Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Vex
I met Joy for coffee at Café Monde.
The café was packed—tourists with their cameras, locals with their newspapers, families with their sticky-fingered children. So many people here I could possess. So many souls ripe for the taking.
But they were ordinary. Not what the king ordered.
Joy slid into the chair across from me and set down a tray of beignets, powdered sugar dusting the wax paper like fresh snow.
I reached for one.
“Hungry?” Joy laughed as she handed me a latte.
“Always.” But not for what she thought.
I bit into the beignet, letting the sweetness dissolve on my tongue. Steve’s tongue. It was strange, wearing a vampire’s body. Everything tasted muted compared to when he’d been human. But the hunger—that was still there. Just different now.
A little girl at the next table shrieked with laughter, her dark curls bouncing as her father tickled her. I watched her over the rim of my cup. Such a pure soul. Untouched. Uncorrupted.
So fucking tempting.
But she wasn’t on the menu. Not today anyway.
I dragged my attention back to Joy.
“So...” She leaned forward, a teasing smile on her face. “How’s Zoe?”
Zoe. I searched Steve’s memories. Ah. A woman. Dark hair, green eyes. Someone Steve wanted but hadn’t claimed yet.
“Fine.” I kept my voice casual. “She’s on a cruise with her parents.”
“That’s fun.” Joy sipped her latte. “Where to?”
“Caribbean islands—St. Thomas, St. Croix, St. Monique. Those are the three I know.”
“And you didn’t go with her?” Joy raised an eyebrow. “Steve, you’ve been hung up on this girl for months.”
I shrugged. “She didn’t ask.”
Joy shook her head, clearly disappointed in her brother’s lack of initiative. “You need to make a move. What’s been up with you anyway? I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“Knee deep helping Serenity with Noelle. Angelo’s driving her crazy.”
Joy’s eyebrows rose. “Why?”
“He won’t let her leave the Manor. Says it’s not safe.” I rolled my eyes—a gesture I’d seen Steve make a hundred times when I’d worn him before. “She’s going stir-crazy. The baby too. But Angelo’s paranoid. Won’t budge.”
Joy shook her head. “That man. I get that he’s protective, but Serenity needs to get out sometimes. Fresh air. Sunlight. Well—“ She smirked. “Moonlight, I guess.”
I smiled back, but inside I was cataloging every word.
The baby couldn’t leave the Manor. Not yet.
But eventually, she would. And when she did, I’d be ready.
“Angelo will figure something out.”
“Enzo says he has. They found some kind of shard. Supposed to keep demons away.”
I set my coffee down and tensed. “Really? What shard?”
“Something called the Lapis Umbrae stone. Supposedly Angelo has a lead on it. But that’s all I know.”
Fuck. That stone was supposed to have been destroyed centuries ago. Balthazar was supposed to have destroyed it.
Supposed to.
But I guess the great and powerful Balthazar missed a piece. Oops. How embarrassing for him.
Even a shard made it powerful.
Oh, this was delicious. This might just be the way I could take Balthazar down and take his place.
Lucifer would be furious when he found out his golden boy had botched the job.
I’d be on the A team, sipping blood martinis in the VIP section of hell.
And Balthazar? He’d be scrubbing toilets on the D team where he belonged.
The thought alone was enough to make me smile.
But... if Angelo got the shard first, I’d end up in the pit.
And that wasn’t happening.