Lucien
I snap, and as always, the world folds around me.
The delicious bakery scents fill my nose, and I breathe deeply.
The chatter of Wick’s has become a soothing balm to the constant running of my mind.
Lars and Ryan said they didn’t want to watch me humiliate myself this morning, so I left them behind.
I’ll still get them both a treat. Ryan loves the flavor-infused blood drinks, and Lars will eat just about anything Wren puts in a box.
I stand away from the line and watch the door, waiting for my kitty cat to show. Only, it’s well past the time he and his friends usually come in, and there’s no kitty. Once the line goes down, Wren waves me over.
“Sorry, Sparkle’s sleeping in today. I’m not sure if or when he’ll be here.”
My shoulders drop. “I scared him away.”
“Nah, he’s got a lot on his mind right now.” Wren waves me closer and lowers his voice. “He’s gonna look for an apartment today, but no one opens for a couple more hours.”
“He’s moving out of his family home?” My mouth drops open, and I put every bit of my centuries of experience into acting like this is brand-new information.
“Yep. His dad retired, so they don’t need Sparkle to pick up all the slack anymore.” Wren grins and passes me an apple tart like I’ve ordered the last several mornings. “He’s going to be able to do whatever he wants now.”
My tail wags a little too much, making Talon snort as he walks from the back room with a tray of fresh banana muffins.
“Well, that’s exciting.” I take a bite of my tart and groan. “So good.” Poor Milton. I still love Faerie Good Coffee, but he mostly does cookies, not a full spread of treats. “Maybe all that newfound freedom will include dating a certain demon.”
Talon rolls his eyes and disappears into the back while Wren laughs.
“So you’re saying Sparkle might not come in today?” I glance toward the door again. “He’ll need fuel, eventually. I can wait.”
“Whatever you want, but he’s probably gonna be passed out for a while. He doesn’t get many opportunities to sleep late. His sisters are taking Ferris to school today, apparently.”
“Good. He deserves the rest.” I make my way to a secluded table and pull my phone from my pocket. I could text Sparkle, but that seems weird right now. He told me he didn’t have time for romance, and I told him I’d respect that. Texting him while he’s asleep would probably defeat the purpose.
So I wait. There’s plenty of work I can do from my phone, and I get all of it done while sitting in a cute café and waiting for Sparkle. Then I find more work. Eventually I run out of things to pretend need my attention, and hours have passed without him showing. There’s no more excuse to stall.
Sulking only a reasonable amount, I order Ryan a blood drink and grab a box of treats for Lars.
“Sorry.” Wren offers me a soft smile as he hands everything over. “He really never gets to sleep in. All of us vowed not to bother him today until he texts that he’s awake.”
He shows me the group chat. Nothing from Sparkle since last night.
“I’m a patient man.” I take the box from him and glance at the door one last time before tucking everything securely against my side. “I’ll see him when I see him.”
I teleport to The Rot to deal with everything I couldn’t handle from my phone, and the second the world settles around me, the sound of flesh against flesh reaches my ears. Someone is very clearly getting fucked somewhere across the club.
I set the treats on the bar top and holler, “Whenever you’re done, there’s blood and pastries.”
A snort comes from somewhere out of sight, followed by Ryan’s very distinct moan. I chuckle and leave them to their pleasure, soaking up just enough of the lust in the air to give me a pleasant buzz as I head toward my second-floor office.
I’m halfway up the stairs when dread slithers down my spine. Someone is here who shouldn’t be, and I know exactly who before I even open the door.
“Stefan.”
My brother sits behind my desk with a smirk playing across his lips. He steeples his hands and leans forward like this is his fucking office instead of mine.
“Hello, brother.”
“No.” I stalk across the room and swat him away from my chair with my tail. “Whatever you want, the answer is no.”
Stefan pouts as he gets to his feet. “You don’t even know what I want.”
“You came here instead of calling.” I drop into my chair and spin it toward him. “That means I don’t want anything to do with it.”
“Maybe I simply wanted to visit my dear baby brother.” Stefan wanders toward the shelves and drags one finger across a row of decorative bottles.
“Bullshit.”
“Perhaps I wanted to hear the song.”
My fingers freeze halfway to the keyboard.
Stefan’s grin widens.
“What song?”
“Oh, Lucy.” He puts a hand over his heart and tips his head back dramatically. “Morning comes and there you are, brighter than the morning star.”
“You finish that verse and I will remove your tongue.”
