Page 18 of Fallen Court

Brimstone.

Time to walk into hell.

The bouncer looked me up and down as I approached, bypassing the line. His eyes darkened, narrowing on my human glamour, before going jet-black. Without Romy’s additional magic cloaking me, it would be easy for another fae to see past it. But he wasn’t fae. He was a vampire.

Gideon.

“I didn’t think you would be stupid enough to show your face here.” His hand hesitated on the clip holding the velvet rope. Behind me, a few people in the line grumbled.

“My ignorance knows no bounds,” I promised him.

He scowled, glancing toward the crowd. “There are humans in there. If I let you inside, it’s my ass on the line.”

I glanced at the people waiting to get in and sighed. Time to kill two birds with one stone. Clear the queue and do Gideon a favor. It was going to be messy, and I didn’t really have time to waste. “We can’t have that. How about an alibi?” I pulled out a gun and shot him. He’d recover. Eventually. “Sorry.”

The street went silent for a split second before someone screamed. Panic erupted around me, some people dropping to the ground, others running. Everyone eager to get as far away as they could. The cops would take their time when the reports started coming in, not wanting to interfere in Bain’s business.

I stepped over the vampire’s body and proceeded into the club. At the early hour, it was still half empty, but the low, pulsing music had smothered the gunfire. No one looked up as I made my way across the dance floor toward a hallway lined with gold torchères lit to look like the flames of the underworld.

But while the humans hadn’t heard the gunshot, security had.

Two more vampires appeared, temporarily dazed as I dropped my human glamour. They hesitated when they saw I was fae, and I gave each an apologetic smile before I took them out with quick, clean shots. The room seemed to freeze, only the pulsating beat of the music continuing, before the partiers scattered like startled birds, rushing toward exits or taking cover behind tables and pillars. The tang of fear rose above the smells of sweat and liquor as I strode toward the back of the house and the stairs that led to the VIP floor.

A guard, this one fae, stepped into my path, and I leveled the 9-millimeter at him. He hesitated—unlike the vamps, he wouldn’t recover from a direct hit with an iron slug. So I made the choice easy for him as I took a step closer. “Your prince will want the pleasure of killing me himself.”

Then I dropped my gun.

He grabbed me by the elbow. I didn’t fight it. He’d kept Cate alive, which meant he didn’t want to kill her. The whole point was to get inside and make Bain an offer he couldn’t refuse: the chance to put a bullet between the eyes of the man responsible for killing his penumbra.

It’s what I would do for Roark.

All he had to do was let her go. Nip her back to New Orleans, back to Ciara and the others. One last bargain to save her life.

The guard hustled me inside the room, patting me down until he’d relieved me of my weapons, including the grenade in my pocket. He shoved me to the ground before a red leather couch and deposited the grenade on the table next to his boss.

“You brought a fucking grenade?” Frost coated Bain’s voice.

I pushed to my feet, dusting off my slacks, and turned to face the prince of the Infernal Court and the terrified woman perched on his lap.

A woman who was not Cate.

She blinked in surprise as Bain deposited her onto her feet. “Go get a bottle of champagne.”

Her eyes lingered on the grenade before she scurried off. I stared after her.

Not Cate.

A few more guards stepped closer, but Bain held up a hand to stop them. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Where’s Cate?” I snarled as my rapidly fraying control snapped.

“How should I know?” He shifted, crossing his legs, and reached for a rocks glass on the table beside him. “Where’s my penumbra’s body?”

“In the bayou.” I glanced around the room, numbly noting the half dozen guards surrounding me.

A muscle twitched in his jaw, his blue eyes chips of ice. “Is that what this is about? Her?”

“MacAlister tried to kill her, and when he failed, you took her,” I accused. He had to have her. His penumbra had tried to kill her.