My dad nearly had an aneurysm at the charity event when I’d suggested I was dating Fang. With everything that happened afterward, with me showing my dad the evidence that Tessa, his new wife, was behind my kidnapping and the attempt on Kieran’s life at the press conference, he’d had a lot to reckon with. I figured I’d give him some time before I jumped him with the full truth.
Plus, things hadn’t been too breezy between my guys. Fang? He was cool with anything. As long as I was happy, he’d be happy. I could have a full roster of seven boyfriends, one for each day of the week, and he’d be okay with it.
The others? Not so keen on sharing, even now. Mike’s walls had definitely come down, but sometimes they shot right back up again. Old habits and all that. He was not a huge fan of Fang, and Kieran… well, I was pretty sure he still hated him for kidnapping me and keeping me for two years in the first place.
And Kieran? Obviously, my Devil never wanted to share me. He wanted me all to himself. After everything with his sister, I’d hoped things would calm down and everything could stay the same where he was concerned—that he’d still live with us, spend most of his time with me, and all that—but the more my dad thought about it, the more he couldn’t get past it or overlook Kieran’s connection to Tessa.
My dad might not have known Kieran had kidnapped me on Tessa’s order, but it was still too much for him, so Kieran had to move out and get his own place. He also had to get another job to pay the bills—luckily, Sylvester, one of Lola’s boyfriends, was always looking for men who knew how to take care of business. I didn’t see him as often as I wished, but sometimes that was the way the cookie crumbled.
And me? What had I been doing these last five months besides trying to juggle multiple boyfriends and get everybody on the same page? I started college. I roomed with Kelly off-campus, sharing a small house with her. Things were different, but better. I might not see my guys every day, but anytime I wanted to, they leapt at the chance. I had weekly dinners with my dad on Sunday evening, and my dad had finally accepted my pink and blue hair and my crazy-colored contacts.
Things had settled into a routine. A part of me had thought Tessa would pop up and make trouble, but the woman had vanished after I’d told her to leave. She and my dad hadn’t officially divorced, but they were separated. A certain amount of time needed to pass before they could make the divorce official.
Things were good. I was happy. I’d be even happier if my guys could learn to get along and be in the same room as each other without two of them being at each other’s necks, but I didn’t want to rush things. The guys would move at their own pace. Either they’d get over it or… or they never would. All I knew was that I refused to decide between them.
I was in love with three different men. What a strange thing to think.
Lola spun me around so that my chest leaned against hers, a more intimate stance, and as she leaned in and swept some of my hair away from my face, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was for show, if her choice of a target was nearby, watching.
After all, Lola and I came together, so Lola and I would leave together. Whoever she chose to hunt tonight had to be okay with the thought of a threesome. Let’s be real: most men, when faced with two pretty girls, would love to be sandwiched between them.
“I think I found my guy,” she told me, her lips brushing against my ear, her breath hot on the side of my cheek. “He offered me some pills. Supposedly ecstasy, but… I have mydoubts. I’m going to pretend to take one. Watch me. When I start acting sloppy, I need you to come over and suggest we go back to our hotel room.”
A hotel room, because normally when Lola hunted, she hunted wearing a wig as a disguise. This particular hotel room, though it was a few hours away from home, would be cleaned up by Luciano men.
It paid to be friends with criminals who knew exactly what to do with dead bodies.
Lola leaned her head back, but she kept her body pressed against mine. “Unless you’re having second thoughts about this whole thing?” As she asked, her lips curled into a smile, probably because she already knew the answer.
Hell no. I wasn’t going to step back and say I’d changed my mind. This was a night I’d been looking forward to for a long, long time. I might’ve gotten a taste of blood when I used the clawed gauntlet Fang made me on the man who’d kidnapped me for Tessa, but this… this was different. This was an actual hunt, and I was more ready for it than Lola could ever know.
All I did was smile and say, “Go put on your best show.”
She grinned back at me, licked her lower lip like she was getting ready to take a bite, and told me with a wink, “Time to take lessons from the master.” And then she pulled away from me and sauntered back to her chosen target, who, I noticed, was waiting for her on the edge of the crowd. Most everyone was paying attention to Black Sacrament, but he only had eyes for her—and for me, now that he knew we were together.
Thirty or so feet between us, but I could see everything I needed to: somewhere between twenty and thirty years old, with the kind of generically handsome face that probably got him out of trouble. Still, beneath that facade laid a predator; we weren’t side by side but I noticed the heavy glint in his beady eyes,the hunger that swelled inside him in anticipation of fucking someone like Lola.
I watched as she huddled closer to him, said something to him, and he smiled like the Cheshire Cat itself in response. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a tiny baggie, and then handed Lola a pill, which he watched her take. She then hooked her arm through his and pulled him into the crowd—but not before she glanced at me and spat out the pill, landing it on the dimly-lit floor.
Of course, it happened so fast, and the man was too eager to get in there and see his pill at work that he didn’t notice. Nobody did. Nobody saw Lola spit out that pill other than me.
And then it was a waiting game.
I didn’t mind. Though Lola and her chosen prey weren’t on the outskirts of the crowd anymore, I could still see them through the swaying people. Bits and pieces, flashes of them between the head-banging.
This was Lola’s first true hunt in a while. Her men preferred to be with her, but tonight was about us girls. Viper, Maddox, and Sylvester; none of them were with us right now. This hunt was between Lola and me.
And her prey, obviously.
Who knew getting a taste of the dark side wouldn’t be enough for me? If you took one look at the girl I was three years ago, you’d never guess this was where I’d end up. A girl who craved the darkness but looked like a, to use Fang’s words, cotton candy daydream.
I moved closer to the crowd after a while, joining them in their adoration for the band on the stage. I’d listened to a few of their songs before the concert, so I recognized some of the ones they played. As I swayed along with the hard beat, I watched Angel on stage sing her heart out while occasionally makinggoogly eyes to the male lead… and the other guitarist, and the drummer.
Shit. Lola was right. She was definitely banging them all. With how much they seemed to be loved—quite the story, since not many bands could make a comeback after what happened with their last lead singer—I wondered if their fans already suspected they were an item. Maybe most of them would be okay with it.
Or maybe it’d be Black Sacrament’s downfall, which was why they were keeping the full truth to themselves.
Most of the people in the crowd wore black, some even wore homemade masks that matched the ones the bandmates wore. The hardcore fans even mimicked the body paint—must be some kind of sweat-resistant paint, because I was personally sweating up a storm.
