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Chapter 4

Kostas

R unning into that incubus had thrown Kostas. He couldn’t get that look out of his head—the one that said Kostas was a horrible monster, with teeth and claws as sharp as ever.

From a demon, it was almost laughable.

There wasn’t a lot that separated incubi and sirens. A need for water was one thing, sure, but the biggest difference was how they fed—what they fed on . Incubi fed off sexual energy. Rumor had it, they could drain a person dry.

Despite relying on the same kind of magical temptation, sirens weren’t so easily satisfied. They ate meat. Preferably raw.

Better still—the warm, wet hearts of their victims.

When Kostas had first gotten to the US, he’d tried to go vegetarian. It’d been a bad freaking time. Best he could do was stick to a pescatarian diet most days, and when the need for a still-beating heart overwhelmed him, he’d cross his fingers and hope he was still on good enough terms with the local butcher for them to do him a solid.

He did not kill people. Not anymore.

And that was the thing about incubi, right? Maybe they weren’t as on-the-surface violent as sirens were, but weren’t they every bit as insidious? People could excuse a lot of horror when it came in such pretty packaging.

So Kostas was not drowning in guilt over offending one little incubus. Not because he was gorgeous. Not because he’d looked at him like he’d dropkicked a puppy.

Not because, he was the poor abused creature on the wrong end of his boot.

Kostas would not be so easily taken in. Not again.

“Everything okay?” Katie asked him when he got back behind the safety of the bar. Her lips were twisted to the side, her back turned on the guy who’d been talking to her before.

He and Katie weren’t close, exactly—it’d been a while since Kostas had trusted anybody, except Carson—but there was a camaraderie born of service jobs that got even a loner like him to ease up.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He sighed, dropping the tray of dirties behind the bar, near the sanitizer. “Just ready to get off.”

She laughed. “I hear you.”

She shook her head, wisps of brown hair tossed back from her face. The last of them—a stubborn bit stuck to her temple, she nudged over with the back of her wrist.

“You want me to finish those?” Katie nodded at the bin on the shelf next to him.

Kostas didn’t like dishes. Loved water. Didn’t mind getting wet, even fully clothed like he was, but the chemicals in the sanitizer irritated his skin more than they would a human’s. Half the time, his hands were red, dry, and cracking, even if he wore gloves, and in a place like this, whether or not they had them was hit or miss. Carson was the owner and manager, and Kostas owed him a lot, but the man wasn’t great at keeping up with inventory, unless it included the kind he liked to drink.

Kostas grimaced. “That’d be great. Sure you don’t mind?”

Katie waved him off. “I’d rather do dishes than go out there and grab them.”

“Hah! Okay, fair. I’ll bus if you wash. Maybe we can get out of here on time for once.”

As the night wore on and turned to morning, that got increasingly un-fucking-likely. They had a couple more waves of drink orders, a few people frantically throwing back glasses of water as they realized how hungover they’d be the next morning. But the patrons were manageable most of the time.

Phaze usually closed at two a.m., and when the lights came on, people filed out on their own. The bouncers shepherded the rest into their Lyfts or taxis, and seriously, thank the seas for bouncers, because nobody wanted Kostas sprouting claws the first time some drunk tried to take a swipe at him for suggesting they clear off.

But when the bossman was there, there was nothing for it. They’d stay open until he was ready to close.

Carson had shown up early enough that night that there’d been hope, but the hours ticked on, and he and his friends only got more settled in on the couches toward the back. They’d gotten bottle service, and that meant Kostas was wandering back to their table often.

“You all doing okay?” he asked, sidling up to the low table between the black leather couches. “Get you anything?”

Carson looked up at him, flashing a bright white smile. “You’re always so attentive , Kostas.” He lifted his hand and brushed his knuckles across the outside of Kostas’s thigh. They caught on the stitch line of his jeans.

“That is what you pay me for.” Kostas shot him an overly bright smile, but rocked back on his heels, just out of reach.

Carson was always like this, but especially when he’d been drinking. Two years ago, Kostas had stumbled into the club, dehydrated and gasping, drawn to the sound of music, and Carson had seen him. He’d recognized Kostas for what he was, and he’d helped him. Given him a job and helped find an apartment, all out of the goodness of his heart.

So Kostas could look the other way on a bit of flirtation. Carson was young; he just didn’t know what he was getting into, what kind of monster Kostas really was.

Not that Carson seemed overly bothered about surrounding himself with monsters.

The men he was sitting with all blinked up at Kostas, like they were in a quiet movie theater and he had burst in on them. Not like they were surrounded by dancing, laughing, gyrating bodies. It was like the din gave them privacy they wouldn’t have gotten, even behind a locked door.

Carson, quicker on his feet, glanced around at everyone. “I think we’re good for now, doll.”

“I’ll just get a few of these empty glasses out of the way then.” Kostas leaned over to stack them, moving fast. The last place he wanted to be was in Carson Castle’s way while he was doing business.

But a guy could only make himself so unobtrusive.

One of the men sitting opposite—a big, square man in an all-black suit that looked better fit to a funeral than a nightclub, leaned over, squishing his date back in the corner of the couch. She flinched, caught Kostas’s eye, and shimmied her silver sheath dress down her tanned thighs another inch.

“I don’t give a damn about the how, Castle. I want to know when I’ll get my money,” the blocky guy grumbled, his coal-black eyes narrowed past Kostas, like he wasn’t even there.

Kostas straightened, tucking one stack of glasses under his arm, then grabbing the other, sure as hell he didn’t want to hear any more about Carson’s shady business deals. The club did well, but not that well. And lately, more and more edgy men in dark suits had shown up, women half their ages hanging off their arms.

Nothing good came of behavior like that. And while Phaze was a human club, it wasn’t just the supernaturals who were predators. He worried Carson was getting himself into trouble, his curiosity leading him down a dark path.

Kostas turned his heel to go, but he wasn’t fast enough to miss Carson’s oil-slick answer.

“You’ll see it in your account by Friday. Twenty mill. And if this goes off without a hitch, a nice bonus for us both, hm?”

A huff hit Kostas’s ears, then the sound of the guy dropping back against the couch. “So long as you don’t make trouble with Elrith. Get it done, Castle. I want my money, and those kids want their good time.”