Page 44

Chapter 2

Kostas

B est thing about a dance club? It was too loud for Kostas to hear himself think.

He’d worked other places, but he had a bad habit. When things got quiet, he filled the space. He opened his mouth, and people got hurt.

If there was one damn thing that Phaze wasn’t, it was quiet.

For a normal person, humming along with the corporate-approved background music while bussing tables wasn’t a big deal, but Kostas was a siren. When he sang, people stopped and listened. They flung themselves off boats and headfirst into a churning sea.

He’d watched dozens of men throw themselves off fishing ships in the Mediterranean and drown. Seen them stand at the coastline and stare wistfully out at the sea and waste away, while back on shore, their families moved on without them.

Sirens were dangerous. They killed people. It’d taken him a long time to come to terms with what he was: a monster and a murderer.

It was easy to overlook it, considering amongst their own, sirens were close knit and generous. They took care of each other—were beautiful and harmonious, and when he was young, that was enough for him to think they were good. That he was a part of the best people, the best species, on the planet.

But everybody slips into that illusion sometimes. It’s the root of all the evil bullshit in the world—racism, war, torment.

You think you’re special, elite, worthy, and other people aren’t. You tell yourself it’s okay when a sailor drowns and your brothers and sisters feast on his heart, because he was foolish enough to get caught in the first place.

You didn’t make the world, you just lived in it, and if you did that better than other sorts of people, well, you could hardly be blamed for that.

Never mind if you’d been born a predator or if your voice alone lit a human brain up like an electrical storm.

He didn’t know why it was one word that did him in—a “please” whispered hoarsely from a man in his arms as his brothers and sisters raked their claws down his chest, carving red lines into skin exposed by his torn shirt.

The man’s breath had shaken. He’d been lost—wanton and terrified at once. And then he’d died, and Kostas had run to the far side of the world, clear to another continent, and across it, to get away.

Truth was, no matter how he tried to plant his feet, he couldn’t settle somewhere landlocked. He had thought distance from the sea would muffle the effect of his voice. In the middle of the desert outside Albuquerque, he’d finally live normally.

Instead, it was like trying to breathe with no oxygen.

So Kostas had kept going until he hit the far coast, stood between the trees in the forest north of Lyric, and sucked the salt air deep into his lungs until the world stopped spinning. Nothing was grounding like the ocean, and the Pacific had a broad, cool scent unlike the balmy summer sweat of his home.

And he only missed Greece when he blinked, and only felt the call of his siblings’ songs in his marrow when he breathed.

Kostas loved singing—loved breathing into his chest, opening up that space where his siblings’ voices resonated. He never felt like he was part of something like he did when he was singing.

Only songs meant dropping bodies, and it was best if he kept his mouth shut. Hell, on busy nights at Phaze, he could get by with hand gestures and a mouthed, “What can I get you?” And working in a night club meant no one questioned his dark teal hair.

The one actual problem was that, more often than not, he was dealing with drunk people—or people who had every intention of getting drunk and losing their inhibitions.

People like the incubus who’d asked for his number.

The demon stood out like a diamond in a coal heap, shinier and brighter than everyone around him. He had high cheekbones, full lips, long brown hair. His eyes shone with playful intention. And better still, he knew how to dress. His clothes were neatly tailored, hugging every inch of his lithe frame, so Kostas couldn’t help but think about the way his body moved under those silk slacks. It was like he’d picked out every piece of clothing, from his polished shoes to that darling little waistcoat, particularly to inspire the need to unwrap him. Slow. Preferably while those plush, deep pink lips were parted on a gasp.

Kostas knew that desire, that hunger, better than most. And he was too damn stubborn—too wary—to fall prey to it.

The guy had come in with Elrith McKittack and a pretty blonde woman he’d seen around Phaze before.

Elrith spelled trouble. That incubus was nobody to fuck with, literally or figuratively. The sirens in the bay all knew about him—had heard from the nymphs that disaster followed the demon wherever he walked. He had a half-nymph child of his own, but sirens knew incubus magic, and knew better than to get involved with incubi, particularly ambitious ones.

If Elrith had come to Phaze, that meant it was time for Kostas to get out. Doubly so if he’d caught the eye of one of his pretty minions.

A quick glance down the bar showed Kostas’s devilish admirer had moved off by the time he finished making the next customer’s drink. Good. As Prue Leith would say, that was one dessert that wasn’t worth the calories.

Kostas lost himself to the quick efficiency of making appletinis for a group of co-eds, pouring IPAs for the untucked and ever-so-cool millennial men, and a tray of slippery dick shots for a bachelorette party.

Like every night, there was a certain time when the music turned more bass than tenor, and people got sloppy. They leaned on each other, arms draped off shoulders, faces flushed from drink and dance.

At some point, Phaze’s partiers were more interested in each other and where they’d spend the rest of their night than ordering more drinks.

“I’ll go bus tables,” Kostas offered to Katie. She glanced his way, and he held her eye for a second. There was a guy leaning across the bar toward her, a fiendish smirk on his lips, but she nodded Kostas’s way. Katie could hold her own as well as anyone, and better to leave her with the bar between her and customers than send her out into the wild to grab empties.

Kostas hefted the gray plastic bin under his arm and took off. Phaze was mostly standing room and dance floor, but there were some high round tables for standing and setting drinks, and a few low lounges toward the back of the room.

When he walked out from behind the bar, he felt eyes on him and turned. Sharp and piercing, lit with fury—the incubus was glaring at him.

And that, friends, was some motherfucking entitlement. Par for the course when dealing with anybody used to getting their own way.

Kostas sighed, turned around, and went to grab pint glasses, cool with sweat, off the table the millennial guys had just abandoned.

Soon, his bin was full and his arms were aching. Clearly, it was the exact right moment for the incubus to stick himself in Kostas’s path again.

He ran straight into him, the bin hitting his stomach. He scowled at Kostas, chocolate-brown eyebrows furrowed. “You’re a jerk.”

His voice was slurred. There were high pink spots in his cheeks. Even if he’d been avoiding Kostas, he’d been getting drinks somewhere. Must’ve been, because he’d been all cool composure before.

“Oh yeah? Because I wouldn’t give you my number?”

Sounded about right. Guy couldn’t take a “no,” because he hadn’t heard enough of them in his life.

The incubus scoffed dramatically, little flecks of spittle flying from his lips. “No. Because you’re a fucking jerk ’s all. Don’t need a reason. Just are a jerk.”

He stumbled forward. His chest hit Kostas’s bin, and the glasses rattled. Kostas jerked it back from him.

“And you’re a spoiled brat, but I wasn’t going to say it to your face. If you’ll excuse?—”

Something crossed the guy’s face, like Kostas had actually hurt him somehow. But that idea was predicated on him having a heart, and Kostas was far from convinced he did.

“You—you—” he blustered. His eyes had gone pink and strangely shiny.

“I what?” Kostas demanded, anger finally working its way into his tone. He felt the sharp edges of his teeth—the ones meant for tearing meat from bones, that he kept hidden most of the time.

He glanced past the table, to Carson Castle’s table. His boss caught his eye, and eyebrow raised. But there was no trouble. Kostas could handle one drunk incubus.

The demon straightened. “Nothing, jerk.”

In a swift flick, he straightened his jacket, turned up his chin, and left Kostas standing there, staring after him, wondering if he’d somehow managed to hurt a demon’s feelings.