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THE DEVIL HOLDS MY soul.

I boxed it up with satin ribbons and handed it to him on my sixteenth birthday over a wilted cupcake. It had seemed so noble, a gesture of selfless love to protect the man I love with my whole heart.

Nine years later, the decision remains a necessary one, but the rules of my role evolve a little more each night. His demands ... his hunger has become insatiable and it’s stirring things in me I can’t ignore.

“Did you hear me?”

I blink my attention away from the filthy framed painting of a field of sunflowers to settle on the gaunt figure glowering up at me with watery, blood shot eyes. Irritation floats in the gray pools, reflecting the restless rapping of chipped nails on scuffed plastic coating the table.

“Yes, Mama,” I assure her, although I hadn’t.

I can’t focus on anything, except the drop of every second I’m standing in the heavy smog of sandalwood and heroin and not already on my way to fulfill my obligations to a demon.

Mama Bloom huffs the dry snort of a coke addict and carves her jagged nails into the track marks dotting her inner elbow.

She hadn’t always been this way. There was once a time she appeared unfathomable. A force of rage. Every year, like my demon, her appetite for sustenance has deformed into self-destruction.

“I put you in charge of the booth because I’ve been too busy, but you’re running it into the ground. What am I supposed to do with this?”

The cling and clatter of loose coins striking the cluttered table amplify in the cramped space of the cabin, deafening as they spin and roll.

It’s not all the pay for the night. I learned years ago not to trust Mama with everything and expect her to be a responsible adult. Her addiction will always win, and we will always lose. If Aiden and I are to eat for the week, to have enough money saved for our own trailer, to pay our fees, I need to be smart. I need to skim just enough each night to handle all the important things while not arousing suspicion from the husk of a woman sitting before me, wasting precious time.

“It’s been slow,” I lie.

Mama scoffs and rocks her bony backside into the worn leather of the bench that pulls out into my bed. Ashes dust my comforter and there’s a new singe mark in the threadbare fabric. I try not to show my irritation. Or glance at the clock over the small mountain of dishes in the sink.

“You’re a filthy liar. You ungrateful bitch.” Tarnished chunks of sapphires, rubies, and emeralds glint in the feeble light as the skeletal hand sweeps under a sharp nose. “I never should have kept you or that useless brother of yours. You both just want to see me suffer after everything I’ve done for you.”

Mentions of Aiden have my feet shifting against the sticky linoleum. My gaze inadvertently darts to the clock.

“Am I keeping you? Do you ... do you have something better to do?” Dishes rattle under the fierce slam of Mama’s fist down on the table. “Have I become an inconvenience to you, Seraphine?”

I’m not quick enough to dodge the mug hurled at my head. It falls short and clips my right shoulder. The pain is overshadowed by surprise as cold tea explodes down my arm, soaking my sleeve. The ceramic shatters into a million pieces across the trailer floor and I know I’m about to break my promise to a demon.

“After everything ... I took you when no one else wanted you. I ... I let you stay...” She makes as though she’s about to slide out of the booth but can’t. Instead, she grabs her lighter and blackened spoon. “Get out, you bitch. You stupid...”

I leave the mess and the woman flicking the lighter with shaky fingers and hurry out into the sweet, clean scent of pine and freedom.

The night hums with the residual laughter of things that aren’t there. Their haunting giggles terrified me as a child. They would send me scurrying under the blankets and it was only Aiden’s gentle coaxing that would lure me out. Then Warrick slinked into our lives and took away the boy who would keep me safe from the world and left me alone in the dark.

I turn my attention to the carnival lights flickering like dying stars against the heavy black sky. Canopies of red and white rustle in the dusk, the sails on an ever-drifting ship.

I suppose that’s the best way to understand the carnival. It arrives with the wind and leaves just as silently. There are never any flyers, no warning. We don’t ask for permission from the locals and are gone before anyone can even think to complain. We give them a glimpse of the impossible before vanishing forever, becoming nothing more than a faint memory.

Even now with the last of the humans gone and tucked away in their homes, I stand surrounded by the shimmering facade. The scent of sugar and something darker clings to the air, heavy with the scent of fear and forgotten promises.

But it’s my home. The only sanctuary I’ve ever known. The only place Aiden could exist safely. Because of him the carnival calls to me. It pulls me in.

I teeter on the edges of it all, my fingers fisted at my sides as if it could shield me from what’s lurking in the shadows, waiting for me to stumble into its clutches. Even now, the weight of his existence pulls the air from my lungs. It beckons me to him. To his hunger.

In the distance, the Ferris wheel spins, its rusted skeleton creaking with every dip and rise. The empty seats swing. Its lights spill across the big top looming at the heart of everything and the ticket booth nestled near its feet.

The carnival never sleeps. Even absent of guests, even with the entire crew tucked away in their beds, the rides continue to run. Bags of warm, buttery popcorn sit on the shelf. The music is endless through the night. It’s a place that welcomes the odd and reckless.

The dangerous.

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.

“I need 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.

“It’s nothing,” I rasp, heart thumping in my throat. “I hit—”

The sharp snap of his tail slashes through the air and coils around my middle. The raised ridges dig into the soft flesh of my belly. The sting is fleeting when I’m jerked straight into his chest, into the waiting claw he closes into my jaw. His extended talons graze my cheek but he’s so careful not to hurt me.

