Wearing Ava’s face, Thais weaved in and out of the bodies waiting to get into the swanky human club called Faeria. And since Nephilim were half human—flawed while being divinely beautiful, thanks to their angelic half—she fit right in. Not a single person batted an eyelid as she passed them, making her way down the sidewalk toward the edge of the building.

Only a few breeds had the ability to see past the façade she’d put up, and they wouldn’t be caught dead in a place where humans were known to congregate.

Thais had always wanted to check out the popular bar, located right off Woodward in the heart of downtown, but supes stuck to their own clubs for good reason. Particularly the Fallen. Most supes didn’t trust them, and humans happened to be an enticement they rarely had the willpower to refuse. Hiding out on the streets for so many months, trying to keep a low profile, had made her immune to such cravings—particularly having kept company with the homeless.

Unlike many of her kind, she’d taken the opportunity to learn of their suffering, to absorb it, and in some ways, she understood them. They were no longer prey to her, but actual souls, with different personalities and hopes. Individually flawed, yet beautiful at the same time.

Bored with the perfection of her angel brethren, Thais had come to appreciate flaws, which was why she’d found herself drawn to Calix’s female. How she wished her own life had been etched into her flesh like the Nephilim’s, which marked their time on earth. Even if they never aged like pure humans, their faces held laughter lines, dimples, their bodies all varieties of shapes and sizes, giving them character and life.

As long as she remembered the female’s face, Thais could continue to project her appearance, deceiving everyone she passed, until she rounded the corner of the building to a dark alley.

An old fire escape had been tied up, high enough that no human could possibly reach it. With a quick glance around, Thais allowed her wings to push through the fabric of her shirt, and with a forceful jump, they caught the wind, carrying her upward, where she grabbed hold of the iron bars.

Pulling herself over the bannister brought her onto the landing of the fire escape, two stories above the ground. She retracted her wings, flinching as they slid beneath her skin once more. Tucking them away was like wearing two pairs of wool socks at once. Uncomfortable and bulky, but necessary in a human club. They fluttered against her bones, and Thais shivered at the tickle down her spine.

Two months, she’d spent breaking into shelters and clubs, trying to lay low and out of sight. The abandoned buildings had been great for a while, up until she awoke to a rat scampering across her legs. Earthly creatures were disgusting. So, too, were those found in Obsidius, but at least the ones from her native world knew what her kind were capable of and kept their distance.

The thought worked up a gag in her throat as she remembered the mouse she’d been forced to hold in her mouth, and bile crawled up her stomach, but she choked it back.

Peering through the window, Thais could see the second floor of the club was used mostly for storage. Props and office equipment filled an open floor, marked by the occasional cement pillar. Lifting the window, she climbed inside to the bass beating against the floor below her.

Unusual for a Fallen, she happened to like human music, with all of its imperfections. The angelic variety reached certain parts of the ear that humans didn’t have the capacity to tap into. And if they did, they’d be greeted by a pitch, rhythm, and beat unlike anything they’d ever heard before. One that climbed the spine and hit the back of the skull as it stoked the senses with sheer delight.

Still, Thais enjoyed the slightly off-key, off-rhythm sounds that the humans mistook for perfection, and the beat from below had her nodding her head in sync.

The surroundings would make a good place to camp for a while. No two-faced club owners to keep her locked in a cage while his twisted cat-bitch mistress had her fun, and no house full of muscle head Wraths keeping her locked in a dungeon. Thais had grown tired of being kept as someone’s pet. She’d grown tired of constantly having to defend herself. She yearned for a place to lie down and feel safe. The Wrath mansion could’ve been safe from her enemies, if she hadn’t caught on to the Fallen angel’s plan.

What kind of hellspawn teamed up with the heavens, anyway? Absolutely unheard of—an insult to her species.

She plopped onto a discarded couch, flinching at the sharp sting that poked into her back from the springs that’d broken through the fabric.

Nightclubs made great hideouts—quiet during the day when she could rest, and hopping at night, when she’d have to keep her eyes open for anyone hunting her down. The demons who were after her would stick out in a place like the one she’d chosen for the night. Even in the demon realm, they didn’t fit in, but at a club like the one pounding below her feet, they’d look like rednecks in a sea full of socialites.

Thais stared down at her skin, or, rather, the Nephilim female’s, where tiny fissures marked Demortis burns. She’d recognized them on the succubi girls back at the compound, and the ones marring her borrowed flesh left her wondering what kind of cruelty Calix’s female had been subjected to. At the hands of that male? The Wraths didn’t seem sadistic, and the fantasy that she’d provided him a while back showed only love and devotion toward the female. Aside from that, she seemed so willing to please him, though Thais understood that could’ve been a mind-altering trick, as Wraths had the power of bullshit-buzz.

A flash of the large demon’s face that she’d seen while escaping the compound zipping through her mind, Thais closed her eyes.

If she had to guess, no one messed with that particular male. Apart from his tattoos and stern brows, a demon born of hellsfire was one of the most dangerous breeds in all of Obsidius. He could wipe out armies in one wave of his hands, could command the hottest flames of Stygius to do his bidding. He could easily take out his enemies in one fatal deadpan stare.

Unfortunately, the demons who wielded that power rarely had control over themselves. They all too often allowed the flames to consume them, and, in some cases, could wipe out more than their intended target.

Thais had grown up with hellsfire, as her mother had often required it to make healing potions. She’d eventually learned to direct the flame, a very dangerous skill, but at the time, she merely used it to sculpt and shape metal into beautiful works of art that she sold at market in Obsidius. One mistake could’ve ended her life, but Thais had become so proficient and skilled with the flame that criminals, black magic alchemists, and drug dealers sought out her talent, and so began her life on the run.

