Original Sinner

Chapter One Charlotte

Chapter One

Charlotte

At least the villains show you who they really are.

I stare up at the entrance of The Serpent, the neon lights from the club’s open doors spilling out onto the darkened street. The line I’m standing in wraps around several blocks, which in Hell’s Kitchen means you’re not likely getting inside unless you’re a celebrity, but still we’ve been standing here for the better part of an hour, listening to the music inside the club thumping. The air outside is close. Humid and sweaty. Hot enough I’m struggling to breathe. But I don’t need to see inside to know exactly what waits for me.

Lucifer owns this city. Along with everything and everyone in it.

Ever since he and the other Originals arrived topside nearly a decade ago, his brother’s viral nightclub has been marketed as a den of sin, sold to the digital masses as a place to fulfill your darkest fantasies.

Sex. Drugs. Fornication. Idolatry. No matter what you call it, pick your poison and you’ll find it inside The Serpent’s walls. The obsidian building looms over me, glittering in the nighttime lights of the city like a dark, sinful promise.

God’s judgment won’t find you. Not in this godforsaken city.

But my own fantasies are a far cry from here.

I shift my weight where I stand, more than a little anxious. This date is only beginning, and already I can tell the sex will be bad. Awful, really. If we even manage to get that far, which according to Jax—my bestie—I need it to. Just a few more one-night stands to get all the “purity culture bullshit” ingrained by my family out of my system and I’ll finally be able to enjoy myself for real, or so Jax keeps telling me.

The ghost of my newly lost V-card hangs like a shackle around my neck, weighing me down, a constant reminder that I don’t belong here. New York may be the Big Apple, but ironically even before the Originals turned the world upside down, to me, it’s always been forbidden fruit.

Sin incarnate.

The line moves slightly, but only because another group has finally called uncle and given up their spot. I keep to the shadows, uncomfortable with the gazes that scan me head to toe.

Back home, my virgin status made me valuable, cherished. Here, my limited experience marks me as other , exactly the wrong kind of novelty. One I’m trying to do something about. If you can even call a few minutes of unlubricated penetration in the dark an experience . Which Mark did, apparently. I didn’t even come, but who’s counting?

To be fair, keeping the lights off was my idea. My stomach twists at the thought. Moving past the way I was raised is a constant struggle, but that’s exactly why I’m here, I suppose.

Hoping the devil will save me.

Suddenly, the line moves forward, which leaves me and my date for tonight still standing half a block from the entrance. Shit.

I sigh. Just my luck.

It’s not Blake’s fault he’s a douche, really, even if he did lie on his dating app profile and say he majored in both finance and accounting. But ask and ye shall receive.

I wanted a bad boy, and that’s exactly what I got. A horndog frat boy majoring in business administration with a minor in sports management, a questionable future, and a not-so-hidden agenda. I wanted bad.

I just didn’t expect him to be so ... predatory.

Blake’s hand snakes its way onto my lower back, drawing perilously close to my ass. My heart skips a beat, but not in the way I’d hoped for. We only met one another an hour ago, and the conversation since has been limited, to say the least. A mixture of sports I don’t care about and recollections about parties I’ll likely never attend.

Blake’s made it crystal clear since we started at the back of the line this evening that there’s only one thing he’s interested in, and it has little to do with my brain and a lot to do with somewhere he can stick his dick before night’s end. I’m not sure he even cares if I’m willing.

Isn’t he supposed to try and work for it?

Or maybe I’m being naive. This city is still new to me.

“Please don’t,” I say as his hand dips closer to groping me. I step to the side a little, placing myself just out of reach.

Blake frowns, but this time, he doesn’t try to bully me. Though if the past hour holds true, that doesn’t mean he’ll take the hint. Not by a long shot.

I sigh again and step further into the shadows, half-tempted to lean against the building like if I slump hard enough, I’ll somehow manage to disappear inside its walls. These heels are killing me, and I’m tired of standing here with my asshole date, even if this is exactly what I chose. But what other options were left for me?

My father would say I’m asking for it, standing here dressed in a too-short minidress with a neckline that dips almost to my navel and shows off my cleavage generously. A shameless hussy, that’s what he’d call me. A jezebel. Maybe worse.

Not the most original, my father.

But I’ve worked too hard to get here to turn back now. Sacrificing myself on the altar of an arranged evangelical marriage before I even hit my midtwenties isn’t my destiny, and I have no intention of returning to the life I escaped. Not now. Not ever.

A bouncer prowls past us, scanning the line, probably for some B-list celebrity. He gives me and Blake a once-over.

His eyes lock onto me.

