by Liz Meldon
And she wanted to talk with him: he was the first hybrid she had ever met. If what he said about the demon community’s prejudices were true, she still had a lot to learn—and she needed to learn it fast. For all she knew, angels could be just as biased against her, and if that was the case, she definitely needed to know. Moira needed to prepare.
Not that she hadn’t been preparing all her life for her absentee dad to reject her the first time they met, but things felt different now. Somehow the thought of an angel rejecting her, tossing her aside like she was nothing, hurt a whole lot more.
“Now, what sort of cruel creature would leave a pretty little thing like you all by your lonesome?”
Each word fluttered over her, trickling in one ear and tumbling out the other. She winced, goosebumps prickling to life uncomfortably, even under Severus’s leather jacket. Distinctly male, the voice had a snake-like quality to it, hissing and whispery, and Moira nearly toppled off her stool when she found the source of it—seated directly beside her, too close for comfort.
“Hi,” the demon cooed, his pitch-black eyes a stark contrast to his clean-shaven porcelain skin—skin that could give hers a run for its money. “Is this seat taken?”
“Uh, yes.” Moira glanced back to the stairs, then positioned herself for a cold shoulder brush-off, ignoring the way he sat facing her, legs open and arm resting across the bartop in front of her. He smiled, flashing a set of exceptionally sharp teeth.
“By me, right? Taken by me?” His laugh made her stomach roil, and Moira shot him an incredulous look.
“Not exactly.”
“Well, perhaps just for a little while then, eh?” He reached out, as if to brush the loose bits of hair from her face, but she recoiled before he could. Disappointment flashed across his features, but she couldn’t detect a single genuine thing about it. Dressed head-to-toe in black, the suit expertly tailored to fit his lean physique, the demon’s hair matched his eyes, and his smile glittered dangerously like the mishmash of silver crosses and necklaces hanging around his neck. Each cross was adorned with pearls, which she thought odd—for a demon.
“I don’t—”
“Now, now, no need for that,” he crooned, offering her his hand. “Let’s just be friends, shall we? You can call me Diriel, sweetness.”
Moira swallowed thickly and tried to catch Alaric’s eye, but the band of clucking idiots at the other end of the bar were keeping him busy. She huffed, staring pointedly at Diriel’s extended hand for a moment before pinning her glare to his face. “I’m really not looking for more friends, but thanks for the offer.”
“Feisty,” he growled, inching to the edge of his barstool, his presence humming unpleasantly into her personal space. “I do enjoy that in a woman. Why don’t I buy you a drink? I’ll let you talk mean to me all you want.”
“No.” Seriously, demons were worse than human men at bars; neither could take a hint. But she couldn’t physically ward off a demon. Severus had already proven that her strength wasn’t exactly up to the task.
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you that the more you say no, the harder we work for your attention?” This time, the demon managed to sweep his fingers, talon-like nails and all, up her cheekbone and into her hair. Not wanting to cause a scene, Moira merely pulled back as much as she could, then tried to slide off the stool and leave. Alaric was too busy to step in—and she didn’t want to bother him with some jerk, anyway—so she figured Madeline might be better company. Surely any guy here would choose to harass a half-naked succubus instead of Moira.
However, just as she started to rise, Diriel’s hand slammed down on her shoulder, shoving her onto the seat again. Panic skittered through her, her hands pulsing with an onslaught of adrenaline, her skin growing hot.
“Stay,” the demon urged, his voice laced with a sharper edge this time. “Chat. I think we’ll get along just fine.”
Lips pressed tightly together, she leaned forward to call for Alaric—only to see another bartender in his place, the hybrid’s figure disappearing through a door at the back of the bar.
“It’s just you and me, sweet thing,” Diriel whispered, his words washing over her again, the sensation making her gag. Finally ready to throw her new strength around, and sensing that she had no other choice, Moira balled her hands to fists just as his nails bit into her, cutting right through the leather jacket and into her shoulder.
“Come on, Diriel. No one likes a bar perv who can’t take a hint.”
