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  “I won’t,” I reassured her without thinking what that meant. Was I trying to console her? I didn’t even understand what she had been talking about. The only clue I had was her fear and distaste for the demon leader.

  “Thank you, Adam.” A smile broke through. A real one. Not the seductive curl of her lips she’d used on me before, or the mocking twitch of her mouth when she was unleashing her own discomfort on me. This was a sincere smile of gratitude. How I knew that, I couldn’t tell.

  “You know,” she let go of my fingers and straightened a bit. “When I joined him and his clan, he helped me get through this transformation. I couldn’t have done it without him. That’s why I’m still here.”

  I understood that. He was doing so much for me. Making sure I was fed and trained. So I had the best chances of surviving an encounter with our enemies.

  “In the end,” Maureen continued, interrupting my thought, “what does it matter who helped us or who we helped if we fall victim to the human girl?”

  Her lips, an attractive smile before, turned into a thin line, red and hard and ready to snap at someone.

  “She’s really that bad, isn’t she?” I accepted the truth once more.

  “Worse,” Maureen’s hands balled into fists. “She took everything from me. Everything.”

  I could relate to that. And to the pain which was following her words. I had lost everything. Including myself. That girl had been the reason I’d died and she deserved punishment. Revenge? I should call it justice.

  As we were bonding in the middle of my training, a question sprang to my mind I had been meaning to ask Blackbird for a while but had never dared. Now, with Maureen, I trusted her enough to share my wonder.

  “When Blackbird and I faced the guardian angel in the interrogation room, something weird happened,” I began, and Maureen looked at me with curious, dark eyes. “When he got upset with me, he incapacitated me, and I felt pain. Real physical pain.”

  A flash of surprise brightened her face as I told her what had happened. “You felt pain?” she verified.

  I nodded. “He pulled on my strings and it hurt.”

  She shook her head. “That’s impossible,” she whispered before she composed her face. “Maybe you’re different from other demons because you died. Who knows how your short visit in the realm of the dead messed up your system.”

  There it was again, the mocking twitch. Her moment of authenticity was gone and she lifted her palms again, directing them at me.

  “Do you still have a fight in you?” she provoked and I got in position, ready to take her down. I was a demon and demons didn’t feel. The flash of compassion had passed, as had the feeling of trust. Survival of the fittest. And I was going to survive my enemies.

  “You need to go hunting by yourself today,” Nora informed me as I joined her in the throne room.

  “Where are the others?” I wondered. “Didn’t they want to meet me here?”

  “Something came up,” Nora said and turned to leave but stopped and looked back over her shoulder. “Don’t get seen while you’re out there.” She meant the surface. The city.

  It had been days since the first training with Maureen. On a daily basis, I was working on the force and precision of my blows, the control over my incapacitation. Blackbird had even started to let me do part of the questioning of our enemies. When angels were in shackles, unable to attack us the way that one female had, it was easy to get carried away with the game of power and distraction. No matter how much they pleaded, I had become as merciless as Blackbird himself. If they wouldn’t speak—give away their marks or the whereabouts of others of their species—they ended up as dinner. And if they did speak, they ended up as dinner anyway. So, I was surprised that after Volpert’s call for support, they had actually left without me.

  As I wandered through the web of tunnels I knew by heart by now, I didn’t stop at the room with the pool, no matter how strong the draw from the fiery symbols was. Instead, I ran my hand through my curls and headed uphill, toward the exit. I was hungry. Training was draining my energy and I needed more than usual. One human a day didn’t suffice at all.

  The purple layer of night had settled as I stepped onto the riverbank. Above me, orange lights—not the bright stars of human souls, but the cozy line of street lamps along the river—greeted me. With a glance to the sides, I ghosted up into the shadow of the same brick buildings as I had with Volpert before.

  A group of people stumbled out of the doorway behind me, brightening the narrow alley.

  “Sorry,” a young man said as they curved around me. His pronunciation was off, vowels slightly too long, as if he was drunk.

  I took a whiff and smelled beer and nachos. One quick look around was enough to analyze the scene. There was noise coming from inside the doorway—music, voices, the clinking sound of glasses and bottles. A bar or a pub. It must be the weekend.

  Drawn by the human activity, I stepped closer to the entrance, just far enough to catch a glimpse of the room. The energy level must be extraordinary in there, people all happy and excited, partying and enjoying themselves.

  It was as I had expected. An ocean of little lights, all moving rhythmically with a happy beat. It was a small bar, brimming with young, human males and females, obviously on the hunt themselves. Just not for lights, but for a mate. The way their lights shone when they saw something they liked—someone—made my hands shake. It was hard to refuse the urge to simply step inside and drain them, one by one. It would be easy—too easy, almost—to just take them down. They wouldn’t even see it coming if I did it demon speed. But where was the fun in that? A little bit of fear, a little struggle, always heightened the experience.

  “In or out?” a deep voice tore me from my fantasy.

  A huge, brawny guy with a tattoo on the side of his head eyed me like he wouldn’t give me more than a second to decide.

  Hadn’t Nora warned me not to be seen? This enormous human male was definitely speaking to me. He had seen me. With a quick motion, I pulled up the hood of my shirt and stepped back.

