Chapter One
The witch was going to be a fucking headache.
Gabriel Redthorne had known it since he’d first spied her roaming his brother’s gardens at Ravenswood.
Then, he’d found her mysterious and compelling—an obsession he’d been nurturing for weeks.
Now?
“Your chances of seeing another sunrise are entirely dependent upon your cooperation,witch.” He said it like the dirty word it was, lip curling as he took in the sight of her.
Obstinate. Ornery. Filthy.
They were secluded in one of the VIP rooms on the upper level of Bloodbath, the East Village nightclub he and his royal vampire brothers had liberated from their enemies last night. The window that overlooked the ground level offered a breathtaking view of the carnage the Redthorne allies had wrought: mutilated demons, still twitching where they lay. The wet ash of all the traitorous vampires they’d slaughtered. Broken bones, lost limbs, shattered glass, rivers of blood still gleaming in the cracks and crevices.
Luck or magic—one of them had spared the witch’s life.
“Youwillanswer my questions,” he said.
She glared at him. Her sapphire-bright eyes stood out starkly in a face painted by death. Gabriel wore the same mask, the taste of demon blood still rancid in his throat long after it had dried on his clothing.
She wasn’t the only witch they’d captured—a half-dozen of them had been working their dark magics for the enemy—but Gabriel had no use for the others.
It was Jacinda he needed. Jacinda whose intoxicating gaze held a fire that sparked in him thoughts too dangerous to voice.
“I’ve got nothing to say to you, Prince,” she hissed. She sat on a plush velvet chair against the back wall, nursing a bottle of water one of his inconveniently compassionate brothers had given her. Clothing hung from her in tatters—dark, blood-spattered jeans, one side ripped from ankle to knee. A lacy black top missing a sleeve. No shoes, bare toes curled against the cold floor, her violet nail polish chipped.
She held herself haughtily, as though she were dressed for the runway.
“Not quite ready to grind my bones into dust, then?” Gabriel smirked, recalling her earlier taunt. To be fair, that particular threat had comeafterhe’d tied her to a barstool downstairs, but still. Even without the idle threats, her crimes were severe enough to warrant a thorough questioning, followed by an even more thorough punishment.
His specialty.
She shrugged, sipped her water. “I don’t like to vanquish enemies on an empty stomach.”
“Is that what I am?” He prowled across the room, stopping to loom over her. “Your enemy?”
All that bravado, all that fire, yet her fingers gripped the bottle so tightly they turned white. The scent of adrenaline soured her blood.
Gabriel leaned forward, hands settling on the arms of her chair, bracketing her lithe frame. Beneath the gore of battle, her true scent lingered, like black pepper and damp earth and things that grew only in darkness.
He waited for it to turn his stomach. To inspire in him the same revulsionallwitches inspired.
It didn’t.
“WhereisRenault Duchanes?” he demanded, his voice an icy blade sharpened over decades of interrogating enemies, making simpering victims of far more formidable beasts.
But this beast offered nothing but indifference, keeping her gaze locked on his like a dare. “Halfway around the world by now, if he’s a smart bloodsucker.”
“If he were smart, he wouldn’t have abandoned his bonded witch to torture and…” Gabriel fingered the collar of her torn blouse and leaned in closer, breath stirring her hair. “Ruin.”
A shiver rolled up her spine, but she kept that hot steel in her voice. “I’m not his keeper. He bailed on me, same as he bailed on everyone else, no forwarding address.”
“You admit to working for him, then?”
She lifted a shoulder far too soft and elegant to be covered in demon blood. Gabriel resisted the urge to lick it clean.
“It’s not exactly classified intel,” she said. “I was the House Duchanes bonded witch.”