Her whole being lifted at the sound of Severus’s voice, paired swiftly with his hand wrenching Diriel’s off her. While the cross-covered demon retracted his hold on her, he stayed right in her personal space, lips lifted in a sneering sort of smile that made her blood run cold.
“Severus, always a pleasure.”
“Let’s go,” Severus urged Moira, his arm curling around her waist. “We’re finished here—”
“Hardly finished,” Diriel snapped, grabbing the too-long leather sleeve and yanking Moira back into her seat. “As I recall, leech, you stole a girl from me the other week. Plucked her right out of my grasp when we were going to have such fun together. I think it’s time I returned the favor.”
“Fuck off, Diriel,” Severus snarled as he situated himself between Moira and the other demon—no easy feat, given his proximity. “You know Verrier hates when demons brawl in his bar.”
“Ah, yes, but wasn’t that him I just saw you walking out the front door?”
No longer able to see Diriel with Severus’s body blocking her, Moira gripped the back of his shirt, pinned in place between him and the foot of wall sticking out from the bar, and searched frantically for a friendly face. Alaric was nowhere to be seen, and there were too many people crowded at the other bar for her to find Madeline.
“He and I had business this evening—”
“And now your business has concluded,” Diriel purred, “because he was, in fact, the man surrounded by an entourage that just sidled out. Probably off to grab a midnight bite at Rose’s Corner, eh? Terribly habitual, that Verrier.”
“Severus, let’s just go,” Moira murmured, trying to slide off her stool, but there were too many fucking demons in the way to get her legs out.
“No, sweet thing, you’re going to stay here.” There was a brief scuffle between Severus and Diriel, and the incubus’s body was forced back into her suddenly. “And good ol’ Sevvy and I are going to have a proper chat now that Daddy’s left the playground. Eh? No one to run to when the other kiddies pick on you tonight.”
“Get fucked, Diriel—”
The sound of Diriel’s fist colliding with Severus’s jaw reminded Moira of thunder. The demon moved so quickly, so brutally, when he leapt off his stool and followed a staggering Severus, fists flying as the incubus tried to both block his face and get a few good hits in himself.
“Severus!”
“Moira, go!”
Diriel whirled around after shoving Severus into a nearby table, the onlookers jumping to their feet as he shattered their drinks.
“Moira, eh?” Those black eyes practically glittered. “So, it’s got a name—”
Fear coursed through her, chest tight and limbs stiff—until Severus threw himself at Diriel from behind. The other men along the bar were already off their stools, forming a semicircle around the fighting pair, and she gasped when one delivered a well-aimed kick to the back of Severus’s knee, knocking him down. Another managed to land a blow to his temple, his rings leaving a river of blood oozing down the side of his face.
“Leave him alone!” she shouted, but her words were drowned out by the steadily gathering crowd of laughing, jeering, black-eyed demons—most of whom appeared to be rooting for Diriel. Without a friendly face in sight, she threw herself into the ring, stumbling off the stool and teetering in her heels. “Get off him!”
A hand with an iron grip grabbed her by the elbow and wrenched her back, and she screamed, kicking out as more hands started to grab at her, threading her thro
ugh the crowd. Too many bodies between her and Severus for her to do much good now, she turned to the bouncer.
“Do something!” she demanded. The enormous fellow stood at the back of the horde, still and silent, expressionless—until he met her gaze and smiled.
Fucker.
The chorus of screams and jeers and cruel laughter had become deafening. Through the gaps of demon bodies in front of her, she saw vague flashes—Severus on the ground, Diriel wailing on him. Blood everywhere.
Moira had to do something—or her only true friend in this new world was going to die.
So, she grabbed the hand clamped down on her shoulder, yanked it forward, and sank her teeth into the underside of the demon’s wrist. He cursed in a language she didn’t understand, but she kept biting until she tasted metallic blood—and the demon shoved her off him. She stumbled into a few onlookers, spitting out warm viscous blood as she went, and when none of them tried to grab her, she shouldered her way through until she was right back in the thick of things.
“Go!” Severus screamed at her. “Get out!”
