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He was being a real cocksucker about this, though.

I was about to head on over to smoothly pull him away from his parents and all the schmoozing they were making him do, when I turned and almost smacked right into somebody walking up to me.

“You all right there?” a familiar voice spoke, as I looked up to see Warlow Boyd standing there smiling kindly at me.

It was always kindly with him. And with a whole lot of understanding.

He was a wolf-sorcerer hybrid.

Unlike me, his hybrid nature had come about naturally. He was one of the extremely rare supernatural beings who had actually been born that way.

He stood there in a sleek purple suit with a drink in his hand, some smoky thing in a glass with a cool twisted stem. His light-blond shaggy hair flowed down to his shoulders. He was wearing that shimmering silver bracelet that he never took off that had been a gift from his love, Cornelius Martel. During one of our chats, he’d told me it was him basically carrying a piece of Cornelius wherever he went, whenever they were apart—usually when he was working at the erotic nightclub,Polaris,that was owned by Lucian Black.

We’d had a lot ofchats, because when I’d started at Maven Academy, he’d basically guided my therapy once it had been discovered that he and I had been through a similar trauma.

We’d been experimented on for years.

Himbecauseof his hybrid nature.

Me toturnme into a hybrid.

I’d been born a sorcerer, but now I was more Incubus than anything else, not precisely half like he was with his wolfside and sorcerer side, which was spread more evenly than my makeup now after what had been done to me.

He’d helped me a lot in the beginning, until I’d pulled away, not wanting to focus on those days anymore. Wanting to forget—or come as close as possible to actually forgetting.

Tonight was actually the first time I’d come into contact with him in at least six months.

“Nyx?” he pressed, and it had me realizing that I hadn’t spoken a word in about two minutes. I’d just been staring as I’d gotten lost in my own head.

“Sorry, yeah. I’m good. It’s just… the crowded surroundings.”

“I understand. You seem to be handling it exceptionally well, though.”

“I did have to take some relief,” I admitted.

“That’s to be expected. Perfectly normal.”

“These days, yeah,” I murmured, fighting not to put too much of an edge into my response. I didn’t want any more therapizing from him. From anyone.

Relief flooded me when I carefully reached out with my abilities and felt nothing of the sort from him, no intention to actually go that route with me. He was… excitedinstead… excited to relay something to me.

I blinked and asked casually, keeping away from the subject matter until he was ready to bring it up, “How are you enjoying the party?”

“It’s great. Ari deserves all the celebration in the world.”

Wow,her family was so amazingly supportive of her.

It was incredible.

My family was the complete opposite.

Well, they weren’t even my family anymore—they’d made that abundantly clear when they’d dumped me on the doorstep of the Guardian Compound years ago. They hadn’t wanted ademon childas a son. Maybe if they’d kept me safer, Iwould never have been kidnapped and then taken by those motherfuckers who’d experimented on me, then they could’ve kept their sorcerer son only. And not thisthingthat I was now.

“That’s really sweet,” I said, raising my glass. “To the birthday girl.”

He smiled and clinked his glass with mine.

After we’d both taken a sip, he shifted his weight and told me, “I’ve got an interesting opportunity that’s opened up, which I believe you’ll be well-suited for.”