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Chapter Seven

Sutton

I jolted awake when my phone started ringing.

Crap . I’d been trying to stay awake because of the concussion. I quickly snatched the phone off my bedside table when I saw Luke’s name on the screen.

Thank the goddess. “Luke?”

“I don’t have much time. Please, Sutton, just listen to me. I’m in trouble.”

I shoved myself up, wincing when my head pounded and my ribs throbbed. “What the hell’s going on? Where have you been? Why haven’t you been answering my calls?”

His gulp was audible. “I…I’ve pissed off the wrong people, Sut, I’m in serious trouble, and I don’t know what to do.”

The fear in his voice reached me through the phone so strongly that my own skyrocketed. I’d never heard him sound that scared before.

“Okay, Lukey, I’m listening. Whatever this is, whatever’s happening, we can fix it. Just tell me what’s going on.”

“You’re gonna be so pissed at me. I didn’t mean for it to get this tangled up. It was just supposed to be a way to make some quick money. No one was ever meant to get hurt.”

Oh gods. I shoved back the covers and climbed out of bed, gritting my teeth when my bruised and stiff body throbbed. “You can tell me anything, you know you can.”

His breath shook. “Some guys at work, shifters, they were talking about the fights, about how they wanted something to give them an edge, you know? I said I could do it, because easy, right? I promised it was safe, that no one would get hurt, that I knew what I was doing… I thought I did, but?—”

“You made performance-enhancing drugs?” Yes, I’d already worked that out, but still, I wanted to reach through the phone and wring his freaking neck.

“I thought it’d be harmless, and it would have been if they’d followed my instructions, if they hadn’t overdone it.

” He sniffed. “If they’d just stuck to the dose I gave them, then none of this would have happened.

No one would listen to me though. They thought more would make them stronger…

” He sobbed, and it broke my heart. “People got sick, they overdosed…people died , Sutton.” He sobbed harder.

No, we weren’t biologically related, but this kid was my brother.

The family I was born with wouldn’t stop to pick me up if I was dying in the street.

Luke, the other people in this coven, they’d do anything for me.

Luke had done something seriously stupid, something that would mess him up for the rest of his life, but still, I’d do whatever I could to help him.

“Where are you? Just tell me where you are and I’ll come and get you. We’ll figure this out together.”

Silence fell between us.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

He made a choking sound. “The first batch I made, the guys who took it, they did really good, they won their fights. Then this demon took notice. He made an order, a really big order. Not just performance-enhancing but party drugs as well.”

Fuck . There were some powerful demons in this city, but they didn’t mess with humans, which meant so far they’d managed to maintain their sanctuary status.

The Knights of Hell didn’t relieve them of their heads, and the hounds didn’t drag them back to Hell.

They also didn’t do anything that drew Rune’s attention, the demon Lucifer had appointed as his eyes and ears when it came to the demons above ground, which meant they had free rein and were seriously dangerous.

“I gave them their order, but then people started dying.” Another pause. “So I broke into the main dealer’s house, and I stole it back.”

“You did what?”

“I couldn’t let anyone else die because of me. But now I owe them a lot of money.”

“Then give them their money back and come home.”

He sobbed again. “The money’s all gone. I used it to buy the ingredients, then Evie took the rest of the cash, and she’s not answering her phone.”

That fucking bitch.

“They’re gonna kill me, Sut. They said they’re gonna kill me if I don’t give them their money back. I’m so scared. I don’t know what to do.”

He was spiraling, and I had to pretend I wasn’t because he needed me. Gods. I was so angry at him for doing something so stupid, but he needed me to be strong right now.

“You need to get as far away from Roxburgh as you can until I work out what to do. Lie low until I can get the money together, then we can get you out of this mess.”

“It’s a lot of money. It’s so much money, Sutton.”

I had some savings. If I had to use some of it to get him out of this, then that’s what I’d do. “How much?”

“Fifty grand. It’s fifty fucking grand,” he gasped out, sobbing harder.

Holy shit. I sure as hell didn’t have that kind of money. “Right…okay. I’ll work something out.” I had no idea how, but I would.

“I have to go. They could be tracking me. I’ll buy a burner and call you when I’m safe.”

“Luke, hang on?—”

The phone went dead.

