Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

" F ucking ridiculous," Ledger grumbled under his breath as he slammed the door to Friction behind him with enough force the metal frame rattled. The building had once been a spacecraft hanger but had since been converted into a martial arts gym of sorts. There were several sparring rings within, as well as a long bar, and other training equipment.

Typically, this place was crawling with Devils of Vitality or their groupies, but close to three am, the private fight club the Retinue and the Satellite owned at Club Vigor grounds was empty. He wouldn't be here either if not for his pesky prince.

Or, more accurately, his prince's consort.

"Rin owes me one," he continued to curse as he moved into the main area of the large hanger-like building, not bothering with the lights as he went. Originally from the planet Hexa, Ledger could see phenomenally in the dark.

Something Kelevra Diar, the Imperial Prince third in line for throne, used as an excuse whenever he wanted something done late at night and didn't want to bother doing it himself.

Bastard.

"Why'd I join this stupid group again?" He made it to the bar and lifted onto his palms, hovering over it to peer at the other side. When he didn't see what he was looking for on the ground, he dropped back down and moved toward one of the sitting areas.

The Retinue was hardly a group, and he'd hardly had a choice in signing his name to it, considering his parents were friends with the Imperial family of Vitality, the rich-ass planet they now lived on. He and his brother, Pavel, had been forced to attend to the prince. Fortunately for them, and despite his current complaints, they actually got on pretty well with Kelevra.

When he wasn't sending Ledge on errands for his boyfriend.

"Absolutely," he dropped to the ground on all fours to check beneath one of the rectangular tables set to the side, not finding anything there either, "fucking ridiculous."

He should be tucked into his nice warm bed right now, perfectly encased in the insanely priced silk sheets he adored, the AC cranked, his head resting on his super fluffy pillow?—

Something clanked from the other side of the room, giving Ledger immediate pause.

"Whoever is hiding like a little bitch," he drawled, ambling toward the center ring where the sound had come from, "come out, come out." When there wasn't an immediate response, he sighed. "Seriously. You should know by the fact the moons are out, I should be sleeping. There's literally nothing more precious to me than my beauty sleep."

Had one of the guys gotten wasted and passed out here again? Great.

"I'm not carrying you home," Ledger said as he circled the center ring. "The most I'll do is roll you onto your side so you don't choke to death on your own vomit." Just thinking about it made him grimace. "You've got to clean up your mess, too, by the way."

The last time he'd been in here drinking with Yuze, the guy had thrown up all over the bar counter and then promptly passed out. Ledger had been forced to take care of the mess—and of Yuze. Not an experience he wanted to revisit. He blamed Light for making him such a nice guy.

He rounded the ring but there was no one there, and he came to a pause, resting his hands on his hips.

Maybe he'd been hearing things?—

Another clatter, this time close to the locker rooms, and he spun on his heels just in time to see the door click shut.

Someone was here, and they were…running?

All of the annoyance pooled out of him as he headed in that direction, and he paid more attention to his surroundings, preparing himself for anything. There was only one reason he could think of for someone to be hiding from him.

They didn't belong here.

A very limited number of people had access to this building, and not a single one of them would bother to hide from Ledger—avoid him, sure. But hide? No. He debated whether or not to call his brother but since he didn't know who or what he was dealing with yet, decided to hold off.

Pavel was the opposite of him in more ways than one, a night owl who was currently at his fancy restaurant/club.

Or spying on their fellow Retinue member, Zane.

One or the other.

The lights were off inside the locker room when Ledger pulled the door open and slowly entered. He slipped one of the short daggers he kept hidden on his person out, ready to defend himself at any given moment as his eyes scanned the area in front of him.

The door led to a storage space of sorts and then turned right into the actual locker area, then deeper to the showers. Unsurprisingly, no one was standing in the middle of the square-shaped room waiting to be caught, and Ledger was forced to make his way down toward the shower stalls.

