I wouldn't be able to figure it out on my own.
Chapter 1
Elias
I counted the bottles behind the bar for the third time in an hour, my fingers trailing along each label with military precision. Twelve premium whiskeys, eight gins, six vodkas. The same numbers as yesterday. The same as they'd been two weeks ago when everything went to hell.
The Purple Fang's main floor stretched out before me in perfect order. Every table wiped clean, every chair precisely aligned, every surface gleaming under the low lighting. My kingdom of symmetry. Of control.
I glanced toward the front door and the solid brick wall that hid what happened in the club from the humans who didn't pay to get in, listening to the growing crowd of people gathering on Bourbon Street. The cacophony of drunken laughter, off-key singing, and pounding footsteps grew louder as the night deepened. Their heartbeats created a symphony of temptation. Each one a different rhythm, a different flavor of life just beyond our threshold. Even through these walls, I could smell the distinct notes of alcohol-tinged blood, perfumes mingling with sweat, and that unmistakable scent of humanity that always carried just a hint of desperation as they tried to outrun death.
Out there, the world was full of noise and blood and unpredictable emotions. A swirling maelstrom of chaos that threatened to pull you under if you didn't keep your guard up. Too many variables. Too many ways for things to go wrong.
My attention shifted back to the bar, my fingers automatically realigning a bottle that had shifted a millimeter out of place. In here, I made the rules. Every glass had its place. Every patron had boundaries. Every movement behind my bar was calculated, precise, and under my complete control. Just the way I needed it to be.
And still, something was shifting inside me.
I'd already reorganized the inventory twice since sunset, alphabetized the receipt files, and scrubbed the already spotless bar until my reflection stared back at me from the polished surface. The familiar routine should have been soothing. Each precise movement a barrier against the unknown chaos threatening to breach my carefully constructed walls.
None of it helped quiet the turmoil clawing at the edges of my mind.
From the back office came the sound of Kenya's strained voice. She was mumbling numbers to herself as she worked through the books, and I could hear that her breathing was shallow, even for a vampire. She'd been skipping meals again. I could tell by the way her voice had that hollow quality it got when she was hungry.
Bagged blood wouldn't keep her alive forever, but it would extend her life and give us some time, which was the one thing we desperately needed right now. I knew she hated it, but she'd been pushing herself too hard since Marcus disappeared with her mate, throwing herself into the financial records of the club the way I threw myself into cleaning and organizing.
Though I'd never had to before, I'd been checking her work more often lately, not because Killian didn't trust her competence, but because I could read the signs.
Trauma had a way of making even the sharpest minds skip details, and Kenya was drowning in it.
I straightened a row of shot glasses that didn't need straightening, running my fingertips along the perfectly aligned rims, and fought the urge to check the inventory for the third time tonight. The numbers wouldn't change from when I'd counted them an hour ago, or the hour before that. And the methodical order I'd imposed on this small corner of the world wouldn't magically fix the djinn's chaos that had descended on New Orleans like a plague, infecting everything it touched with uncertainty and fear.
Just like counting wounded soldiers hadn't stopped the shells from falling. Just like following orders hadn't protected the men who'd trusted me to bring them home.
It's been two weeks since the cemetery battle that ended with Marcus disappearing into thin air, taking Alex with him. Two weeks since Kenya had collapsed when her mate vanished, the bond between them stretched across whatever void Marcus had dragged him into. Two weeks of waiting for some sign that Alex was alive, that Marcus hadn't killed him outright, that there was still hope of getting him back before one of our most precious members?—
The front door's locks engaged with their familiar click, distracting me from that morbid thought. All seven of them, each one checked and double-checked before I'd allowed myself to believe we were secure for the rest of the night until the coming dawn sent us back to the historical house we called home .
Not that locks would stop a djinn if Marcus found a way back, but routine was all that stood between me and the kind of panic that had nearly destroyed me in the trenches of World War 1. Seven locks, checked in the same order every night. Predictable. Controllable. Unlike everything else in my world lately.
"Ye're going to wear a hole in that bar if ye keep polishing it."
I looked up to find Killian entering through the back door that led to the alley, his hair still mussed and his clothes wrinkled like he'd grabbed them off the floor. The shadows under his eyes told me he wasn't sleeping any better than the rest of us. I didn't envy him. I wouldn't want to be the master vampire of this coven right now.
"It wasn't clean," I said, which we both knew was a lie. The bar had been immaculate for hours. But what was time to vampires as old as we were?
Killian's gold eyes studied me with the kind of knowing look that made my jaw clench. He'd been watching me more carefully the last few days, but I'd been one of Killian's first turned vampires for a reason. When he'd found me on that battlefield, I was already drenched in death, my hands covered in the blood of men I couldn't save. But I hadn't panicked. I'd kept going. Kept trying.
Where Killian was Irish fire and fury, I was calm and calculation. Ice to his flame. Strategy to his instinct. It's why we worked. Why I survived.
Why I endured.
Everyone depended on me to hold things together. To be the steady hand that kept The Purple Fang running, kept the inventory organized, kept the human world from noticing that vampires ran the most popular strip club in the French Quarter.
Along with Dae, of course, who lived to mind-fuck the humans.
I couldn't afford to fall apart. Not now. Not when they all needed me.
"Any word from the witches?" I asked, needing to focus on something concrete, something I could potentially fix or organize or control.
