Chapter One
Creed Archambault tapped his fingers along the stone slab as his life ticked away second by second. He was going nowhere until the unconscious human on the table moved a limb, sat up, hell, did anything more than breathe.
Thankfully, she at least drew in breath. Hypna’s powers, that demonic bitch, swirled unseen underneath Melody Campbell’s fair skin. Her normally bouncing, curly hair lay limp like a deflated halo around her head. Combined with the translucency of her pale skin, she radiated as if bathed in moonshine.
A halo. The irony, as he sat in the underworld, waiting for her to come to after accidentally absorbing Hypna’s powers. One of the underworld’s most formidable demons, and Melody had gotten hit with the worst.
The scrape of heavy shoes against the dirt floor roused his irritation.
“Do you have to pace?” he grumbled to Quution.
The fugly energy demon sneered at him. Or was it a blank look? Creed couldn’t tell beyond the male’s attempt to look as hideous as any purebred demon. It worked. The male had attained status as one of the Circle of Thirteen that ruled the underworld. According to Stryke, Quution’s brother and the newest demon to align with Creed and his team, the male could shed his disguise and infiltrate himself into the world of male models if he ever chose to. The thick, sunset-colored horns jutting out just beyond his hairline would be a deal breaker and scare any admirers off.
But then, with human women, one never knew.
Quution was an unlikely ally. The battle against Hypna freed Stryke from her service and united him with the brother he never knew he had, costing who knew what for Melody.
Creed glanced at her. She’d had a raging crush on him since they met. But before she’d been sucked into the underworld when they were fighting Hypna, he’d said the most atrocious things and shattered the adoration in her eyes. Though he hadn’t meant for her to hear, it was the effect he wanted. Beware what you wish for and all that prophetic bullshit.
“I pace because I’m concerned.” Quution’s words were garbled around the fang prosthetics wedged into his mouth. Creed wouldn’t believe the male had a toothpaste commercial smile until that mass of orthodontia was removed and he could see for himself. None of Creed’s team had seen him without his disguise, but according to Stryke, Quution had gotten the idea from their father.
Only, their father had been killed for the deception. Did that make Quution better at using the ruse of being a purebred demon and infiltrating the leading body of the underworld—or just lucky?
Either way, the demon had kept all other demons away from this literal hole in the wall while Creed hovered over Melody. Quution had been true to his word and now, with Stryke’s help, plotted to stop the purebreds’ total rule of the underworld, and Creed’s team worked to stop the demonic infiltration of the upper echelons of vampire society. All that mattered to Creed now was that their goals aligned long enough for Melody to recover.
Quution pivoted and walked a hilting tread back in the direction he came from. “Aren’t you relieved I’m not frolicking with glee like a true demon would that a human was hurt?”
“I’d like to know why you were trying so hard to transfer Hypna’s powers to yourself. Kind of a detail we hadn’t discussed.” Maybe you should’ve succeeded, too, fucker. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have had the epic disaster of Melody intercepting the power transfer when she fell on Hypna’s downed body.
“I wasn’t about to trust anyone else with Hypna’s powers.” Quution said the words like, duh, dumbass.
“You should’ve told us.” It was a pretty short list of who Creed would trust with demonic powers. The last two weeks aside, Quution was nearly an unknown, a demon they’d worked with under the “we have no choice” clause, and for only a short time.
“It’s not as if I had much time to prepare. I only knew of the incantation because I’ve been investigating the Circle members who are stealing powers by sacrificing infants.”
A new turn on the underworld events affecting Creed’s kind. The thirteen Circle members trying to leech their way into the strongest vampires, the primes, in order to gain control of the human realm, were doing their own morbid version of protein supplementing. Breeding demon babies, only to sacrifice them for their powers. Just what they needed. Unknown and unpredictable powers in the rulers of the underworld.
But if Creed’s team could leverage more second-tier demons like Quution and Stryke, those who detested the all-consuming need to reign of the current Circle, then they could fight the stronger purebreds. The two demon brothers couldn’t be the only non-pure demons who disliked the way of the underworld.
Who would like anything about down here? Creed had been cut off from the five other members of his team in his short time by Melody’s side. No one but the energy demons could transport between realms. Creed wouldn’t have left and if his boss Demetrius had any information to pass along, he’d let Zoey know, who’d tell her brand-new mate, Stryke. Information would travel along their new underworld grapevine to Creed, and it wouldn’t matter what it was, he wasn’t leaving his post.
Creed tapped his fingers, creating patterns with the soft strike of each fingertip.
“Must you?” Quution grated.
“Yes. I must.” He wasn’t used to sitting alone with his thoughts. If his guilt hadn’t been eating him alive, he would’ve asked Stryke to bring him his tablet. Then he could at least get some work done, or feel like he was productive. Quution could use his energy ability to power the damn thing, or blow it to hell. Creed didn’t have anything else to worry about.
He’d asked about how the security and IT duties he normally did when he wasn’t out in the field were going, but when he’d broached the topic, Stryke’s expression turned guarded and Creed got a curt “fine” as an answer.
When he’d pressed, Stryke had finally submitted the detail that Fyra, aka “she who can’t control her fire and energy powers,” was trying to lend a hand. The new demon mate of another team member of his, Bishop, was still learning the ins-and-outs of her ability, and she’d been born and raised in this hell hole.
“How many motherboards has she fried?” Creed had asked.
“Everything but Melody is replaceable,” Stryke had replied.