“You,” he says, surprising me as he hitches a thumb over his shoulder toward the velvet ropes. “You can go in.”

“M-me?” I sputter.

Before I left our apartment, Jax told me I looked “fucking fierce” tonight, and the tarot card she pulled said something major was about to happen, but it’s not as if I actually believed her. It’s her borrowed dress I’m wearing, after all, and while I may have run from my messed-up religious family, a small part of me still believes in God, though I doubt He’d speak to me through a deck of cards.

He doesn’t exactly speak to anybody these days, considering he up and abandoned us all.

Now Lucifer and the others are in charge.

The bouncer waves me forward, and I grin, moving to cut the queue.

Blake starts to follow, but the guard blocks his path quickly with a meaty hand.

“Not you.” The bouncer looks directly at me and tilts his head. “You go. He stays.”

I try hard not to look as relieved as I feel.

“Seriously?” Blake moans as I step away from him.

I glance over my shoulder. I should feel bad about ghosting him, about cutting in line in front of all these people, especially when they’ve been waiting longer than me. Coming here was Blake’s idea, after all. Not that I needed much convincing. Lucifer and this club have intrigued me since long before I ever moved to this city.

Who wouldn’t be intrigued by a man who’s equal parts myth and mystery?

But for the life of me, I can’t bring myself to feel bad for Blake.

I shrug. “Sorry.” I say it with all the I’ll-pray-for-you kindness I was raised with, which means I don’t exactly mean it.

The club’s bouncer follows me.

“Bitch,” Blake mutters as I step past him.

My stomach churns. I shouldn’t be surprised that’s all it takes to make Blake turn nasty, but the hate in his voice still sends my pulse racing. Tears threaten at the edge of my eyes, the confrontation instantly triggering me, but I don’t bother to glance over my shoulder again as the bouncer releases the velvet rope. I rush into the club, quickly making my escape. I don’t want to give the bouncer a chance to change his mind, and if I really do decide I want to take someone home tonight, I can find that someone here easily.

Someone who’s not Blake.

Someone who lives up to my fantasies.

The inside of The Serpent is everything I anticipated. Dark, modern, brooding, if you can even call interior nightclub decor “brooding.”

Gluttony’s club is decorated in all lush, dark colors and red neon lights, the inside packed with so many sweaty, writhing bodies, I instantly feel as if the walls are pressing in on me, which only makes the tears that threatened before an actual problem. I scan the ground floor, searching for the restroom. Somewhere, anywhere I can get my shit together, but the line to the ladies’ room is practically as long as the one where I left Blake, so I ditch that idea.

I move my way through the crowd, swiping at my eyes, no doubt making my mascara a hot mess as I go. I’m not really sure why I’m crying, but I’m fairly certain it has little to do with Blake and a lot to do with why I’m here in the first place. It’s not as if my own father hasn’t called me a hell of a lot worse. The way supposedly godly men can treat the women they keep trapped under their thumbs can be ... fucked up, to say the least. One of the many reasons why I left home, though this isn’t exactly home, either, is it?

It’s that exact thought that makes it so I’m crying twice as hard now, hard enough that the club’s music rings in my ears, and I’m definitely having an anxiety attack, because I can’t seem to breathe. My vision blurs, and I stumble my way through the crowd and up what must be a set of interior service stairs. A closed door waits at the top.

A promised escape from everything.

I wrench it open and duck inside. The moment it seals behind me, I sink against it and sigh in relief, more than a little grateful that the hallway I’m in is blessedly dark.

And empty.

The club’s music thumps distantly.

I pull my phone from the clutch I’m carrying and hammer out a quick text to Jax.

This was a mistake. I don’t belong here.

Her response comes instantly. As if she anticipated my breakdown even before I did.

That’s not true. You’ve worked hard for this.

This being the celebratory night out I’m supposed to be enjoying before my life changes irrevocably. Before I sell my soul to the devil in the form of a competitive internship at his company.

Out of thousands of applicants, they somehow picked me.

It doesn’t matter that I’ve come this far. Running away from my family and living it up in NYC for a few weeks is one thing. Working for Lucifer himself is another. It’s the one decision I’ve made in the last few weeks that I can’t recover from with any kind of certainty, though I doubt I’ll even see him. Dodging photos is the Prince of Darkness’s specialty, after all, and what would an intern matter to the billionaire CEO of a multinational conglomerate, let alone the fallen angel?

“It’s not as if I’ll even work with him personally,” I mutter to myself.

Though I doubt that detail would matter to my father.

“And who might that be?” a distinctly male voice answers from the dark.