Just as she’d thought: he was on his back, knuckles torn apart, face so covered in blood he was hardly recognizable. And Diriel, standing over him, towering—his relentless fists paired with the odd kick from his little group of cheering friends. Fury made her burn, her cheeks hotter than they’d ever felt.
“I said,” she cried, staggering forward in her tight pencil skirt, her too-high heels, “leave him alone!”
Diriel whipped around just in time for her to slam her hands against his shoulders, hoping that her new strength would at least knock him off balance.
A blinding flash of pure white light surged from Moira’s palms—and hurled him clear across the bar.
The crowd fell silent. Diriel’s limp body crashed into something, creating a ruckus of shattered glass and splintered wood—but that too went quiet. Trembling, Moira stared down at her hands, palms up. That had never happened before. They looked the same as always, but her head had started to spin and her knees felt less than stable.
Whispers erupted around them as Severus rolled onto his side and spat out a mouthful of blood. Slowly, he lifted his gaze to her—no longer pitch-black, but the one she had first met. Lighter even, his irises a murky grey.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Alaric demanded, slamming the door at the back of the bar shut and striding to counter. Eyes wide, he leaned over. “Sev?”
In an instant, Severus was on his feet and scooping Moira up with an arm under her knees. She squealed when he tossed her—literally threw her—over the bartop and growled, “Go.”
Alaric barely managed to catch her and stay standing, the pair crashing into the shelves of expensive, rattling liquor bottles. Voices started to rise, calling after Severus, but it all blended into one awful roar, cinched together between her ears by a high-pitched whine she could feel in her teeth. The incubus flung himself over the bar, leaving a trail of blood behind him, grabbed Alaric by the shoulder, then shoved him and Moira toward the back door.
“Go!”
“And where the fuck were you?” Severus’s words echoed through the main floor of his home, and Moira could hear he and Alaric both pacing, marching about, heavy-soled shoes tapping against the hardwood.
“I was signing for a delivery! Father was gone, and it needed to be dealt with. I told Seamus to keep an eye on her,” Alaric bellowed back. “I couldn’t have been gone for more than five minutes!”
Seated on the top step of the first narrow, steep staircase in the four-level invisible house just up the street from the Inferno, Moira watched the lingering rain droplets roll down Severus’s leather jacket. It was still wrapped around her shoulders, just as he’d left it. The spring storm that had appeared out of nowhere continued to hammer the window that overlooked the street, and she glanced toward it when light split the darkness. It was fleeting, flickering, a lone bolt of lightning—and she couldn’t help but think of the power that had shot out of her hands when she had pushed Diriel.
It had been like that. Lightning. A spotlight. A burst of something raw and primal that somehow managed to both frighten and comfort her.
Just like Severus. He had all but yanked her out of Alaric’s grasp when they retreated into the sterile back-of-house area of the Inferno, which was nothing more than a series of winding corridors situated between the human and demon side of things. Although her heels made it next to impossible, Moira had kept pace, running alongside the two roommates until she was falling through a heavy metal door on the opposite side of the building, straight into Alaric’s parked white Lamborghini.
It was the last thing she had expected a sweet, chatty guy like Alaric to drive, and she had been forced to sit on Severus’s lap, soaked to the bone from the downpour, as they raced out of there. The rain made the roads slick, and Severus had held tight, smearing his blood—still hot, even now—on Moira’s neck when Alaric had skidded to a stop in front of the seemingly empty alleyway. Clutching at Severus’s hand, she had fled alongside the pair into their magically hidden home, the door slamming shut soundly behind them.
All she had wanted was to grab a wet cloth and clean Severus’s face, but the pair had started bickering as soon as Alaric locked the front door. Numb, Moira had climbed the stairs in silence with the intention of waiting out that particular storm—all the while knowing she was bound to dive headlong into another when it blew over.
“I told you not to leave her alone. I told you—”
“And I’m sorry! I didn’t think five minutes would be an issue!”
