“I’m supposed to be meeting her,” he said.
Poor Jake. Brilliant with books. Absolutely clueless with people. He was the only person in the entire coven who seemed genuinely oblivious to just how terrible Priscilla was.
“You heard from your sister lately?” I asked, quickly changing the subject before I said something nasty about Priscilla within earshot of Creep.
Lex was my age, and while my reason for not summoning my mate was all about building stability, Lex had very different ideas. She didn’t believe in the summoning at all. She was convinced it stole choice from the demons we were bound to, despite having grown up in a coven where literally every pairing was picture-perfect. That belief was why she’d moved out of the coven to live among the mortals.
“Uh, yeah, actually,” Jake said, running a hand through his russet hair. “She’s coming home in a few hours.”
My brows furrowed. “Lex is coming home for the summoning?”
Jake shook his head. “Mom just said she’s done something to induce a trial.”
A trial?
Even Priscilla had never pushed things far enough to trigger a coven trial. In fact, the last one had been almost a decade ago—Priscilla’s mother, of course—resulting in her exile from the coven.
Lex must have done something serious.
Thank the Gods and Goddesses Lex was still part of our coven.
Depending on the severity of what she’d done, the trial would involve a small jury of her peers, presided by our head of coven, who also happened to be her grandmother. Not that Ms. Cole would go easy on her because of that, but at least she’d be fair.
The alternative for those who weren’t part of a coven (or whatever the collective term for their magical species was), would be judgment by the Council, the governing body of magical beings who presided over all supernatural law. And when it came to judging the nomads among us, the Council had a habit of being spectacularly unfair, especially when they’d been dragged out of bed for what they considered trivial trials.
“Um... well, let me know if she needs me,” I said. If Lex was in trouble, I might have to postpone my trip.
“Will do!” Jake called over his shoulder as he jogged off, yelling, “Hey, Pris! Wait up!”
Ugh. Hopefully Lex could knock some sense into her numskull brother when she got here.
Priscilla-fucking-Raisin. Honestly. What was he thinking?
Chapter 2. Blaise
Our flat was too quiet.
Ambrose had never been a chatty kind of demon, but tonight the silence had a bite to it. It felt like an unspoken goodbye.
It wasn’t unusual for this time of year. In the lead-up to Samhain, there was always a stillness between us—both of us keenly aware that this could be the last night of the life we’d built together over the past nine years, before one or both of us were summoned by our fated mates.
It was unusual for our kind to spend any real time outside the Shadow Realm unless it was to feed. Most sex demons lived there almost exclusively, tucked away in small clan pockets, surfacing briefly into the mortal world only when hunger demanded it.
The Realm itself was (unsurprisingly) dark and dreary. A place of shadows and half-lived lives, where demons passed the time conjuring small comforts and, for our clan, waiting for Samhain to roll around again.
But it had never felt like home to me.
The first time I was allowed to explore the mortal realm, I’d been overwhelmed by it—the color, the noise, the wonderful disorder of it all. I’d known almost immediately that once I came of age, I wouldn’t go back to the dark. I wanted to live among mortals and earth-bound supernaturals. I wanted to build something real instead of conjuring shadows just to wait in them.
And I hadn’t expected Ambrose to want to join me.
But, Gods, was I glad he did.
It had started out simple. That first year, we spent our days exploring together, picking up shifts as supernatural bouncers for extra cash, and feeding together. As a pair, Ambrose andI were chalk and cheese. Calm and chaos. But, somehow, it worked. And it was a very effective way of attracting the more adventurous mortals back to ours to feed from, always as a package deal. One night only. No strings attached.
It hadn’t been easy. As sex demons, we’d learned early on that if we wanted any chance of staying sane while spending so much time together, we had to dampen our abilities, to lock away our instincts to read emotions and feed from desire, outside of feeding.
Which, as it turned out, had dire consequences.