  “Out it is,” he called after me as he closed the door and I disappeared around the corner into the next street.

  I had to be more careful. What if someone recognized me? What was the worst that could happen? They would recognize me? What if they did? For a brief moment, the idea seemed intriguing to me, then I realized that whoever recognized me could be an enemy. It could be a part-angel or a guardian angel. Or even worse—the girl who had caused my clan so much trouble, who deserved to be punished, to be erased from the face of the Earth.

  The side street was quiet. No party-people there. I used the silence to recover. Nora was right. I needed to be careful. I couldn’t be seen. Keeping this in mind, I decided to change the location. Just in case. I ghosted through the purple darkness, avoiding the orange spots of the streetlamp, always staying out of sight when I noticed late-night humans. Hard as it was to not just grab the next-best of them and feed, I knew it was smarter to get to a different part of Aurora first.

  As I rushed from shadow to shadow, I slowly made my way into a nicer area of the city. The houses changed from high rises to smaller ones for one or two families, until I came by a long wall keeping strangers’ eyes out of a nice, private garden. As I passed the iron gate, I caught a view of the estate behind a row of trees. It was a beautiful building. Historic. Two stories high and wide. There was a small light shining in the window next to the entrance.

  Before I could decide to get closer to the house, footsteps behind me caught my attention. I recoiled into the shadow of a nearby doorway, tearing away from my fascination, and watched a girl walk by on the other side of the street. The clicking sound of her boots was like the ticking of a clock. A timer, measuring my ability to show restraint. Unfortunately for the girl, there wasn’t much will to hold back this time. She was alone and the street was dark and quiet.

  With a rush of excitement over having chosen my meal, I followed the young woman.
At a distance at first, but gradually catching up until I was directly behind her.

  “Excuse me,” I spoke at human speed. It was a sound velvet and purple like the night.

  The girl sped up a bit as she heard me, glancing back over her shoulder. The glow of light intensified as her fear grew.

  “Sorry, Miss,” I tried again. “Could you help me?” I pulled back my hood, exposing my face. Maybe if I behaved human, she would come willingly and I would get to play my game with her. The one I had learned from Blackbird. She had no idea what I had in store for her. The darkness of the caves would be the least to fear—and fear was delicious. I put on a smile, the one I had been observing on all the others so many times. A polite, friendly smile. One no one would expect any cruel intentions from.

  At the sound of my voice, she slowed down and I caught up with her, falling into step beside her.

  “I am sorry to bother you at this late time of day,” I said, surprised by my manners. Those I definitely hadn’t learned in my demon-training. “I am not from this area and I have been looking for a place to get something to eat.”

  She looked at me, slowing down with every step until she came to a halt, eyes intrigued. She liked what she saw as she examined my face.

  “There isn’t much around here,” she gestured at the houses, “mostly residential buildings.”

  I dropped my smile in a deliberate display of disappointment and the girl’s heart stuttered.

  What was going on? Did I have this much of an effect on the other gender? I knew Maureen was attracted on a physical level. Maybe she also had feelings for me—even though she kept denying it.

  “But, I can show you a really nice place a couple of streets from here,” she offered, her voice indicating she was worried I might ask someone else for help.

  “That would be very helpful, thank you, Miss.”

  As I brought back my smile, her face mirrored my expression.

  “I’m Emma,” she said.

  “Adam.” I held out my hand and she took it. As her skin touched mine, I felt like her energy was going to break into me.

  I pulled back quickly, running my fingers through my hair to disguise my discomfort as I had to wrestle my hunger.

  “Pleasure to meet you.” My smile widened as she blinked at me, obviously flirting. I had seen that look on Maureen’s face. She wanted me. And I also had her emotions to confirm it. A wave of desire ran through her. Had I always had this effect on women?

  “Lead the way, please,” I asked and she started walking, swinging her hips in the rhythm of the clicking boots.

  “So, where are you from?” she asked and peeked at me from the side.

  “Chicago,” I lied. How I knew that city existed, I couldn’t tell. My memory seemed to be partially working. I remembered what pubs were or bars or restaurants, I remembered that humans partied on the weekends, that there was social protocol of conversions, I had manners, I remembered places, names of cities and items. But nothing about myself. It was frustrating.

  “Nice,” she fell into small talk easily. But I wasn’t paying attention to her words, just to the nuances of increasing brightness of her light. It was brightening her features now, making it hard for me to focus on anything else.

  After a couple of minutes of walking, she stopped at a door. “This is where I leave you.”

  What?

  “The restaurant is just at the end of the street. You’ll get a nice meal there.”

  It took me a moment to comprehend. If I wanted to feed on her, I needed to do it now.

  “Or…” she continued, “…you could come upstairs and can I make you coffee.” She blushed as she spoke her offer. It was clear she wasn’t speaking about the caffeinated brew at all as she ran her fingers along her neck.

  Was it really that easy? All I had to do was use my charms a bit and they would invite me into their homes? Maybe this whole hunting thing was going to be even more fun than I had thought.

