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“Don’t bother,” I say, waving him off. “It’s been fun, but this is my sign to leave.”
“You’re one of my best doves,” he argues. “Don’t go. You have a home here.”
Something warm pulses in my chest, the sensation foreign, like waking up from a dream I can’t quite remember.The Red Lionis the first place I’ve felt safe at for a long time, and now…now I’m putting them all at risk. Aruk may know I’m a succubus—one of the Collector’s most sought-after species because we’re so rare—but he doesn’t know the other half of me. That half could ruin him, ruin everyone in this room.
No, it’s time to go. Time to get back to my real life—the one where I’ve been hiding from monster hunters and collector core for as long as I can remember.
Maybe it’s time to give up and get caught.
Relief and desire swirl together at the thought of no longer staying on the move for fear of being discovered. No more hiding, no more scrounging for lust and blood. It would be over.
“Stay down,” Aruk whispers, his spine straightening as he looks at someone over the bar.
I can’t see, but I know it’s Zev and Jagger from their unmistakable flavors dancing at the back of tongue.
“You gonna order a drink or stand there and glare?” Aruk asks.
“Where is she?” Zev’s voice is all brutal business. It was alluring before I knew he was here to collect a bounty. Prick.
“The girl you bought a dance from?”
“Mmm,” he grunts his answer, and I have to stop myself from huffing out a laugh. So many words, this one.
“She left,” Aruk says, shrugging. “Shift is over. Come back another time.”
“Liar, liar,” Jagger says in a sing-song voice that has warm tendrils trickling over my skin. “Where is she?” he almost sings the words, and I watch in shock as Aruk’s body locks up, like he’s fighting some internal battle.
One look. That’s all it takes from Aruk to have Zev leaping over the bar, his massive frame slamming right in front of me.
We lock gazes for a split second before I kick him in his chest, forcing him to crash back against the shelves of colored bottles and vials lining the back of the bar.
“Magic-wielding prick.” Aruk grabs a flail from underneath the bar as Jagger climbs over, swinging it at him.
Jagger ducks the first swing, and full-on stops the second, plucking the weapon from Aruk’s hands like he’s taking a toy from a youngling.
Goddess, these two are strong. And smart. Not at all like the drifters I’ve come into contact with in the past. I’ve ran into a few over the past decade, and none of them had ever been strong or fast enough to catch me.
I gather my speed, flipping over the bar and racing for the front door?—
Something catches my ankle, yanking me back. I fall face first against the stone floor, the breath knocking from my lungs with the impact. I roll over, aiming a kick right between Zev’s muscled thighs, but he blocks me, keeping hold of my heel.
“Ruthless,” Jagger says as he comes up behind Zev. “This would be so much easier if youcooperate.” He sings the last word, and I feel the effects of his voice wash over me like warm honey. Goddess, his influence is almost as strong as mine, but he’s no incubus—the male version of my kind—nor is he a vampire, a cousin to my kind, each of us talented when it comesto manipulating other’s emotions or minds. No, his influence is warm and comforting where mine is cold.
My body goes limp, the effects rippling down my spine as his will demands I cooperate.
But I’m not just a normal succubus, and so I still have a will of my own despite his hypnotic humming. Not that they know that. I play the part, letting my eyes go hazy as Jagger crouches beside me, that voice of his a truly beautiful thing.
“Do you have her?” Zev asks.
Jagger smiles. It’s pure confidence, and if he wasn’t currently trying to subdue me, I might think it was a gorgeous one. “Oh yeah,” he says. “Dove is all mine.”
The fuck I am.
Magic dances beneath my skin, practically pounding on the mental walls I keep it locked behind. It wants to play, wants to ravage.
HushI demand, but a few sparks shoot out despite my efforts to hold it in.
Fuck.
