Chapter 1
ONE
“Jason, this is not a good idea.”
Kai could count on one hand the number of times his best friend had had good ideas. This was not one of them. But like always, Jason was running full tilt into the fire.
“You don’t have to keep doing this,” Kai pleaded. “I get paid on Friday. That’ll cover the rent.”
“Good,” Jason said as he continued to shove items in his pack.
Dark clothing, bandana, headlamp, lock pick set, and two guns, one packing silver bullets, the other lead—the familiar tools of his trade.
Kai’s once too, before he’d gone straight.
“You pay for this month’s rent,” Jason carried on.
“What I make on this job should cover the rest of the year.”
Sitting on the end of Jason’s bed, Kai glanced around the room and into the hallway of their tiny Lakeside apartment.
Yellowed walls from some prior renter’s smoking habit, an ever-expanding brown stain on the ceiling from a leaking pipe upstairs, windows that were so mucked over from years of fog and salt water he could barely see out them.
Even with better than average sight. This sad little box they found themselves trapped in was not worth Jason risking his life.
“Can it wait, then?” Kai said. “It’s two days before the anniversary of the Rift. It’s barely been a week since Paris’s dad died.” He pointed at the dark, dangerous night outside. “Shit is nuts out there right now.”
From his place behind the bar at Club Sutro, Kai had heard rumblings of a new war between Nature and Chaos, with mages and paranormals staking positions on Yerba Buena’s front lines.
Word was this war could be worse than the one that had caused the Rift thirty years ago, before either him or Jason were even born.
In any event, a human like Jason—or like Kai pretended to be—had no place in it.
Jason was undeterred. “All the more reason to act now.” He rooted around in his closet and returned with a pickaxe, rope, and windbreaker.
A water approach, then. Fuck, was he headed into the Canyon Lands?
Two days before the Rift anniversary? Unstable jetties littered with crumbling buildings, the fog-shrouded Canyon Lands were the definition of shit-going-down in Yerba Buena.
“Vincent’s death created a power vacuum.
Half his shit is sitting unguarded, including the stash Moira has a line on. ”
Where did Kai even start? “One, that’s Paris’s stash now.
You’re stealing from our friend.” The three of them were tight, Paris the best of them, the sweet-hearted son of the nastiest motherfucker in town.
Until Vincent had blackmailed the wrong vampire.
And while Kai was on the topic of vampires .
. . “And two, Moira swore to anyone who’d listen after you two broke up that she would get her revenge. Why the fuck would you trust her now?”
“Paris is in hiding, and he wouldn’t want Daddy’s dirty money anyway.” He finished shoving everything in his pack, then stood in front of Kai, hands on his hips. “As for Moira, she gets half of what I steal. It’s in her interest too.”
Kai closed his eyes and inhaled deep, biting back the litany of truths he wanted to spew.
She never loved you.
She can’t be trusted.
You’re just a human.
The raven doesn’t like this.
Neither do I.
Don’t leave us.
A finger curled under his chin, lifting it. “Open your eyes, Kai.”
He could never tell Jason no. Jason with his dark messy hair, his big brown eyes, and his devil-may-care smile. A thing of beauty in this otherwise sad little box.
In Kai’s sad, lonely world.
“I’ll be fine,” he said, thumb swiping away the tear that raced down Kai’s cheek. “I always am.”
“We can leave. We can just get out of here.”
Jason’s smile fell. “With what money?”
The truth finally slipped out. “I don’t need money. I just need you.”
“Kai, what—”
Shoving to his feet, he forced Jason back a step but kept him close, his hands on Jason’s face, framing his cheeks and angling his gaze down to his.
“I . . .” He swallowed hard, then, on a giant exhale, expelled the truth he’d been holding inside for far too long.
“I fucking love you. I’ve always loved you.
And if you walk out that door, I don’t think you’re ever coming back. ”
“Always the pessimist.” Jason grinned, then did the last thing Kai expected. He crushed his mouth to Kai’s, tongues and years of pent-up frustration tangling, Jason’s desperate desire matching his own, the kiss everything Kai had dreamed of since he’d first laid his eyes on him.
Then, just as quickly, everything Kai had ever wanted was gone. Jason stepped out of his arms, but not completely. He left a hand over Kai’s heart, over another truth that he and few others in Yerba Buena knew. “If I’m not back by tomorrow night, find me. I know you will.”