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Without thinking, I grabbed Asher’s hand, pulling him behind me as I headed toward the store—restaurant, I corrected.

For a moment, the hand beneath my own was stiff, unyielding. And then his fingers curled around mine, his hold tightening.

I expected some resistance or, at the very least, a smart remark. But he was uncharacteristically quiet, and he let me pull him along, into the restaurant.

Here the smell of alcohol was strong, as was the smell of cloistered bodies. It brought back memories of gatherings in war tents. Of sweat-slick, oiled bodies and the hot summers of Abyssos.

A pang of homesickness hit me, but what I missed wasn’t Abyssos. It was this.Life.

Releasing Asher’s hand, I took several steps forward, my gaze trying to be everywhere at once.

Music played in the restaurant, and it sounded nothing like Asher’s radio. I looked for the source of it; it seemed to me another strange sort of magic to hear singing and instrumentals coming from a box rather than a group of people.

But the music itself was only background noise. Everywhere people talked and laughed and clinked glasses together. So many happy faces. I’d forgotten what it was like to always be at ease.

A woman approached both of us, and I stood there, blinking at her as she smiled at me and Asher, her eyes lingering on the hunter much longer than necessary. The sight of it stirred something in me, something low and restless.

“Just two?” she said.

Asher nodded.

“Great.” The smile she flashed him was incandescent. I felt my fingers curl at the sight of it. “Right this way.” She spun on her heel and began weaving through the restaurant, toward the tables outside.

A hand pressed against my lower back. Startled, I looked over and realized it belonged to Asher. The frightening hunter had initiated the touch.

I stared at him for a beat longer as he began to maneuver us after the waitress. My roiling emotions settled back down. All because that hand on my back.

Everything that Grandmaddox said earlier came bubbling back to the surface. That I was too soft, too naïve.

I was just tired. Tired of everyone assuming the worst of each other. Tired of focusing on hate and vendettas and war. I just wanted to enjoy a man’s hand on my back and forget for an evening that Asher and I were supposed to be enemies.

I was born with too damn many of them already.

Asher

I ordered Lanaa rainbow cocktail, which had seven layers of colorful alcohol which glowed under the bar’s black light. Predictably, she loved it, and I couldn’t help but smile. For myself, whiskey on the rocks.

Wide-eyed, Lana watched the parade of passersby on Bourbon Street. They spilled off the curb and into the street, staggering with drinks in hand. Still no flashers yet.

“You don’t have places like this in Abyssos?” I said.

“We don’t have this many Infernari in Abyssos,” she said in awe. “I’ve never seen so many humans in one place.”

“You should see it during Mardi Gras.”

The sound of slurping pulled my attention back to Lana, who had drained the drink and was now sucking at the last drops with her straw.

“That’s like four shots, you know.” I ordered her another one. “Better than Grandmaddox’s wine, huh?”

“My own piss is better than Grandmaddox’s wine,” she slurred, already tipsy.

I smirked, downing the rest of my own glass. “And here I thought demons didn’t have fine palates.”

“Infernari,” she corrected, her eyes flashing dangerously over the rim of her next glass. “Why don’t you ever learn? Do you not know how to pronounce it? Say it. I want to hear you say it.”

“I’m curious, what’d you think of her jambalaya?” I asked, waving down the bartender for another whiskey.

“Say it, Jame Asher,” she commanded, her hair shifting restlessly about her.