“Seven verses.” He shakes his head sadly and drops onto the couch. “A higher demon of the second ring reduced to singing about jingling bells and tummy rubs.”
I turn my chair fully toward him. “How the fuck do you know about that?”
“I have my sources.”
My eyes narrow, but Stefan only stretches his legs out in front of him like he plans to stay all day.
“Centuries of life and you’re writing love songs for a cat shifter who keeps telling you no.”
“He didn’t say no,” I whisper.
“Oh, forgive me.” Stefan presses a hand to his chest. “He simply doesn’t have time for you.”
“Correct. There’s a difference.”
“Sure. And then you spent hours lying on his roof.”
I point at him. “That was for his protection.”
Stefan laughs and sinks farther into the couch. “I haven’t even gotten to the best part.”
“I don’t want to know what you consider the best part.”
He pulls out his phone.
Every bit of irritation drains out of me.
Sparkle is curled up in bed, fast asleep.
His white ears peek through his messy hair, one smashed against the pillow.
His tail curls over his legs, and he clutches a blanket against his chest. He looks soft and warm and completely unaware that someone stood in his bedroom taking a fucking picture of him.
Something cold settles inside me. “Delete it.”
Stefan’s smile falters. “Don’t be dramatic. I didn’t touch him.”
“You entered his bedroom.” I push out of my chair and hold out my hand. “Delete it.”
“He didn’t even know I was there.”
“That makes it worse.” I step closer until Stefan finally stops smiling. “Delete the fucking picture, Stefan.”
His eyes narrow. “You’re serious.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
For once in his miserable existence, my brother seems to understand when he’s pushed me too far. He taps the screen a few times and holds it up.
“Deleted.”
“From everything.”
“Lucien.”
“Everything.”
He sighs, taps through a few more screens, then tosses the phone toward me. I catch it and check for myself before throwing it back at his chest.
“You go into his home again, and we’re gonna have a problem.”
Stefan catches his phone and slips it into his pocket. “You were on his roof.”
“I didn’t enter his fucking bedroom. The difference shouldn’t need explaining.”
Stefan studies me for a moment before his usual smirk slowly returns. “Oh, this is much worse than I thought.”
“What does Dorman want?”
Stefan’s expression tells me he knows he’s won something, but at least he has enough survival instincts not to keep poking at Sparkle. He straightens his jacket and moves away from the couch.
“We have a situation that requires your expertise.”
I drop back into my chair and wake my computer. Maybe if I start working, he’ll take the hint and disappear.
“Someone skipped out on a soul contract.”
My fingers stop over the keyboard.
“Dorman can’t find him.”
“Sounds like Dorman’s problem.”
“Three others have tried. Nothing.” Stefan starts pacing along the edge of my desk. “No trail. No magical signature. No scent. No portals anyone can trace. He disappeared.”
“Good for him.”
“He owes a soul.”
I lean back and cross my arms. “I don’t deal in souls.”
Stefan sighs. “Yes, yes. We all remember your moral crisis.”
“It wasn’t a fucking moral crisis.” I glare at him. “I didn’t want to spend eternity dragging people back to the demon realm because someone else decided they were property.”
“They signed contracts.”
“And I decided I didn’t want to be part of collecting them.”
It’s been more than forty years since I tracked anyone for the demon realm.
Forty years since I walked away from the job everyone expected me to keep doing because I was good at it.
Too fucking good. I found people who didn’t want to be found.
Demons. Supes. Humans. It didn’t matter how far they ran or what magic they used to hide themselves.
Give me enough of a trail and I’d find them.
For a long time, I liked being the best. Then I started asking what happened to the people after I brought them back, and I didn’t like the answers. So I quit.
I came to the human realm, bought a hideous warehouse, painted the outside to look like a rotting corpse because it was the nineties and apparently I had no taste, and built something that belonged to me.
The Rot became my club, my rules, my life.
I’ve been very happy not hunting people ever since. “Find someone else.”
“You’re the best there is.”
My ego gives one tiny, traitorous purr, and I tell it to shut the fuck up.
Stefan pushes away from the edge of my desk. “Besides, this isn’t some random human who didn’t read the fine print. You know him. Raykin.”
I go still. I haven’t heard that name in decades, but it still lands like the demon gut punched me just like the day he ran away. “No.”
“You two used to be close.”
“Used to be.” And it’s not like we were lovers, just really good friends. No benefits.
“Which means you know how he thinks.”
