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Chapter Twenty-Five
Ryder
I wake to about the worst hangover I’ve ever experienced. Except… had I been drinking last night? And since when do I get hangovers?
The blinding lights in my face remind me quickly where I am.
Someone kicks me in the gut, hard, to drive home the point.
I groan. “Starting rough right away? You know how I like it.”
This earns me another kick, but still worth it. I cough and roll to my knees. Dante is standing a few feet away, letting one of his goons do the dirty work. A lovely fellow with yellow goat’s eyes and a trio of green spikes coming out of his head.
“Ryder, you sure can’t handle your pixie dust,” Dante says. “I’ve been waiting for nearly half an hour.”
“Sorry to inconvenience you when you’re so kindly double-crossing me,” I say, spitting a bit of blood onto the concrete floor.
Dante shrugs. “You know how long I’ve wanted an in with the Night Guild? Then you bounced into my club with your little trollop, serving yourselves up on a silver platter. The best part?” His grin reveals a row of jagged yellow teeth. “I get a shit ton of money as the new head of intel here, and I get to keep your witch as part of the deal.”
I surge forward, fists clenched, but Goat Eyes tackles me to the floor before I can get all the way to my feet.
“Oh! The lust demon has fallen hard for this one.” Dante’s grin turns even more wicked. “It makes me hard just thinking about you thinking about me fucking her silly.” He reaches down and touches the bulge in his pants. “You like to watch, right?”
“I will kill you,” I growl.
“No. You won’t.” Dante waves a hand around him, and the rest of his posse steps out from the shadows in the corners of the room we’re in. “You’re outnumbered a dozen to one. Plus, the leadership of the Night Guild are stopping by any moment to check on the progress of their little scientist downstairs.”
Scientist downstairs? Does he mean the blonde witch?
“The rest of my men are looking for my new little treat right now,” Dante continues. “While the big bosses are here, they’ll want to meet the two who broke through their security and killed their pet hell hounds.” He throws me a mock frown. “Catching you two would-be thieves seals my place in their organization.”
“Too bad I told Ven to wait outside, and to leave if I don’t return in thirty minutes.” I shoot him a smug expression. “She’s long gone by now.”
Dante chuckles. “You’re really slipping, Ryder. You used to be Prince of Lies! Love does not suit you.”
“Why do you think she isn’t with me now?” I ask.
“I am growing bored of your antics, Ryder…” Dante looks down at his dirty fingernails, and his goon approaches me again.
“And I am growing tired of you both,” says a voice of ice and bone, a voice of cold, dark stars.
Dante and I whip our heads around at the same time. Shadows sweep the edges of the room, then move across the patch of bright fluorescent light like wings. A very tall, very slim figure appears abruptly three feet away from us. Shadows swirl around her black spike-heel boots.
My first thought is vampire. But the aura isn’t quite right, nor the smell. I realize, with an unpleasant twist of my stomach, that I don’t know what she is. Just that she is very, very old.
“My lady,” Dante says, falling into a quivering bow at her feet. After a moment, he raises his gaze to her eyes, which glow a molten copper color. “Is your brother joining us also?”
“Is my presence not sufficient for you, faun?” The expression she casts him could freeze the universe. A pulse of power shimmers around the room, and the shadows from the corners begin to creep in like fingers. “Or are you just so accustomed to doing business with men?”
“N-no, my lady, I mean to say, my lady, only that—”
The woman lifts one booted foot and steps down on Dante’s back, crushing him to the floor. There’s a disturbing sound as the spike of her boot punctures the flesh of his back. He lets out a whimper.
Keeping her foot planted there, she casts her gaze to me. “I was under the impression there were two intruders.”
“We are looking for the second one now, my lady,” Dante squeaks. “The witch.”
A deep sigh, which drops the temperature in the room ten degrees and sends the shadows rustling again. Then she hooks that new-penny gaze onto me again. “Let’s speed things up, shall we?”
I don’t have time for my terror to take proper hold before her mind slams into mine.
