Chapter 2 A Deal to Remember
A Deal to Remember
It felt like I’d only just stripped off my clothes and collapsed onto my bed when my phone began to ring.
I sent it to voicemail and pulled a pillow over my head, coughing at the stale, dusty scent and wondering when the last time I’d done any laundry was.
I was barely here anymore—if I didn’t even have time for a nap, when was I going to have the time to wash my sheets?
The phone rang again, and I groaned, throwing off the pillow and running my hand down the stubble on my cheeks as I looked at the screen to see who thought they were so important.
Ugh, this asshole.
“Dammit, Garrick,” I answered with a growl. “I’m trying to sleep, and I told you—I need at least a week between jobs.”
The werewolf barked a laugh. “Since when do demons need their beauty rest? Besides, what makes you think I have more work for you? Maybe I’m just calling to pass along Damaris’s praise for a job well done.”
Sure, like a seraph would ever thank a demon bounty hunter. Seraphim prided themselves on following the letter of the law, as though they were shining examples of morality in Lundaria. Yet they had absolutely no problem hiring me when they needed something taken care of off the books.
Fucking hypocrites, but at least they paid well.
“What do you really want, Garrick?”
“Ronan… come on. What makes you think I want something?”
My stomach grumbled, and I realized I hadn’t eaten anything in almost two days. Watered-down cocktails and bar nuts, unfortunately, didn’t count.
I got up and inspected my cabinets, pulling out a half-eaten box of stale crackers. I peeked in the fridge and grabbed some leftover cheese that hadn’t molded yet. Putting my phone on speaker mode, I placed it on the counter and began cutting the block of cheddar into rough slices.
“Why else would you be calling?”
“Maybe I just wanted to chat. You know, like friends?”
I took a bite, coughing slightly from the dry, tasteless cracker. Then I grabbed a glass and filled it at the faucet. “We’re not friends.”
“Aw, Ronan… you’re breaking my heart!”
“Out with it, Garrick. I’ve been on the road since midnight, and I’m this close to hitting it again so I can personally put my boot up your ass all the way in Fenmoor.”
He chuckled, the sound of a lighter clicking and a long inhale of breath preceding his news. “I got a big one for you,” he said on his exhale.
I groaned, rolling my neck and silently screaming before composing myself to reply. I needed to get better at reinforcing my boundaries. “Good. Call me back in a week.”
“This can’t wait.”
I took another bite of my sad little snack, washing down the crumbs with the glass of tap water. “Then get someone else to do it. I’m not the only bounty hunter in Lundaria. What about Rudy?”
“My cousin’s busy. His pack’s courting an omega.”
Figured.
“Okay, and the twins?”
“Ella and Naomi are on a different case.”
Of course they were.
“And Draven?”
“Doing his own thing, I don’t know.”
I took a deep, calming breath, getting ready to tell Garrick where he could shove this job when he spoke again.
“Look,” Garrick continued. “It wouldn’t even matter if everyone was free, sitting around my living room with their thumbs up their asses and waiting for a case.
You’re the best, and you’re the only one who can make a deal to get it done.
This client is offering serious runics. You do this, and neither of us will have to work again for a very long time. ”
I paused. A long time, hm? That certainly sounded appealing.
If I could manage a few months off, I’d finally be able to start fixing this place up.
I’d bought this cottage in Cindralis, the witch city-state, three years ago with the intent to renovate.
But I was never here for longer than a few days at a time, despite my constant insistence that I needed rest between jobs.
Fucking Garrick. He always managed to pull me back in, appealing to my pride. I already knew I was better than all his other hunters, but hearing it said out loud made me want to purr, and the prospect of a large reward had me salivating way more than these expired crackers did.
I ran my fingers over one of my horns. “Who’s the client?”
“Ahhh, see? I knew you’d be interested. I can’t tell you over the phone. Can you be in Noctis by midnight?”
I looked over the clock on the wall. It was three in the afternoon, and Noctis was a ten-hour drive—but only if you didn’t have a car like mine.
“Definitely.”
* * *
Vampires had always freaked me out.
Which was a little funny coming from a demon, but the whole blood-drinking thing had never appealed to me.
That and the constant need to appear dark, mysterious, and sexy. Vampires were all about image and status, but to me, it just felt like they were trying too hard.
