Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

Sebastien had been with us almost twenty-four hours. A whole twenty-three hours more than anyone would have liked. He’d been checked into his own room, just like he’d asked, and in exchange he’d give us the answer to bringing down Gideon Cain.

It seemed a simple enough deal. But in those twenty-four hours, the only answer he’d given was how many flaming sambucas one demon could consume without passing out. Although technically, we didn’t have that answer either, because he was still upright when I entered the bar.

I’d expected him to have moved from the table in front of the stage, where I’d left him last night—or maybe him showing up had just been a horrible dream—but nope, he was still there. He’d propped his shiny black and white shoes on the chair opposite, his dirty white suit bore the creases of a sleepless night, and his sparkly demon wings trailed either side of him. He resembled a demon mannequin that some kids had painted in black and white, braided its long white hair, and then briefly taken a blow torch to, melting it over the chair.

Empty shot glasses littered his table.

At another nearby table, Victor wasn’t happy. Victor was rarely happy, but since I’d left him yesterday evening he’d made an entire zoo of origami animals and gathered them together on his table. All those perfectly folded corners and straight lines had probably kept his murder urges at bay.

“Has Victor been there all night?” I asked, arriving at the bar counter to find Tom in his default pose of drying an already dry glass.

“All night,” Tom said. “Taking up seating space without ordering a single drink.”

It wasn’t as though we were brimming with customers. Victor and Seb were the only ones here.

Victor was guarding our unwanted guest, and I couldn’t blame him. Sebastien was technically our enemy, and we’d let him walk right in. Or, I had...

I’d told myself I’d give Seb a day to settle in, to get acquainted with the hotel, and that I’d give him the benefit of the doubt—but that deadline was almost up.

“You seen Zee?” I asked Tom.

Tom slid a cup of tea across the bartop counter, and peered at me with raised eyebrows. “I saw Zee. Right around the time he told us all to go fuck ourselves and left.”

There hadn’t been much time for us to discuss letting Seb stay, but there also hadn’t been much to discuss. We were a hotel for Lost Ones. We didn’t turn anyone away, unless they meant us harm, and the wards had allowed him in which meant he wasn’t here to hurt anyone. Plus, we really needed to stop Gideon Cain. If Seb could help with that, as dubious as the idea was, we should look at it. But Zee had been in no mood to listen, and I couldn’t blame him. I’d witnessed enough of his relationship with Seb to know it had not been a good one.

It hurt—hurting Zee—like Tom’s tea hurt my whiskey-loving soul. But it was necessary. I sipped the tea and winced. “It’s cold.”

“It’s iced,” the bartender hissed.

I eyed the tepid liquid in its chipped china cup. “There’s no ice in this. It’s just cold tea, Tom.”

He slung the cloth over his shoulder and peered harder. “Have you eaten today? Breakfast? Lunch? Are you getting your minerals? How about a milkshake?”

“Milkshake? Uh, no thank you.”

“Good, I only have minotaur milk and that shit will kill you.”

Wait... Weren’t all minotaurs male? What kind of milk—never mind, I didn’t want to know. Narrowing my eyes, I huffed and pushed the tea away. Tom was taking the whole I’m-actually-human thing too far. “I did eat today, yes,” I said, answering his earlier nannying.

Tom huffed as though I’d accused him of putting pets in pies. “Fine. Then you have earned one glass of whiskey. But only the one.”

My alcoholic heart tripped. It wasn’t a problem. I’d always needed the heat, being a dragon an’ all—although I was less dragon now than I’d ever been—and when Tom finally handed over my tumbler, the first sip of whiskey confirmed how un-dragon I was by scorching the back of my throat and yanking a cough from my chest.

Zee chose that moment to poof into the bar next to me, which would have been a relief if I’d had some warning. Startled, I coughed, wheezed from shock, almost swallowed my own tongue, gulped air, and clung to the counter.

“Fuck, Kitten. Are you dying ?”

A desperate gasp was my only reply.

Zee flung his arms around me, and jerked my face against his Charity Begins on Your Knees T-shirt. “I got you! Breathe .”

I tried, but breathing while being crushed by a seven-foot incubus wasn’t easy. I gulped, trying to suck in air. Zee felt me struggling, and spun me in his arms so my ass thumped his crotch. Next, his clenched fists slammed up into my middle—my lungs spasmed, my hot eyes bulged.

Was I dying?

