Page 1 of Night’s Fall (The Four Realms #1)

The Pink and Black Club

“Y ou can pay me back whenever,” Catla announced graciously.

Sitting across from Catla in the back of her father’s LuxeCraft (or…one of them), Gayliliel and I could do nothing but stare at our friend in shock.

I should have expected something like this the minute Cat started pressing for a night out.

She’d couched it in the whole “ I know what happened to you was awful, but you can’t hide away from life forever” routine.

However expected something like this was, this particular something was very un- Cat -like.

That being, spring it on us at the definition of the last minute and think we’d pay for it.

On this thought, the cab filled with Gayle’s fae energy, which meant I had no choice.

I had to take control of this burgeoning situation and speak first.

“Cat, entry into the Black Room is very expensive.”

I communicated this in as reasonable a tone as I could muster, considering everyone knew entry into the hyper-exclusive, VIP Black Room of the ridiculously famous and trendy Pink and Black Club wasn’t expensive. It was cripplingly steep. Cat knew it most of all, since she’d paid for it.

Gayle’s family had wealth, like Cat’s . Not as much, but she came from money.

That said, Gayle made her own way like most human children did when the time came, and considering her father was human (it was Gayle’s mom who was fae), that was the expectation.

Regardless, Gayle would have struck out on her own anyway. It was just who she was. Case in point, Gayle had started working at age fifteen, intent to get a head start. As such, now, she didn’t do too badly.

But she couldn’t afford the Black Room of the P & B Club .

Very few could.

This unlike Cat , whose mother was human, but her father was demon, and they were loaded. They not only had money, they had status. So much, they even hobnobbed with royalty.

Demons did things differently, especially for their daughters. Although Catla worked, she also received an additional allowance (a hefty one) from her family, which afforded her the opportunity to live the high life and dress to impress.

Not to mention, a monthly line of credit that was more than I’d ever made in an entire year.

My family, straight shifters on both sides, came from modest means.

Even if we didn’t, I’d escaped their dysfunction years ago. There had been no support from that quarter since, well…

I was born.

They’d kept me clothed and fed with a roof over my head, I’d give them that.

However, I’d gone no contact the minute I could. That being at seventeen, the age of majority for a shifter. But even before, I was as no contact as I could get still living in the same house with them.

“And we didn’t agree to it,” Gayle cut in, not speaking reasonably but instead, heatedly.

“And it’s really not in my budget,” I continued. Ever , I did not say.

“You can pay me back in installments or something,” Cat allowed.

I could feel Gayliliel bristling, not a good thing for a dark fae, and before I could intervene, she asked, “ So , if you go out and buy me a pair of Eduardo Navasco shoes I don’t want and can’t afford, and give them to me, you’d expect me to pay you back for them?” Gayle asked.

“That’s hardly the same.” Cat flicked out an elegant hand. “ You’re here, aren’t you? No one forced this on you.”

“Yes, I’m here because I thought we were going to the Pink Room ,” Gayle shot back. “ Or , at most, the Blue Room .”

The Pink Room was where everyone could get in, if you were chosen by the doorman. The cover charge was more expensive than most, but it wasn’t outlandish.

The Blue Room was one room deeper into the club. It required a charge that was not nominal. As such, although I’d been to the Pink Room , I’d never been in there.

The Black Room required a charge that, as noted, was astronomical. It also required connections. But since Cat’s people, the Truelocks , were The Truelocks , all she undoubtedly had to do was say her name, give her credit code, and we were in.

Cat crinkled her adorable snub nose at the very idea of mingling in the Pink Room , and when Gayle mentioned Blue , she didn’t look any happier.

Gayle didn’t miss it, nor did she like it.

“The little people can be fun. You should know,”—she flapped a hand between herself and me—“since you hang out with us.”

She wasn’t the “little people.”

But I was.

“No demon would be caught dead in the Pink Room ,” Cat retorted.

She was very correct. When I’d been there before, I’d gone with Gayle , or one of our other friends, Monique . Never Cat .

And there it was.

Recently, Catla had been husband hunting at the decree of her father.

And Cat was hunting for a demon, or at least a half one, also at the decree of her father.

Demon females married early, in their twenties, or the upper crust did, with the Truelocks occupying the uppermost part of the upper crust that wasn’t titled aristocracy.

