Nate practically flew down the stairs. He’d never been nervous on opening night. Not even when they’d opened Spencer’s club IGNIS six years ago amid three simultaneous possessions. Katherine could handle the current sorority girl’s possession with the same aplomb she always had.

Especially when all he had to do was offer—or threaten, depending on how you looked at it—to summon Guardian Purifier Ari Grimmson to help her out. After that, Katherine was ready to single-handedly exorcise all demons in a thousand-mile radius. Nights when Spencer had a death wish, he told Katherine that the intimidating Viking Guardian was her kryptonite. Her greatest weakness could be her greatest strength if she would just take her head out of her ass and let Ari bond with her.

Nate always tried to stay out of Katherine’s warpath for a good three days after that.

So yeah, she could handle this one pre-party possession.

In the meantime, he’d ignore the simmering ulcer sprouting in his gut and find Jessie. Where are you, Angel?

He received his answer as he rounded the corner. He followed Jessie’s laughter to the bar and nearly perished on the spot from a potent combination of lust and irrational jealousy. She was standing amid three male bartenders who sported wide, charming smiles.

And Christ on a cracker, would you look at her?

Red Riding Hood had grown up.

A small red cape flowed down from the crown of her head, and her white, off-the-shoulder peasant shirt was cinched with black satin ribbon on a black velvet corset that pushed those glorious breasts sky high. The itty bitty red pouf thing that was parading as a skirt made her legs with the white, over-the-knee stockings look a mile long. He felt like licking his chops. Big Bad Wolf indeed.

She must have felt the heat of his stare because she glanced at him, the subtle change in her smile a compelling little movement because there was so much awareness in that slight shift of her lips. He hardened instantly.

At that moment, the DJ started the music, and Jessie began dancing—with the bloody bartenders—while looking at him.

Her knowing smile made him want to bite through his cheek.

He marched over to the bar, making sure each of the men saw the warning in his eyes as he cut through them to stand in front of her. Damn, he was dying to press his lips at the most sensitive spot on her neck where her pulse seemed to solicit his touch. When she looked into his eyes, her little shiver was gratifying. “It isn’t safe to walk about these woods alone, my pretty,” he said.

“I’m tougher than I look.” She grinned and wiggled her shoulders in an inherently feminine way, making her breasts jiggle enticingly. He ached to take her home and show her how much he loved those creamy objects of his obsession, but he settled with brushing the backs of his fingers against her jawbone.

Then again, he could always mind-wipe the bartenders…

“Up here, boss.” She snapped her fingers next to her eyes once more.

He blinked hard and lifted his gaze to focus on her lips. By the blood, he loved those red-painted beauties, too. “You are always lovely, but tonight your brazen comeliness is as bewitching as a lake sprinkled with a million diamonds on a full moon night. I cannot look away.”

Her blush was divine. “You and your fancy speech. Thank you. You look dangerously dashing yourself. I knew the mobster look would suit you perfectly.” Her eyes crinkled with her smile in that honest and open, yet intimate way he was beginning to covet. When she turned around to bump and grind against him, he realized JBlaze was out to play. And he was going to humiliate himself in an epic way if she did that for much longer. He grabbed her swiveling hips, holding her against him for a torturous moment before setting her away. “Are you looking forward to tonight?”

Her eyes twinkled. “I’d jump up and down for joy, but my boobs are too big for that nonsense.”

“Your breasts are magnificent, Jessica.” He dared to look at them once more before recalling what he wanted to impress upon her. “If you need help, find me, Jaws, or Dorian. Right away.” He’d chosen Jawahar, the security supervisor from Alexios’s club ETHER to teach Dorian the ropes at TERRA. Both men were like brothers to Nate. He’d entrust her care to either of them if he was otherwise detained.

Jessie patted his cheek. “I’ll be fine. I’m a professional.”

“So I’ve heard. But in case you feel uncomfortable about anything—signal me. I’ll be watching…every square inch of you.”

“It’s my desire that you enjoy yourself tonight,” she whispered.

A double entendre if he’d ever heard one. “I’ll hold you to that. Leave your car here tonight. We’ll come back for it after lunch tomorrow.”

Her eyes softened. “Okay.”