Shit. I paced across my room to the window and stared out to the dark street.

Where the hell was I gonna get fifty thousand dollars?

It turned out, drinking didn’t solve all your problems.

It also didn’t magically help you figure out how to find fifty thousand dollars and save someone you loved from possible torture and death. What it did do, however, was stop you from having an epic panic attack, so I was calling it a win.

I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, and the longer I stared, the angrier I got.

I didn’t get angry easily. I tried to be positive, but there was no positive angle in this mess.

And who the hell did these assholes think they were, anyway?

Luke had been pushed around, cast aside, and had been forced to live on the streets like I had.

He’d made a mistake, a really, seriously bad one— people had died —but I couldn’t let him die as well.

My fingers curled into tight fists. Everyone in this coven had suffered in one way or another. We’d been treated like pariahs, cast aside because of what we were or how we looked—never good enough, never catching a damned break.

I knew that firsthand. My family thought I was disgusting, a blight on their perfect coven.

No one talked about the fact that I was born this way, with demon blood, because my mother had an affair with a freaking demon !

No one cared about that part, oh no, just that I didn’t look like them, that my eyes and veins were a huge flashing red light telling everyone what my mother had done, and we couldn’t have that now, could we?

We couldn’t have that shame staining their precious coven.

She literally fucked around and got found out, but I was the one who paid the price for her selfishness.

There’d been nights of fear on the streets when I didn’t think I’d survive, so much loneliness, years of self-loathing, something I still struggled with, then I found my coven and everything got better—until a monster broke in and cut me up.

The fates giving me another giant fuck you, Sutton .

And then came Jagger, and I thought, yeah, finally.

Finally . Something was going to go my way.

I’d truly convinced myself that the fates thought, hey, that Sutton got a pretty rough deal, let’s give her something good to make up for all that crap we threw at her —but, no.

Instead, they decided to serve me up a whole lot more.

They dangled that hound in front of me, and just when I thought I was going to get my happily ever after, finally, they snatched him away—but not completely, not straightaway, first they humiliated me, then they made me think he’d changed his mind, then they snatched him away for good.

Grabbing the glass off my bedside table, I downed the last of my drink. That one might have been a little heavy on the vodka. I was still seriously tipsy. Well, there was only one answer for that. Dance it off.

I dragged myself off the bed and turned on some music. Boo was in his “cave,” a little hidey-hole I’d made him to sleep in during the day. It was basically soundproof, and he didn’t stir.

I did an experimental twist of my waist. My ribs hardly even hurt now.

Thanks, vodka, I knew I could count on you.

No one was here to annoy with the volume, so I turned it up.

I tried not to think about Luke afraid and alone, or the shit Bonny had said to me the last time I saw her, while I was saving her freaking boyfriend’s life—or Jagger in the bathroom with me, washing my hair, or the way he looked standing in the doorway in only a towel.

It didn’t work and I shivered when I thought about him basically begging me to let him make me feel good.

His voice rang through my mind over and over again.

You got blood all in this pretty hair of yours.

So fucking pretty. Love this hair.

He loved my hair. The only thing he did love about me apparently.

My rage shot higher. Well, screw him. I stormed into the bathroom, yanked open the drawer and grabbed out my scissors.

He didn’t get that. He didn’t get to love my hair and nothing else.

I wouldn’t let him. Grabbing a chunk of it, I cut just below my chin, the sharp blades slicing through the strands easily.

Then I kept going, hacking through braids, and the beads I’d threaded through the other side slid off, bouncing on the floor tiles.

I didn’t stop until it was gone, lying in a heap on the bathroom floor.

Dragging in a shaky breath, I released a broken sob as the scissors clattered to the counter. Hot tears streaked down my cheeks. This was it, the last tears I would allow myself to shed for that male.

I survived my family and coven throwing me away, I could survive this.

This was nothing, just a blip. I barely knew him.

This thing inside that made me feel lost without him, that made me crave him, that made me feel as if my life was over without him, was a trick.

It was a biological ploy. Jagger was like a growth, a foreign body that needed to be excised.

He didn’t belong here with me, no matter what the fates tried to tease me with. They’d made a mistake.

I just had to find a way of cutting him out completely.

Then I’d stop feeling this way. Then this pain would stop.