A waitress rushed past their table, wearing a thin, studded collar and black, strapless dress. She escorted a young couple behind a curtain at the end of the room.

“Is this a BDSM club?” Cary asked. She gestured at an empty birdcage big enough for two people, near the curtain. “Unless they have a really big parrot, that cage is…?”

“Complementing the décor,” Levi replied dryly.

Levi’s poker-face didn’t twitch, and Cary thought suddenly that if she could ever hold such a stoic expression, she’d get away with murder. With Levi’s stubble and disheveled hair, he looked like a biker who’d just come off the road. He lounged across from her as another waitress turned up with the scotch on the rocks and the vodka they had ordered the moment they entered the establishment.

“Want me to show you what’s behind the curtain?” He tilted his head in that direction.

She shifted in her seat, her insides buzzing. “Thanks, but I only spank guys I’ll respect in the morning.” She’d expected him to take her to a dingy bar filled with regular drunks, but she couldn’t complain, not while sitting in a curved booth where silver rivets decorated the leather seats and they were served drinks that came in clean glasses.

Beneath the table, Levi clasped one of Cary’s feet between his ankles.

Her heartbeat kicked up a notch, and the image of her waking up in his bed alone flashed forward. “What’s going on between us?” he asked. “We used to be friends, I thought. With benefits, of course.”

“Well, friends with benefits didn’t steal each other’s hits.”

“So, we’re friends now?”

“Technically, I'm not sure if what we were was more ‘Friend with Benefits’ or more just ‘Let’s Skip Friendships and Focus on the Benefits’.” She tried to resist the eye-candy smirking at her and playing footsie under the table. Damn the tingles crawling through her stomach. Changing the topic seemed like the best course of action. “You ever been behind the secret curtain where that couple went?” she asked instead.

“Once or twice.” He cocked his head, the corners of his mouth lifted.

“Guessing you were the Dom?” She shouldn’t have asked, but she was distracted by the throbbing between her thighs.

Definitely the dominant, she thought. No way would he be submissive.

The images of one of their nights together returned to her mind—her pinned against a window by his body, his fingers pressing into her flesh, his lips on fire. Stop teasing yourself with the past.

“No,” Levi said. “I was a guest. Observing.”

Questions bubbled to the forefront of her mind, but no use probing further since it was only raising her body’s temperature.

“So, where’s your usual go-to-bar?” he asked.

She swirled the ice in her drink. “Most days, I hang out at my local coffee shop, if that counts. And I drive around the country a lot.” Weekends were the worst. She missed her dad whenever she was alone. “Yeah, I have a lame life.”

He stared at her intently. Gone was the sexiness in his eyes, replaced by his serious look. “Cary, why are you acting like we’re strangers? I thought we had something.”

A sledgehammer collided with her chest. Another reason she kept her distance from Levi—to avoid this conversation. What was she going to say? I dream about you most nights, but I’m hiding a secret that will make you want to kill me. Life wasn’t fair that way. But she was the fool for even allowing anything to happen between them several months ago.

“Don’t know what to say.” She shrugged. “We tried being together, but it always went to shit. You took my stone, and you left me alone at that restaurant after my eye surgery. We live in different cities.” Her gaze fell to her drink. “Anyway—”

Her pocket vibrated, and she thanked the universe for the distraction. Her hands scrambled to grab her phone. “Oh, shit. Forgot to call Tasha. Give me a sec.” She pressed the cell to her ear. “Hey, Tasha. I’m alive. Sorry for vanishing. How’s the party?”

The booming beat from the pub rippled through the ear piece. “Damn, girl. Was going to call a search party for you. What’s going on? You all right?”

“Yeah, I followed that Argos hit in the club, then a second one.”

“Shit. Do you need a hand?” Tasha also worked at Argos as a spell creator. All the weapons used by hunters and carved with runes were her doing. Except, Tasha had no idea her bestie was a cambion. No one did.

Cary’s gaze lifted to Levi, who studied her. His body slouched into the seat, yet his eyes were on fire. “Nah. Got it under control,” Cary said.

“Okay. Call me once you’re done so I know you’re safe.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“I’m serious.” Tasha’s words were loud and piercing. In the background, one of the other girls screamed, “Is she coming back?”

Cary shook her head, even though Tasha couldn't see her. “Think I’m going to crash soon. Exhausted.”

“Call you in the morn, hon,” Tasha’s said. “Take care.”

“You too. Bye.” Setting the phone on the table, she finished her lemonade with vodka and figured any second now Levi would jump back to the topic of conversation she preferred to avoid. “So,” she said instead, “what do you make of the jumper demon from the nightclub? You think it returned to Hell?”

Levi folded his arms in front of him and rested them on the table, releasing her foot from his ankles. “Demons are vermin. That’s what I make of it.”

She ran a finger around the rim of her glass, keeping her voice even. “It hopefully got hauled back to where it belongs.”

He lowered his arms to his side. “I’m thinking the same, but things aren’t adding up. Like, where were the black moths? And it seemed as if both the jumper and the speck were gunning for you. Why?”

Back at the house, the speck demon claimed she was marked. The only marking she’d heard of in her business happened after someone was possessed, and then every demon would be hunting that person with the intention of dragging them into Hell. Maybe this was the kick in the ass she needed to track down her father and learn more about what she was? But, the more demons she fought, the more information she could pry from them to validate if she was indeed somehow marked.

She glanced at Levi who finished off his drink. Oh, right, he was waiting for a response. “Not sure. Evil doesn’t always behave the way we expect it to.”

