A group of drunken humans rounded the corner up ahead, chatting without a care in the world. Seeing their carefree grins made the acrimony build back up inside of me. Here they were, having a good ol’ time, while I was having a shitty day. I glared at them as they walked toward me, and my venomous gaze didn’t leave them until they passed me and were out of sight. Not that they noticed. They were too busy laughing about how stupid Billy from Econ Class was.
Humans and their idiotic gossip.
Humans.
They were toys. They were our food—literally. Incubi like me needed their pleasure from sex to feed. They were fertilizer for grass. They weren’t worth protecting, let aloneloving. They were only good for one thing.
Entertainment.
Anger turning a family man into a violent murderer.
Jealousy convincing the innocent to back-stab and steal.
Greed pushing the faithful to fight for a place on a man-made throne.
They were twisted creatures, and it made for the ultimate show. A true mindfuck, humans.
Though, I wasn’t intrigued by their disgusting ways right now.
Because right now, my idiot bandmate was making a mess of things due to those fickle emotions that demons shouldn’t possess. And he’d dared to say I might understand one day? I’d been trying to understand for amillennium, and the one time I thought—
I swallowed down the rising memory, which burned like acid.
No. I’d never fucking get it.
Demons could only feel so much. Love? Regret? Guilt? None of that shit fazed us. We were immune to all of the ridiculous emotions that caused people to do dumb shit. When we slipped up and tricked ourselves into thinking that we did feel something more, we were quickly reminded of the difference between demons and mankind. I was sure Zagan was about to relearn that hard lesson.
“Fuck this day,” I muttered as I threw an irritated scowl at the overcast night sky.
First, Zagan interrupted my night-in reading with his bullshit decision.
Then, he made it worse by pawning off one of our other bandmates on me. Since Zagan’s dumbass had decided to throw his freedom away, I was now stuck with our drummer, Coldin, the Letum Demon.
Letums were the most dangerous of our kind, and they weren’t allowed to just wander around loose. Coldin was only given freedom here on the human side, because he worked with us, but with Zagan leaving, he now fell under my care. In other words, I had a murderous spawn of Hell to keep an eye on.
I’d apparently become the designated babysitter among our band, because even Perseus, a fellow guitarist and Incubus, had recently dropped off a human at my house to keep locked up. The human man had committed what we Incubi considered the greatest sin, so while it annoyed me that everyone was dropping off their problems on me, I could at least take out that ire on Perseus’s gift. The same could not be said of Coldin.
I’d dropped the drummer off at my place after Zagan laid the news on me, and now I was out for a stroll to clear my mind of everything.
A lot of good it was doing me.
With a bitter sigh, I scanned the line of bars on the other side of the road. I needed to find some prey to fool around with to distract myself from the turbulent thoughts in my head. I needed a warm body to get lost in for a while. Maybe a stiff drink, too.
I pushed into the first bar I came to. Dim lighting lit the room, and dark wood and maroon accents furnished the place. It was packed, but that was to be expected for a Friday night. A U-shaped bar stood in the center of the room with tables and booths spread throughout, while a decently-sized dance floor made up the back.
I pulled my ball cap down lower on my head as I wove through the dozens of humans. While I wanted to find a partner amongst the sea of bodies, Ididn’twant to be ambushed by rabid fans right now. I wanted to wait and watch, carefully selecting my prey for the night.
Grabbing an empty stool at the bar, I ordered a glass of whiskey before scanning the mass of people. There were options of all types in every shape, size, color, and body type—a true buffet of options for a sex demon like me. Whatever I wanted, I could surely find here.
So why wasn’t I gravitating toward any of them?
My frustrations with Zagan, Perseus, and their love-tinted glasses kept my ass rooted to my chair. I was still too pissy to even bother pursuing someone right this second.
Growling under my breath, I grabbed my glass of whiskey and downed it in only a few greedy gulps before slamming it back down. With a wave of my hand at the bartender, I ordered, “Another.”
A cacophony of laughter drew my attention across the room. A group of men and women stood around a table. They leaned on each other as they threw back drinks and cackled at their topic of conversation. It wasn’t a scene out of the realm ofnormalcy for a bar, but something—or rather,someone—kept my gaze trained on them.
Among the five people congregated around the table, a lean guy with rust-colored waves of hair looked familiar. He pulled a well-endowed dark-headed girl under his arm and nibbled at her neck before the two whispered things to each other and laughed. Moments later, their tongues were tangling in what could’ve been an erotic display if it wasn’t for the fact that they looked like two vacuums competing for best sucking efficiency.