It wraps around me like a warm coat, its charm made of velvet and sin. It’s a voice meant for unspeakable things, things I’ve only begun to learn about within the last few weeks, and yet it ... does things to me.

I clench my legs together, parts of me softening even as my shoulders become stiff, rigid.

“Who’s there?” I whisper, half hopeful and half freaking terrified I’ll receive an answer. Hearing voices where there are none is exactly the last thing I need.

But if I’m not hearing things, I’m in deep, caught alone in the dark in a club famed for its unlimited vices. There are no rules here. Nothing to protect me.

What would my father say to me?

“I could ask the same,” the voice answers back.

Whoever he is, he’s moving closer now, quickly closing the distance between us.

In the darkness, I can almost make out his shape. A large shadow of a silhouette that doesn’t just blend into the darkness, he becomes it. As if it were a part of him.

My heart races, adrenaline overtaking me.

The hairs on the back of my neck rise on end.

“Stay back,” I hiss, lifting a feeble hand.

As if that will protect me.

I sound pathetic, even to my own ears, but I’m running out of choices. I have no clue whether the door I came in locked behind me, and even if I could find the handle without stumbling around like I’m drunk in the dark, I’m not risking moving.

I’m frozen.

In the face of a predator, I will always be prey.

That’s what my father’s gifted me.

“What brings you here, little dove?” The flash of a lighter sparks as he burns a cigarette, briefly illuminating his face.

I only get a quick glimpse before his lighter goes out, but he’s just as gorgeous as I expected he’d be. As gorgeous as that luscious voice sounds. With looks that could kill and cheekbones so sharp they’re almost cutting. He’s wearing a suit that, based on how well it fits him, looks like it cost a small fortune, at least to me.

My one-room flat in Chinatown isn’t much, but it’s something.

Whoever he is, he must work in the offices here. He’s an employee. He’s too at home not to be, though I doubt he’s one of the waitstaff.

“I’m waiting with bated breath, darling,” he says, smirking at me.

I can’t see the expression. Not clearly, anyway, but I can hear it in his voice. Feel it. It slithers through me, leaving a wicked trail of goose bumps in its wake.

I don’t know what causes me to answer. Fear, maybe? But I don’t bother to think.

“Confirmation that I’m supposed to be here, I guess.” I glance down at my still-glowing phone. “Among other things.”

“Mmm,” he grumbles, as if my answer is uninteresting.

Though he doesn’t leave. Not yet.

The orange end of his cigarette pulses as he brings it to his lips again. The shadows around him move with it, illuminating a mouth I have no doubt has sinned.

For one brief, insane moment, I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to have lips like that pressed against me, whispering to me in the dark. But the moment I think it, I drop my chin, shame filling me. Whoever— what ever—this man is, he’s a stranger. A mystery. A potential threat, though he hasn’t done anything to me. Yet.

What is wrong with me?

“If it’s love you’re searching for, you won’t find it here.” He says it as if he can see right through me, though I know in the dark he can’t make out my features any more clearly than I can see him.

“And what will I find?” I ask before I can stop myself.

Those wicked lips twist. “Pain. Pleasure. That’s all anyone here can offer you. Even me.”

“Isn’t love a kind of pleasure?”

He huffs. “No,” he says quickly, as if his word is resolute, sacred. “True love is ferocious, vicious, destructive. True love is costly, and humanity knows little of it. It’s a price few are willing to pay. You all want the feeling of love without any of the work that goes into it. It’s an irrational, self-destructive impulse disguised as joy.”

My breath hitches. “Speak for yourself.”

At that, he chuckles, like I’ve finally said something amusing. “So, tell me, little dove, if love’s what you desire, do you belong here? Will you find what you’re seeking?”

Heart pounding, I take the out for what it is and seize it.

“No, I ... I don’t think I will.”

He steps closer.

Dangerously close.

Without warning, I throw myself toward the door, praying I find the handle. My hand connects with it instantly— thank God —and seconds later, I’m barreling down the service stairs back into the fray of the club, the strobe lights overhead flashing.

I don’t bother to look behind me to see if anyone is chasing me. Though I swear that even when I reach the street, I can still hear that deep velvet voice, laughing like he did when I fled down the stairs. I don’t stop until I’m in a taxi, which miraculously pulls over for me. I wrench the door open and throw myself inside, sealing the haunting sound of that dark laughter behind me.

My heart is still racing as I mumble a vague direction to the driver, terrified of what this means, because whoever he was, if what he said is true, love doesn’t sound as dark and wicked as it should be. If love is vicious, if love isn’t kind ...

It sounds like power.

And somehow that’s not at all terrifying.