He refrained from the taunts he'd used earlier, keeping his eyes peeled and ears open for any slight sound that could give the intruder away. The first two stalls he checked were empty, but there were only eight in total, and he didn't anticipate this taking much longer with his prey short on hiding places.

Once he'd made it past the first half, he stopped being so quiet, shoving the doors open so they clattered loudly against the tiled wall. Let whoever was in here get scared, knowing he was close. His brother always blamed him for being the type to play with his food, but the way Ledge saw it, what was the point of living if not taking advantage of all its little pleasures?

Like teasing and taunting and tasting.

Some might call it cruel, but Ledger was a Devil of Vitality. The Devils were split into two groups: the Retinue, who followed the Imperial Prince Kelevra Diar, and the Satellite, who followed the leader of the Brumal Mafia, Baikal Void. The planet couldn't be run without both, a well-known fact throughout the galaxy, and one that gave the members of these groups the power to do as they pleased.

If he murdered this intruder, he'd have to call the cleaners, and at this hour…Ledger scowled. If it came to that, he'd be lucky to make it into bed before the sun rose in the sky.

Maybe just a little maiming then, enough to teach whoever this was a lesson before sending him on his way. He'd take his ID and hand it off to someone else to follow up on. That could work. It was annoying to curb his bloodlust, but sleep had always been his biggest weakness.

He kicked in the last stall, ready to grab whoever was hiding within, only…

It was empty.

That was…unexpected.

Tipping his head up, he caught sight of one of the ceiling panels slightly off-center, not enough to be noticeable if he hadn't been paying attention to the details on purpose.

They'd climbed into the ceiling?

Seriously?

"Cute," he mumbled to himself, twisting on his heels. He wasn't slow or careful now as he bolted from the locker room and back into the central area of the fight club. Fortunately, he made it just in time to spot a figure dressed in all black making a run toward the exit.

Though he had a good amount of distance on him already, Ledger wasn't worried, confident he could easily catch up. There was a reason Kelevra had assigned this task to him, after all. He liked to do everything at three times the speed of the average person; running was nothing to him, and he was the fastest Devil in either group.

The intruder made it close to the door, with only twenty or so feet left to go, and he'd almost reached it by the time Ledger took him down.

He slammed into him, both hitting the ground and rolling as they struggled for the upper hand. The man beneath him—because it was clear now it was a man, had absolutely no fighting skills, however, and only managed to elbow Ledge in the side once before he was successfully pinned on his stomach.

Ledger spread out over him, covering him as much as possible so there was barely any wiggle room for the intruder to even try to use as an escape. He held him down at the wrists at either side of the man's head and then tilted to stare down at him once he was confident there'd be no more pushback.

The man was young, probably around Ledger's age, so early twenties. His cheeks were bright red, and there were already tears pooling in the corners of his purple and gold eyes.

"Those are interesting," Ledger said, inspecting the deep violet shade that made up the outer rings of the man's irises. Gold made up the center, blotching outward into the purple, almost like spilled ink. "Don't think I've seen any eyes like that before. Are you a Vital?"

Vital was what those native-born to Vitality were called, and Ledger knew many, but none of them were this…pretty. It was an odd thing to think of given their current circumstances, but Ledger found himself inspected the other man more closely. He might have been wrong about the age. He could be younger than him even.

The man's pouty, full pink lips pressed together, a show of defiance that actually made Ledge chuckle.

"Come on, the game is over. You've been caught. Might as well save yourself some pain and anguish by answering my questions." He hummed as he took in the rest of him. "Judging from the curly, pastel hair, you are Vital. The eyes come from somewhere else?"

Vitality was a popular planet due to its riches, and it wasn't uncommon for people to settle down here. Vitals were known for either having dark, naturally colored hair tones or lush pastels, like the mixture of buttery yellows and soft oranges that this guy was sporting.

"Just kill me and get it over with already," the man finally spoke, his voice feathery and not at all what Ledger had been expecting from someone bold enough to break into Friction.

