Page 3

Gluttony

“Come back to bed.” “Don’t tempt me.” “Do I tempt you, Gluttony?” “Every second of the day.”

Listening to my brothers run around in circles is a test of my patience. The same discussion we’ve had too many times over the last two weeks. My foot taps impatiently, my back against the wall. The urge to tell them all to shut the fuck up grows by the second. I’m sick of hearing it, of talking instead of doing something. Turning over every leaf in Denver hasn’t given us any answers, or leads, or clues. Nothing. Dead end after dead end. My suggestion to raze the entire city to the ground is becoming more appealing every day. It will leave our brothers and demons unscathed and easily tracible. I don’t care about any human that lives here, or anywhere. Not against the safety of my kin.

When we run out of options, I’ll be ready and waiting.

“Perhaps there’s a pattern to how they scattered them?” Lust taps his lips thoughtfully. “Clear separation and not close to each other.”

“What, like four-corners-of-the-Earth bullshit?” Wrath asks. He places a hand on the edge of the map we’re using to tick off our searched areas. The entire thing is marked up, with barely a single untouched space in the city. How can we have searched everywhere and still have come up with nothing? Where the fuck is Conor holding our family? We’re fucking Sins, and this world belongs to us. That anyone can so easily stay under our radar pisses me off.

Lust discreetly moves Wrath’s burning hand away from the paper. “No,” he answers. “But each of them has a unique ability. They could be taking them into different areas to test their skills?”

My stomach turns at the thought. We’re no one’s lab rats. “Nero’s ability to disguise himself and completely hide his demonic energy would be of interest.” They’re already too good at hiding; imagine what they could do with Nero’s level of cloaking. My hands itch to strangle something. “Conor never learned about Greed’s shape-shifting, so at least we’re safe from them discovering it.” Greed won’t get it out, no matter what they do to him. It can’t be brought out involuntarily, it doesn’t work like that. Small mercies.

Lazarus scowls, golden eyes blazing. “If they’re experimenting with chimeras, Raven is the one they’ll be focused on,” he says, pain etched in his tone.

He’s not wrong. Raven is the only instance of a successful turning that exists. What they have the potential of learning with Raven is more than worrying.

“I want all of us back under the same roof,” Lust says. “Including Sloth.”

“Morgan’s left on his search. Let’s hope he has some luck sooner rather than later.” Lazarus fiddles with the cuffs of his jacket. “We could use Sloth right now, but we can’t rely on Morgan finding him.”

I snort derisively. Sloth won’t be found until he wants to be. Morgan’s search is futile at best. Useless, and a complete waste of time at worst. Our brother isn’t much into interpersonal relations. Or people in general. The kind of power he has, the way it evolves around him, I don’t blame him for isolating himself. I wouldn’t want to be around people either. I barely want to now.

Sloth’s ability to manipulate time around him means that even if by some miracle Morgan finds him, he won’t remember finding him. Sloth will turn back time, and it will be like Morgan was never there. There are limitations to what Sloth can do; that isn’t one of them.

“Kicking in every door in the city hasn’t worked,” Envy says, absently flicking a knife in his hand where he’s slouched back in a computer chair. “What do we do now, then?”

Lust smooths the pads of his fingers over the map. “We need a more deliberate approach.”

“Searching every place top to bottom wasn’t deliberate enough for you?” Envy asks sarcastically. “Because I think—”

Thankfully, none of us have to hear what Envy thinks. Deacon—Lust’s lover and a man I don’t trust whatsoever—pushes through the door into the room. He goes straight for Lust, who immediately makes room for him, the two of them curling around each other.

It’s a disgusting display of affection that I have no time for. “We’ve searched almost every inch of the city. Are we still convinced they haven’t moved them out of the state? Possibly even the country?” I’m not. This is our seat of power, where we’re strongest. Smarter to move them farther afield. They won’t ever get far enough away to be out of our reach, but it’s not an unreasonable assumption.

“No,” Lust admits. “I’m also not convinced that we’ve finished searching here. When we went into that building where we were ambushed, we didn’t feel anything Fae upstairs whatsoever. It was only when we were below ground that we felt it. Deacon smelled it quicker than us. Unfortunately, we don’t know how reliable that is.”

“Thanks.”

Lust kisses Deacon’s temple. “Should I show you much I adore you, love? We need to tread carefully when it comes to your Fae side. We don’t know yet how to pull it out, or what it will do to you when it does emerge.”

“You know, now that I think about it, we never once saw a Fae child. Not that I can remember anyway. Do we know why?” Envy asks.

“Not a subject I’ve spent a lot of time dwelling on,” I drawl. A pointless exercise. The Fae aren’t my concern. So long as the Light stay on their side of the shroud, I have no reason to think about them. If Lust is right about there being pockets of Dark Fae, we’ll deal with that when we get there.

“I’m just saying that there’s no record of Deke before he was eight, and he doesn’t remember it. Who’s to say he wasn’t with them? That they didn’t do something to him?”

Deacon stiffens, and Lust smooths a hand up and down his back.