He wasn’t going to get any damage reports, and his conscience wouldn’t let him play games to pass the time anyway.
Quution broke into his thoughts. “You should rotate watch, vampire. You’re getting a bit ripe.”
Creed flipped the male off. He wasn’t leaving her side. “I’m not going anywhere until she does, and it’s not like anything else down here showers.”
Melody was comatose in the underworld because he failed to save her. Hypna had captured her to use as bait, and his attempt at freeing her landed her on the slab. Regret gnawed at him. He should’ve treated her better, listened harder when she popped up and prattled about the hunting expeditions with her daddy. He wished she would do that now—go on and on about traipsing through the woods—so he could fall on his knees to grovel over how he’d insulted her. I’m a vampire from a wealthy family, and she’s a fucking human we’ll forget not long after her short life ends. His words were the truth and hadn’t been meant for her ears, but she’d heard, and they’d cleaved the infatuation out of her brilliant blue eyes.
Humans were food for his people. Once upon a time, he used to procure tasties to distribute among the privileged primes. Primes, with their wealth and prestige never viewed humans as more than cattle, and he’d been born and raised with both feet firmly rooted in that world.
Until Mary Margaret.
Creed dropped his gaze from Melody’s still body. So many reasons why he was the last being she should fantasize about.
Quution released a disgusted sound. “The waves of remorse that come off you, vampire…they’d paint a target on your back down here. ‘I am weak. Kill me now.’”
Creed had already flourished his middle finger, so he glared at the male. “I’d challenge any one of you to try.”
“You’ve barely moved to take a piss since we secured her here. What if she’s out for another two weeks? Two months? Two years? What if—”
“Don’t say it,” Creed growled. The thought of Melody never waking up drove him insane. She had to. “What do you care anyway?”
Jealousy burned in his gut. Quution had been hovering, transfixed on Melody, his gaze full of awe and speculation.
Filthy hands off, demon.
“She’s…” Quution’s brow creased as he considered the woman. “She’s innocent, is she not?”
“Damn right she is.”
“I don’t see that down here. We have varying levels of evil, from naughty to wicked to downright disturbed and demented. But not…bright. Shiny. Even during my times in the human realm, a person like her seems a rarity.”
How could Creed argue? He tamped down his irritation at the demon. Quution had hit the nail on the head. “I haven’t met anyone like her, either.”
“And her story, am I right?” Quution could stop any time. He’d gushed enough. “A human abducted by a vampire and taken from everything in life in turn stays in your world and cares for two young vampire children? She’s a unique woman.”
Creed clenched his jaw, pride at Melody’s robust attitude toward life filling him with too much emotion. Her nanny efforts weren’t necessary, but appreciated for the young siblings of one of his team member’s mates.
“I imagine,” Quution continued, “that she’d hold no ill will toward the boys who caused the events that rendered her here, but would go back to ensure their upbringing was as solid as she could make it.”
Creed nodded, hating that he agreed wholeheartedly with the male. Yes, she had rushed out to save the boys from the Hypna-possessed vampire when they’d disregarded direct orders. But they were barely preschool age and Melody would be the first to adamantly argue that they hadn’t understood the danger.
“She’s something special all right.”
Quution slanted his gaze toward him. “I hear she carried quite the torch for you.”
The asshole purposely used past tense. Creed ran his tongue across his teeth, relishing the bite of pain when his fang nicked his flesh. He hadn’t taken a vein for weeks, and fatigue flagged him.
I’m a vampire from a wealthy family and she’s a fucking human we’ll forget not long after her short life ends.
It was complete truth. And it hurt him as much as it hurt her, but she’d never know that. The anguish of losing a cherished one too soon still fueled a constant burn inside of him. Mary Margaret had been just as innocent, though not possessing nearly the fortitude of Melody. If she had, would things have turned out differently?
No, and that was the problem. What had happened to Mary Margaret was the perfect example of why relationships with humans ended in tragedy.
Creed dropped his head into his hands. The gleam of eternal infatuation had highlighted her gaze until she’d overheard what he really thought, that he would never feel the same way as her.
His hair filtered through his fingers as he gave himself a poor-man’s scalp massage. It was getting shaggy. He’d missed his last trim, not feeling worthy of self-care after he’d insulted Melody, and then this had happened. He hadn’t showered, nor changed clothing, in the fourteen days since she’d absorbed Hypna’s powers and been comatose.
“Why not take advantage of her desire?” Quution plucked at each fake claw manicured onto his hands. Creed could detect no hidden meaning, no deception, just curiosity. Was it really beyond the male why Creed hadn’t taken advantage of her?
“Because she deserves better. I learned a long time ago that humans might be inferior in many ways, but our hearts are the same.”
“Indeed?”
The male talked like Creed used to. Laced with proper arrogance, another way to elevate himself above the poor souls who weren’t fortunate enough to be born into money. Creed was a prime male, his very birth raising him above most others of his kind. The righteousness he’d been reared with had not left him even as an adult. It wasn’t until a young woman tugged his heart that he had finally woken up.
And here he was again. Cursing his DNA and helpless to help her.
A tiny movement jerked his gaze up. He zeroed in on her finger. Had it moved? Twitched? He willed it to happen again.
Move.
Melody remained immobile.
Dammit. Had it been his imagination?
“Did I…” Quution crept closer.
“Maybe.” Creed narrowed his gaze. If one muscle on her delicate body flickered, he wasn’t missing it.