The Butcher was the lead Blood Potions dealer in the state. The Magical Protections Unit had been itching to get the Butcher behind bars for years. According to the rumors, he’d earned his title after someone had tried to double-cross him. Needless to say, he hadn’t just killed the man.
He’d chopped him into pieces.
Rumor also said the man wasn’t entirely dead when Casen had started taking him apart. The violent nature of his killings hadn’t stopped at just the one. No—from that day forth, every person who made the mistake of wronging the Butcher was met with the same gruesome fate.
The bouncer’s fire-colored gaze dragged over Loren. “Those girls aren’t coming in. Not unless you’re looking to sell them.” Loren stepped behind Darien. “A few clients came by looking for young meat. An hour, tops, and you can have them back.” He inclined his head toward the doors. “They’re in the front row.”
“The girls are mine,” Darien replied icily. “I’ve seen enough Fyxens here tonight to keep your kerb-crawlers occupied.”
The bouncer’s expression turned stony. “Casen is busy. You’re welcome to come in and enjoy yourself, Devil. Or you can kindly fuck off.”
Darien gave the wolf a nerve-wracking stare that had Loren rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. But talking to the Butcher clearly wasn’t an opportunity Darien was willing to pass up, even for a quick scrapping session she knew he’d enjoy, for he was soon turning to Dallas and Loren.
“Wait here.” His eyes flashed to Loren’s for a fraction of a second, but the message in them was clear:don’t move.
Loren stepped toward him. “Darien—”
But he was already pushing past the bouncer and through the doors. Smoke that reeked of contraband Boneweed drifted from inside, coating Loren’s skin like oil.
The bouncer stepped back to his post, barring their entrance. Seeing the terror on her face, the wolf gave her a smirk that showed his sharp, elongated canines.
Loren felt like her lungs were being stepped on. “Dal…I’m scared.”
“Tuck up your hair, Lor,” Dallas whispered. Loren scrambled to fix the strands that had slipped loose. “These people look like they willeatyou.” She dragged Loren by the elbow until they were standing below the mezzanine, upon which the vampire escorts Darien had been referring to—the Fyxens—were flaunting themselves in dresses made from such sheer fabric thateverythingwas on display.
With Darien no longer at their side, time slowed to a crawl. Dented trucks rolled through the market, one by one, carrying wooden crates of gods-knew-what. Men wearing heavy hoods unloaded the crates at warehouse storefronts, the steel doors rolling up to allow them in.
Loren tried to focus on breathing; tried not to dwell on the rumors of a human farm below the streets, the subterranean blood plant hidden from the law enforcement with magic. Any person abducted and taken into the tunnels were never rescued, and they never saw daylight again.
The market was turning splotchy, the medical tattoo on her forearm heating in warning. People watched her and Dallas with hungry and probing eyes, and creatures mimicking children’s voices began to weep again.
As the seconds ticked by, three men that were staring from where they sat at an aluminum table by a raw-meat food cart rose to their feet, discarding red-stained paper plates in a garbage pail overflowing with bones and napkins.
“Heeeeere, kitty, kitty,” said the gaunt and pale one as the trio approached.
Loren stepped closer to Dallas as the witch’s hand went for the Focus in her bag.
“Is that human blood I smell?” said another. The trio was strategic in the way they positioned themselves, the space between their bodies too narrow for even a child to slip through. The other people in the market turned a blind eye and hid behind the smoke of imported cigars as the men closed in on them.
Loren’s eyes swiveled round the market, looking for an escape or help, whichever might come first, as she pressed her back against Dallas’s. The bouncer did nothing but gaze blankly at the cesspool of a market, as if Loren and Dallas didn’t exist.
The third man made a kissing sound with peeling lips. “Come here, my sweet half-life.”
Loren jumped out of her skin as Dallas barked, “Beat it, shitbags!” But the men only chuckled, their laughter hollow and raspy. They were no more than three feet away now.
The warehouse doors banged open then, and Darien appeared. Taking in the men blocking Loren and Dallas in below the mezzanine, Darien’s hand teased his pistol.
That was all it was: a tease. A silent threat. But the men got the message clearer than if he’d taken a warning shot, and wisely scurried away.
“Took you long enough,” Dallas hissed. For once in her life, she was as pale as Loren, her freckled neck throbbing with her pulse.
“Relax, Bright,” Darien crooned. “You’re still breathing, aren’t you?”
Dallas made to say something, but a booming male voice echoed from the shadows of a nearby alley.
“Well, if it isn’t Darien fucking Cassel.”
Loren turned toward the source of that voice, Darien and Dallas doing the same.
