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1
“Atlas!” the barista called.
Gavin, Atlas thought, happy to have finally caught the cutie behind the counter on a day when he was wearing a name tag. Making his way to the counter, he tried to paste a pleasant look on his face. Gavin’s blue eyes only widened a tiny bit as he approached.
“Atlas?” Gavin asked, setting the cup on the counter. The dim lights of the coffee shop made his blond hair shine gold. He couldn’t be more than five and a half feet tall and slim enough he pulled his apron strings to the front to tie them. Atlas felt like a towering oaf next to him. Even with the counter between them.
“I’m Atlas.” He reached for the cup.
“Have a nice night,” Gavin said, already turning away to make the next drink.
Atlas watched him go. “You, too,” he whispered before returning to the small table he’d claimed near the back. His phone buzzed in his pocket as soon as he sat down. Pulling it out, he sighed at the sight of his brother’s name on the screen. Hittingaccept, he put the phone to his ear and took a drink of his latte.
“How’s your barista crush this evening?” Lark asked in lieu of a greeting.
Heat rushed to Atlas’s cheeks. He grunted. “None of your business.”
Lark laughed, the sound warm and comforting despite him being an asshole. “I hate to cut your drool session short, but the seers had a vision. They need us all in.”
“I’m on my way.” Atlas hung up, grabbed his latte, and stuffed his phone in the pocket of his leather jacket on the way out the door. He only paused for a moment once he hit the sidewalk, looking back into the shop at Gavin behind the counter. Maybe in another life he’d ask Gavin for his number, but in this one, Gavin was a normal human guy. Atlas was anything but.
Thankful he’d only ordered a small, Atlas tipped up his latte cup and sucked down the burning liquid with a wince. Moving toward where he’d parked his motorcycle down the street, he tossed the cup in the trash and waited at the crosswalk for the light to turn.
A revving engine caught his attention. Coming down the road toward him, several motorcycle headlights made him squint against their brightness. The lead biker flipped on his turn signal and coasted to a stop next to where Atlas was standing. The rest of the bikes drove on by.
“Derek,” Atlas said, giving a single nod to the Hellhound Alpha. Derek was a big man—not as bulky as Atlas, few people were—but he had a presence that seemed to fill up the whole street.
Derek killed the engine and settled back in the seat, letting his hands rest on his thighs. “Atlas.”
They stared at each other for a moment. This city, Solston, like most cities in the world, was a blend of the mundane human world and the paranormal one. The humans had their own government, and while the paranormals were expected to abide by human laws, they were also governed by the Paranormal Council of the city. The council worked in tandem with the humans to keep Solston’s paranormal citizens in check, to protect the humans, but to also protect paranormals from humans.
Derek and his hellhounds were some of the council’s main enforcers. They represented the demon presence in the city.
“Did you need something?”
“You hang out in this area a lot?” Derek tilted his head. He had inky black hair, pale blue eyes, and dark stubble on the square set of his jaw. One of his hands clenched into a fist, and Atlas wondered what he was really asking.
“I do.” Atlas indicated the corner coffee shop. “That’s my favorite coffee shop.”
Derek inhaled, likely trying to parse the truth from Atlas’s scent. After he stared for a few more seconds, he seemed to make a decision, and his posture relaxed…a little. “We’ve heard rumors that a paranormal hate group is plotting something in this area. Have you seen anything suspicious?”
Atlas frowned. Had he been so focused on Gavin that he missed something like that happening right under his nose? “No, I haven’t. But I just got a call that one of the seers had another vision.”
Derek nodded. “I’d appreciate a head’s up if the target’s in this area.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Good.” Derek started up his bike—a hulking beast of aHarley—and rocketed off into the steady flow of evening traffic.
Atlas watched Derek’s tail lights disappear before moving to his own bike. Once he was in the seat, he spared the coffeeshop—Gavin—one more glance. He needed to stop coming here. Gavin was a beautiful daydream. A beautifulhumandaydream. He allowed himself one solitary moment to mourn the death of that dream, then he gripped the throttle and turned his eyes toward the road ahead.
* * *
“Aww,your hunky lovebug didn’t hang around this time?” Charlotte asked with a wink. She was standing at the espresso machine, getting ready to pour up the next customer’s order.
Gavin frowned. “First, he’s notmyanything, and I’m guessing lovebug wouldn’t be on the approved term of endearment list. Second—”
“That was two already.” Charlotte laughed, shooting him a grin over her shoulder. Her curly brown hair was putting up a valiant effort to escape the elastic band she’d used to put it up before they left their apartment. They’d been roommates for two years, best friends for longer.
