I slide the door open and walk slowly inside.

  The silky black comforter on the king-size bed.

  Spread your legs, princess.

  Yes, I remember now. This place.

  I close my eyes in an attempt to breathe through the lust that tries to consume me. Rogan’s not here. This is just a place. Just a bed. Just his scent.

  It’s not him.

  I open my eyes and scan the room, deliberately looking away from the bed. The rest of the room is magnificent. The floor is dark wood, no carpeting like in the main part of the penthouse. The furniture—a dresser, chest of drawers, night tables, and a small table by the window—are black lacquer like the desk in his office. A loveseat—black leather with red satin pillows—sits near the window next to the small table.

  The room is so…

  So…

  So…me.

  If I designed my own perfect bedroom, it would look exactly like this.

  I close my eyes once more, again easing the lust. When I open them, I zero in on one of two doors. I walk toward it slowly and open it.

  It’s a huge walk-in closet, and boy, does Rogan like clothes. Designer suits galore in myriad colors and fabrics, and my God… He has a whole wall of shoes.

  So odd, when he looks his best in jeans and nothing else.

  Or in nothing, period.

  I’m not a fashionista myself. Give me a tank top, skinny jeans, and thigh-high black boots and I’m ready for any occasion.

  Still, the wall of shoes draws me forward. I trail my fingers over the rich Italian leather of a cordovan Oxford. The robust scent of the leather mixes with Rogan’s wolf fragrance. I close my eyes and inhale the intoxicating aroma. Then I pull the shoe off of its shelf⁠—

  And I gasp.

  A compartment opens behind the shoe wall.

  A secret compartment.

  Still holding the cordovan shoe, I squeeze through the small opening.

  20

  Rogan’s scent isn’t nearly as acute in this secret passageway. The fragrance still lingers, but…

  I inhale, exhale, inhale again.

  My eyelids flutter.

  What is happening to me?

  Hold your breath.

  My instinct again. I trust it, but I can only go so long without air. The passageway is dark and narrow, and⁠—

  I can’t help it. I breathe in. A gasp of air. Then another.

  Darkness clouds my mind.

  Until I know nothing else.

  Wake up, bitch.

  I’m floating. Floating on a black cloud. Where am I? Where was I?

  Rogan. Rogan in his wolf form. The regal image invades my brain space.

  Wake up, bitch.

  My eyes flutter open.

  I’m not sure what I expected to see. Rogan? Rogan as a wolf? Blaze Delacourt? My father?

  I sure as hell don’t expect to see⁠—

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I eke out, my voice hoarse.

  I recognize the face—the man who despises me, has despised me since he married my mother when I was fourteen.

  How is he in Rogan’s penthouse? In the secret passageway?

  I attempt to sit up, but my head nearly explodes. A choked groan escapes my throat. My head hits the— Where the hell am I, anyway?

  “Surprised to see me, I take it?”

  “What the hell did you do to me, Richard?”

  Richard.

  Richard Tomlinson, my stepfather. My stepfather who hates me—has always hated me—because I didn’t conform to what he thought a teenage girl should be. He favored Larissa, though all that really meant is that he had slightly less disdain for her. Larissa always did the right thing, always got perfect grades, always came in before curfew.

  Always kissed the right ass.

  She was the anti-Hannah.

  But none of that explains why I entered Rogan’s walk-in closet, admired his awesome shoes, and ended up here.

  I blink. The images are still blurred, but it’s him. Tall, gray-haired, and is it my imagination? Or are my stepfather’s eyes red?

  Demon red?

  I close my eyes. Must be my imagination. What the hell did he drug me with?

  “Wake up, bitch.”

  This time I recognize the evil voice, as slithering and snakelike as always. I inhale and there it is—that nauseating mélange of feces and decay. Richard’s pipe tobacco.

  I open my eyes and try once more to rise. This time I’m slightly more successful. My body feels numb, though I can move, and I make it into a sitting position.

  “Where am I?”

  “That’s your question?” Richard says, his eyes still red. “Seems you might ask something else.”

  Damn, what drug is coursing through my system? Since when are his eyes⁠—

  Fuck.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  “You’re a fucking demon.”

  “Give the girl a gold star.” He grins. A slithery and malevolent grin.

  “You evil son of a bitch.”

  “Watch what you say about my mother.”

  “Where’s my mother?” I demand. “My sister? What have you done with them?”

  “They’re fine, Hannah. I love your mother. I’d never do her any harm.”

  “Love? A demon speaks of love? You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

  He shakes his head. “Demon profiling, as usual. You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, bitch.”

  “Cool it with the bitch, you condescending asshole.”

  “Are you kidding? Do you know how much I’ve had to hold my tongue over the years?”

  “Seriously?” I scoff. “You’ve called me every name in the playbook. My mother never believed me. Do you have her under some kind of a thrall? God, it’s all making sense now.”

  “You think it was chance that I met your mother? I knew all along who she was. Who you all were, before you knew yourself.” He gives me a sleazy smile. “And there was and is no thrall. Your mother was so damned needy after your father got through with her that all I had to do was treat her a little less badly.”

