Chapter 2

2

SYLAS

I was surprised to find a young woman sitting in the reception room several floors below, her hands primly nested on the table, her fingers wound as tightly as the braid her hair was in.

I watched her from the shadows—an easy task, because I was one—reading the solemn expression on her face and mentally tracing the line of her jaw.

She was pretty, but pale, like something left out in the sun too long, or something that had never even seen the sun before, her lack of coloring made all the more stark by the rather severe high-collared black sweater she had on.

But none of that mattered, because I recognized what she was at once.

An actual client.

Oh, it had been so long—and it was going to break Royce's heart.

I couldn't wait.

And sure enough, he burst in breathing hard, having had to take the longer way down, with an accusatory finger out at the woman already. "You need to leave here. Now."

She stared at him with hollow eyes, betraying no emotion as she stood, and I wasn't sure if that was idiocy or strength. "Why?"

"Because. We can't help you. Whatever your problem is?—"

"I can pay," she said, looking through her purse as she moved to stand. She offered her hand out to him in return, holding a folded check.

He didn't take it, but I did get to watch him comprehend the situation immediately. "We don't want your money. It's not safe for you here. You need to go—we don't have anyone here that can help you."

"On the contrary." I disagreed with him, forming myself out of the shadows beneath the table, standing at its far end. I set the hourglass sideways and rolled it down, and all three of us listened to its metal spin across the wood, until it stopped in front of my new friend. "I believe she's here for me."

Her brown eyes flickered from the hourglass to my face and figure. It amused me to wear a suit on these occasions—like Royce had on—and so I was "wearing" one now, forming my smoked and shadowed essence to have a suit's edges, despite the licks of me that were always pulling away. I was tall, because I controlled my height and I enjoyed looming, and the only light others could see on me, if fate had decreed they were meant to, was a slight glint inside my eyes.

She licked her lips, swallowed, and then found her resolve. "I think I am."

"No. No. Absolutely not." Royce stormed over and made to pick the girl up, as if escorting her out of the building would cut the newly formed thread of fate between she and I .

"What is your name?" she asked me, ignoring him.

"Sylas Veil, although I have many others," I said, with a deep bow. "And if you will just suffer my hourglass to touch you, you will become my queen."

"Until he kills you!" Royce said, like that ought to change her mind.

And it would've, if she were a normal woman, of course.

But fate had driven her here, on this night, practically into my arms.

Because sometimes—very rarely—people did get to hire me.

And on those occasions I would get to not only follow them for a time, but do their bidding, and I would be permitted to not just feed on fear and hate and terror, but allowed to cause it.

Personally.

Violently.

Up until their sand ran out and I finally slaughtered them.

Her heart, and all of the precious light of her future inside of it, was mine .

Her gaze weighed me for a second more, then she dropped her check and picked up the hourglass.