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The VIP section has another level, a private balcony in shadows. But even in the dark, I can see him.
He’s… fuck, I don’t have words. He makes the space around him look ridiculously small. His costume is insane: some kind of dark lord… with shadows that seem to move around him. It’s like someone reached into one of my romantasy books and pulled out every “morally gray shadow daddy” I’ve ever fantasized about.
But it’s his eyes that take my breath away. Even from here, I can see them fixed on me. Glowing amber in the dark.
Holy shit.
What kind of contacts is this man wearing?!
Then, his scent reaches me. All the way across the VIP section, through our omega perfumes and the club’s amazing air spray. It’s dark, warm, and wild. And my body answers to it. Heat rushes between my legs. My panties go soaked so fast I have to squeeze my thighs together on the velvet seat. My nipples tighten against the fabric of my costume. For the first time in my life, my omega isn’t unfazed.
She’s wide awake. And she wants him.
“Kisha?” Jessie touches my arm. “Girl, you good?”
I can’t answer, can’t look away, can’t fucking breathe.
He’s magnificent, terrifying, wrong in all the right ways.
And he’s looking at me like I’m the only person in this entire club.
Shadow Daddy Nik
Chapter Three
NIK
“Thirty-one hundred for a fucking bottle?” The Boogeyman shakes his head, the dark around him rippling. “Your prices are fucking ridiculous.”
“Then go fucking drink under somebody’s bed.” I lean against the balcony rail, watching my domain below. The place is packed with every name on my list.
The Boogeyman scoffs. “Like there’s anywhere else we can show our true faces.” He drains his glass.
I breathe in, sorting through the club. Guilt has a very specific smell, and tonight, my club reeks of it. The tech CEO on the second floor who gutted his company’s pensions. The influencer by the ice bar who scammed her followers out of a million dollars. My mouth fucking waters. I’m picking which one of them I’m going to make cry first, when it hits me…a prickle at the base of my neck. Like static before lightning strikes.
The fuck?
I straighten, scanning the crowd. Something’s different. Something’s…
My eyes hit the third-floor VIP section, and… The sound of breaking crystal barely registers. I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t do anything but stare at her like some fucking creep. She’s laughing at something the woman standing next to her said, with her head thrown back, a little red Santa dress hugs full curves that make my hands itch, the white fur trim barely covering the tops of her thick thighs. Her deep brown skin glows under the club’s throbbing lights. And her scent. Fuck. She’s on my list, I can smell it on her, sweet fresh guilt, the kind that doesn’t come with a single ounce of regret. Glitter. In the air vents. That one made me chuckle when it landed on the list. But under the guilt there’s something else. Something that drops me to my fucking knees. It’s like someone sucker-punched me.
She’s an untouched omega, and her pull’s fucking me up, like gravity shifted, and every cell in my body woke up at once, fucking screaming MINE!
Three hundred fucking years I’ve been doing this. Every Krampusnacht is the same: I punish the guilty and walk home alone at sunrise. I’ve heard my brothers talk about it, the ones who found their mates. I stopped believing I had one. Started thinking maybe something like me doesn’t get one.
But here she is.
“Nik? You having a stroke or…oh. Oh, shit.”
She’s turning now. She feels me watching. Our eyes lock and…
FUCK.
It’s like fucking electricity. Everything I am, everything I’ve been, everything I’ll ever be…it all narrows down to this moment. To HER.
“That her?” The Boogeyman sounds shocked. “Your mate?”
“Mine.” The word falls from my lips all growl.
