Exactly. I put my phone away as my drink arrived. I set a few dollars on the table, wondering if Zaya had even thought to bring mortal money with her before setting out on this venture, and took a sip of my whiskey. The alcohol burned going down my throat. But it didn’t burn nearly as bad as the throaty laugh she released in response to whatever her conquest had just said.
She never made that sound with me.
While I knew it was all for show, I found myself longing to replicate the action.
But that wasn’t in the cards for us.
I had a betrothed waiting for me back in the Underworld, a female I despised but had been promised to at birth.
That was my future.
Not the beautiful demon seductress at the bar.
So why did I follow her here? Why did I care so much about keeping her safe?
Because I was clearly a fan of self-punishment. I wanted something—someone—I could never have.
She deserved better anyway.
And as long as I kept telling myself that, we’d be just fine.
I placed the frosted glass containing my half-empty mojito down on the counter in front of me and checked out my appearance in the mirrors surrounding the ostentatious bar.
Short blue hair.
Flushed cheeks.
Bedazzling hazel eyes that were green today under the dull lighting.
And a mouth painted blue to match my new locks.
The male beside me seemed to approve. A good thing, considering he was the reason I’d walked into this drab establishment. Ugh, it was one of those bars humans frequented with the false expectation of finding true love.
Gross.
Most of these poor beings would regret it tomorrow when they woke up next to a man or woman who resembled a brimstone demon—ugly little creatures with warts and rotten teeth. Perhaps that was an exaggeration, but it seemed like a fair comparison to me.
Fortunately, that wouldn’t be me. I’d wake up fresh off a kill. Because the guy beside me? Yeah, he was my mark. Malevolence oozed from him. Not that the poor humans could see that. My enhanced abilities allowed me to see right through his aura of politeness to the black soul beneath.
The new talent was a consequence of a horrifying experience—one I chose to ignore now while I focused on my prey.
I tucked a stray strand of my newly short blue hair behind my ear and pretended to hang on Paul’s every word. Was that even his name? Something with a P sound. Phillip? Rupert? Prick?
Whatever.
He wouldn’t care if I forgot his name. He’d soon be too busy choking on a blade to concern himself with such trivial matters.
I laughed at the right moments and flirted with subtle movements meant to display my body to him. A trace of my lips with my finger to take a stray drink from them here. A brush of my chest when he made an interesting point there. It was all part of my act. I ceased to be a sexual person a long time ago when a group of men just like him had stolen my virtue and left me for dead.
A lethal fire blossomed within me, stirred to life by a potent mix of my renewed blood.
Grigory’s blood.
The Noxia prince who’d saved me that night.
His royal essence had awoken something within me that craved destruction. Or maybe that was the result of my experience. Either way, I’d been reborn into a creature of violence—a femme fatale. And I’d had enough of this flirtatious foreplay.
Time to act.