“Zodiac, what are you doing?” Victor’s smooth voice sounded nearby.

I tried to reach for him, but my arms were pinned too.

Help .

“The fucking Himmler maneuver is what I’m doing,” Zee grunted.

“Fucking Himmler?” Victor paused for what felt like forever. “Do you mean Heimlich?”

“Whatever, Adam is dying from air!”

Crush. Spasm . Help !

“I suspect he needs air to breathe, of which you appear to be starving him.”

Yes, that! Like Victor had so calmly pointed out, I did need to breathe and Zee was crushing me. Spasm. Wheeze. Could humans die from breathing backwards? That seemed like a terrible design flaw.

“Stand back, vampire! I’m saving him!”

I loved Zee, I really did, but someone needed to step in.

“Just so everyone knows, for legal reasons, he asked for whiskey,” Tom drawled, back to casually drying a glass. I eyed him through swimming tears. “I advised against it. This is what happens when you don’t listen to the bartender. Terrible shame, he was so young.”

I wasn’t dead! But I would be soon if Zee didn’t let up.

“Looks like you’re pounding his ass,” Sebastien’s drunk drawl joined the chat.

“That’s how—” Zee grunted again, still trying to punch my lungs through my ribs. “I know—” Crush . “I’m doing —” Heave . “It right!” Zee must have only then realized who’d spoken, because he freed an arm and flung a finger at Seb. “Back the fuck off!”

With Zee momentarily distracted, I tore free of his death hug. The counter rushed up, and I clung to it like a life raft, gasping and wheezing, filling my starved lungs with precious air.

“Kitten?” Zee made a move as though to rush in and scoop me up again.

I thrust out a hand, stopping him. “I’m good! You uh... You’re real strong, Zee. I just...” I coughed, and Zee and Victor both flinched. “Just give me a second to catch my breath here.”

Tom slid my barely touched whiskey away from me, down the counter and out of reach. “And the barman was right all along.”

I mourned the loss of my drink, then caught sight of Zee’s concerned face and lashing tail. “It’s alright, I’m fine.”

“What a bunch of fuckin’ losers,” Seb crooned, slumping against the counter. “How the fuck have you survived this long when your so-called leader—the demon bait—chokes on fuckin’ air. I’ve never seen a more pathetic display in my fucking life and I used to watch desperate fucks pay to fuck more desperate dumb fucks.”

What happened next took place so fast I only saw its outcome, but I figured Zee had lunged for Seb and Victor got between them, probably thinking he could prevent Zee getting hurt by the wards. Unfortunately, the wards activated fast enough to stop Zee getting to Seb, but not fast enough to stop him from colliding with Victor. As Zee was still intent on violence, Victor braced, and in that second the wards lashed out at everyone having bad thoughts. Zee was flung, swearing and wings flapping, into Victor’s table of paper animals, scattering it and the entire zoo, and Victor clutched the counter next to me, visibly panting from the wards slapping him down.

Untouched, Seb calmly picked up my whiskey and downed it in a single gulp. “Losers.”

I straightened and surveyed the chaos. Zee lay on his back on the floor, among the fragments of table and paper zoo animals, clutching his head.

Victor growled through clenched teeth, one wrong word away from lashing out at Sebastien too.

Enough was enough. “Sebastien, you’ve got two minutes to tell me what you know or we’re done here.”

Seb snorted. “Stupid human, I just saved your useless life. You owe me.”

“Fuck you,” Zee snapped, still staring at the ceiling and massaging around his horns. “I was saving Adam.”

Yeah... No. Zee had almost kinda killed me. With love. But still.

I caught Seb’s eye, and his smirk said he knew I’d been stuck and fading fast. He’d watched it all from a distance, and he was right, his intervention had distracted Zee enough for me to get free.

Seb knew exactly what he was doing.

“Give me something on Gideon,” I said. “Give me a reason to keep you here. Give me something so I know I’m not making a mistake letting you stay.”

Seb slid onto a barstool and took his time looking about the bar, assessing its freshly painted walls, the candy-colored retro jukebox, the shiny dancing pole on the ramshackle stage Zee had built. “This place could be good. You know how much money you make selling sex by the hour? A fuck-ton. More than this dump makes in a week. Put Zodiac to work and all your money worries will be over. Everyone already thinks this is the Sex Hotel.” He grinned. “Lean into Zodiac’s best assets, and you’ll be set for life.”