Their shadows stretched across the dark wood flooring, the light over the stove still on in the kitchen. Biting the insides of her cheeks, Moira slowly slipped off her heels and lined them up on the step below her. If Alaric hadn’t been there, she would have started peeling off her soaked clothing too, in need of a hot shower and a stiff drink. But he was there—and he wasn’t backing down from Severus’s shouts, even though the demon’s voice was raspier, more animalistic than she had ever heard.
Good for him. Moira wasn’t sure she’d fare that well if Severus used the same tone on her.
“You know my father’s thoughts on brawling in his bar—”
“Diriel threw the first punch!”
“This is why I’ve been telling you to take clients. She can’t be such a distraction that it’s a detriment to your health…to her safety.”
“Alaric, don’t—”
“But never mind that,” the Englishman growled, the volume of the argument finally lowering. “You brought a hybrid angel into my father’s bar? Do you know how insane that is? Have you lost your head?! Every fucking demon in Farrow’s Hollow is going to know about her by sunrise tomorrow!”
“I know, Alaric.”
“And they’re going to come for her—”
“I know.”
The sudden, tense silence had a shiver racing down her spine. Moira wanted to blame herself; it was her random burst of light that had been a dead giveaway. But she hadn’t known. She still didn’t know what she was capable of, and no one, Severus included, had been all that willing to tell her.
“I need to go,” Alaric grumbled, his heavy footsteps stomping about, followed by the rattle of keys. “I need to speak with my father. I need to fix this. I need to…ban Diriel and his fucking lackeys before they…” He stopped in the space between the front door and the bottom of the staircase, glaring in what she assumed was Severus’s direction. “Don’t bring her back to the bar. Ever. You know Father wants nothing to do with angels. You know, Severus. Why the fuck didn’t you tell me what she was? A hybrid, sure, I knew that, but the other half could have been anything. She’s fucked all of us, and she’s not even a full angel. You should have warned me that…”
He trailed off, his coppery brow furrowing, before he slowly looked up the stairwell. A lone tear spilled down her cheek, and Moira brushed it away, blinking hard. She hadn’t even noticed that they’d been gathering
. Alaric sighed and ran a hand through his shaggy hair, all that styling product soiled by the rain.
“I’m sorry, Moira,” he said softly—kindly, at the very least. Then, without another word, he stalked out the front door and slammed it behind him. Moments later, the roar of his expensive engine filled the street, and she watched the tail end of it race out of sight through the front window.
Moira wiped at her cheeks again, not wanting another tear to fall, only to stop when she found Severus standing at the bottom of the stairs. The split lip she had seen in the car had healed, but his face was still covered in bloody smears, his eyes lighter than usual. She waited—waited for him to say something, waited for the anger to seep out of his features.
When neither seemed likely to happen anytime soon, she grabbed her shoes, stood, and started up to his floor. Heavy footfalls followed on the stairs behind her, and together they climbed the remaining two flights in silence.
Once she had reached his level, she peeled off his jacket, hating the way it clung to her now, and hung it over the railing. She set her purse on the ground beneath it, shoes beside that, and waited with crossed arms for Severus to join her. When he finally did, the anger was still there, written across every inch of him, from the stiffness of his walk to the tightness around his mouth.
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me you could do that?” he growled, a hand resting on the railing. She bit the insides of her cheeks, swallowing the immediate flash of anger inside her at the accusation in his tone, and waited. When there was no follow-up, no additional words—no inquiry as to how she was feeling—Moira glared at him.
“Because I didn’t know I could do that,” she said. There was no point in trying to hide the way her voice trembled—so she just let it. “In case you’ve forgotten, I literally know nothing about this. About me. I’m relying on you for this stuff.”
His eyes narrowed, and he turned away. Two steps later, he faced her again, pointing at her as his mouth opened and closed wordlessly, then shook his head and stormed across the sparsely furnished space and into his bedroom. Temper rising, Moira followed, her skin littered with goosebumps and her soaked clothes feeling tight and uncomfortable. She’d been able to clean up in the club’s bathroom after their sex dungeon romp, but now she just felt—horrible. Moira felt horrible in every sense of the world.