Leon withdrew his fingers, and I leaned back heavily against the wall in the afterglow. I had no words that would suffice for the rush of that experience: the frantic pleasure, the fear of being caught, the disbelief at what I was doing. Without my noticing, Leon had taken my vape from my pocket, and he held it up to my lips as he also held up his slick fingers to the streetlight’s glow. They glistened as I took a slow, light-headed drag from the pen.
“Beautiful,” he said softly. He put one finger into his mouth, and sucked it clean as I exhaled. The smoke swirled around his face as Zane came to his side.
“That was fucking gorgeous,” he said, slinging an arm around Leon’s shoulder and looking me hungrily up and down. Then Leon held up his middle finger, still glistening, and Zane took it slowly into his mouth, licking it clean.
Holy hell, I nearly orgasmed again from that alone.
“Always the middle finger,” Zane muttered, straightening his jacket as he licked his lips.
“For you? Always.” Leon stepped away, looking me over as I buttoned my jeans with clumsy fingers. He held out my vape. “Thanks for playing. See you on campus, doll.” He gave me a two-finger salute, and he and Zane left the alley side by side, chuckling as they went.
Demons have two names.
There is the name we are known by: I was Leon, it was how I introduced myself, the name by which I was called. But there was also the name by which I was summoned, a name that could only be written and never uttered. It was the name that commanded my very essence, a mark that was connected intimately to my being. My mark was written in the grimoire, and as such, whoever had that grimoire could summon me at will.
Being summoned felt like fish hooks wrenching my insides out through my navel. It demanded obedience. But merely having my name called by my summoner was only a nudge, a suggestion.
So when I first felt Kent Hadleigh call my name, I ignored it.
He hadn’t bothered me since the night I took Marcus’s body up to White Pine, and I was on too much of a high to let him spoil it now. I had my new favorite prey in my sights: little Rae, defiant Rae, curious Rae. Fuck, the self-control I’d had to exercise to not make her scream in that alley was absolutely unholy. It was going to make me feral if I couldn’t have her again. Have all of her. I wanted her blood, sweat, tears, cum. I wanted to taste it all.
Zane just laughed at me. He’d known me for centuries, seen me in my darkest days. He’d been a lover and a friend, when I didn’t want to rip his head off. He called me out on my obsession immediately, as if he was one to talk. He hunted souls for fun, always eagerly pursuing the next prize. I’d watched him chase a human for decades just to get them to promise him their soul for eternity.
“No, no, you can’t compare the two,” he said. “I’m methodical. Concentrated. As for you, well — you fixate. Like a dog with a bone in front of it. I’ve seen the way your obsessions go, Leon. They don’t end well for you.”
Which was why I seldom had obsessions.
And I wasn’t obsessed.
I was…interested.
And fucking hell, Kent Hadleigh kept calling me.
He’d been at it long enough now that it was a goddamn annoyance. He had to be furious that I wasn’t coming, so why hadn’t he summoned me? It was his usual method: pull out the grimoire, chalk my mark onto the ground with a few runes, and demand I come. I couldn’t say no. The use of my mark left me no choice.
The fact that he was going about this so gently was odd. So odd it piqued my curiosity enough to obey, if only to see what the hell was going on.
Teleporting was tiring, so I didn’t do it often, but I also didn’t feel like running all the way to Kent. Light and shadow rushed around me as I dispersed my corporeal form, before assuming physical form again in the living room of the Hadleigh home. Perfectly white carpet, white couches, a shining metal chandelier overhead. The room’s main wall was all glass, giving a view of the trees that covered the Hadleigh property’s expanse. Everything was so clean and delicate, it just made me want to smash it.
Kent stood in front of me, hands behind his back, his suit looking a bit more wrinkled than usual. His protective iron amulet, carved into the shape of a sword crossed with a wand, wasn’t hidden beneath his shirt today, as if he’d put it on hurriedly. The humans wouldn’t notice it, but the damn thing made the air smell pungently metallic, so much so that it gave me a headache. His wife, Meredith, was seated on the couch behind him, and she went rigid as I appeared — at least, a little more rigid than her overly Botoxed face already was. Jeremiah was sunk into a chair nearby, his chin resting on his palm as he watched me, looking bored and a little annoyed. At the bar in the kitchen, Everly watched in silence, wringing her hands on her lap.