“Irrelevant,” I say dismissively. Whatever the reason, speculating won’t get us anywhere. We don’t have the answers or know who does. The mystery will remain unsolved, and I’m not about to lose any sleep over it. “Knowing isn’t going to get our brothers back from Conor.”

“You’re his brother; why don’t you tell us?” Wrath says angrily.

Deacon scowls right back at him, unafraid. I can almost respect him for that. “You were his lover , why don’t you tell us?” he shoots back.

Flames lick at Wrath’s hands, and he clenches them, dousing them. “The man I knew never existed. You’re the one who holds his past. I still don’t believe that you had no idea who he worked with. What his purpose was.”

“He wasn’t into espionage or murder. And he certainly didn’t work for some shadow organization that’s hell-bent on taking you down. I don’t know anything about this, and if you ask me again, we’re gonna have a big fucking problem.”

“We already have a problem.” Wrath menacingly steps toward him.

I’m inclined to agree with Wrath. Deacon may sing a different tune these days, firmly at Lust’s side, but can we really trust him? He already held one secret. Who’s to say there isn’t more? I’m not against Pride rooting around inside his head when we get Pride back. If it turns Deacon into nothing but a husk, I won’t be sorry about it.

Lust holds up a hand. “Enough. Fighting amongst ourselves will get us nowhere and putting a hand on Deacon will only upset me. We’ll do one more sweep over the city, more deliberately this time. With this new information, we can attempt to locate them by pinpointing their specific signatures.”

“You seriously just found some random dude—in a random house in a suburb we never go to—who all but pinged your radar like a fucking beacon, and he happens to have this information, and we’re not the least bit suspicious?”

No disagreement there; Wrath has a point. Regardless of the risk, it’s the only lead we’ve found in weeks, and we have no other options. Being able to focus on one signature at a time can only help us. Having them all together doesn’t mean a large confluence of energy to follow; it means that they’re muddled and harder to pinpoint. That’s information that Conor and his lackies aren’t smart enough to figure out.

Lust shrugs. “Whether it’s the truth or not, it won’t hurt us to use it to do another sweep of the city.”

“Say we’re wrong, and they’re outside the city, where the fuck would we even start?” Envy asks. “I want to know where they are, Lust. I want them now , not a year from now after we’ve wiped every goddamn fucking person off this planet for taking them from us.”

We can just do that now, save ourselves a lot of trouble. The humans will repopulate and come back. It might take them a couple thousand years, but they’re resilient, and we don’t need them in order to survive.

Lust doesn’t respond, his gaze sweeping over the map. “If Conor is attempting to learn about the chimeras, and himself, there’s only one place he should go.”

“Asia,” Envy guesses. “But he doesn’t know that it’s the only place where the Fae ever mounted an assault. That the gateway between the two worlds is weakest there for the same reason.”

“He shouldn’t know half the information he does,” Lust points out. “We have no way of knowing what he does and doesn’t know. That makes him extremely dangerous.”

Even if he knows nothing, he’s still extremely dangerous. He managed to kidnap some of us and get out of a confrontation unscathed. He needs to be put down like the rabid dog he is.

“I say we find him, torture him, and find out,” Wrath suggests darkly.

“That’s my brother you’re talking about!”

“I’m aware of who we have in our midst. Don’t think I’m not watching you.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Deacon snarls.

“I said enough,” Lust says quietly. “Our family is out there, and they’re the only thing that matters right now. We’ll start the new search tomorrow. Divide and conquer. Until then, we all need to rest.”

I highly doubt that Lust’s plans only involve resting. In fact, I wager it doesn’t involve rest at all. His magic pours off him like liquid. It may not affect any of us the way it does humans—and some of the lesser species across the shroud—but I can still smell it. Lust, and desire, and other nuances of arousal. None of which appeals to me. I’ve never desired anyone. The mere thought of being naked and touching another person makes my stomach churn uncomfortably. The idea of sleeping with them is unfathomable to me. To feel another person under my hands, to bury my cock inside them? It leaves a sour taste in my mouth. There’s only one thing I enjoy doing with another person, and their screams aren’t ones of pleasure.

I grimace and tear out of the room without a word.

A fucking waste of time. I’m going to rest, and I’m not going to fuck. I plan to hunt.

Slamming my bedroom door behind me is supremely satisfying, frustration and helplessness a rot inside me.

The noise of the outside world disappears, and I freeze. Someone is in here with me. I can’t see them even as I circle the room, searching it thoroughly. That doesn’t change facts; I would bet my entire hoard that I’m not alone.

How the hell did they get through the estate’s defenses, and why can’t I see them? Invisibility isn’t possible, not even for the most powerful of us. It would be a hell of a useful skill, but none of us have that kind of magic. Sin , Fae, or any other creature that stalks the cumhdach and beyond.

A force nudges me in the upper arm, and I whirl around, lightning striking the floor directly in front of me. I catch a glimpse of tiny… dragon wings? What the fuck? No. That’s impossible.

My ears pop painfully, and then the feeling of another presence is gone.