  I shoved my hands in my pockets, leaning toward her an inch as if I was about to tell her a secret.

  “That sounds like a splendid idea, Emma,” I whispered as I gazed deeply into her eyes. I didn’t care about their color as much as about the light behind them. Her soul was jumping with delight as she realized she was taking me home. She felt as if I was her prey, and she had been successful in her hunt. Sadly for her, it was exactly the other way around.

  As she led me upstairs, anticipation grew inside of me. I would have my first self-hunted meal. And I didn’t even have to break into an office, the way Volpert had to. I’d simply had to unleash my charms on a girl and I’d be feasting in her bedroom.

  She took off her jacket in the hallway, exposing her curves, and dropped it on a chair beside the door on the way to a small bedroom. Brown curtains were blocking out the orange lights from the street. But it didn’t matter. I could see every little detail.

  She turned and pulled me toward her by my neck. I didn’t object.

  “I don’t normally do this,” she said before she kissed me.

  Again, I didn’t stop her.

  “Neither do I,” I said truthfully. Technically, this was the first time—that I remembered.

  She chuckled and her breath tickled my neck as she grazed down along my jaw. I grabbed her around the waist and pushed her on the bed, using more force than I was intending, losing control over my hunger.

  I looked down at my prey. I dared say she was a beauty. She had to be around twenty-five. Eyes hidden under her lids, framed by a thick line of black curving along her eyelids, her lips sensually red, wetly shimmering. They parted slightly under the touch of my fingertips. I let my eyes glide down her body. The low light in the room made the arch of her chest throw soft shadows. The shirt she was wearing exposed the soft skin on her stomach. Beneath, long, slender legs were sticking out from under her too short skirt.

  My body was struggling. On the one hand, there was the appetite for her soul, her energy. I was drained from all the fight-training. I wanted it so badly. On the other hand, there was the craving for her body. I wanted the clothes gone. I wanted to feel her skin on my skin. I wanted to…

  I was getting carried away. I had come here to eat—not to satisfy my need for a female body. But what if it could be combined? What if I could have both, her body and her energy? The energy would be a lot higher if she was excited, I could already notice the difference at my touch…

  A hand with red painted fingernails reached out to sling around my neck. The girl was blinking at me with her almond-shaped eyes. They were drawing me into a spiral of uncontrolled hunger.

  I knelt down next to her on the bed and let myself be pulled down by the ridiculously light touch of her fingers. She pulled me closer toward her face, down to her lips. I let her kiss me while I fought against the urge to kill her immediately. I knew I was able to tear her soul from her within a second; but somehow I couldn't resist the urge to play for a while before I got to the center point of this game—the feeding.

  Her body radiated heat at me in wild waves. She shivered under the touch of my hand and I shivered with the pleasure of the seductive power I had over her. One of my hands glided upwards from her knee along the inside of her thigh.

  She pulled me closer in a reflex and exhaled in a gust. The sound set me on fire as it swept over my body. I was out of my shirt in a second. Before the girl could notice my hands were gone, they were back on her skin. Her head rolled to the side as one of my hands came to a halt on her chest, right across her heart.

  I wanted her—bad. I felt the lust for her body roll through me for another moment and then the craving for her soul became so strong, so urgent, that nothing else was of importance any longer. I flexed my fingers and without the slightest complication, within a second, just like that, all of her soul was transferred into me.

  I felt her heart stop beating under the palm of my hand. I had been so quick that not even one scream of horror had escaped the lovely mouth of my victim.

>   The heat of her energy radiated through me. It made me feel alive, warm, satisfied. Part of my hunger was erased.

  As I looked down on her lifeless body, the glowing of her skin was gone. She was nothing but a sack of bones and flesh and skin, empty and useless, none of my concern. I picked up my shirt from the bed and slid it over my head before I opened the window and vanished from the room into the starless night. I was nothing but a shadow in the dark. Nobody would take any notice of me, quiet and fast as I rushed through the streets.

  The sidewalks were empty as I stepped out from an alleyway where I had slowed down to blend into the picture of the night—like a normal human. I had pulled up my hood, no longer scared of being noticed. No one would see my face under my black hood, and I had fed enough to not tear the next-best human’s soul from them right in the middle of the street.

  Slowly, I walked down along the blocks of houses that were framing my way toward the next destination. I wasn't far when I heard a voice behind me.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” a deep, male voice said harshly.

  9

  Hunt

  The voice was familiar. I turned slowly, reacting to the challenging undertone instinctively.

  Blackbird was standing behind me, burning me with his anger.

  “You are not supposed to be seen,” he hissed and grabbed my arm, pulling me into the protection of a dark corner. “I should have known you couldn’t be trusted.”

  “I wasn’t seen,” I defended myself, “not really.” My hand reached up to my hood, pointing.

  “And what about the people on the streets?” He cocked his head. “They don’t count?”

  “There were just a couple.”

  The longer he bore his accusing gaze into my eyes, the worse I felt. Wasn’t I supposed to not feel things such as remorse?

  “Volpert won’t be pleased.”

  Blackbird ground his teeth and took a look around to make sure nobody was watching before he teleported us back into the blackness of the tunnels.