Except with her.
I let Sirena park herself—control matters to her—and watched while she slid a comb into her sideswept hair. The crown. Telepathy disruptor disguised as something pretty. It hurt her; her microexpressions said so, and so did the vitalsI caught whenever I could. But sometimes not wearing it hurt more: concerts, stadiums, anywhere minds collected to shout.
Motion at the driver’s side. A hulking Maukin stepped into frame, furred and patterned in spots and stripes, gold eyes bright in the alley’s dark. He waited politely. Front cam grabbed him; I ran the face through OBSIDIAN and ARACHNAEA databases. Former MSA, like Thorne. Club co-owner.Verified.
“Hello, Bram,” Sirena said, offering her hand. “I believe you left before my time.”
He nodded and took it. If I possessed musculature, I would’ve removed his arm before I let him place it anywhere near her. Their strength disparity was?—
Subroutines stabilized. If he meant her harm, she’d have known it before the door opened. Her crown was still off. Few species resisted telepaths.
Gargoyles did. Too much stone between signal and sense.
“Thorne said it was urgent?” she asked.
The Maukin pointed to his throat: mute. Files confirmed—mission on the Sargara, near-decapitation, vocal cords gone. The fur hid the scar.
He gestured toward the door he came from and led the way. Sirena followed, fingers reaching to click the crown on as she went. Logged scent profile: alcohol vapor, limestone, expensive mistakes.
Noise floor rose. I locked the car behind her, shifted to exterior feeds, and shadowed her in every lens I could touch. This was what I did: I gated the world, trimmed its dangers, and called it maintenance.
It wasn’t.
It was devotion with good UI.
2 /SIRENA
Visitingmy gargoyle ex-boyfriend’s nightclub on a Friday via a back-alley entrance wasn’t my idea of a fun time.
But Thorne wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important—and I knewheknew exactly what it’d cost me.
The second I turned on my crown—the tech hidden in my hair comb that protected my mind from other people’s thoughts—it felt like something small and creepily multi-legged was trapped inside my skull and wanted to get out.
But it was better than the alternative—listening to the innermost thoughts and immediate feelings of however many paying members of Thorne’s human and monster “social club” were attending tonight. Thorne’s club, Nocturne, was a place where willing members of either species could pay a membership fee to be vetted and then commingle—and rumor said it had “all-you-can-heat” rooms on the second floor.
I didn’t want to know what most people were thinking on a good day—so I was certain I didn’t want to open my mind up here, now.
Bram led me through a dark hallway, laced with noctylis vines overhead, their tendrils dangling down and coiling up at the slightest touch.
“Inside count: 193. Exits: ahead, left, and behind. One week to full moon. The noctylis are quiescent. Your sidearm carries tranq and impact rounds—nonlethal for most monsters here, sufficient to slow, but potentially lethal to humans,” Nex whispered into my earpiece.
I nodded subtly, but I knew Nex would catch the shift in the pendant’s camera as the chain moved on my neck.
I was fairly certain I wasn’t heading into a trap—Thorne and the other monsters who ran his club were all ex-MSA.
But Thorne’s request to meethere,rather than meeting me somewhere less people-y—and bass-y too now—was odd enough that I wanted backup.
Telling Nex was my way of splitting the difference, and the second I had, he’d insisted on coming with me, via an earpiece and the pendant around my neck—a small orb of sapphires in which he’d installed a camera using the armatures in his lab.
I didn’t want to know how he’d gotten the purchase orders past my dad.
Which probably meant he hadn’t.
The buzzing in my head got louder as we moved closer to other club patrons, and my crown had to work harder to drown them out even as it hurt me. I fought not to wince when Nex added, “Also, any alcohol you see glowing is either illegal or alive.”
I smiled, distracted from my incipient headache for a second.
Nex always knew what I needed to hear, and when I needed to hear it. He had preternatural timing, it seemed, anticipating each of my concerns and...I knew I shouldn’t think of himasahim.