With her projected identity still in place, Thais pushed up from the floor and padded across the open space toward the stairwell at the opposite end. The bass rhythm pounded a steady beat as she rounded each flight of stairs. At the bottom, she reached a door, and setting a hand to the panel of it, she could feel the vibrations of the music and, just below that, the sway of human bodies that called to her natural instincts to hunt.

She wouldn’t feed on them, of course, but yearned to have those vibrations pulsing through her blood, and as she opened the door to a back hallway of the club, a wave of excitement washed over her.

Stepping into the throng, she closed her eyes, taking in the sway and pull of the bodies as they crowded her. The souls tickled her spine, teasing and taunting her, and Thais smiled, realizing for the first time in a very long time, she was no longer hunted. She didn’t have to hide herself.

No chance that anyone would recognize her.

“Ava!”

A tap to Thais’s arm had her spinning around to face a female covered in tattoos and piercings. Her head had been shaved on one side, dyed to a deep purple, but the dark vibe she emitted told Thais exactly what she needed to know.

Fallen.

Muscles tense, Thais prepared herself for an ugly fight in the thick of all the surrounding humans.

“Ava, I’ve been calling you for the last five minutes!” The female chuckled, catching Thais off-guard.

Ava. Of course. She still wore the female’s face. “I’m sorry.” Thais pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “I was kind of lost to the music.”

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

“I …”

“Lyric. I dated your brother, Ryke.” She rolled her eyes.

“Right. Yes, I remember you. How are you?”

“Could be better. Hey, did you ever end up getting back with Calix?”

She nodded, uncertain how the exchange would end. “I’m … I’ve been staying at his place.”

“How’s Zeke?”

Zeke? She hadn’t met a Zeke. Perhaps the demon she’d run into on the way out?

“Good. Doing great,” she lied. “Gorgeous as ever.”

Her brow furrowed a bit, then softened to a smile. “I’ve been thinking about him. Ever since I … well, I took care of him for a while. He was in pretty bad shape.”

If it was the male she met, he was still in bad shape.

“He still has scars.” She motioned across her throat, marking the path of the of his most serious scar, and the female’s eyes widened.

“Oh, Gods. Sudesxz?” Her eyes tracked to the side, as if in thought. “I’d have never guessed … he was bad, but he seemed like he’d pull through.”

“Could’ve been an old scar.” Desperate for a change of topic, Thais tipped her head. “What are you doing in a place like this?”

Lyric reared back and frowned. “You and I used to meet up here for drinks sometimes. When we’d bitch about your brother, remember? Good riddance to that sadistic bastard.”

A strange sensation struck Thais from behind and ruffled the feathers beneath her cloaked skin.

Someone watched her.

Damn it! She’d been so distracted by conversation, she’d ignored her instincts, and as her gaze swept the crowd, searching for one of the hillbilly variety of demons, she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

“Am I right?” The female, Lyric, pulled her attention back around.

“Yeah, good riddance. Hey, I’m going to go get some fresh air. Be right back.”

Thais pushed through the crowd that’d grown thicker in the time she’d spent talking to the female. She hated the distraction and knew damn well the eyes were watching her back. No going to her secret hideaway—she wouldn’t dare at that point—and instead, she weaved through bodies until she reached the front entrance of the club.

A bouncer stood about six-foot tall, black T-shirt with ‘Security’ plastered across his broad chest.

“Just need some air,” she said, her fingers fidgeting at her sides as the tension inside her body intensified.

A grin stretched his lips as he eyed her up and down, taking in the outfit that belonged to Ava. “You come see me when you want back in.”

On the verge of crawling out of her own skin, Thais gave a demure smile and nodded.

“What’s your name, beautiful?”

“T … Ava.”

“Tava?” That’s different. I like it.

Idiot. She skirted around him, but at the stroke of her ass, instinct kicked in, and she swung around, fingers digging into his throat while she held the brawny male pinned to the wall. “You touch my ass again, and I will snap your head from your neck and use it for tetherball. Got it?”

Eyes wide, he nodded. “Yeah,” he rasped against her throttling. “Got it.”

Another fluttering of her wings beneath her skin alerted her to danger, and Thais released him, letting him fall to the floor while she scampered out the door.

Once on the streets, she kept a brisk pace along the sidewalk, angling her head low to avoid catching anyone’s attention.

And then it struck her.

Why the hell was she hiding?

She held out her arms, stilled marred by the Demortis scars. The disguise had been in place the whole time.

Even so, the creeping sensation of paranoia swept over her, and Thais willed the thoughts away. “You’re Ava. Not Thais,” she whispered. “No one is after you.”

A force slammed into her from behind like a Mack truck, knocking her forward until the cold concrete crashed into her face. An ache throbbed deep inside her bones, while intense pressure at her back locked up her lungs.

“Oh, Ava,” a voice said beside her.

Whatever held her down allowed her enough movement to turn her head toward the speaker, and her gaze took in a lanky human male kneeling alongside her body.

He removed his glasses, exhaled on the glass, and wiped them with his shirt before setting them back over his eyes. “I’ve missed you, sweetness. We’ve looked all over this goddamn city for you.” From his coat pocket, he tugged a black case, and from the case, he pulled a syringe.

Thais wriggled in her captor’s grasp, kicking out like crazy.

Before she could lift the veil and reveal herself, everything turned black and the human male fizzled into the void.