Someone yelled over the driving beat of the music. He turned back to see club promoter Eugene Ford walk onto the dance floor with three attractive women. Their hungry smiles reminded him of an exceedingly wealthy, though desperate woman he’d extorted for two hundred fifty pounds when he was sixteen. It had been a small fortune at the close of the Victorian era, but his lover had paid to keep her secret intact from her husband, The Lord Great Chamberlain.

Nate’s skills at manipulation had especially blossomed from there. As had his bank account.

The good ladies of high society hadn’t seen fit to warn one another about a smooth-talking, dark-haired chameleon who aspired to never be cold or hungry or taken advantage of again.

A recent Georgia transplant to the Midwest, Eugene Ford was nearly Nate’s equal at manipulation. The young human’s dark skin, deep brown eyes, and tall, muscular frame had turned many a female’s head, but unless they wanted to be put to work in the oldest profession known to man, they’d do well to steer clear of the club promoter-cum-pimp.

Nate was gonna kick Dorian’s ass for letting him in.

Jessie planted a quick kiss on Nate’s lips that had him hungering for so much more. “You don’t mind if they see us?” he whispered.

“I don’t think we’ve managed to dupe anyone, and I’m tired of denying my urges.”

Her reply unleashed his pent-up desire. He reached out to grab her, but she was already on her way back behind the bar. In no time, the little minx was cracking jokes and delighting the other bartenders as they waited for the official club-opening countdown to start. Perhaps he should park it on one of the stools in front of her station—which was front and center of the whole bar—so he could keep an eye on her all night. He had his earpiece in, so he’d be able to hear security’s communications.

Eugene walked up to Nate in a doctor’s lab coat with the nameplate Dr. Seymour Bush and whistled as he watched Jessie use her soda guns to squirt a clear stream at José. “Ooowee, she got the spankin’ body of a porn star.”

A rush of heat spiraled through Nate and the floor actually rumbled beneath their feet as his Earth element translated his angst. His nostrils flared as he struggled against the urge to wrap his hands around Eugene’s neck. “I already told you I don’t need your assistance, Mr. Ford.”

“Oh, don’t you worry none. Tonight’s my freebie so’s you can see how good I am at what I do.”

Nate’s fingernails dug into his palms. So hard to be good. He looked at Jessie and found her staring at him in concern. Try. For her. “I’m sure you’re good at what you do, but we can fill the club without a promoter.”

“I’m not here to talk business. Tonight I be partyin’ just as hard as the rest of the hoochie mamas and pimp daddies.”

Katherine strode up to them with her customary composed elegance, but her skin was much paler than it had been in his office. She’d completed the exorcism then. You should go to the sanctorum to recharge, he pushed at her on their shared Guardian telepathic link.

I would have had your hormonal outburst not rattled the entire building, she retorted.

He wasn’t sure if that made him feel more guilty or more irritable.

Kat turned to the club promoter. “If hoochie mamas and pimp daddies are your invitees of choice, Mr. Ford, you may as well rip up that tidy little contract I had my assistant prepare for you because you’ll never work for Unholy Inc again,” she said.

“Can I get an instant replay of yo’ cute little nose wrinkling while spitting out ‘hoochie mammas’ and ‘pimp daddies,’ please?” Eugene’s robust laugh caught the attention of all the bartenders.

“Don’t annoy me. I’m running out of places to hide bodies,” Katherine rejoined.

Eugene’s brown eyes widened. Nate hid his chuckle with a rough cough.

“Ahh, shit. I’s just jerkin’ your chain, Lady K. Hey, you not even dressed up. It be Halloween, fine lady. Why you in this business if you’s all uptight?”

When Katherine started tapping her strappy, pointy-toe stilettos, Nate felt the urge to hit the hills. “Silence is golden and duct tape is silver. Which color are you favoring this evening, Mr. Ford?” she asked.

Eugene grabbed a white napkin from the shelf behind the u-bench and waved it in the air. “A’ight. You the boss, Lady K. You don’need me for any shit straight up, I go check with my girls. Gonna be the fuckin’ party of the century with DJ Immortalis, Dante and his Dead Enders band, and JBlaze’s booty call.”

Nate’s spine straightened. Booty call?