“Don’t,” he warns low in his throat, low near my face. So close the heat of his breath burns my parted lips. “You will not protect them from me. They forfeited their life the moment they touched you.”

The hand I had braced against the steady wall of his chest flies up to grip his wrist. Not to push him away. Not to detach myself from his hold. But to somehow stop him from killing Mama.

“Warrick...”

The cavity of his chest rumbles with the growl clawing up his throat. The razor-sharp points of his fangs flash in the shifting light all the way to his molars. It’s easy to imagine them stained red with blood.

Mama’s. I should be upset by the idea, but my thoughts have already drifted to the feel of those teeth on my skin. On my neck as he splays his long fingers across my skin, curves them around my waist. Digs his claws into my warm flesh. I’m lost in the feel of his breath ghosting my lips but never touching. His tongue teasing the hollow of my throat. Sometimes, his tongue separates down the center and my brain gets messy with thoughts of him doing that to other parts of my body.

I shiver unconsciously and feel his hold tighten.

“My sweet, little human.” His thumb skims my cheek. “You fight me like you don’t already belong to me. Like I wouldn’t tear through Heaven and Hell to keep you. You resist me because you know how I would ruin you and how much you’d love it.”

A shower of tingles explodes down my spine and collects between my thighs with a delicious pulse that has me fighting not to shift. Still a shaky exhale escapes me, and I’m rewarded by the dip of his head. By the nudge of his nose to mine. The gesture upends a basket of butterflies in my belly.

I know it’s wrong. I know I shouldn’t be so hopelessly gone over a monster who has threatened to consume my brother into nonexistence if I don’t feed him every night. He’s never given me any other choice but to submit and bend to his demands.

My body for my brother. It’s a good choice. I would make it again without hesitation. Aiden means everything to me. He’s my world. Despite the four years between us, he’s always been my light. My protector. I could never have survived Mama without him. Giving myself to Warrick is a small price to pay, even if Warrick is possessing my brother’s body.

When the sun rises, Warrick will be gone, and Aiden will return. He’ll wake up in my bed, curled around me, even though Mama has threatened to kick him out of the trailer if he doesn’t stop.

We can’t tell her it’s Warrick’s arms I fall asleep in and it’s Aiden who I wake up to. She would want to know why. She would ask questions, and I can’t tell her Warrick will hurt Aiden if I don’t. I can’t explain what it felt like watching Aiden scream as his body was torn apart and reformed into Warrick’s. She has never seen him fall to his knees, blood running from his eyes, nose, and ears. She hasn’t seen him in so much pain he throws up. Watching the person you love get gutted right in front of you is enough to promise anything to save them.

Warrick knows that.

He knows I would give my life for Aiden.

Warrick is a beautiful nightmare that I can’t wake from. The ocean I’m already drowning in, and Warrick ... Warrick is the one holding me under.

“I don’t want this,” I whisper, though I don’t know if I’m telling him or myself.

Maybe part of me thinks if I say it, it’ll feel less like a betrayal when I submit under his touch.

His chuckle is harsh, his breath warm against my ear as he leans in, his lips brushing against the sensitive skin of my neck.

“You think you have a choice, my little human? You are already mine. Everything else is just formality.” His voice is low and full of savage promise. “You have always belonged to me. From the very moment you were brought into this world, I felt you. I felt you take your first breath. Felt every heartbeat after. You belonged to me before your parents even met. You think I’m a monster now? Wait until you see what I’ll do to anyone who tries to take you from me. You will never escape me.”

The words hit like a physical blow, the weight of them pressing down on me. My heart skips a beat — I tell myself it’s panic and hatred — and I shove him. I try. I plant my hand against his chest and push with all my strength, but he doesn’t budge.

“No,” I force out, shaking my head, but the fire in his eyes only intensifies. “I won’t. You can’t keep me forever.”

“Not forever. Longer,” he growls, the words thick with something dangerous and primal. “When the sun sets, I will take what is mine, Seraphine. I will have you. I will claim and ruin you in ways you will beg me to do again. I will burn this carnival to the ground if it means keeping you.” The hard weight of his body settles over my softness. His tail tightens until it’s cutting into my waist and my traitorous body trembles at the thought of it wrapping like that around my throat while he bends me over ... I shake the thought away, but he’s smirking like he knows exactly what he’s doing to me. “You can cry and beg, but I will never let you go. Not because I enjoy your suffering, but because I know you don’t want me to.”

His words ensnare me, tightening until I can’t breathe. He’s right, of course. I don’t want him to let me go. I can’t imagine a world where he’s not part of it with me, but I know I should push him away, to scream, to fight, to demand that he let me go. But instead, I find myself unwilling to leave his hold when standing in his arms feels like the first time I’ve taken a breath all day.

But reality doesn’t change just because I want it to. I swallow hard, forcing the words through uncertainty and doubt.

“You know this is wrong. Aiden is my brother and you’re wearing his body.”

His face moves closer, his breath warm against my skin as he drags his nose along my cheek. His fingers slip from my jaw to the back of my neck, holding me there gently, but unyielding.

“Then stop trembling for me. Stop your pussy from getting wet for me. I don’t care about right or wrong. I only care that you’re mine.”