Levi leaned forward, pressing his stomach against the table’s edge. “It seemed as if both of them intended to hurt you, especially the speck.” His eyes fixed on her, his expression unwavering and unabashed.

She refused to fidget with her empty glass because that might give Levi a reason to suspect she was hiding something. The beasts might have worked out how to draw energy from her, and maybe word had gotten out. But in truth, she didn’t know how the demonic stuff worked. Her father didn’t do explanations, and she figured it meant he didn’t know much himself.

“Not sure what to tell you.” She hadn’t even trusted Tasha with her secret. But if Levi suspected that a drink and a wicked sexy grin would get her to confess, he was mistaken. “I’ll talk to someone at Argos tomorrow. The fact they put ten grand on the hit tells me they knew the jumper was a special case. Who knows what else they’re hiding from us?” Nice one, Cary. Push the attention onto Argos.

Levi’s lips twisted. “Bastards. Always keeping secrets. Ask them about the demon speaking in some guttural language too.”

“Whatever the spirit had said, it sure wasn’t pleasant,” she admitted. Perhaps it cursed her, which might explain the stink on her skin, or it threatened to kill her slowly.

Cary hadn’t spoken or heard that language in over a decade, ever since her dad had left her. Was it like high school Spanish—don’t practice it enough and you start to forget it?

Nevertheless, the nightmare ended with the demon vanishing, and she never planned to come face to face that particular terror again. But the lack of black moths from the vanishing demon bothered her, too.

Levi caught the waitress’s attention and pointed at the two empty glasses in front of them. She nodded. Once their replacement drinks arrived, Cary gulped down half to help with her dry throat.

“So, you don’t feel different or anything after tonight?” he asked, his voice brittle.

She slid her glass aside. “My head’s a bit blurry from drinking, but if you think by getting me really drunk, you’ll somehow uncover something I’m hiding, then you’ve stooped to a new low.”

His gaze shifted to the table and then back to her as he scratched his chin.

Time to switch gears. “Why did you really leave Argos? I mean, I know you destroyed half the Argos building while fighting a possessed Corvette, and Brent threatened to sue you.” Cary grinned. “Yet, everyone speaks about you as if you’re some kind of myth, taking down demons without weapons, battling three-headed beasts, and all this other shit they’ve made up.”

As a fellow hunter, the unspoken practice was never to correct embellished tales. Hunters risking their lives had to come with some perks, be it heroic tales or inflated egos, so Cary was willing to let Levi’s tall tales slide.

“Maybe the stories aren’t made up?” The edge in Levi’s voice turned serious. “I took down more beasts than anyone else there, and Argos slapped me with a massive bill to pay for the damages. That’s the reward I got, so I get to be pissed at them. Plus, I’d handed in so many stones for which they refused to pay, and whole bunch of other shit they did.”

The waitress approached their table and set down a large bowl of deep-fried onion rings. They were big enough that Cary could easily wear them as bangles around her wrists.

Levi nodded at the waitress and nudged the bowl toward Cary. She took one as Levi reached for the salt and liberally coated the others. In two bites, she finished the onion ring. The oily, sweet morsels slid down her throat. The salt in the batter left a sting going down to her belly. Sprinklings of salt didn’t kill her, but in large quantities, it caused the worst indigestion and migraines. She could live with a bit of discomfort for a few seconds of an oily treat.

“What I don’t get is why you keep doing jobs for them?” Cary wiped her greasy fingers on a napkin.

He stuffed a whole onion ring into his mouth, then reached for another, speaking with his mouth full. “The bastards stole something from me and won’t return it until I pay them back.”

“What’d they take?” She leaned closer, curious about what drove a hunter like Levi to remain at the mercy of Argos.

“It’s the principle. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about them. They’re ruining my onion rings.” He poked the plate toward her. “Saved you one.”

She picked up the last morsel, dusted the salt off and devoured it. When she wiped her hands, the pungent stink hit, and it wasn’t her this time. What was up with tonight? A quick scan of the room… No aura. “Excuse me for a sec.” A demon was near, it had to be. Better to check it first before Levi gets all action-mode. She might as well find it first before he questions how she knew there was one around. “My bladder’s calling.”

Levi nodded and reached for his drink.

As she walked away, Cary studied every table, the barman and the waiters, even the empty cage. For a split second, she visualized herself in there with Levi, both of them naked. Oh yeah, she’d do it.

She slipped into the bathroom to wash the oil off her fingers. On her way out, she spotted it, or more precisely, them. Silvery auras stuck around two men in suits heading outside the pub. Was there a demon convention in town? Her muscles tightened.

She bolted back to the booth where Levi waited and spotted him sliding her phone back across the table. Snatching it away from him, she shot him a scowl. Yep, she couldn’t trust him one bit. Mental note to put a password on the cellphone.

“We’ve got two on the move,” she said. “They’ve just left the building.”

His posture stiffened. “Maybe you should sit this one out, in case you’re targeted again.”

“Despite the charm and self-confidence oozing off you, I'm not going to let you shove me aside when it comes to hunting,” she said. She had way more experience than Levi anyway, thanks to her dad. If she submitted every black stone she’d ever collected, she’d blow Levi’s record out of the water. But drawing attention to herself from Argos wasn’t the plan. “Over my dead body, basically.” Cary bolted away from the table, but stopped when she got to the door.

“Put the drinks on my tab,” Levi said to the waitress as he passed her, handing her several bills for a tip. He caught up to Cary. “Wouldn’t expect anything less from my little hellcat.”

They rushed out into the night, and the nape of her neck prickled. Maybe demons turning up was nothing more than a coincidence. Yeah, right. Demons and coincidence were polar opposites. Just like demon hunters and cambions.