She didn't belong here. Not in this bar. Not in my world of straight lines and quiet certainty. Because Talin was wild edges wrapped in sin. Secrets hiding behind sarcasm. A disruption.
A tremor in my perfectly balanced world.
Not loud. Not overt. But unmistakable, like a single dropped note in an otherwise flawless symphony. She didn't need to say a word. Her presence alone would be enough to skew the axis of the room, shift the air, and make the silence feel charged instead of calm.
"When?" I asked, because there was no point in arguing. If Killian said this witch was coming, she was coming. My job was to handle it, whatever 'it' turned out to be.
"Tomorrow after sunset. And if she's still here when the club opens, Kenya will handle the bar while you work with her."
"Kenya can't handle the bar by herself these days."
But he wasn't going to let me get out of this that easily. "She'll be fine for the short time you'll need her."
I nodded, sighed, and gave him a quick, resigned grin, already mentally reorganizing the next day's schedule to accommodate this disruption. I could prepare for it, plan for it, establish parameters and boundaries that would keep any upheavals from bleeding into the ordered structure of my life.
"Elias." Killian paused on his way out. "Don't overthink this. Sometimes the universe knows what it's doing."
I almost laughed at that. The universe that had sent me to die in muddy trenches, betrayed by the very system I'd sworn to serve? The universe that had turned me into a creature of the night, dependent on blood to survive, forever cut off from the human world I'd once tried to heal?
No. The universe was disorder incarnate, and the only defense against disorder was vigilance, preparation, and absolute control over every variable you could manage.
After Killian left, probably heading back to the house where the rest of our coven waited for news that never came, I returned to my inventory. Twelve whiskeys, eight gins, six vodkas. The numbers remained constant, reliable, immune to the forces that seemed determined to upend everything else.
Tomorrow, Talin Moss would walk back into my carefully ordered world with her unpredictable visions and mystical threads. I'd help her focus whatever fragmented images she'd seen about Alex and Marcus, extract the information we needed, and send her back to her coven where she belonged.
It would be professional. Controlled. Temporary.
The fact that I could still remember exactly how she'd looked that night—the way her eyebrow piercing had glinted in the streetlight. The stubborn set of her jaw when I'd called her reckless. The brief moment of vulnerability when she first saw me there. The way she fucking smelled—meant absolutely nothing.
Because the alternative was allowing some witch with erratic powers and a talent for finding trouble to disrupt the ordered structure I'd built. And that wasn't an option I could afford to consider.
I'd learned long ago that the only person you could truly depend on was yourself. The only stability that lasted was the kind you built with your own two hands, brick by brick, routine by routine, until you'd created something strong enough to withstand whatever turmoil the world decided to throw at you.
One encounter with a stubborn little witch didn't change that. No matter how those dark eyes had flashed with determination, or how that connection she'd been following had led her straight to...
Well…to me.
The bottles gleamed back at me in perfect rows, each one exactly where it belonged.
Yet the truth was, I could sense something changing. Had been feeling it for weeks now, like a frequency just outside my range of hearing. Something pulling at me, making me restless in ways that no amount of organizing could fix. And I knew Killian, as my maker, could sense it, too.
I suddenly stilled.
If he thought this witch was the answer to whatever was stirring in me, then I was probably fucked.
Because the last thing I needed was someone who could slip past my defenses. Someone who might make me want things I couldn't afford to want. Someone who could destroy the carefully controlled world I'd built to keep the chaos—and the pain—at bay.
I set down the cloth and reached for the inventory clipboard again, needing the familiar ritual of counting and categorizing to steady myself.
Tonight, I'd finish closing out the bar and go home and get some sleep.
Tomorrow night, I'd meet Talin Moss. I'd help her with whatever magical crisis had brought her to my door. And then I'd send her on her way before she could upset the balance I'd fought so hard to achieve.
Simple. Controlled. Safe.
So why did the thought of her leaving already feel like losing something I'd never even had?
Chapter 2
