Chapter 185: Chapter Two

Timber

I was maybe one mile into my drive when my cell went off.

“Give me good news, Saint.” I grunted as one of my associates chuckled on the other end, ah, it wasn’t going to be good. And the day was going so well, wasn’t it?

“Sorry, Timber, Tarek’s working out just fine.”

I almost exhaled in relief.

It’s not like a werewolf, especially a royal one, knew how to be polite around so many demons. It wasn’t in their nature to befriend something dark; no, it was in their nature to completely destroy it with their bare teeth, and yet I had him working at one of our bars.

What the hell had I been thinking?

Oh, right…

Give him a chance.

Let him see something outside of his home in Scotland, allow him to get groomed for the role he would eventually take by Mason’s side as his younger brother. Blah, blah, blah, blah—oh, look, a hummingbird, blah.

“So what’s the problem?” I was already turning around and making my way into the city. I owned a dozen bars around the Puget Sound; my largest was called Soul, get it? Soul? Because none of us had one, and we used it as a way to lure humans into our sanctums and suck them dry.

But those were the good ol’ days.

Now my race was divided between those who wanted redemption, who, when we did leave this earth, wanted to be reunited with the Creator… and those who looked forward to the Abyss, Hell, Tartarus—whatever you called it, it didn’t have unicorns and sunshine.

There weren’t many left that were fully dark, but the ones that were seemed to keep to themselves. I’d cleaned every bar up and only allowed my men to feed on a woman if she was willing.

We had a hell of a Non-disclosure agreement.

Then again, they were so high on our blood that they just nodded and walked out the door where our vampire security made sure they never remembered a thing.

It was working.

So why was I getting a call?

“Listen, someone came in asking for a job…” Saint grunted.

“We have enough people,” I barked in a loud voice as I took the exit, waited at the stoplight, and then hit the accelerator toward the Pier.

“That’s what I said, but Tarek felt bad, and he—”

“Is Tarek suddenly making himself the manager?”

“No, but he is quite… persuasive.”

I just bet he was.

“I’m pulling up now.”

Rage filled me, feeding the darkness within as I slammed the door and stomped past security into the dimly lit bar with its loud pumping music and sweaty bodies, people all touching one another on the dance floor.

Standing room only, why was I not surprised?

Like I said, we were like a drug to humans; once they were in, they were known to dance until we kicked them out.

Something about us just called to them.

They thought it was the beauty on the outside.

Joke was on them, because it was the ugliness on the inside that called, the darkness that matched their own. People are under the assumption that they’re only attracted to good.

Spoiler alert.

Humans are fallen.

Meaning they’re equally attracted to pure evil.

I grinned at that, even though I knew I shouldn’t. My blue eyes searched the grinding bodies and finally stopped when I saw Tarek wave a huge hand in my direction.

The guy was at least six foot three and had long brown hair he pulled into a man bun that made me roll my eyes every time I had to look at him. He was a Scottish hippy in an American bar.

I had to hand it to him.

The guy raked in the tips every time he opened his bloody mouth.

“Tarek.” I dug my fingernails into the wooden bar and then scratched into it a very graphic design of me hanging him over a tree and using a baseball bat to show him why hiring without my decision was a poor choice in life.

He just grinned down at the little fingernail drawing and said, “That’s cute.”

“You’re a pain in the ass.” A growl thundered in my chest earning cautious looks from people nearby. I gave my head a shake as the red threatened to take over my line of vision. “You’ve been here a week and already you’ve fired two people and then hired a person… Who died and gave you my job, because I’m pretty sure my heart’s still beating.”

“Pretty sure or ~sure~-sure?” His eyes narrowed.

I let out an annoyed sigh. “I’m alive, which is more than I can say about you if you don’t explain yourself in the next three seconds.”

He gave me a smug grin. “So there was this woman…”

“Well shit, by all means, give her the keys to the place!” I roared, just as a short pixie-looking thing rounded the corner. She had blue streaks in her hair, a nose piercing, and was wearing a tiny tank top paired with cutoff shorts and red cowboy boots.

“As I was saying…” Tarek elbowed me like we were friends and then winked. “There was this woman—”

“Shouldn’t women be taller?” I wondered out loud.

“Does it matter? Look at her.”

“She’s passable,” I lied.

“Bullshit. She’s gorgeous, and she begged me for a job.”

I jerked my gaze to his. “Was she willing to do anything, then? You’re a dog, a complete mutt, I should put you down…”

“Slow your roll Demon King,” He grinned again. “I’ve got a girl back home I’ve had my eye on for a few hundred years.”

My right eye twitched. “Well, by all means, move slower.”

He lifted two middle fingers. “She’s special.”

“Yes, that’s why you should wait five hundred years to hold her hand—she’s special, different. Tarek, I was fighting wars before your people were even gifted with the rule over earth. Believe me when I say, all of them are the same.”

“Hi!” A peppy voice had me craning my neck and then looking down… down… down. The woman was barely five feet tall! “I’m Kyra Apollonia!”

I stared and stared, then crossed my arms and muttered, “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

My tattoo seemed to shiver across my palm, the pain dissipated briefly before coming back full force like it was warning me about something.

Fantastic.

“What the hell kind of name is Kyra Apollonia?” I just had to know. Really. Who has the last name Apollonia? It was like Pollyanna but worse.

“Oh,” Her bronzed cheeks seemed to pinken a bit. “So my parents are from this super old Greek family. Long story short, my father was Egyptian, my mother was Greek, and they wanted to combine both traditions. So Kyra Apollonia it is!”

“Kyra.” I repeated her first name. “Or Kyros, like Ra, the sun.” The room tilted as she sucked in a breath and then her jaw went slack.

I turned my attention back to Tarek. “Is she good?”

The infuriating thing waved a hand between us. “Hello? Standing right here? And how’d you know that? Did you study Egyptian mythology or something?”

I barked out a laugh at that. “Your mythology is my Bible, strange, but true.” I rolled my eyes and looked back to Tarek. “If she breaks one glass she’s done.”

Silence ensued between them.

I sighed. “Multiple glasses then…”

“Thank you!” The woman I hardly knew, who barely came up to my chest, wrapped her arms around my body so tight and fast that I couldn’t prepare myself.

I stood there like an idiot while her warmth filled me from the inside out.

Every part of her body that touched mine was on fire, the good kind, the slow burn that makes you willing to do anything, say anything, swear anything for more.

And then she was gone, skipping back through the crowd and finding her place behind the bar pouring beer.

“Still think she’s just like every other woman?” Tarek put a hand on my shoulder.

I was irritated that he put a hand where she’d touched.

He stole her warmth, damn it!

My eyes narrowed. “She’s… there’s something…” I squeezed my hands and then looked down at my palm.

The black seed tattoo.

Had sprouted a green branch.

Toward my thumb.