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“Can we please go?” I ask.
“Sure, baby.”
He takes my hand, and we leave. I know exactly who’s watching us as we pass the VIP table. I feel Nero’s stare without looking, heavy and sharp between my shoulder blades, but I keep my eyes forward.
Sava waits outside the club. When Max gets into the car with me, he says nothing and pulls away from the curb. That’s why I like him.
Max tries to behave in the backseat, but succubi only have so much discipline, and his hand is already high on my thigh before we reach my street. I let him. I close my eyes and let myself have the warmth, the touch, the simple relief of wanting someone that doesn’t point a gun at my head or demand money I don’t have.
By the time we reach my apartment, we go straight to the bedroom.
He undresses me slowly, touching every inch, his mouth following his hands down my body. When he kisses me, there’s real heat in it. How much of it is his succubus gift, and how much is just him, I’ve never been able to tell. Maybe he can’t either.
He lays me down and takes his time, working his mouth over my skin until I’m pulling at him. When he finally pushes inside me, he’s unhurried, deep, one hand working between us, fingers finding the right pressure and staying there. He makes sure I get there before he does.
Max is amazing in bed, but he makes love. It’s all pleasure but I feel like something is missing. Maybe because I don’t feel anything for him. Or maybe it’s because of the stardust. I took a lot tonight.
Afterward, we lie tangled in the dark while Max strokes my side with lazy fingers. His skin looks golden against my sheets. He stays a while, but when I shift away, he understands it’s time for him to go.
“Sure you don’t want me to stay? I make an excellent breakfast.”
“I can imagine.” I kiss him once, his mouth soft. “It’s not you. You know that.”
He pulls me back on top of him, not ready to let go. Puts his mouth against my jaw, my neck, my collarbone, and draws me down onto him, his tanned skin warm against mine. My white hair falls across his face. He brushes it aside.
I feel him harden under me.
“One more before I go.” He pushes his boxers down and guides himself to my entrance, going in slow, giving me time to adjust. With Max, everything is soft and controlled. His hands find my hips and let me set the pace, back and forth, my weight on his chest, his eyes on my face. Patient, attentive, the whole thing.
After everything, I walk him to the door. One last kiss at the threshold as the early morning sunlight takes him. I say goodbye but my heart doesn’t skip a beat, doesn’t miss him already. It doesn’t move at all.
Hollow as ever, I watch the first gray light touch the windows and go back to bed.
A woman screaming. Looking at me while they beat me with a baseball bat. Me on my knees, blood everywhere, a gun barrel leveled at my eyes. The shot. Dark.
I wake up.
Not me. I repeat it to myself until it sticks.
I reach for the shelf. Stardust. The smallest amount I can manage, because today I already took too much. The warmth moves through me little by little, filling the cracks. I breathe a couple of times and stare at the ceiling, knowing I’m not sleeping again.
CHAPTER 8
SILVER NIGHT
Another big witch party is coming, which means money. Silver Coven is hosting again, and this time they want everyone to know it. Apparently, every coven in the city got an invitation, and Ezra takes me as his plus-one because he likes pretending I’m good company.
These kinds of parties are the best places to sell stardust above market price. Witches love it almost as much as vampires do, just for different reasons. They treat stardust like magical cocaine and say it gives them mental clarity. It mostly makes them talk more nonsense than usual. Still, doesn’t matter as long as they buy.
I manage to get more product before the party, which is the only reason I agree to go. I dress more elegantly than usual because Silver Witches love status almost as much as they love rituals. Long violet gown, high slit, clean lines, enough skin on show to feel good without looking needy. I look like a walking advertisement for stardust.
The venue is a proper palace hall, and it looks immaculate for now. But we both know what happens once the elders call it a night. Witch events usually start classy, but give them enough alcohol and drugs and the whole thing turns into a coven-sanctioned orgy.
There are more women than men among witches. Nobody really knows why. Wolves split more evenly, though female wolves are mostly pregnant or homebound with kids. Either way, you don’t want to meet them; hormones plus the wolf gene make them insane. They all should have stardust prescribed so they could be allowed into society.
Necromancers are different. No women there, and the death gene passes from fathers to sons.
Sava picks up Ezra on the way, and he slides into the back seat wearing a burgundy suit that makes him look unfairly good. He keeps flipping a lighter between his fingers, over and over, a bright flame flickering once before he snaps it shut.