  Motherfucker. He’s not wrong. My father treated us all badly. But Richard mistreated Larissa and me just as much, to our mother’s blind eye. Still, he’s a demon. Demons are notoriously untrustworthy.

  Once I became aware of my vampire side, I spent no time with my mother and stepfather. Big mistake. If I had, I’d have been able to sense his lack of emotion.

  “You say my mother’s okay. What about Larissa?”

  “Fine as well, and blissfully unaware of who I am and who her father is.”

  “And I should believe you because…”

  “I can’t think of any reason why you should,” he says. “But it’s the truth.”

  I have no choice but to take him at his word. I’m hardly in a position to do anything otherwise, at least until whatever he dosed me with wears off.

  “Why am I here? For that matter, where the hell am I? How did you get into Rogan’s penthouse?”

  “Your father thinks Rogan is behind the vamp murders he’s investigating,” Richard says, “and you’re going to prove that he’s right.”

  “Damned right I’ll prove it,” I say. “If Rogan’s guilty.”

  “His guilt is irrelevant,” Richard says snidely. “Rogan will go down for the murders.”

  A black haze still clouds my brain. I still have no idea where I am or how I got here, other than through a secret passageway in Rogan’s closet.

  Does Rogan even know the passageway exists?

  Think, Hannah, think. I need my brain at full capacity at the moment, and it’s not. I’m still in some kind of drug-induced fog.

  The bomb threat. Rogan. He said he wanted me to come to his place to find what I was looking for. Yet I got a text from an unknown number telling me to stay away.

  Is he in on this? Rogan?

  No way. No way is Rogan working with my son-of-a-bitch stepfather.

  Then again, he did orchestrate the attack on me that first night. He did tell Delacourt I wasn’t worth the effort.

  Who the hell can I trust?

  Not the man standing next to me—that’s the one thing I know without a doubt.

  A chuckle erupts from my throat. Yes, I’m right on the edge of madness, to laugh at this predicament. But I can’t deny that it makes a bizarre kind of sense.

  Richard Tomlinson, a demon.

  I always knew there was something off about him—I just didn’t know how off.

  So who to trust?

  Not my father. Sure, he’s my blood, but he uses me for his dirty work. He’d be here seducing Rogan himself if the wolf liked men.

  Can I trust Rogan? My so-called mate?

  He brought me here, told me to search the place, which means…

  He could definitely be working with Richard, but if that’s the case, why does Richard want me to prove Rogan is behind the vamp murders?

  They can both go to hell.

  I gather all my strength and attempt to stand, my hands curled into fists. “Where the hell am I?”

  “Easy, Hannah,” Richard says. “It’ll be a few hours before you’re back in prime working order.”

  “What did you put in my body?”

  “Nothing that will do any permanent damage.”

  “And I’m supposed to take your words at face value?”

  “You can think what you want of me,” he says. “You will anyway, and it’s no secret that I’m not your biggest fan. But you are your mother’s daughter, and I’d never do anything to hurt her.”

  “You already have, you degenerate. You’re a goddamned demon!”

  “A demon who your mother loves. A demon who treats your mother better than your vampire father ever did.”

  I can’t fault his words. They’re true.

  My mother. She’s brilliant—a damned Fulbright scholar. How can she be so unwise when it comes to love? Excellent choices—a gay vampire with a mean streak and a demon with an even meaner streak who blinded her to everything except him.

  I plunk my ass back down. I’m not going anywhere for a few hours.

  “Tell me,” I say. “Why do you care about implicating Rogan—or anyone else—in a string of vamp murders? What does it matter to you?”

  “It matters to demons.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re a smart girl. Figure it out for yourself.”

  I will. Once my brain is fully functional again. For now, though— “Why you? Why are you doing this dirty work for your kind?”

  He stays quiet a moment—a moment that makes prickles skitter over my flesh. Something’s brewing in that evil mind of his.

  Something I’m not going to like.

  Not that I have a chance of liking anything about him. I’d rather swim in alcohol and razor blades than have one good feeling toward this man.

  “You going to answer me any time this century?” I ask.

  “It’s my duty to see that my kind are taken care of,” he finally says.

  “Yeah? Why?”

  “The answer is simple.” A serpentine smile crawls across his face.

  I suppress a shudder. “Clearly I’m too stupid to figure it out for myself,” I say sarcastically, “so you’re going to have to enlighten me.”

  He walks away from me and sits down. I narrow my eyes to focus them. Things are still pretty blurry, but the chair he’s sitting on is ornate and gawdy. His smile is even bigger and more corrupt.

  And it dawns on me.

  He’s seated on a throne. A fucking throne.

  My stepfather is the demon king.

  21

  “King?” I gasp. “You’re the fucking demon king?”

  “Give the girl another gold star,” Richard drawls.

  “You know, I didn’t think it was possible to hate you more than I did. I see now it is.” I rub my temples. My head is throbbing, and I swear a jackhammer is pounding inside my brain.

  “Demons aren’t all bad, Hannah.”

  “Are you kidding me? You’re evil. It’s part of being a demon last time I checked.”

  “You’re not wrong,” he says, “but we’re capable of emotion. We’re capable of love.”

  “I’ll never believe it.”