“Shut him up or I will,” Zee snarled from the floor.

“Oh, you can’t, pet.” Seb pouted. “We just saw what happens when you lash out. You get the hangover without the fun. Now fuck off and let the grown-ups talk.”

“Seb,” I warned. “Give me something I can use.”

The big flashy asshole demon fluttered his painted white lashes. “Gideon Cain just came into enough power to wipe this city off the map. But I’m guessing you know all about that, since he was celebrating your downfall. Hm?”

It hadn’t been so much a downfall as a trap Gideon Cain had lured me into. During the Dine and Fight events, Gideon had been harvesting small amounts of Lost Ones power from the fighters. I’d thought we’d stopped his machine, but I’d been wrong, and he’d taken more than a small amount of me, then concentrated my power in the form of a squishy bead. “So tell me something I don’t know.”

“Fine.” Seb tapped the bar, gave his wings a ruffle, and waited for Tom to serve him another shot before saying, “He tried to extract power from it like he’s done with other harvested beads before, but he can’t—not yet. It’s too much, he says, even for him. The fucking trinket almost vaporized him, so he’s trying to find a way of harnessing it without it burning him out.”

This was good. This was information we needed. Insider information. “Go on.”

“Gideon Cain keeps that bead on him at all times, on a pendant, on a chain around his neck.”

“Fuck . . .” Zee sighed out.

“Fuck indeed,” Victor eloquently agreed from his spot at the bar behind me. “That will make its retrieval difficult.”

“You’ve seen it?” I asked Seb.

Seb’s mouth twitched into a smile. “I’ve seen it, I know it, and because of me, now you know it too.”

Alright, this was good information. And Seb probably had more.

Oh dear.

He was going to have to stay, at least until we could squeeze out all the Gideon Cain information he knew.

“Why are you here?” I asked. “Why tell us anything? What do you get out of this?”

“Because I have two beautiful eyes, and with those eyes I can fucking see shit. And I see a mountain of shit heading our way—not just for you, but all of us. I don’t give a fuck about you or this hotel, or about anything but keeping myself alive and the money coming in. Gideon Cain is going to fuck up the good thing we all got going on this side of the veil.”

“He hurt you, didn’t he?” Zee was sitting up now, arms resting over his bent knees. His frazzled hair had flopped around his horns, and his shirt—barely buttoned up to begin with—now gaped open, showing his scrunched abs. “That’s the only reason you’re here. You’re scared and you got nowhere else to go. Nobody will fucking have you.”

Slowly, Seb turned on the stool and leveled Zee under his glare. “Bitch, I made you. You were nothing, and now the masses worship you, feeding you lust every time you check your fuckin’ phone like an addict, making you stronger. That’s on me. You’re mine, even without a fucking contract. Deep inside, you know it. I still fuckin’ own you and I always will?—”

“That’s enough,” I snapped, although my human voice didn’t resonate with threat like it used to.

Zee calmly climbed to his feet, brushed off bits of table and paper animals, then strode over. “In those four years you owned me there wasn’t a single night I didn’t think of all the fucked-up ways I was goin’ to make you suffer. The Razorsedge staff voted to keep you alive. I’m not them. You think you own me? I own you , Sebastien.” Zee thrust a purple-painted fingernail in his face. “Every fucking step you make, every breath you take, it’s because I let it happen.” Zee stuffed an origami demon into Seb’s drink. “The second you leave these wards, imma tear your fucking wings off and give them to Adam to eat.” Zee blew Seb a kiss and wagged his fingers. “Sleep well, you unfashionable, unimaginative, limp-dicked loser.”

Zee made a swaggering, wing-swaying exit, managing to pull off the attitude even with one braced broken wing, leaving the bar in resounding silence.

The jukebox kicked into life, playing “Every Breath You Take” by The Police, which seemed eerily on point.

Seb’s gaze fluttered back mine. “I’ve missed that sassy mouth sucking my dick.”

The wards’ spiky touch needled my less-than-friendly thoughts as a warning. Eating Sebastien’s wings seemed like a great idea, even if I was human... ish and would have to cook them first to avoid food poisoning. I’d find a way.

“The only way you’re surviving Zodiac is if you help us stop Gideon Cain,” I told him.

Seb grinned into his drink, but there was a tiny little crack in that smile—a fracture of fear.

After lowering his drink, he offered his hand, black and white nails shining. “We have a deal, Adam Vex.”