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Chapter 3

Malcolm

E lrith be damned, Malcolm stormed out of the bar. He didn’t have to hang around and accept abuse from some asshole. It didn’t matter how beautiful he was, no one was allowed to abuse Malcolm, not ever again.

And this one had laughed at him. At Malcolm fucking McKittack. Called him a spoiled brat!

Malcolm... yeah, Elrith paid his way through life, but for a decade, he’d been living across the hall from a quiet threat in his half-brother Declan. Not that Declan intended it that way, the soft-hearted fool thinking he was there helping them, but there he was, the son who refused to do Elrith’s bidding, cut off from his help, his money, and the tiny bit of affection Malcolm had ever been able to have in life.

Malcolm wasn’t ignorant.

He knew his father didn’t love him any more than his drug-addict mother had. She’d loved crack more than Malcolm. More than life, in the end. Elrith loved himself, and Malcolm not at all. In fact, Malcolm doubted Elrith loved anything else, unless it was the luxury he lived in.

But Malcolm loved that too.

The fancy clothes and good hair products and the maid service that cleaned the apartment every week. The fact that he never had to worry about where his next meal was coming from, or if Mom’s newest boyfriend (dealer) would try to sneak into his bedroom like that one had.

And when he’d told her in his stilted, confused eight-year-old vocabulary, she hadn’t even called him a liar or gotten angry. She’d known. She’d just glassily stared off into space, petted his hair, and told him if he was real good for Rob, maybe he’d give him a little something extra. Maybe she hadn’t understood, or she’d been so high, or focused on getting her hands on more, more, more, that she just hadn’t cared.

Either way, that had been the moment that Malcolm had known he was on his own. The only person who would ever take care of Malcolm Mercier was himself.

And then when he’d been thirteen, and bloomed into an incubus, Elrith had appeared like the ghost of Armani Christmas future, disgustedly told him that his mother was in the hospital because she’d overdosed—again—and invited him to a new life.

Malcolm hadn’t even wasted the time to pack his clothes. Hadn’t asked for proof, or kind words, or even candy from the back of a white van. He’d just agreed and walked away with the strange man who had offered him something no one had ever offered before.

Anything at all.

He stumbled past the velvet rope, now empty of potential club-goers, and into the alley next to the club, leaning against the dirty bricks, trying not to think about what it would be doing to his crisp white shirt.

It was just a thing, a replaceable object. He had lots of those now. Elrith wasn’t going to take it all away just because of one failure at the club.

Probably not, anyway.

Malcolm shouldn’t have had four drinks on top of the bile of his anger. It didn’t help that he hadn’t eaten actual food in close to a decade, so any effect of the alcohol was magnified.

When Elrith had explained what he was, and what it meant, Malcolm had ruthlessly cut everything human out of his life. Food and school and feelings and anything else that reminded him of his childhood, including his mother’s surname, making him the only one of his siblings who had adopted their father’s last name. He wasn’t human. He didn’t need to pretend to be one. He didn’t need any of the trappings of human life.

He didn’t need anything.

He was Malcolm fucking McKittack. Incubus. Wanted. Completely independent.

Movement down the alley grabbed his attention, slow as he was with four drinks in him, and he glanced down to see the shadow from before. The shadow. The one that had been following him everywhere for more than a week, because he was Malcolm fucking McKittack, and probably because he looked like he had money.

He had bad news for them. Sure, he was independent, but he didn’t have a dime to call his own. Unlike Declan, he’d never had the option to turn his back on Elrith’s money.

Because you never even finished high school , his rebellious tipsy brain pointed out. You could have taken advantage of Elrith’s dubious generosity like Sasha, and gotten a college degree by now, and instead you’ve become a good little minion, a pretty bauble that follows Elrith everywhere and makes him look even better than he does without you.

A pretty bauble that was sometimes inconvenient, when the women Elrith wanted expressed interest in Malcolm instead, or when he didn’t want to go to the tackiest club in all of Lyric and pretend it was fun to hang out in a loud, tacky bar with loud, tacky music and loud, tacky people.

The shadow moved again, motioning to something. To... to another shadow, beside it. Another person.

Malcolm’s long-honed instincts said to use his powers to enchant whoever it was, but he didn’t want them closer to him. He wanted them to go away. And as much as he loved his powers, they didn’t work that way. They were designed to draw in, not to repel.

So instead, he turned, stumbling his way out of the alley and back toward the club.

Or, no, the club was the other way. Maybe.

Where the fuck was he, again? That girl had led them in circles before taking them to this horrendous place, and he was completely turned around.

At the end of the street, two men stood talking to each other under a streetlight, and Malcolm oriented on them. That would be safe. No strange shadows in the dark. Just a couple of friends chatting at the end of the night before heading home.

“Excuse me,” he called as he headed toward them. “I’m sorry to bother you, but do you know where I can catch a cab?”

Yes, yes, he should have some kind of ride-share app on his phone. But he’d never needed it before. He always stayed close to home unless he was with Elrith, and his father, careless about everything as he was, had never been so thoroughly taken by some random woman before, that he let her lead them away from known hunting grounds. Safety.

The men turned to him, and one offered a friendly smile. “Sure thing. It’s right down this way.” He motioned further down the street, away from the nice, safe streetlamp, and Malcolm hesitated, glancing back to the alley.

A man was standing in the mouth of the alley now, a big burly sort, the kind of guy people hired when they wanted to scare someone. Or stuff them in the back of a vehicle never to be seen again. He was bald, with a jagged red scar down one side of his face, and he was glaring at Malcolm, as though he’d stolen his cookies.

Well good.

Malcolm was not a fucking cookie.

He turned back and followed after the man who was waiting for him.

“You okay, buddy?” He glanced behind Malcolm, raising a brow. “Need any help?”

As though he could take the giant man down in a fight. As friendly as he was, this man was shorter than Malcolm himself, and not particularly muscular. Still, he was being nice, so there was no reason to make him angry by pointing out his obvious physical shortcomings.

His friend fell into step with Malcolm, offering a friendly nod. “I’m Jimmy.”

Malcolm gave a small nod in return, but he didn’t answer. He very much didn’t want to be dawdling there in the street, waiting for the giant guy from the alley to catch up with them. He glanced back again to find the guy following them, and another man just behind him. “We should hurry,” he said, turning back.

But Jimmy had stopped, a bemused smile on his face. Behind Malcolm, his friend chuckled. “Now, Malcolm, there’s no need to be like that. Boris is just coming to help out. Make sure you get in the car nice and easy, yeah?”

Malcolm started to spin, to face the man, but hands clamped down on his shoulders. There was a pinch in his neck, the kind he hadn’t felt in years, but that he would have known anywhere. A needle.

He tried to break away, to scream, to run, but instead, he had just enough energy to... slump down onto the ground, his eyes rolling back into his head.