It was the slot-machine-eyed demon who got there first. He pounded the table with such force the marker exploded in a red mist, then bellowed “BINGO!” in a voice that rattled the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling.
Mara, who clearly had nerves of titanium, only smiled wider. “That’s our first winner!” she crowed, and the other demons clapped, some with claws, some with applause that sounded more like rocks tumbling downhill.
“Come on up, Gremory,” Mara said, as if coaxing a kid to the front of the class for Show and Tell. Gremory rose, all eight feet of him, and approached the dais, looking both sheepish and victorious. He bowed to the audience, then fixed his gaze on the waiting line of brides.
He picked Jules. There was no hesitation: he extended a limb, palm up, and gestured with a kind of gallantry you wouldn’t expect from a creature with a mouthful of fangs and a voice that could shatter glassware. Jules, to her credit, only blinked once before stepping off the stage, her heels clicking with the poise of a runway model who’d just been told the next person to cross the catwalk would be devoured.
They disappeared together through the side door, flanked by Mara. The rest of us—demons and brides alike—waited in a state of suspended animation. The air in the hall grew tight and electric, every shuffle of a card amplified in the silence.
Samiel scratched behind his horn and said, “That’s a good match, actually.”
I opened my mouth, ready to volley back something clever, but Mara was already launching into the next round. “I-21!” she called, the syllables ricocheting between the windows. Samiel’s eyes locked on me, and for a second he looked like he might say something more, but then he dropped his gaze to his card and jabbed his marker so hard the table shook. I was about to make a little joke about competitive bingo, but then he did it again, and again, fast, like the numbers were falling exactly how he wanted—until, with a flourish, he slammed his palm down and yelled, “BINGO!”
CHAPTER
TWO
Samiel
The echo of my own voice sounded strange and exhilarating in the stale cold of the hall. I felt the eyes of every creature—human or otherwise—swing to me, calculating, appraising. My blood sang. I loved to win. I loved to take.
Mara beamed with the satisfaction of a game show host whose favorite contestant just hit the bonus round. “Samiel!” she said, stretching the syllables into something ceremonial. “Come on up and make your selection.”
My seat groaned as I stood, wings flexing and then folding tight. I’d practiced this walk in the mirror, but the reality of it—the weight of expectation, the ache in the base of my horns, the low, heady pulse of the prize waiting—outstripped rehearsal. I took the stage.
I’d been waiting for this for forty years. Forty years, marked out in the slow drip of seasons, the endless shuffle of mortals through the Valley of the Damned, the bone-level chill in every room I ever entered alone. I remembered the day the mayor forbade me from participating in Bingo for my little goat prank.At the time it had seemed a tolerable stretch, a slap on the wrist for a demon used to eternity. But I’d been young, for a demon, and I didn’t know how long forty years could really be. How much a body could crave even the smallest touch, even a brief glint of human attention. I watched the Bingo Bride events through the glass every year, the way a starving man might watch a banquet he could never taste.
I wanted a bride. I wanted to belong here, to have someone look at me and see more than the sum of my parts—horns, claws, wings, jokes that had outlived their punchline. I wanted to be necessary.
The remaining women all looked at me, but only Annie—Annie H., according to her sticker—held my gaze with any challenge in it. She was tiny, a slip of a thing, her body language a cocktail of nerves and challenge. Even standing straight, she didn’t reach the bottom of my sternum.
Most of the other women had already calculated their odds and were looking past me. Annie, with her milkmaid skin and defiant maroon lipstick, regarded me like she was sizing up a used car with suspiciously low mileage. Something in the lift of her chin said,You’d better not waste my time.
It did something to me—something chemical—the way being near a live wire makes your bones thrum. My tongue split itself in anticipation, both ends writhing discreetly behind my teeth. My tail, which I normally had perfect control over, lashed once behind my knee and smacked a folding chair so loudly that even Mara startled. Embarrassing. I took a half step back, willed it to go limp, and tried not to think about what else was going stiff.
“Well, Sam, who’ll it be?”
I made a show of looking over the bridal lineup—Lark, whose spikes threatened to gouge my eyes; Erin, who was already doodling skulls on her name sticker; the other one, who looked at me like she was hoping I’d explode on the spot. But it wasAnnie I wanted. Her hair was a deliberate catastrophe, black ink on one side and platinum on the other, cut to frame a face so pale it verged on lunar. The eyes were startling: blue as chlorinated pools in July, outlined in sharp liner. The goth girl thing had never made sense to me before. She made it look like the only way to be, with a manicure that could slice a warranty sticker and an expression so controlled it vibrated a little at the edges.
I wanted her so badly it nearly doubled me over. But there’d be no violence here, not even the tender kind. Not yet.
I locked eyes with her and let myself smile. The trick was to keep my lips parted, just a little, so the canines glimmered but didn’t threaten. I’d spent years watching humans, learning when to intimidate and when to court. She didn’t flinch, not even when my forked tongue flicked out to drag a stripe of saliva, precise as a scalpel, along the edge of my fang. A dare, if she was looking for it.
“I’ll take Annie,” I said, voice even, hands loose at my sides. Behind me, the other bachelors watched like it was the finals of a brutal sport. Annie arched a brow, and for a moment I thought she’d refuse, right there in front of everyone.
Instead, she stepped forward, a deliberate, ice-cold glide, and offered her hand like I was supposed to kiss it or maybe try to eat it. I bent over, took her wrist in my palm—delicate, bones birdlike—and pressed my lips to the pulse point, letting the humidity of my breath linger longer than etiquette allowed. Her skin was feverish, a sharp contrast to the chill of the hall. I caught the scent beneath her perfume—nervous sweat and some ghost of clove. It shot straight down my spine and pooled between my legs, an ache I had to lock down with everything I had.
“Charmed,” she said, drawing the word out in a perfect, deadpan echo. She didn't pull away, not even when I held on for a beat too long. "So, are you kidnapping me for the three-day trial period right now, or is your zipper going to give out before we make it there?" She shot a laser-focused glance at the undeniable evidence of my enthusiasm.
I looked her up and down, slow enough to make it a point, then to the very obvious ridge pitching my pants. I could see the other women watching, peripheral vision a matrix of envy and amusement, but I didn’t care. Annie had called my bluff in front of the whole damn hall. Beautiful.
“Zipper’s industrial strength,” I said. “But you’re welcome to test it.” The joke landed across her features like a shimmer of static. I knew what it meant to want to make an impression, to turn a room into your private theater. She was doing it now, and I respected the hell out of it.
Annie didn’t look away. In fact, she let her gaze travel, slow and clinical, up the length of me before returning to my face. She arched a brow. “Not bad.”
Mara cleared her throat. “Well then! If the couple would please proceed to the orientation suite—” She gestured to the far door with a flourish, then shot Annie a covert thumbs-up as we passed.
I offered her my arm; she didn’t hesitate, looping hers through mine with a grip both polite and proprietary. Up close, the top of her head barely grazed my bicep. The irony of this was not lost on me: for a creature built to terrify, I was utterly undone by a woman half my size, who eyed me as if I were a haunted house—worth exploring, but not worth screaming over.
