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Rae didn’t ask Blue’s name. She knew he wasn’t interested in hers, but she’d be damned if she’d give him so much as a drop of her blood.

As his arms came around her waist and his teeth grazed the exposed skin of her neck, she spun around to face him, one hand fisted in the front of his shirt as if she couldn’t get enough of his touch.

His gaze slid down to track the movement, a dazzling grin revealing two pointed canines.

But Rae still had time. Vampires loved the chase.

The hunt. By her estimation, she had another few minutes before he grew tired of waiting to taste her.

She already knew he kept his money in his top left trouser pocket, but if she brushed his dick when she reached for it, she was at risk of bringing up that last drink all over his white shirt, so she gave herself a minute to mentally prepare.

“I haven’t seen you in here before,” her Vampire said as he moved with her.

Rae hummed as he had, feigning interest in his words. If it wasn’t for the half-decent song, she’d have already taken what she needed.

Movement at the far side of the crowd caught her attention.

Her true mark was on the move, several others flanking him.

A frown creased Rae’s brow, but she shut it down before her dance partner could notice.

They were all Providents, and it was an effort not to let her body tense as she moved.

The Providents were the mystics, the mind readers, the telepaths.

The Vampires who could speak through thoughts, could alter feelings, and conjure illusions of the mind to trick humans into trusting them.

Supposedly some could heal, though Rae had never seen any evidence of such a thing.

With powers like that, it was no wonder the Providents held the highest positions amongst the Vampires. Their Lord was no exception.

Nine followed him—no doubt his councillors—towards the staircase to the upper level that housed the VIP area, power rippling from all of them.

The Vampire Lord was desperate, Rae knew; she’d been watching him for months.

What she did at Rush was pocket change in comparison to the wealth he had access to.

She didn’t want to involve herself in the affairs of Vampires, but this meeting was the first opportunity she’d had to get close to him in weeks.

Blue had said something, Rae reminded herself, and Vampires didn’t like to be ignored.

“I hadn’t worked up the courage until tonight,” she finally told him, eyelashes fluttering as she smiled.

He wouldn’t recognise her, even though she’d stolen from him twice already this week.

A few quickly murmured spells to change her hair, her eyes, a few different shades of makeup and a change of clothes were all it took to deceive a bloodsucker; most of them only ever looked at the vein in her neck anyway.

He noticed the Providents on the move a few seconds after she did.

He wasn’t important if he remained there with her, but he was still of use.

All she needed was his money. Rae toyed with his shirt, fingers dipping closer to the waistband of his trousers, praying to the Goddess her gag reflex was on her side tonight.

She had no interest in sleeping with a Vampire.

They were always assholes, so in love with their own reflection, walking around Demesia every night like they owned the place.

Sometimes Rae prayed the Fae would just wipe the fuckers out and be done with it, but who was the lesser of the two evils?

The feud between Vampires and Fae had gone on for so long that none were left who could remember a time of peace.

And when you lived amongst immortals, that was saying a lot.

Unlike the Vampires, the different types of Fae were a lot easier to spot.

There were those that for the most part looked human, despite their finely pointed ears and their preternatural beauty marking them as other .

There were the Shifters, the Sirens, the Wings, the Horns, and the Hooves, though none would stoop as low as to walk into Rush—it was the wrong part of the city for Fae.

Though most aligned themselves with either the Royalist or Liberalist courts through lineage, many wished for no such association. Rae shared the sentiment.

That left the Witches and the humans, who were much harder to tell apart, and one great big fucking mess.

The Witch king was reported to be dead, and good fucking riddance.

He’d been nothing but a waste of space and had done little to help those the Vampires had taken, allegedly.

It was no surprise Witches had become so secretive and cut off from the rest of the continent.

Blue began to get handsy, long, thin fingers roving over the swell of her ass like he was considering which part to sink his fangs into first. Rae knew it was probably a piss-poor attempt at fluffing his own ego after seeing the Providents moving through the club, a reminder that he would never be one of them and that at least the female in his arms was something he could control.

But not this one. Not tonight. Something was happening, and not the way Rae had hoped. The Vampire Lord was bound to be less accessible if he was preoccupied.

The music drifted into another track and Rae twisted out of her Vampire’s arms like she was lost to it, swaying to the new beat and bumping into the human behind her a little harder than necessary.

“Watch it, bitch,” the girl muttered, words slurring together. The human’s Vampire, predictably, was instantly in Blue’s face, harsh words spoken too quietly for Rae to hear. Not that she cared. She bit back her smirk as they snarled at each other like wild dogs fighting over a carcass.

Perfect. Let the beasties fight it out.

Rae slipped through the crowd, the Vampire’s money already stashed away in her bag, her sights set on a far greater prize.