Cat was turning thirty-one on her next birthday, a day that was only two months away. But since she’d passed the thirty mark, Mr . Truelock had been becoming increasingly displeased with his daughter’s live-life-have-fun-and-spend-money-until-you-drop lifestyle.

“I cannot believe you did this,” Gayliliel said quietly but in a razor-sharp tone. “ Especially tonight.”

I tensed at the deterioration of her voice.

Cat didn’t miss the edge either, and I could feel her demon rearing, which meant, if the situation didn’t shift, things were about to get ugly.

“Did what?” she demanded.

“You making it all about you the first time Laura goes out after—” Gayle abruptly stopped speaking.

At that, things shifted.

They very much did.

This shift for me meant I had the familiar sensation of my chest compressing at the reminder of what that “after” Gayle was referring to meant.

At least it wasn’t so bad anymore. I could still breathe. Three months ago, when it happened, it felt like I couldn’t.

Cat glared at Gayle .

Gayle appeared contrite and avoided my eyes.

I sighed.

“You can say it,” I whispered into the loaded silence of the car. “ It happened. I can’t pretend it didn’t.”

Even if I wished I could.

But I lived with it every day.

Or more to the point, without it.

It took everything I had not to fall into the habit I’d acquired and lift my hand to rub my chest like I could soothe the beast who wasn’t there anymore.

Or she was, but she was still gone.

Annnnnnd…

Yeah.

Remembering the enormity of my loss, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

I forced air into my lungs.

I was so busy trying to get oxygen, I didn’t hide the fact I couldn’t, thus neither of my friends missed it.

“Well done,” Cat sniped at Gayle .

“You started it with this ridiculous Black Room business,” Gayle sniped back.

“Girls—” I tried to intervene.

It was always a crapshoot if my attempts at intervention would work, but this time when I rolled the dice, I failed.

“Not everyone is husband hunting. Fae have mates. So do shifters,” Gayle pointed out. “ We don’t have to go on the prowl.”

“Lucky you,” Cat snapped. “ As you know, it’s not so easy for us demons.”

“Not lucky or easy,” Gayle slapped back. “ My mate could live in Land’s End , and I’ll never meet him.”

This was true.

Same for shifters.

In your everyday life, if you weren’t lucky enough to run across the one who was meant for you, something that rarely happened, eventually, you had to quest.

Which meant, unlike what Gayle just asserted, we did have to go on the prowl in order to meet our mate, and it was much more of a thing than what Cat had to do.

In fact, many fae and shifters took a year from work (this was, fortunately, legally mandated for employers to allow us to do), if not longer, in order to travel the Four Realms in hopes of running across the one who was meant to be ours.

You could, of course, contract a witch to narrow down the search area for you, but witches who could successfully track mates were few and far between, and that meant they were insanely expensive. That said, witches who scammed desperate fae and shifters were a dime a dozen.

And if you didn’t find him or her, you’d just have to make do, something no one wanted, because living without your true mate was like living without a limb. You could do it, but it would suck.

“But you can take your time, make a holiday of it,” Cat stated. “ I have to make a connection or Dad’s going to?—”

Now it was Cat cutting herself off.

“Your dad’s going to what?” I asked.

She turned her head to look out the window, the long, copper waves of her hair floating over the alabaster skin of her bare shoulder.

“Oh shit,” Gayle mumbled, watching Cat closely.

She turned to me (by the by, the waves of her gorgeous chestnut hair also floated enchantingly over her bare shoulders).

I stretched my lips at her. She bugged out her moss-green eyes at me.

“You two can stop pulling faces,” Catla said into our exchange.

We both looked to her to see her attention on us.

“Okay, so I messed up,” Cat went on to explain, and her gaze moved to me. “ I wanted to make a big thing of it, us finally talking you into going out after…what happened to you.”

I was attacked. Randomly . Viciously . And when I was, my beast was murdered inside me. She’s still inside me, part of my soul, there but gone forever. I’m alive, but I’m still only one half of a whole. That’s what happened to me.

But I could see how they couldn’t say it.

I remembered their faces when I woke up in the hospital. They’d had the news before I did. I remembered the weeks after. The concern. The care. The sadness. The powerlessness.

I remembered all of it.

It was like what was done to me was done to everyone I loved, even if they weren’t shifters and couldn’t really understand.

They were my friends, and any friend feels the pain another friend is experiencing.

“And it was going to be my gift, you know, like a celebration, the three of us going out again. You going out with Gayle and me again,” Cat continued.

Aw. She was so sweet.