I’m looking for a different type of dancer.
Everything suddenly made sense. It had nothing to do with my looks, or at least not completely. He’d turned me away because I was human. He needed a supernatural to dance at his club, which meant every other person I’d met tonight was either a werewolf, a vampire, a fae, or a…demon.
I needed to sit down.
8
“Are you quite alright in there?” Suriel frowned, leaned down, and peered into my eyes. Flecks of light shimmered in his dark irises like a multitude of stars against the night sky.
I steadied myself. “Yep, of course. Why wouldn’t I be? I just found out my new boss is a demon from the actual underworld, and so are all my coworkers.”
“They won’t all be demons,” Gabriel said. “Vampires and fae mostly.”
“Right,” I said in a small voice.
Even though I’d known Serena all my life, I’d never met another supernatural. That I knew of. She’d been such a constant presence in my life that I never even thought of her as a werewolf. She was just Serena. Sure, before she’d learned to control her shifts, I’d had to trap her in a cemetery mausoleum on full moon nights, but eventually, that had felt as normal as a Friday night football game.
I knew she’d made supernatural friends since moving to New York, but she’d never introduced me to them. Sometimes, she even attended werewolf parties. Obviously, I never went. I wasn’t supposed to know they exist, and she’d be in some deep shit if they found out she’d told a human about them.
“Listen,” Gabe said, his smooth voice cutting through my shock. “We have some suspicions about Asmodeus and his club. We think he and his Legion are up to something dangerous in there, and it’s impossible for us to get close enough to figure it out. Fallen angels are not allowed inside his club.”
“You’re human. You have no bond with him,” Suriel added. “We need you to keep an eye on him for us and let us know the second he does anything that seems off to you.”
I swallowed hard. “Did you saylegion?”
“There’s only six of them, including Asmodeus himself,” Suriel said dismissively. “I don’t know why he likes to call them his Legion.”
“So, what do you say?” Gabriel asked.
For a moment, all I could do was stare at the angels, my blood roaring in my ears. They both watched me with expectant expressions carved into their chiseled faces, and a strange hum of power rippled from their towering forms. A humid breeze rustled the hair around my shoulders, bringing with it the stench of a nearby dumpster. The street was silent and empty except for us. It all felt eerie andwrong.
“You’re asking me to spy on a demon.”
They shared a quick glance, and then Gabriel shrugged. “Pretty much.”
“You realize how crazy that sounds, right?” I asked, taking a step away from them. “If he’s as dangerous as you think he is, then I don’t want to work for him anymore, let alone spy for you.”
“I’m not sure you have much of a choice,” Gabriel said. “Didn’t you sign a contract?”
“Yeah, but I mean—”
“You made a deal with a demon, Mia,” Suriel said, his voice softening just a bit. “There’s no way you can get out of it until you fulfill your end of the bargain. Not unless you’re willing to lose your soul.”
“Lose my…” Fear and anger ripped through me like a tornado. Sucking in a sharp breath, I fisted my hands, which started shaking by my sides. “Wait a minute. What are you saying?”
Gabe sighed and ran a hand along his buzzed hair. “When you make a deal with a demon, you lose your soul if you break the contract.”
My heart lurched into my throat, and dizziness slammed into my skull. I reached out for something to hold onto but quickly realized there was nothing but the grime-infested building to my right and the towering angels before me. Shaking my head, I stumbled back.
“Let me get this straight. You’re telling me that Asmodeus made a deal for my soul, and he didn’t even tell me about it.”
Suriel pressed his lips together. “Yes, Mia. We are. So, you see why he needs to be stopped as soon as possible. Only an evil being would do something like that.”
All the blood drained from my face as my mind spun through the implications. I’d signed a deal with a demon. One who may or may not be totally, completely evil. And I had to live with him. If I tried to get out of it, my soul would…what, exactly? Go to hell?
I really needed to sit down.
“We think the club is a cover for something else,” Gabriel added, his boots thunking against the sidewalk as he stepped closer.
