Page 2

Man and beast.

It opens its gates to things no mere mortal would ever witness otherwise.

But the process of my home is the least of my concerns as I break into a run in the direction of the Ferris wheel. The cool breeze brushes my cheeks, pulling dark tendrils free of the plait swinging across my back and dragging them across my eyes. They’re brushed back with little thought; my mind is too cluttered with dread to care about a little unruly hair.

I’m late. I should have been at the storage twenty minutes ago. It’s the first time, but I’ve been warned of the consequences if I disobey the rules, and I can’t risk it.

There aren’t many places to meet a demon in private. Mama would never allow me to fulfill my end of the arrangement with her in the trailer. There are too many eyes and ears to go anywhere else. The tent tucked just out of the way, partially hidden by the bigger attractions, is the best we can do for what needs to be done.

I can feel him like a shadow creeping under my skin. Crawling through my veins.

Warrick.

I hate him as violently as I crave him.

My chest tightens as I reach the heart of the carnival. But the closer I get, the more his presence presses down on me like a weight on my chest. He’s here. I can feel it in the air, in the crackling static that surrounds me.

And then I see him.

Not Aiden. Not my brother. But Warrick — the demon that lives inside him. The creature that breaks free with the setting of the sun. He takes over, and I’m left with nothing but the wreckage of a bond that I can’t escape. His eyes blaze with a feverish hue of crimson. Pits of hell and equally as cruel as he takes me in from head to toe. Like an angry pendulum, his tail snaps behind him. A dark blur of his frustrations.

I stop with ten feet between us, insufficient distance, but my heart is already a frantic canary desperate for escape.

“I’m sorry,” I breathe, struggling with every erratic pump of my lungs. “Mama needed me.”

He makes the first move, devouring the space between us until his enormous silhouette is a dark form looming over me. Eyes, the twin embers of a fire, bear down on me from a face carved from shadows. But I don’t have to see the sharp angles of his features, the high cheekbones, deep brows, firm lips. Everything about him is tattooed into my memory with vivid accuracy.

Warrick is beautiful and terrifying. He’s muscle and strength with a face cut from my dirtiest dreams. In a different life, where he isn’t a monster who relishes in torturing my brother every night, I could see myself falling for him.

“Ineed you,” he states with a hunger so raw it makes my skin tingle.

My heart pounds in my chest, but it’s not fear that rises within me. It’s something else, something worse.

Need.

Deep, uncontrollable need that weakens my limbs and drenches my thoughts in a heavy fog.

Dark features shimmer into view with his single stride forward. Residual light from the Ferris wheel glints over the broad expanse of ebony flesh and catches in the soft, silver strands tumbling over those unfathomable eyes and the jagged fangs extending from ear to ear where the skin of his cheeks are torn on both sides.

Naked shoulders flex with the folding of his long, toned arms across his impressive chest. Throughout the years, I have seen thousands of men from every corner of the world and every walk of life and not one has ever matched the haunting beauty of the creature standing over me. None have captivated and enthralled me the way he can with just his mere existence. I could be across the grounds and still feel the moment he materializes into his form.

He and Aiden have the same height and build. But where Aiden is tall with thick, dark hair, warm golden eyes, and a soft, olive complexion, Warrick is tall with hair the white of a snow rabbit’s and skin as dark as the shadows he comes from. So alike and yet worlds apart.

“Why do I feel your pain?”

His voice is silk and sin, winding through the air and wrapping around my throat. He steps forward, his movements smooth, effortless. Controlled with power.

I blink at the question. “What?”

His eyes darken into twin flames of fury. “Who hurt you?”

I try to swallow, but my throat constricts around dry walls. “No one,” I say in a voice caught on a tremor; I want to pull away. I want to run, but my body betrays me. It always does when he’s around.

He steps even closer, snatching what little was left of my oxygen. The temperature of his body is dark. Oddly cold. Like stepping into a patch of shade during a heatwave, but I am trapped in the pools of fire blazing down on me.

“You can’t lie to me, Seraphine. I can feel it.”

As if touched by the possessive growl in his voice, the spot nicked by Mama’s mug pings under my damp sleeve. My hand darts up to touch the bruise without thinking and I know immediately that I’ve made a mistake when Warrick’s eyes flash.