Eugene’s wert whirl whistle drew rebound cat calls from all three male bartenders while that scoundrel José pinched Jessie in the ass. The floor shifted so suddenly from Nate’s worked up Earth element, that he had to grab Katherine’s arm lest she fall. The quelling look she leveled on him had emasculated many a lesser man than he, but right now she could stuff it. She had no idea how close he was to firing one of their bartenders minutes before they opened.

Do the right thing.

Nate closed his eyes and breathed deep.

“Bro, you gots some badass special effects goin’ on with that floor shakin’ like some hundred foot snake be slitherin’ right under our feet. High-five, motherfucker.” Eugene held up his hand, which Nate chose to ignore for the club promoter’s own welfare.

Eugene dropped his hand. “Or not. See you later, dickhead, I mean, dude. Time to party hardy.”

When Eugene moved out of earshot, Nate turned to Katherine, but she beat him to the punch.

“I suggest you get your Neanderthal impulses under control, Guardian, or you’re going to miss important details this evening. You do remember why this network of nightclubs was started in the first place, do you not?”

Yes, teacher, he wanted to bark back, but he was trying so hard to be considerate and well-mannered for Jessie’s sake. He respected—and dammit, even liked—most of his Unholy Inc partners, but that didn’t mean they had an easy alliance. Becoming a Guardian didn’t automatically make you a kinder, gentler version of your old self. On the contrary, you came back with all your psychological defects juiced up with special powers.

And of course they’d been assholes in their previous existence, so what did they really expect?

He still didn’t know why he’d thrown himself in front of a blade meant for a perfect stranger. It was a complete aberration from decisions he’d made before.

What he did know was that this Guardian gig was a test. If he failed, he’d spend eternity in Hell.

Yay for second chances.

“Well, do you?”

He blinked at Katherine, then remembered her question about why they’d started their business. “What do you think?” he threw back sarcastically.

“I don’t know, Nate. When you act like an immature and over-stimulated adolescent, it makes me suspect you need a reminder.”

Humans were generally at their most uninhibited state in nightclubs, and thus more vulnerable to demonic influence, not to mention possession. The nightclubs gave Guardians the unique opportunity to lure and deal with demons. It would be swell if all bars, lounges, and nightclubs in the world were Guardian-owned. But even then, human free will would still be a factor. The Guardians could never vanquish every demon.

As it was since the beginning of time, the path of wickedness was so very tempting.

Nate put an arm around Katherine. She stiffened in his arms before shrugging him away. It took all his power not to tease her. “I’m sorry, Kat. I promise to be a good little Guardian and watch out for monsters messing with all the innocents.”

“You call me Kat one more time, and I’ll flood this dance floor with salt water one second after the last person exits the building.”

Nate chuckled and held his hands up in a universal no-contest gesture. She’d do it and bring in man-eating sharks to boot. “My apologies, fair lady.”

She straightened her suit jacket as they walked toward the hallway leading to the stairwell. “Have you tried reaching out to Alexios regarding Jessie healing your death wound?”

“Not outright, but he’s touched my mind.”

Katherine nodded. It was something Alexios did to all of them. Somehow he was able to gauge what was going on by telepathically reaching out. While all Guardians could communicate telepathically, no one else had that one-way ability of discernment that Alexios possessed.

“Have you heard if he’s been able to locate Sophia yet?” Katherine asked quietly.

“I don’t think so.” Both Guardians were silent for a time. In return for the valorous Spartan warrior’s sacrifice as the first Guardian, the Archangel Michael had promised that the love of Alexios’s life, Sophia, would return to him again and again, reincarnated through the ages.

It must be an exquisite torture to watch your soul mate die over and over.

Perhaps worse yet, to not be able to locate her, knowing she was alive somewhere and at great risk because demons the world over knew the lore of their abiding love story.

Nate’s gaze found Jessie. If he were in Alexios’s shoes, he would be as relentless in his search for his compar as his leader was for Sophia.

“I added an extra layer of wards to the building’s exterior after the exorcism,” Katherine said.

Nate’s gaze returned to his partner. “Thank you.” Katherine’s wards were nearly as powerful as Alexios’s, and with the threat of the Seam opening soon, they’d need all the reinforcements they could muster. Thing was, the wards they used at the nightclubs were different. These weren’t protection wards that kept demons at bay. Rather, they worked to keep the monsters locked inside the club until they could be dealt with permanently.