  “Just because your vamp senses can’t tune into it doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

  “You expect me to believe that? That you actually love my mother?”

  “I expect you to believe it because it’s true.”

  “She’ll be very happy to know that you drugged her daughter, then. That’s an act of love if there ever was one.”

  “I never claimed to love you.”

  “But you love her, and she loves me. You said yourself you wouldn’t harm me for that reason.”

  “She does love you, in her own way, but she loves me more. Has she ever taken your side over mine?”

  Dickhead has a point. My mom is blind when it comes to this jerk. Totally blind. She abandoned Larissa and me the day Richard came into her life. And he expects me to believe there’s no thrall? How does an intelligent Fulbright scholar who loves her daughters forsake them for an asshole demon without some kind of spell?

  “You want my help with Rogan? Fine. But you have to do something for me as well.”

  “I’m not sure you’re in the position to be making any deals, Hannah.”

  “You’re forgetting one thing, Richard. I don’t give a rat’s ass about you or Rogan. I’m bound, though, by blood, to follow my father’s command. He asked me to find proof. You’re asking me to manufacture proof. If there’s proof, I’ll find it. I have to. My blood requires it. That’s all I’ll offer. I’ll give you the proof if I find it.”

  “And I’m telling you that you will find proof, whether it exists or not.”

  I shake my head. “You got a hearing problem, old man?”

  He laughs then. A demonic and maniacal laugh. A laugh I’ve seldom heard over the years, but when I did, I never realized how evil it was.

  “You think you have any cards to play, bitch? Really? I’ll never harm your mother or your sister, but I can make your sister’s life a holy living hell.”

  My temper spikes with rage. I have one Achilles heel—my little sister. Larissa and I aren’t close in a BFF sisterly way, but we’d take a bullet for each other, no questions asked.

  “You stay the fuck away from her,” I say through clenched teeth.

  “Who’s going to make me?”

  “I will.”

  The voice. The low voice that’s not quite human, but that I recognize.

  “Rogan,” I say softly.

  He’s there—buck naked—his gorgeous body shiny with sweat.

  “How the hell did you get here?” Richard demands.

  “Let her go,” Rogan growls.

  “He got into your place, Rogan,” I say. “Into your closet.”

  “He didn’t get in,” Rogan says. “But one of his minions did.”

  “You mean…you’re not working with demons?”

  “We’ll talk later,” Rogan says, his voice finally normalizing. “For now, she comes with me, Richard.”

  “That’s Your Majesty to you,” Richard says.

  “You know him?” I widen my eyes.

  “Everyone knows the demon king.”

  Everyone? Interesting word, since the dick’s been married to my mother for years and I didn’t know.

  “You have no power here, Rogan,” Richard says with his satanic smile on his face. “She doesn’t go anywhere until I say she does.”

  “Think again.” Rogan grabs me, throws me over his shoulder as if I’m a sack of potatoes, and turns.

  “Impetum eos!” Richard roars.

  One semester of Latin in college pays off. Attack them. But no one else is⁠—

  I gasp as demons appear from nowhere in all directions, their eyes red with evil and malice.

  My heart sinks. There’s no way out of this. No freaking way.

  “Hang on!” Rogan yells at me.

  “Hang onto what?”

  “Just fucking hang on!”

  22

  I grab onto Rogan’s ass, wrap my arms around it. I’m upside down and still reeling from whatever Richard dosed me with.

  And—

  Crack!

  I grab harder, determined, as Rogan jumps and changes in midair. Bones shatter and muscles shift, and still I hold on. If I don’t I’ll die. In a flash I’m no longer grasping his firm buttocks. Instead, I’m straddling him, facing his tail, and clutching at his underbelly.

  He’s running, leaping—one last snap brings him fully into wolf form—and I’m gripping onto him as if my life depends on it—which, of course, it does.

  Flaming arrows shoot around us. Then gunshots. Bullets whizz by. Richard’s voice spews out more commands in Latin, but my mind is too occupied to decipher any of it.

  This is the end of my life. I know it. I accept it.

  Until—

  Rogan leaps beyond some sort of—gelatin. It feels like we’re moving through gelatin for several seconds. What is it? A protective veil? Slime that leads to the underworld?

  I don’t know, and I have no more time to dwell on it as the sun sears into my vision. I squint at the light.

  Rogan is still scampering, and I’m still grabbing fistfuls of his fur.

  The drugs in my body plus Rogan’s animal movement and my own fear and anxiety make my stomach churn.

  No. Not going to get sick. I don’t get sick. I’ve been on the best roller coasters in the country and never even thought about getting sick.

  I’m not going to freak out now.

  Rogan continues to run. Where are we? Images whiz by so quickly I have no idea.

  I close my eyes against the motion, trying to settle my stomach. Just when I’m not sure I can hold the nausea at bay a second longer, Rogan finally stops.

  I roll off him onto a grassy knoll. Yes. Solid ground. Solid ground is good. I love you, solid ground. The sky is bright blue and the sun is scorching—except I’m not hot. I’m comfortable. Flowers are scattered throughout the grass, poking pink, orange, yellow, and blue heads up through the green.

 

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