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Zee’s smile grew. “Before your head gets in the way, I fucking do mean it. I love you, Adam Vex. I fucking loved you from the moment you scraped me off the Demontown sidewalk, and not just because you made my life worth something after all that shit at Razorsedge. I love this.” He pressed his free hand to my chest, over my thudding heart. “You have the warmest, kindest, most amazingly true heart. You will always try and do the right thing. Maybe it doesn’t work out? You eat people? So what. Nobody is perfect. Except me. Obviously.”
“You love me, Zee?” I whispered. Nobody had ever loved me, not once. But for Zee to really love me, for it to be true, he had to know the truth. All of it. “Zee, listen, before you say that, you have to know about the prophecy—”
The car screeched to a halt, throwing Zee against the privacy glass between us and the driver. My belt jolted me back, trapping me against the seat. I scanned the outside, through the blacked-out windows. We couldn’t be far from the hotel, but I didn’t recognize the handsome Victorian houses packed close together on either side of the street.
“The fuck?” Zee flung open the door and sprang from the back seat.
“Wait!” I tried to jab my belt free but it fought back.
A familiar voice crooned in its preteen pitch. “Oh looky what we have here. A bad demon in my car.”
“Isn’t it past your bedtime?” Came Zee’s cocky reply.
My belt finally popped free, and I clambered outside.
A black limo blocked the street. A street we shouldn’t even have been on. Princess Daisy stood in our car’s headlight beams, as though performing on a stage in her knee-length, black pleated skirt and pristine white socks. But in this performance, the backing dancers were all straight-faced, suit-wearing, silver-eyed vampires.
My heart sank. The last thing I needed today was a late-night meeting with vampire royalty.
“I just want what’s mine back,” she declared, huffily crossing her arms.
She probably didn’t mean the car.
“Victor?!” Daisy screeched when Zee and I didn’t immediately reply. Her blonde ponytail switched like an angry tail.
“He’s not here,” I told her, then crossed in front of the car to stand at Zee’s side. “And he’s not yours.”
“Hm.” Daisy tapped her chin. “That’s a pain.”
“And you can’t go to the hotel. If you mean to hurt him, the wards will activate.”
“I know!” she whined in angsty teen. “But I really do need to torture him for an agonizingly long time, until he tells me everything about you, Mr. Vex.”
“Adam?” Zee laughed. “What’s to know? I’m a way better catch. Murdered a bunch of fang fuckers.” Zee counted his list on his fingers. “Led the charge at Demios. And there was that one time, I found a bunch of suckers resting up after getting separated from the rest of you dickfaces and fucked them up so bad there was no way to know which body part went where. Good times.”
“You, demon.” She glowered, and there in the depths of her deceptively young eyes, was the ancient killer. “I just want you dead.”
“If you didn’t know, I offer reasonable, pay by the hour terms. Just send your weird-ass clones to my room and I’ll make sure they’re each given my personal attention. It’ll be the best fucking last night of their lives. Trust me. I never disappoint a client.”
“Shut up! Foul creature!”
“Zee . . .” I warned. We’d already killed three vampires that evening, but taking on a vampire princess and ten of her entourage didn’t seem like a good plan.
Zee rolled his eyes and folded his arms. “Ugh.”
“Princess, I’m sure you don’t want to cause a scene on the street here, so what can we help you with?”
“You may get in my car and come home with me, where we will discuss what all that cute glamor is hiding and why Gideon Cain is obsessed with you.”
If I got in her car, there was a high chance I’d end up being a gift to her mom again. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Ha!” Zee barked. “Nobody is getting in your weird pedo car, girly.”
“You will address me as Princess, Your Majesty, or My Liege.”
Zee laughed. “You will address me as His Royal Fucking Godliness.”
“What are you the king of, demon?”