Setting wards on top of an exorcism, however, must have depleted Katherine considerably. Her jeweled, sea green eyes were now a faded blue. “Why don’t you take five in the sanctorum,” Nate suggested.

“I’m in no mood to meditate.”

He shouldn’t. Really. He knew he’d regret it, but…“Then I highly recommend lovemaking as a means to recharge. I’m quite certain Ari would be happy—”

He sputtered and gagged as a surge of water blew him backwards against the wall. The attack only lasted a few seconds before he managed to manipulate the drywall around him like a caterpillar building a chrysalis.

When he pushed out of the drywall cocoon, he saw two people at once.

Katherine…and Jessie’s friend Dante.

The Dead Enders’ band member stood twenty-five feet away, two large drum cases on the ground at his side. When he recovered from his shock, he grabbed his cases and stiffly walked out the back door.

Blast. Nate sprinted to intercept the drummer before he started jabbering about the impossibility of what he’d witnessed. “Dante.”

The drummer froze, but didn’t turn around. Other Dead Enders band members were getting their equipment unloaded from a small trailer hitched to Dante’s truck. Nate slowed, praying Dante kept it cool for two more minutes so he could get him alone for a mind wipe.

“You guys go on and get shit set up, I gotta talk to Mr. Temple, eh?”

Dante’s band mates nodded and called a greeting to Nate before leaving him and Dante alone. When Katherine slipped outside, Nate steepled his fingers to ramp up the mind wipe energy as he approached the drummer. “Dante, I’m so glad you accepted my invitation to play at tonight’s Grand Opening.”

Dante watched Nate’s hands, then met his stare. “I always knew there was more out there than what most people believe about the world.”

Nate froze. “What do you mean by that?”

Dante’s smile faltered. “Ghosts, spirits, poltergeists…aliens.”

Nate glanced back at Katherine who mirrored his humor, curiosity, and caution. “What do you think just happened?”

“You’re not denying that those things exist?”

How to answer? Dante might be testing him. “Not responding to a question is neither acknowledging the validity of the claim nor denying it. I’m asking what you think you observed moments ago.”

“You and you,” Dante’s gaze swept over Katherine, “aren’t human. No human I know can manipulate wall pipes to spurt water or peel the fucking wall back to block such an impossible geyser.”

“Nate.”

Katherine wanted him to proceed with the mind wipe. He knew he should, and yet…

“Shit!” Dante’s stance widened as though he was preparing for a possible ambush. “You’re going to make me forget, aren’t you?”

“Nate.” Katherine moved to Nate’s side, intentionally pressuring him to get on with it.

“My Noni practiced voodoo until she died. She still comes to visit me from the other side. She doesn’t mean for it to happen, but sometimes mean son of bitches cross over with her.” Dante took a deep breath and continued, “not too much scares me anymore, so believe me, I can live with what I saw and not squeal. What I can’t live with is having my memories taken away against my will, so be ready for a fight.”

Interesting. Nate could count on one hand the number of humans who were able to deal with scary shit like that. “If I wipe your mind, you won’t have any awareness of it. Your life will go on as before, undisturbed.”

“I don’t know who or what you are, but if you disrespect human life enough to rape their minds, you should go back to wherever you came from. The Earth’s already full of lowlifes.”

Katherine glanced at her watch. “Fifteen minutes until the doors open.”

Nate pitched his voice as placid as possible. “How many humans do you think can live peacefully with this type of knowledge? Mind wiping is an act of kindness, not a violation. We don’t touch or look at anything in your memories besides the supernatural acts you witnessed.”

Dante paled a little. “What are you?”

“Nate, this is absurd!”

He turned to Katherine. “Go inside and see to your health. You know where the key to the sanctorum is.”

Katherine suddenly looked more exhausted than he’d ever seen her. She put a hand on his arm. “Please. We’ve worked too hard to drop our guards now.”

She was referring to all the years of sustained effort it had taken to build the Unholy Inc clubs into the successful enterprises they’d become. But really, she had nothing to worry about. TERRA was opening on schedule. “You’re just tired. Trust me, I can handle this. After tonight, you’ll see light at the end of the tunnel.”

Katherine sighed and walked to the back door hugging her arms against the chilly, fall air. At the door, she looked back. “I hope you’re right, Nate. But sometimes that light in the tunnel is an oncoming train.”