“It also means he knows how I think, too.” I rise from my chair and pace toward the window. “If he knew Dorman might eventually come for me, he’d know what I’d look for.” He’d know the tricks I taught him and the ones I kept to myself.
Once upon a time, before everything went to shit between us, he knew me really fucking well. I knew him, too. We tracked together, drank together, got into trouble together. Then I started pulling away from the work, and he didn’t understand why.
He thought contracts were contracts. Souls were payment. Our job was to find people, not worry about what happened after. I stopped agreeing. Eventually, I stopped showing up altogether.
Curiosity sinks its claws into me and I’m sure Stefan sees it.
“I hate you,” I mumble.
“I know.”
I turn away from the window. Why did Raykin make the contract?
Stefan’s smile grows and he opens his mouth.
I raise my hand to stop him from speaking. “I’m not agreeing to anything.”
“Of course not.” Stefan nods.
“What was the contract for?” I lean against the edge of my desk while Stefan explains.
Apparently, my former friend made a contract with Dorman years ago after I wouldn’t deal with his soul.
Payment came due. Instead of holding up his end, he vanished so thoroughly that every tracker sent after him came back empty-handed.
That alone bothers me. The disappearing act. I taught that asshole half of what he knows about hiding really fucking well, and he taught me more than a few tricks in return.
“The answer is still no.”
Stefan shrugs and starts toward the door. “Alrighty, I’ll tell him you said no.”
Too easy. I narrow my eyes. “None of you go near Sparkle.”
Stefan stops with his hand on the doorknob and looks back at me.
“I mean it.” I point toward him. “You don’t watch him. Don’t follow him. Don’t enter his house. You don’t take pictures of him. Sparkle has nothing to do with any of this.”
“Then perhaps you should stop making it so obvious how much he matters to you.”
The words hit so much harder than I want them to.
Stefan isn’t threatening Sparkle. That’s almost worse. He’s pointing out something I should already know. I spent centuries in the demon realm. I know how leverage works, and I’ve been parading mine around while singing seven fucking verses about him in public.
Fuck. “Fine! I’ll find Raykin.”
Stefan’s brows rise as he turns fully back toward me.
“One time.” I push away from my desk. “I find him. Give Dorman his location, and that’s it. I don’t collect him. I don’t touch his soul. I don’t drag him back to the demon realm. Whatever contract he signed is between him and Dorman.”
“Dorman wants him returned.”
“Then Dorman can get off his ass and return him himself.”
“Lucy.”
“Those are my terms.”
Stefan studies me for a long moment before nodding. “Okay.”
“And after this, you stay out of my life.”
His brows rise.
“Within reason,” I amend, because he is still my brother.
“There he is.” Stefan grins and reaches for the door. “I knew you loved me.”
“I tolerate you.”
“I’ll tell Dorman.” There’s way too much pep in his step.
“And Stefan?”
He pauses.
“If I ever find another picture of Sparkle on your phone, I’ll shove the entire thing so far up your ass you’ll be taking calls through your colon.”
His laughter follows him out of my office.
I drop into my chair and rub both hands over my face. More than forty years since I followed a magical trail with the intent to find someone who desperately didn’t want me to. I should be furious, and I am, but underneath the irritation, something old starts waking up.
The hunt.
I hate how quickly my mind starts working.
If every other tracker lost the trail, then he didn’t simply glamour himself.
He knows better. He’d layer protections and false trails.
He’d probably move between human and supernatural settlements and avoid predictable portals because he knows I’d check them.
If he suspects Dorman might eventually send me, he’ll have planned specifically for me.
Asshole.
A smile pulls at my lips before I can stop it. He wants to hide? Fine. Let’s see if he’s gotten better at it because I’ve always been able to find him.
I stand and look through the window overlooking the club. I chose this place. I chose the music, the ridiculous zombie exterior, the bartenders and dancers. I chose a life where I didn’t have to hunt anyone simply because someone more powerful told me to.
This is one hunt. My terms. Then I come home.
My thoughts drift to Sparkle. I could text him and tell him I have to leave unexpectedly.
Tell him I might miss our breakfasts. Except he hasn’t agreed to anything with me.
He told me he doesn’t have time to date, and I told him I’d give him space.
Maybe disappearing for a few days is exactly what I need to prove I meant it.
I pull my phone from my pocket, stare at Sparkle’s name for a few seconds, then lock the screen without sending anything. Right now, I won’t chase the cat. I have someone else to catch.