought to feel some way about it—the ash, the condolences, the fact that he’d spent the last two days presiding over the interment of a man who’d dominated his life for two and a half centuries.
But when he prodded his heart, he found only an iron gate, eternally locked.
No, the death of his father wasn’t a loss.
It was a fucking complication. One Dorian and his brothers had just inherited, along with a sizable estate and a list of adversaries that stretched ‘round the globe, every last one of them doubtlessly celebrating the demise of the Redthorne vampire king.
Among the cursed and the damned, good news always traveled fast.
He erased the ash with his thumb. “Thank you, Jameson. I’ll phone you after the auction.”
With a curt nod, Jameson returned to his post in the driver’s seat, leaving Dorian in the company of thoughts so black they threatened to swallow the setting sun.
It was the city itself that saved him, soothing him with its autumn heartbeat as he walked alongside the park. Two sleek, chocolate-brown horses trotted by, pulling carriages full of gaping tourists, and Dorian gave them wide berth. Unlike humans, horses instinctively distrusted vampires, which was unfortunate. He’d always loved the creatures as a boy, and he missed riding them. Now, their sharp, pungent odor mingled with the sweet smell of honey-roasted peanuts from a nearby cart, reminding him of simpler times.
But as much as the English countryside remained in his blood, New York had been his home for more than two hundred years. And now, with his father gone, the city was his to rule, his to command.
It should’ve thrilled him. But the feeling burning through his veins wasn’t power or freedom.
It was dread.
Crossing Central Park West, he made his way toward the The Salvatore, the exclusive apartments where tonight’s auction would take place. He’d just reached Seventy-Third when the hairs on his arms lifted, the air around him thickening. He scented it immediately—a putrid mix of sweat, sulfur, and desperation that could only mean one thing.
Sodding fucking demons.
Dorian’s hands tightened into fists. A hundred miles north in Annendale-on-Hudson, smoldering in the crypts beneath Ravenswood Manor, the remnants of his father’s corpse had just begun to cool. Yet here in the city, the immortal enemies of House Redthorne were already pressing their advantage.
His gut rolled once more at the stench—a final warning before a pair of lesser demons slithered out from a bus idling several paces ahead. Their presence in Manhattan was a direct violation of the Shadow Accords, but the demons were about to commit a crime even more egregious than trespassing.
A human male trailed them like a puppy.
Again, Dorian checked his watch. If he arrived at the auction after the bidding began, they’d refuse him entry. But he couldn’t let demons poach a human soul in his father’s territory—his territory. Not unless he wanted the whole of New York’s supernatural underworld staging a coup.
The demons were so drunk on their impending victory they paid Dorian no mind as he followed them down Seventy-Fourth and into a dark, narrow alley wedged between a parking garage and an abandoned construction zone.
“Where are we going?” the human asked his new friends. Poor bastard couldn’t have been more than twenty, fresh-faced in his dark purple NYU T-shirt, all too eager for whatever the demons were offering. Dorian pegged his accent as American Midwest. Indiana, perhaps. Briefly, he wondered if there were parents back home. A girlfriend waiting on a goodnight text.
One of the demons—a guy with a face full of metal hoops—grinned. “Down here.”
“Will… will it hurt?” the human asked.
Dorian wanted to smack him.
No, selling your soul is a real pleasure. Bloody idiot.
Most humans didn’t know about the supernatural races that walked among them, and the few that did either made peace with it and kept their heads down, tried to hunt them to extinction, or convinced themselves they could use a supernatural being’s power to short-cut their way to riches and glory.
In Dorian’s experience, the latter camp never read the fine print.
“Hurt?” The other demon laughed, his long, white-blond hair floating over his shoulders like a ghost. He tossed an arm around the human as if they were best mates. “Not for a good ten years.”
Blondie led the guy deeper into the alley, leaving Metalhead to stand guard near the construction site’s dumpster.
Dorian waited for cover from the sound of a passing ambulance, then approached Metalhead with a friendly smile.
“Pardon me, could I trouble you for a—” He slammed his fist into the demon’s jaw, then hauled him close, sinking his fangs into his neck before the bastard could conjure his deadly demonic hellfire.
Demon blood slid down his throat, saccharine and terrible, like burned sugar poured over hot rubbish. The rancid taste made Dorian’s eyes water, everything in him begging him to retreat, but his hunger made it impossible. Like a living, breathing entity, it took over, stripping Dorian of all humanity, of memory, of understanding. In these brief but bloody seconds, he was nothing but a predator devouring his meal, the demon twitching helplessly in his arms.
The only thing that prevented Dorian from killing him outright—from killing any demon—was the threat of possession. Demonic entities could be banished to hell, but only by a skilled witch. If a demon’s physical body died, the entity itself would slide into the closest available human host—a fate to which Dorian wouldn’t condemn his worst human enemy, let alone an innocent moron in an NYU shirt.
When Dorian sensed the demon’s heartbeat slow to an acceptably near-death rhythm, he unlatched from the artery and turned the limp body around, holding it face-out like a shield as he moved down the alley. Tucked away in the shadows, Blondie muttered his ancient incantations, ready to slice the human’s hand and finalize the blood deal. The smell of brimstone hung heavy in the air. The ritual was nearly complete.
“I believe you dropped something,” Dorian announced, then shoved Metalhead into the surprised arms of his mate. In a blur of speed no demon could match, he rushed forward and slammed them both against the bricks, biting into Blondie’s artery and draining him with an efficiency born of centuries of practice.
Thoroughly weakened and teetering on the precipice of death, the demons slid to the ground in a quivering, moaning heap.
The quick pattering of another heartbeat caught Dorian’s attention, and he turned to find the human gaping at him, pale and shocked. In the frenzy of the feed, he’d almost forgotten about the little twat.
“Well? Anything to say for yourself?” Dorian wiped the blood from his lips, scowling at the taste.