He pulled off the intruder a bit more, lifting to check his clothing and quirking a brow when the man made no moves even to attempt to slip free. There was an embroidered tiger lily on the back of his black varsity jacket but nothing else to help identify him.

"You're not dressed like a spy or an assassin," Ledger noted. "You just look like a regular college student."

"I'm not."

"Not what? Regular, or a college student?"

The man shook a little, his eyes locked onto a spot on the wall as if he were too embarrassed to make eye contact. "I don't go to college."

"Why are you ashamed of something like that?"

He snorted. "Easy for someone like you to say."

"Someone like me?"

"You attend Vail University," the man stated.

Vail was one of the most prestigious schools in the galaxy, with the best programs and a hefty tuition fee. Ledger wasn't stupid by any means, but he was hardly a genius, and anyone who knew him would know the only reason he'd been offered enrollment was because of his position within the Retinue.

It wasn't surprising that he knew who Ledger was, most people on planet did. It also wasn't shocking that he knew Ledger went to Vail. But if he wasn't a student himself, that most likely meant he didn't have any connections with Ledger's friends or the rival gang who sometimes went against the Brumal. And if that were the case…

"All right, Tiger, want to tell me what you were doing in here?" Because, for the life of him, Ledger couldn't guess. When he didn't get an immediate response, he planted a knee at either side of the guy's hips and grabbed his arm, flipping him onto his back with more force than necessary.

The guy winced and bit down on his bottom lip, but remained lying down, not bothering to fight with Ledger. The spot beneath his right eye was swollen, and he'd managed to reopen a wound on his lip just now, a speck of bright blood staining his skin.

Ledger had been rough, but not that rough. Curious over the reaction, Ledge yanked the thick sleeve of his jacket down, uncovering a mess of blotches in various states of healing there as well. He'd been in a fight recently, that much was obvious.

He let out a low whistle. "I definitely didn't do all this when I took you down. Get on someone's bad side?" Ledger paused, an uncomfortable thought occurring to him. "Wait, were you here waiting for someone, Tiger?"

There weren't many rules between the Retinue and the Satellite, but not messing with each other's things was one of them.

"That's a question you're going to have to answer," he warned. "I'm not about to get a knife to my back because I'm straddling someone else's plaything, even one as pretty as you are."

It wasn't unheard of for a Devil to bring a fling here to watch the fights, but Ledger had never heard about midnight rendezvous. Then again, not really something he imagined was worth sharing. Unless it affected the rest of the group, people's private matters deserved to be kept as such.

"So, which is it?" he said. "They beat you up or fuck you up—literally?"

"Fuck—" the guy's eyes went wide and he vehemently shook his head. "No. No, nothing like that."

"You just get treated like a punching bag then?" There weren't many Devils who got off on that sort of thing, unless they were taking out their frustrations on someone they thought deserved it. As far as Ledger recalled, no one had any outstanding beef at the moment… "Who'd you piss off, Tiger?"

"Oran Orson."

Ledger frowned. "Who?" That wasn't a Devil. Also, "That can't be a real name."

"It is," the guy insisted.

"Yeah? What's your name then, and why'd this Oran guy beat you to a pulp?"

"Nikita Vizant," he replied. "And it's because he's my brother."

"Your brother did this?" That was…hard to understand. He and Pavel got into their spats now and again, like all siblings, but some of these injuries looked bad. They'd never even dream of leaving marks on one another that would take longer than a day to heal. "How badly did you hurt him back?"

Nikita snorted, a tear rolling down his cheek even as he flashed what had to be the fakest smile Ledger had ever seen. "Unless you count his sore knuckles, not at all. But this is nothing. At this point, I'm always just glad he didn't kill me. Up until now, I thought there was always a next time, but I suppose that's not something I'm going to have to worry about anymore. Since you'll do the job for him. Right?"

For the second time that night, all the humor drained away.