I held the door for Annie, then draped my arm over her shoulder, letting the world see us together. Every demon in the lobby turned to look—and not just the demons, but a handful of humans who’d come for the spectacle of it, the thrill of spending a weekend somewhere that still felt lawless. I watched them take her in, the way their eyes slid over her body, the dress, the marks I’d left. I felt a flicker of violence; I met every stare until it turned away, and Annie caught the edge of my smile.
“You don’t have to glower at everyone in the zip code,” she whispered, but she sounded pleased.
“I want them to know you’re with me,” I said, voice low enough for only her.
She rolled her eyes, but she laced her fingers through mine and led me to the bar. The place was packed, a spill of bodies in every color and configuration: lesser demons, humans in everything from business casual to leather harnesses, a pair of succubi in matching couture. The bartender was a demon I knew—Neph, tall and marble-skinned, with hair the color of copper wire and a knack for making a martini that actually burned on the way down. He clocked me from across the bottles, then Annie, and his mouth curled into a grin.
“Samiel,” he called, voice big enough to rattle the glassware. “And this must be the prize.”
Annie raised her brows, smirking. “I’m afraid he’s oversold me,” she said, but Neph’s grin only grew.
“Not possible.” He wiped his hands on a towel, shook our hands, and poured two drinks without asking. “On the house. This one’s for the archives.” I watched Neph size up Annie, not with the predatory edge I expected, but with a kind of respectfulcuriosity. Like he was trying to figure out why a human would ever put up with someone like me.
We took our drinks to a table by the window overlooking the lake. The water was glass-dark, reflecting the neon and the fat, lazy moon. Annie slipped into the booth, sliding right up against me even though there was plenty of room. I liked it. I wanted her next to me, always.
We ordered food—a charcuterie board with so much raw meat I thought it might try to bite back, plus fries, plus a dessert that was just called “Crème Infernal.” The menus were printed on black leather, the font so Gothic it was barely legible. Annie squinted and pursed her lips trying to make out each word, which made me want to drag her under the table and fuck her until she screamed.
But I wanted to do this right. A real date. A normal night, if either of us knew what normal meant.
She sipped her drink and made a face. “You know, in the world I come from, this is the part where we talk about our exes—and probably our families.”
I choked on my whiskey, the burn of it almost as sharp as the twist in my stomach. “Is that a requirement?”
She shrugged, eyes bright. “It’s tradition. You tell me about yours, I tell you about mine, and then we either get jealous or decide everyone in our past is trash.”
I tried to think of a single demon I’d ever fucked who qualified as an “ex.” I tried to picture Annie, sitting across from some other man, laughing at his jokes while acting like her smile wasn’t the best thing in the room.
“You first,” I said, and braced myself.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
Annie
Iwent for maximum flippancy, because that was how these games went. "My last boyfriend was a barista with a demon complex. He had a Satan tattoo on his thigh and kept a bootleg bottle of absinthe under my bathroom sink." I propped my chin on my fist, giving him the look that said,Go ahead, judge me, I dare you."He moved into my place after, like, a month. We played house for almost a year before I realized he actually thought I would do his laundry forever. Seth would leave his dirty socks on my coffee table and then text me from work asking what was for dinner." I paused, not sure how much I wanted to say. "When we broke it off, I expected to be broken-hearted, but I think I felt relief more than anything. The joy of finally giving up on something that had been long dead."
Samiel listened, eyes on my mouth, not my eyes. For a solid beat, he didn’t react—like he was buffering, trying to make sense of a story that probably sounded as alien to him as “I once fucked a centaur” would to a regular guy.
“What was his name, again?” he said, not moving.
I almost lied. The urge was there, sudden and ancient and leftover from every time I’d watched a new boyfriend’s face try on the shape of the last boyfriend’s name. But I didn’t want to start this thing with a lie, not even a dumb one. “Seth,” I said. “He was… present. I wouldn’t call him an ex so much as a roommate with benefits and boundary issues.”
Samiel nodded, but his jaw flexed, like he was chewing over the name and not finding it to his taste. “He wasn’t good to you.”
It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “He was fine. Just small. Like, his world was a studio apartment and a coffee shop and three friends who all hated each other. I wanted more.” I looked out at the lake, at the black mirror of water and the way our reflections flickered in the glass. “I always want more, I guess.”
He was quiet for a second. Then: “Did you love him?”
I shrugged, but the answer surprised even me. “No. I don’t think I’ve ever been in love, exactly. Not the way people sing about it.” I rolled my glass between my palms, letting the cold bite my skin. “I wanted to be seen. I think that’s all. He saw what he wanted, not what I was.”
Another silence, this time with teeth. I risked a glance at Samiel, and the look on his face was rawer than I’d expected. Not just jealousy—though there was a jagged edge of that—but something like confusion, or maybe even grief. “Have you ever been in love?” I asked, and it came out sharper than I meant.
He stilled, the kind of stillness that meant a hundred gears were grinding in secret. “Not really,” he said. “Demons don’t do love. Not… the way you think. Sex, yes. Loyalty, sometimes. But the closest thing I’ve felt to it is right now.” He looked up, square in my face, and there was no joke. “I’ve never done this before. Not the food, not the house, not the…” His hand, big and inked with veins, hovered over mine but didn’t touch. “I’ve never hada relationship that wasn’t a game, or a fight. Or a contract with a time limit.”
I stared, waiting for the punchline, some hint that he was exaggerating. But he wasn’t. I realized with a jolt that I might be his first—his actual first shot at more than just sex, or violence, or whatever demons counted as a social life. He’d been with other people, sure, but the way he said it, the way he looked at me, made it clear. Nobody had ever let him try, or wanted him to try. Nobody had ever made him want to.
I reached out, slow, and set my hand on top of his. It felt like petting a sleeping tiger—risk and reward, both in the same breath. “You’re doing okay so far,” I said, and the joke landed, because his lips twitched in relief.