For the vampire upper crust, life was one big, continuous soiree. Not like in Ignareth or even in Tideholm during the Feast, though. Noctis was all black tie, piano music, canapes, and pretension.
I doubted a single vamp in the city even owned a pair of sweatpants.
Personally, I just wanted a simple life.
Fix up my house, read, maybe get a pet… A woman to share it with would be nice, too, but I’d long since given up on that dream.
Most women weren’t interested in alpha demons for more than a fling, and while my job lent to the “bad boy” aesthetic that appealed to those looking for a little fun, they were usually pretty disappointed once they got to know the real me—boring and quiet.
I was only a bounty hunter because I was good at it, and it was one of the few jobs that would actually hire me.
It was hard for demons to find legitimate work outside of Ignareth since we were seen as shifty by nature, a stereotype even I had trouble denying considering how I’d grown up.
But we had one ace up our sleeves that made someone like me do very well in my profession—the demon deal.
Make a deal with a demon, and they’d die if they broke it. That didn’t mean we might not try to find loopholes, but with a proper, air-tight contract, a demon deal was the safest bet a Magik could make if they wanted something done right and could pay enough.
Most demons would never put themselves in a position that vulnerable, though, so I was a rare commodity in a market that called for discretion and results.
The land we lived on, Lundaria, was home to seven city-states, each one ruled by a different race of Magik—vampire, werewolf, witch, merfolk, elf, seraph, and demon.
Your Magik determined which jurisdiction you fell under no matter where you lived.
And Premiers, the ones in charge of the city-states, refused to extradite their own kind for crimes committed elsewhere.
So if, for example, a merfolk accountant skimmed the top off his seraph client’s coffers and then retreated to Tideholm, the seraph’s only recourse for justice was to hire someone like me. Someone who’d do whatever it took, even if it meant crossing borders and getting a little dirty.
Garrick had texted me the address of the meeting location when I was about an hour away, and it led me to a fancy, high-rise apartment building in downtown Noctis, the vampire city-state.
A valet expecting me took my car, and the doorman let me in and pointed towards the elevators.
I hit the button for the penthouse suite as instructed, finding my handler waiting for me at the top outside a nondescript door.
Like most alpha werewolves, he was large and burly, with an overabundance of dark body hair he’d long since stopped trying to maintain.
His eyes, so light they were almost white, perked up as he reached out and grabbed my hand, pulling me in for a hard pat on the back.
“Ronan! Good to see you again. Our client is inside, so let’s not keep him waiting. ”
A guard glowered at me as he murmured something into the radio on his shoulder, nodding when he got confirmation. He then checked us for weapons, which was pointless.
I didn’t need them.
Satisfied we weren’t packing, he opened the door and stepped aside to let us through.
We walked into a large, sterile living room, a sunken-in sitting area framed by a white leather, U-shaped couch.
The walls were also stark white, and not a single piece of art or pop of color could be found.
There wasn’t even a TV, but a nearby bookcase had a few classics on its shelves, looking well-read with creases in their spines.
A man in a dark gray suit with shoulder-length, wine-red hair stood with his back to us in front of floor-to-ceiling windows.
I waited for him to acknowledge our arrival when a strong, sweet scent invaded my senses, causing fireworks to go off in my brain.
What was this? Some kind of trick?
My head swiveled around like I might find the source of it somewhere in the air or hiding in the corners.
“Ronan, you good?” Garrick whispered beside me out of the corner of his mouth.
My teeth began to ache, and my lips curled as I sucked on them to ease the pain.
This had to be some kind of weird vampire magic, maybe to throw me off my game.
I breathed in through my mouth, but the scent now lingered on my tongue like the taste of something delicious, and the crotch of my pants suddenly felt way too tight.
What the hell was going on?
The man at the window sighed, swirling a flute full of blood and taking a sip, his shoulders flinching slightly before finally turning around.
My eyes widened in surprise. I was in the presence of Victor Corvane, the Premier of Noctis himself.
“Ronan Blackthorne, correct?” he asked, his voice low and steeped in power.
I rolled my shoulders, trying to free myself of whatever strange magic was still in the air. “The one and only.”
He stared at me, tilting his head slightly. “And I can assume you know who I am?”
“Yep.”
One of the guards standing along the wall stepped forward with a growl. “That’s ‘yes, sir,’ to you!”